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25 FEBRUARY - 1 MARCH 2002
SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE
This week, the Tribunal heard evidence from Peter Pringle and Philip Jacobson who were both reporters on the Sunday Times Insight Team which carried out an investigation into the events of Bloody Sunday.
The Tribunal was also due to hear the evidence of Giles Perez, a photographer who took many of the most widely published photographs from Bloody Sunday. However, Mr Perez was unable to attend, so the Inquiry did not sit on Wednesday or Thursday of this week.
OTHER ISSUES
The lawyers for the families and wounded lodged an appeal of the Belfast High Court’s decision to uphold Lord Saville’s ruling on screening for members of the RUC.
A full transcript of the proceedings is available at http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk
1. peter pringle’s evidence
Mr Pringle is a freelance journalist and co-author of the book Those Are Real Bullets, Aren’t They?. He was a member of the Sunday Times Insight Team at the time of Bloody Sunday which was responsible for an article which appeared in the Sunday Times on 23rd April 1972, providing an analysis of the events of Bloody Sunday based on interviews with civilians and security personnel. Mr Pringle also observed a significant portion of the proceedings of the Widgery Tribunal for the purposes of the article.
1.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
1.1.1 Composition of the Sunday Times Insight Team
Mr Pringle explained that, at the time of Bloody Sunday, Harold Evans was Editor of the Sunday Times. The Insight Team itself was overseen by Bruce Page, News Features Editor, and led by John Barry who was the Insight Editor. He described Ron Hall’s role as being the ‘final put-together’ person who saw the articles into the paper. The rest of the Insight Team was made up of reporters, including Mr Pringle and Philip Jacobson, and of one researcher, Parin Janmohamed. Mr Pringle and Philip Jacobson reported directly to Bruce Page.
Mr Pringle confirmed for the Inquiry that John Fielding, a fellow reporter for the Insight Team, did not take part in the investigation relating to Bloody Sunday. Mark Ottoway, another reporter, conducted some background checks for the military but did not go to Derry as part of the investigating team.
He also clarified that Brian Moynahan and Tony Geraghty, reporters for the Sunday Times who also wrote about Bloody Sunday, were not members of the Insight Team. They would have reported directly to the news desk in London, as would Derek Humphrey and Murray Sayle, two additional Sunday Times reporters, sent to cover Bloody Sunday.
1.1.2 Arrival in Northern Ireland
Mr Pringle was not in Derry on Bloody Sunday: he arrived in the city the following day, following a phone call from Bruce Page telling him to go to Derry to cover the story for Insight. He stayed in the City Hotel for the duration of the Insight investigation, which lasted approximately nine or ten weeks.
1.1.3 Sunday Times decision not to publish first article, written in February
Mr Pringle co-wrote an article relating to the events with Derek Humprey and Murray Sayle which was phoned through to the Sunday Times news desk on the evening of Thursday 3rd February 1972 for publication the following Sunday. However, they heard word on the following day that the article would not be published. Mr Pringle told the Inquiry that he was not too put out by the news as he had heard that Harold Evans had decided to initiate a major Insight investigation into Bloody Sunday which was to run parallel with the Widgery Inquiry.
Mr Pringle believed that there were two reasons why the article was pulled: the Widgery Inquiry had been announced that week and Lord Widgery had given a sub-judice ruling whereby there should be no publication of reports that would in anyway prejudice the Inquiry. The second reason he attributed to the decision was the fact that, although the reporters had accumulated considerable information relating to the shootings, it had not been enough to conclude exactly what had happened on the day.
Mr Pringle was not aware of any debate within the Sunday Times regarding whether or not to publish the article, as he himself was not in London.
1.1.4 Contact with the IRA
Mr Pringle was responsible for the section of the article written in February which related to the IRA. The information contained within the article concerning the Official IRA (OIRA) was gleaned primarily from a meeting with Reg Tester, whom the Inquiry now knows to have been Quartermaster in the OIRA at the time of Bloody Sunday. The information relating to the Provisional wing of the IRA (PIRA) was given to Mr Pringle and Mr Jacobson by a man they now believe to be Martin McGuinness, although Mr McGuinness himself does not remember speaking to them.
Aside from Reg Tester, Mr Pringle did not learn the name of any other IRA member when conducting his research into Bloody Sunday. He said that interviews with paramilitaries took place in houses in the Bogside or Creggan. It was quite clear that the people being interviewed were members of the IRA, and in many cases they were armed and wore some form of paramilitary uniform. However, it was not Mr Pringle’s practice to ask them what their names were, and the information was not volunteered.
Mr Pringle said that, although he did not believe what he was told by the IRA unconditionally, their evidence fitted well with the other evidence from the day.
1.1.4.1 OIRA orders on Bloody Sunday
Mr Tester said the order issued to OIRA volunteers on Bloody Sunday was two-pronged:
§ No weapons were to be held in the Bogside aside from those held by the Bogside Official Unit, and the latter weapons were to be kept in several safe dumps in the area. All other weapons were to be kept in two cars on patrol in the Creggan.
§ No one was to initiate fire on the army: existing orders concerning defensive firing were reinforced
1.1.4.2 OIRA shooting on Bloody Sunday
The article described on OIRA member, posted on William Street as an observer, who had disobeyed he OIRA order that he was to be unarmed. The article said that the OIRA man had fired a single pistol shot in the direction of the soldier who had shot Damien Donaghy. No exchange of fire had developed between him and the army.
The OIRA man thought that he had hit the soldier, but the article cast doubt on this, due to the distance of between 50 and 100 yards separating him from his target.
Mr Pringle explained that he had not met the gunman himself, but had received an account of what had happened from Reg Tester. The meeting took place on 3rd February 1972, in a house on the Creggan Estate.
The article went on to say that an eyewitness had told them that the gunman had then been confronted by approximately six civilians, some of whom were members of the PIRA, after which he had left the area. Mr Pringle could not remember who the eyewitness was.
1.1.4.3 Meeting of the command staff of the Derry OIRA
Mr Tester also told Mr Pringle that, late on the evening of Bloody Sunday, the Derry command staff of the OIRA had met in the Creggan and had decided to drop their existing policy relating to the targeting of security force personnel (at that time, OIRA policy was to retaliate to army action as opposed to initiating fire) and to adopt a similar policy to the PIRA which had always regarded any army personnel as legitimate targets.
1.1.4.4 OIRA casualties
Mr Tester assured Mr Pringle and Mr Jacobson that no past or present members of the Derry OIRA had been killed or wounded on Bloody Sunday.
1.1.4.5 PIRA shooting on Bloody Sunday
The man Mr Pringle believes was Martin McGuinness told the two reporters that orders had been issued forbidding members of the PIRA from carrying arms on Bloody Sunday. The senior member of the PIRA had been confident that nobody had defied the order, although admitted that two rounds of sub-machine gun fire were fired by members of the PIRA between 5:50 and 6:00 pm on the day, once the army had stopped firing and the majority of the bodies had been removed. These shots had been fired from Free Derry Corner towards troops in Rossville Street.
1.1.4.6 PIRA weapons on the Bogside
Mr Pringle believed that it was the same senior member of the PIRA who told him that, during the day, when civilian casualties were mounting, some PIRA members sent for a car full of guns which arrived near Free Derry Corner. However, the Commanding Officer of the Derry PIRA decided that it would be too risky to civilians to launch a counterattack on the army, so the arms were driven back to the Bogside.
1.1.4.7 Meeting of the command staff of the Derry PIRA
The senior member of the PIRA told Mr Pringle that the staff command met in a street in the Bogside a few hours after the shootings and decided to suspend operations until after the funerals. They also sent a car to Dublin with a full report for PIRA headquarters.
1.1.4.8 PIRA casualties
The senior member of the PIRA said that no member of the organisation was wounded or killed on the day.
1.1.5 Investigation procedures
Mr Pringle told the Inquiry that the reporters on the ground adopted the procedures of a foreign correspondent in a war zone: they put out the word that they were in the City Hotel and that they would like to interview the command staff of the two branches of the IRA.
With regard to civilian evidence, the reporters were aware that Brigid Bond’s house in the Creggan was the central meeting place for those civilians wishing to give evidence to NICRA. This was their first port of call for meeting civilian witnesses. They were also allowed to see a large number of the statements taken. On some occasions, they interviewed civilians in their own homes, and also interviewed some of the wounded in Altnagelvin Hospital.
Interviews with civilians would ordinarily be conducted by two reporters, would be taped and a brief note of the interview made concurrently. The interviews would then be transcribed word for word. In some cases, they would make a note on a map of the locations that the witness was describing, although this was a private note which was not verified by the witness in question.
1.1.6 Mr Pringle’s notebooks
Mr Pringle’s notebooks are the only notebooks to have been found in the Sunday Times archive, although all of the reporters’ notebooks would have been stored together. Mr Pringle could not confirm whether or not the Inquiry was in possession of a complete set of his notebooks or whether some might be missing.
Mr Clarke QC went through a substantial part of those notebooks with Mr Pringle, asking for clarification regarding illegible handwriting or for further information on given topics.
1.1.7 Statements taken from Danny and Billie Gillespie
Mr Pringle was told that Danny Gillespie denies ever having spoken to reporters regarding the events of Bloody Sunday, and that he contests the accuracy of the events leading up to his being shot by the army, as reported by Mr Pringle.
Mr Pringle was also questioned about the note he made regarding the interview with Billie Gillespie which mentioned a gunman on the fifth floor of the Rossville Flats. Mr Pringle had made a note saying that the story was suspect and unconfirmed. He explained to the Inquiry that the reason for his suspicion stemmed from the fact that they had not heard any corroborating evidence and from the fact that the flats were very exposed and, as such, an unlikely position for a sniper.
1.1.8 Transcript of interview with Eamonn Melaugh
Mr Melaugh told the Inquiry that 85 per cent of the statement attributed to him by the Sunday Times Insight Team was ‘pure fiction’. Mr Pringle could not explain why that was, but drew the Inquiry’s attention to a section in Mr Melaugh’s Eversheds statement mentioning a 2,000 word statement which Mr Melaugh wrote down shortly after Bloody Sunday but which he subsequently destroyed. Mr Pringle thought that he had perhaps been shown this statement by Mr Melaugh and had got some of the information he had written about from there.
1.1.9 Transcript of interview with Michael Quinn
Mr Pringle and Mr Jacobson took a partially confidential statement from Michael Quinn shortly after Bloody Sunday (they have since been released from this pledge of anonymity for the purposes of the Inquiry). This statement reported Mr Quinn as saying that he had seen IRA cars in the Glenfada Park area. This is something that Mr Quinn strongly denies ever having seen. He told the Inquiry that this was something that was put to him by the interviewers, and that he had answered that he had not seen any.
Mr Pringle said that it would not have been his practice to lead the witness in any way, although they had heard other witnesses speak of IRA cars in the area prior to speaking to Mr Quinn.
The statement also reported that Mr Quinn had seen two young men with unlit nail bombs in Glenfada Park North, and that he had subsequently heard that a senior OIRA man had told them to take the bombs away as there was too much danger to civilians. Mr Quinn told the Inquiry that, whilst he did see two youths with bombs, this was considerably earlier in the day, before the soldiers came into the area.
1.1.10 IRA activity reported in Insight Team article or Sunday Times memos
At the time of writing the article, Mr Pringle rejected the theory, which he believed was reported in an official press release, that there was an IRA gunman on the roof of the Rossville Flats. He himself went up onto the roof and saw that any sniper in that position would have been extremely vulnerable to being shot at by army snipers on the city Walls.
1.1.10.1 OIRA activity
Mr Pringle reported that the OIRA fired one ‘defensive shot’ across William Street (at the soldier who had shot Damien Donaghy) on the day and seven ‘unauthorised’ shots which were fired out of anger and frustration at the events that were unfolding. He told the Inquiry that he did not believe that this information was given to him by Mr Tester, but that it was probably the result of adding up the various shots described in different witness statements.
Mr Pringle also heard from Mr Tester that the OIRA had fired a machine gun after the army shooting had stopped, but that the gun had jammed. He confirmed for the tribunal that the person shooting had been Mr Tester himself.
At the time of the investigation, Mr Pringle reported on three further incidents, which he said had been authenticated by staff officers of the IRA:
§ An Official had fired and was wounded in the leg near Bishop Street early in the march.
§ An Official fired two shots behind Joseph Place which were hopelessly out of range.
§ An Official was attacked by three Provisionals on his way home after the march, who identified him as the person who had released a soldier captured prior to Bloody Sunday (the soldier was home on leave and had been visiting his girlfriend in the Creggan when he was kidnapped by the OIRA. He was subsequently released).
He told the Inquiry that he believed this information resulted from eyewitness accounts of the day, but could no longer identify those witnesses.
1.1.10.2 PIRA activity
Mr Tester told Mr Pringle that he had seen a number of people, known to him to have been in the PIRA, with weapons after the army shooting had died down. He claimed to have seen one of them fire a single shot towards troops stationed on the city Walls. Mr Pringle never found any corroborative evidence for this account, nor did he know the identity of the PIRA members referred to by Mr Tester.
1.1.11 Letterkenny Hospital
Mr Pringle had contacted Letterkenny Hospital to enquire as to whether anyone had been admitted with gunshot wounds inflicted on Bloody Sunday and had been told that they had not received any such admissions. He did not contact any other hospitals.
1.1.12 Army account of events on Bloody Sunday
Mr Pringle said that the majority of the information concerning the army version of events was gleaned from the soldiers’ evidence at the Widgery Tribunal, although members of the Insight Team had attended army press briefings and conducted some interviews with army personnel.
1.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
1.2.1 Verifying the accuracy of information supplied
The official army version of events on Bloody Sunday that the army had come under massive fire as they entered the Bogside was in direct conflict with the IRA version of events, supported by independent witnesses, that the army opened fire without justification. Mr Pringle said that, in order to get behind the spin being put on events by the various parties, he and his fellow journalists would have tried to find corroborative evidence to support the version of events put to them by either party.
He said that they relied on the recordings of army communications made on the day by Anthony Porter to verify the IRA’s account of what action they had taken. He told the Inquiry that these recordings were invaluable in establishing a time-line of which shots were fired.
He said that he had not come across anything in the recordings that would corroborate the army’s version of events that they had come under from massive fire from guns, petrol bombs and blast bombs. He did not seek to obtain information from the army about damage caused to military personnel or vehicles.
1.2.2 Army theory of gunman on the Rossville Flats
Mr Pringle repeated that he had gone up to the roof of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats and could confirm that any sniper on the roof of the flats, or on the balconies, would have been clearly visible to army positions on the Walls and on the Embassy Ballroom. He therefore concluded that this account was not credible. He agreed with Counsel that the lack of return fire from the Walls of the Embassy Ballroom would further support his conclusion that there was no sniper on the Rossville Flats.
1.2.3 Conclusions reached in Insight article
Mr Pringle told the Inquiry that he stood by the conclusions he formed in the article of 23rd April 1972 and had not since come across any further information that would alter those conclusions in any way.
1.2.4 Martin McGuinness’s alleged involvement on Bloody Sunday
Mr Pringle said that he had never found any evidence to suggest that Martin McGuinness had fired a shot on Bloody Sunday.
1.2.5 Army footage of Bloody Sunday
Mr Pringle’s contemporaneous request to borrow the video of army helicopter film taken on the day was refused. He was also unable to view any of the 1,000 or so photographs taken on the day by the security forces.
1.2.6 Transcript of interview with Michael Quinn
Due to the fact that the typed versions of statements taken by the Mr Pringle during the Insight Team’s investigation contain a lot more detail than the handwritten notes made by Mr Pringle during the actual interview itself, Mr Pringle was asked to explain the process by which he took witness statements. Michael Quinn’s statement was taken as an example.
Mr Pringle told the Inquiry that, in general, two people would have conducted the interview and, where possible, it would have been tape-recorded, and a cursory note would have been taken by hand. Although not all interviews were recorded, the additional detail featuring in the typed versions could potentially have resulted from additional notes taken by the second reporter conducting the interview-notes that have all disappeared from the Sunday Times archive.
He agreed that, in most cases where confidential information was being given, it would have been the practice to turn off the tape-recorder. However, he could not guarantee that this had been followed in the case of Michael Quinn. He agreed that, if there had been no tape-recording of the confidential section of Mr Quinn’s statement, there would be some room for bone fide error when typing up a sparse note taken of information that, in any case, was not intended for publication.
1.2.7 Transcript of interview with Michael Bridge
The typed statement taken from Michael Bridge features a handwritten addendum stating that Mr Bridge was holding a half brick. Mr Pringle was unable to remember how he had come to add this information to the statement or who had provided him with it.
1.3 Questions on behalf of nicra
1.3.1 Statements taken from NICRA members
Although Mr Pringle had contact with Brigid Bond of the Derry Civil Rights Association, he could not recall having personally taken any statements from NICRA members.
1.4 questions on behalf of the soldiers
1.4.1 Insight Team approach to the investigation
Mr Pringle agreed that the approach to the investigation was three-pronged in that the Insight Team wanted to determine:
§ The role of the IRA
§ The relationship between NICRA and the IRA
§ Information about the location of each shot
1.4.2 Verifying the accuracy of information given
Mr Pringle said that the general rule of thumb adopted by the Insight Team was to look for corroboration of any single statement before publishing events or actions recorded in that statement. Mr Glasgow proceeded to question Mr Pringle about the corroboration he had received regarding IRA activity on the day.
1.4.3 IRA activity
1.4.3.1 ‘Freelancer’ shot from Columbcille Court
The Insight Team article spoke of a shot fired from Columbcille Court at the Army by a ‘freelancer’ (i.e. an unauthorised shot, or a shot fired by somebody who was not identified as a member of either wing of the IRA). Mr Pringle confirmed that they had heard a number of statements regarding a shot fired in this vicinity which differed in some respects in terms of the provenance of the shot.
They had concluded that all accounts related to the same single shot, and that the version describing the shot as having been fired from a rifle in Columbcille Court was deemed to be the most likely version of events.
Mr Pringle did not see any ulterior motive behind the different civilian accounts of where the shot had come from, or what weapon was used and did not in any way conclude that people were deliberately trying to mislead him. He believed that the differing accounts resulted from the confusion on the day and the difficulty in determining the exact provenance of a gunshot sound.
1.4.3.2 Shots in Glenfada Park
The 1972 Insight article said that non-army shots had been fired from the Glenfada Park area. Mr Pringle confirmed that, if this piece of information was in the article, it would have been corroborated by at least two independent sources. He also confirmed that a number of witnesses had seen a car filled with weapons in the area prior to the army’s arrival in the Bogside. He did not accept the suggestion that the witnesses who gave statements to the Insight Team which did not mention IRA gunmen in Glenfada Park were deliberately trying to mislead the Team.
1.4.3.3 Shot fired from the rubble barricade
The Insight Team article reported that there was ‘persuasive, although not conclusive’ evidence that a pistol was fired from the rubble barricade. Mr Pringle could not recall how much corroborating evidence the team had produced to support this theory.
1.4.3.4 Father Daly’s gunman
Mr Pringle believed that Father Daly’s account of a gunman in the car park of the Rossville Flats had been corroborated by other civilian witness accounts. He had not taken the statement from Patrick Walsh, which is now in the possession of the Tribunal, in which Mr Walsh expressed some reservations about Father Daly having told the Widgery Tribunal about the gunman, although he had almost certainly read it. However, he told the Inquiry that this had not led him to believe that people were, as a rule, being less than candid about civilian gunmen they might have seen on the day.
1.4.3.5 Second gunman in the Rossville Flats car park
Mr Pringle could no longer recall his source for the suggestion in the Insight Team article that there might have been a second gunman in the car park. He said that the team was trying to be scrupulously fair with regard to the question of IRA activity on the day. Therefore, if there were the suggestion of a second gunman in the car park, they would have included it in their article in the interests of objectivity.
1.4.3.6 IRA sniper on the Rossville Flats
It was Mr Pringle’s belief that the theory concerning an IRA gunman on the roof of the Rossville flats originated in an early army press release. He had also heard from one witness, Billie Gillespie, that he had seen a man with a weapon fire a number of shots from the flats. However, having gone to the top of the flats, Mr Pringle dismissed the theory as unreliable due to the exposed nature of the supposed sniper position.
Nevertheless, the account featured in the article, attributed to an unnamed witness.
1.4.3.7 IRA orders
Mr Pringle told the Inquiry that he had been told about the IRA orders by both wings of the IRA themselves, and had also heard from civilian witnesses who had either overheard these orders being given or who were aware of the orders prior to the march.
1.4.4 Conclusions regarding army fire
The Insight Team article reported the conclusion that “the army did not shoot a fleeing crowd. But their return fire was out of all proportion to what they were facing.” Mr Pringle confirmed that he still held this view of the events of Bloody Sunday.
1.4.5 Statements taken at Brigid Bond’s house
Mr Pringle assisted at statement taking at Brigid Bond’s house in the days following Bloody Sunday. It was put to Mr Pringle that nobody going to Brigid Bond’s house was likely to say anything detrimental towards the IRA. Mr Pringle responded that the people there were evidently trying to recollect what they had seen to the best of their ability, as opposed to making up statements. The people present were there as either members of NICRA or participants in a march organised by NICRA.
1.4.6 IRA control in the area
Mr Pringle said that people entering the Bogside, Brandywell or the Creggan in those days who were not from the area would have to pass by a number of IRA youths checking for plain-clothes police entering Free Derry.
Mr Glasgow asked him whether it was his considered view as a journalist that ‘the Bogside was under the IRA’s control’, as he had written in the article. Mr Pringle responded that it was his considered view and that it was also the considered view of the British Government of the time.
1.4.7 Letterkenny Hospital
Mr Pringle said that the Insight Team had had no journalistic leads to take them to Letterkenny, i.e. they had not been told of any additional casualties to those publicly known. They approached the hospital on their own initiative. He rejected the suggestion that the Team might have been lied to by the person dealing with the inquiry as to whether anyone had been taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds.
1.4.8 IRA casualties
Mr Pringle said that it would have been impossible for anyone else to have been killed on the day and for that to have been covered up, although he said, without suggesting that it was the case, that it would not have been entirely implausible for there to have been additional people wounded.
He agreed with Counsel that he had not been told the entire truth by Reg Tester who had told him that no members of the OIRA had been wounded on the day, as he had subsequently discovered that Mickey Doherty, an OIRA member, had been shot in the leg.
1.4.9 Gerald Donaghy
When writing the 1972 article and his subsequent book, Mr Pringle had not heard of the allegations made by Mr Paddy Ward and reported in Liam Clarke and Katherine Johnston’s book Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government, which describe Martin McGuinness giving nail bombs to seven youths, including Gerald Donaghy.
2. philip jacobson’s evidence
Philip Jacobson was the Senior Investigative Reporter for the Sunday Times Insight Team for six years and is joint author of the book Those Are Real Bullets, Aren’t They? He participated in the Insight Team’s investigation concerning the events of Bloody Sunday.
2.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
2.1.1 Composition of the Sunday Times Insight Team
Mr Jacobson confirmed Mr Pringle’s account of the structure of the Insight Team. He also clarified that Brian Moynahan was attached to the ‘Spectrum’ section of the Sunday Times and that Mr Moynahan had become involved in the Insight Team investigation into Bloody Sunday at the invitation of Harold Evans, Editor of the Sunday Times, as he had strong army contacts which would be useful for the investigation.
2.1.2 Arrival in Northern Ireland
Mr Jacobson travelled to Belfast on the day following Bloody Sunday, as the Parachute Regiment was based in Belfast and Mr Jacobson had strong contacts with the 39th Brigade to which the Parachute Regiment was attached.
2.1.3 Gathering army evidence
Mr Jacobson explained that, to obtain a statement from the army, one would have to contact the army press office at the Lisburn headquarters by telephone. He said that, by the time he arrived in Belfast, army statements had already been issued and his first priority was to obtain as much material as possible, which he then followed up with further questions to the army.
Mr Jacobson described the army headquarters as being very defensive, and said that the army was reticent to give information to the media after a number of aspects of their initial statements had been challenged. He also added that, due to the reputation of the Insight Team for investigating matters in detail, the army press office was possibly particularly defensive towards them.
However, he recalled interviewing Colonel Maurice Tugwell on at least one occasion (the document entitled ‘Hindsight on Insight’, written in response to the Insight Team’s article, has been attributed to Colonel Tugwell).
2.1.4 Gathering forensic evidence
Whilst in Belfast, Mr Jacobson carried out some research into the forensic aspects of the case. He contacted the State Pathologist’s office and met the Chief Pathologist, Professor Marshall, who had carried out autopsies on a number of the deceased at Altnagelvin Hospital.
He received general information relating to the autopsy procedure, as opposed to the detailed findings of the individual autopsies.
Mr Jacobson also visited Altnagelvin Hospital in an attempt to fill in the details regarding the autopsy procedure.
2.1.5 Gathering civilian evidence
Mr Jacobson interviewed a number of civilian witnesses in Belfast who had been on the march.
He told the Inquiry that Brigid Bond’s house was the primary source for civilian witnesses in Derry.
2.1.6 Letterkenny Hospital
The Insight Team examined the possibility of additional casualties being taken to Letterkenny following a suggestion made by the army to this effect. Mr Jacobson had had previous contact with the hospital, due to his previous investigation into the death of Seamus Cusack, who had been shot by the army and taken to Letterkenny. On that occasion, he had received what he described as an open response concerning the circumstances of Mr Cusack’s arrival at the hospital.
It was Mr Jacobson’s belief that, on the Thursday following Bloody Sunday, he had spoken to the same person at the hospital and he had been told that nobody had been admitted with gunshot wounds.
2.1.7 Composition of the IRA at the time of Bloody Sunday
Mr Jacobson said that, at the time of Bloody Sunday, the Provisional and Official wings of the IRA were both very small and that estimates of their numbers were often exaggerated. He said that there were a considerable numbers of what he termed ‘volunteers’ (used in a distinctive sense from the IRA use of the word) who would have been willing to hide a weapon, but would not have had any active involvement in the violence. The active members of each wing constituted a very small number.
He told the Inquiry that these estimates were based on conversations with people in Derry who were knowledgeable about the IRA.
2.1.8 IRA involvement on Bloody Sunday
Mr Jacobson confirmed Mr Pringle’s account of having met a senior member from each wing of the IRA, whom they believe to have been Reg Tester and Martin McGuinness.
2.1.9 Taped witness statements
Mr Jacobson could not recall the exact proportion of interviews that were taped by the Insight Team, but he explained that if they were conducting what they believed would be an important or strong interview, they would have taped it, in conjunction with making headline notes relating to the topics discussed. The people being interviewed would have known that they were being taped.
Mr Jacobson said that the Team had been instructed by their legal advisor to place all the materials they had compiled during the investigation into cardboard boxes which were taken to the Sunday Times archive. He could shed no light on the disappearance of the tapes from the archive.
2.1.10 Letter provided to the Sunday Times
The Tribunal is in possession of a document used at the Widgery Inquiry, which consists of a letter, sent by a woman in Derry to a friend who was a social worker in Belfast. The former social worker in turn sent the letter to Mr Silburn, of Nottingham University. The letter described overhearing members of the IRA on Bloody Sunday, after the army shooting had begun, complaining bitterly about the fact that their arms had been withdrawn. It also referred to 40 bodies having been taken across the border for treatment.
Mr Jacobson told the Inquiry that the Insight Team had never established the identity of the author of the letter.
2.1.11 Initial information provided by the army on the ground to the press
Mr Jacobson had spoken to members of the press who had been on the march about the information provided to them by the army. He believed that those members of the press included Harry Arnold from the Mirror, Gerald Seymour from ITN and John Chartres from the Times. He had been told that, at the same time as the Paras entered the Bogside, the press had been told that snipers were laying down heavy fire from the Rossville flats.
These reporters also informed Mr Jacobson that the army commanders, including Ford, were never fully aware of what the soldiers were doing in the Bogside. They were absolutely certain that Ford was not in the area where the bulk of the shooting took place, and one reporter insisted that Colonel Wilford could not have been with the soldiers who fired, as he had observed him at Barrier 14 during the bulk of the shooting.
2.1.12 Transcript of interview with Mr Bedell
The Tribunal is in possession of a typed statement taken by the Insight Team from Mr Bedell, who described two cars entering the Bogside towards the end of the day and returning a second time. Approximately 12 members of the PIRA got out of the car, one of whom was armed. Mr Bedell went on to say that these men fired approximately 50 rounds from the Rossville Flats area. Mr Bedell described one of the IRA men as being a tall man with a droopy moustache, who spoke with a Yorkshire accent.
Mr Jacobson confirmed that he had never identified the tall man, nor had he heard any other witness testimony as to his existence.
2.1.13 Transcript of interview with Peggy Deery
The Insight Team’s interview with the late Peggy Deery is one of the only interviews with Mrs Deery which are still in existence. It describes how Mrs Deery was shot in the leg by a Para on the waste ground by Pilot Row. She said that the Para in question fired from a distance of no more than 25 yards. Mrs Deery was carried into Chamberlain Street by two men, including a Michael Kelly. It was unclear as to whether this was the same Michael Kelly who was killed on Bloody Sunday, although the balance of evidence suggests that it was not.
2.1.14 Transcript of interview with William Doherty
Mr Jacobson also took a statement from William Doherty, a middle-aged man who was assaulted by Paratroopers prior to being arrested. Mr Doherty described how he was hit a number of times on the head with the barrel of a rifle which resulted in wounds requiring seven stitches. The typed statement includes a note made by Mr Jacobson confirming that he had seen the scars on Mr Jacobson’s head and face.
2.1.15 Transcript of interview with Maureen Fitzgerald
Ms Fitzgerald was the sister of a PIRA man who escaped from the Royal Hospital in Belfast. Early on the day, she had overheard a group of eight men in combat jackets saying that if the Paras went into the Bogside, there would be a massacre as they had no weapons.
After the shooting, she saw six men, four of whom were armed with rifles, getting out of two cars which pulled up at the Bogside Inn.
2.1.16 Transcript of interview with Eibhlín Lafferty
Mr Jacobson’s typed record of his interview with Eibhlín Lafferty contains a note saying that her statement needed to be treated with caution. He explained that this resulted from a conversation he had had with the head of the Knights of Malta, Leo Day, although he could not recall the specific reasons for his reservations.
Although Ms Lafferty denies having spoken to the Sunday Times, Mr Jacobson told the Inquiry that he had a clear recollection of the interview with Ms Lafferty as he had been so taken aback with the courage and devotion to duty that she had shown on the day.
2.1.17 Letter and statements from the Students’ Council, Magee University
The Insight Team received an unsigned letter from the Students’ Council at Magee University, which contained a number of eyewitness statements from students at the university. Mr Jacobson explained that the letter had been sent to all journalists who were interested in the issue, not just to the Insight Team. The Insight Team subsequently discovered the identity of a number of those students, but the Inquiry’s efforts to trace them have proven unsuccessful.
2.1.18 Transcript of interview with Michael Bradley
Mr Jacobson was questioned about the handwritten note on Michael Bradley’s typed interview notes to the effect that he agreed that he had been stoning at the time he was shot. Mr Jacobson believed that this had been added as a result of a direct question put to Mr Bradley by himself or Mr Pringle, although Mr Bradley denies having thrown stones and having made the subsequent admission.
2.1.19 Transcript of interview with Michael Bridge
Similarly, there is a handwritten note on the record of Michael Bridge’s statement saying that he had thrown a half brick prior to getting shot. Once again, Mr Jacobson believed that he must have been told this by Mr Bridge, although Mr Bridge denies having thrown a brick or having made this admission.
2.1.20 Transcript of interview with Michael Quinn
Mr Jacobson was told that Mr Quinn contested the statement recorded in his interview that he had seen two IRA cars parked in Glenfada Park. He confirmed Mr Pringle’s assertion that it was not the Insight Team’s practice to prompt a witness in any way.
2.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
2.2.1 Army evidence
Mr Jacobson spoke with an officer from the Anglian Regiment whom he had met in July 1971 during his investigations into the shooting of Seamus Cusack. They discussed the reasons for sending the Parachute Regiment into a city which was unfamiliar to them. Mr Jacobson recalled that the officer in question was surprised by the decision to deploy the Paras.
He also interviewed Colonel Tugwell, but his request to speak with Colonel Wilford, Brigadier McClellan, General Ford and Genera Tuzo was denied. He believed that John Barry was invited to dinner with the Parachute Regiment.
2.2.2 Evidence from politicians and civil servants
Mr Jacobson told the Inquiry that none of the Insight Team members in Derry conducted any on or off the record interviews with political figures or civil servants in London. The official hierarchy was reticent to talk to the press at the time, in particular to the Insight Team, due to their reputation for pushing further than most into issues pertaining to Northern Ireland.
However, the Team concluded that the Whitehall Cabinet ministers had approved the arrest operation, as only ministers could take the calculated risk with civilian lives which was inherent to the arrest plan.
2.2.3 Transcript of interview with Michael Bridge
Mr Jacobson agreed with Counsel that there was the possibility that the added note relating to Mr Bridge having thrown a brick might have come from information provided by the Gillespie brothers.
2.3 questions on behalf of the soldiers
2.3.1 Transcript of interview with Patrick Walsh
Mr Jacobson said that the interview with Patrick Walsh stood out in his mind due to the exceptional courage shown by Mr Walsh on the day. He was asked whether Mr Walsh’s admission that he had never previously mentioned seeing Father Daly’s gunman, and his doubt as to whether Father Daly himself should have mentioned it, had led him to conclude that the information that the Team was being provided with from civilian witnesses was inaccurate or misleading.
Mr Jacobson said that the Team relied on their own judgment and increasing knowledge of the events of the day to determine the accuracy of people’s statements. He further stated that it was understandable that people would have been cautious when participating in the Insight Team’s interviews.
2.3.2 Impartiality of the Insight Team’s investigation
Mr Jacobson was asked whether the army and the Bogsiders had the impression at the time that the Insight Team was more sympathetic towards the Bogsiders as opposed to the army. He responded that he could not speak for the army or for the Bogsiders, but that the Insight Team had never previously been shown to be partial and he did not believe they had been partial in relation to their reporting on Bloody Sunday.
He added that there was perhaps a perception amongst the nationalist community that the Sunday Times was a paper which was more sympathetic than most to listening to what they had to say—although he emphasised that they were perhaps more sympathetic in listening, but not in publishing what they heard without corroboration. He said that he was an experienced Northern Ireland reporter and that he had gone to the investigation with no pre-conceived views.
He told the Inquiry that it had been made very clear to the Team that, as soon as the Widgery Tribunal was announced, there was no possibility of speaking to anybody within the army who would be called to give evidence. The civilians were more amenable to being interviewed, as they did not consider themselves subject to Widgery.
2.3.3 Statements taken at Brigid Bond’s house
Mr Jacobson did not inquire as to the manner in which the statements were taken at Mrs Bond’s house, nor did he ever become aware of witnesses expressing concern that certain aspects of their evidence had been removed from these statements.
2.3.4 Composition of the IRA
Mr Jacobson confirmed that he had not misunderstood the use of the term ‘volunteer’: he himself used it to describe people who were not on active duty but who would have been willing to store a weapon for IRA use but he was fully aware of its usage within the IRA as meaning those on active duty.
It was put to him that these ‘volunteers’ would have been willing to remove weapons and hide them. He responded that, prior to Bloody Sunday, he had never heard any allegations relating to weapons being removed from bodies, and clarified that ‘volunteers’ would predominantly have been involved hiding weapons, in getting cars for the IRA and in conducting night duty on the barricades in the Bogside.
2.3.5 Letterkenny Hospital
Mr Jacobson confirmed that he had only asked whether people had been admitted to the hospital with gunshot wounds, as this is what he deemed to be the most important factor on the day. He did not ask whether anyone else had been admitted to the hospital following Bloody Sunday.
2.3.6 Meeting with the OIRA
Mr Jacobson said that he had been told by Reg Tester that ‘observers’ had been sent by the OIRA to witness the progress of the march but that none of these was armed. Mr Tester had also told him that an OIRA member had fired one round at the army as a direct response to the shooting of Damien Donaghy. This shot was fired within 10 minutes of the young man being hit.
2.3.7 Meeting with the PIRA
The senior member of the PIRA, whom Mr Jacobson and Mr Pringle both believe to have been Martin McGuinness, confirmed that a PIRA member had fired from Free Derry Corner between 5:30 and 6:00pm. They were also told that some Provisionals had sent for a car full of guns at the height of the army shooting (although eye-witnesses said that these had been sent away again).
SCHEDULE OF PROCEEDINGS
Monday 25th: Paragraphs 1 to 1.3
Tuesday 26th: Paragraphs 1.4 to 2
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
