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29 JUNE - 2 MAY 2002
This week the inquiry heard from Robert Ferris, a member of the Strand Traders’ Association. It was following a meeting with this association that General Ford wrote his infamous memo in which he records the STA as suggesting severe measures to be imposed in Derry to put a halt to the rioting.
The Inquiry also heard from a number of journalists, including Mary Holland, Lena Ferguson and Alex Thompson. The latter two conducted interviews with soldiers for a series of Channel 4 News bulletins which played a contributing factor in the British Government’s decision to establish the current inquiry.
Vincent Browne and Kieran Gill were both journalists with the Irish Press Group of Newspapers. Due to time pressures, Mr Gill only gave part of his evidence to the Inquiry. He is due to return to complete his evidence in Week 57.
OTHER ISSUES
The Inquiry also heard submissions from all parties concerning the disclosure of the identities of the soldiers interviewed by Channel 4 and of all materials relating to these interviews. The Tribunal made an order for disclosure with which both Lena Ferguson and Alex Thompson refused to comply. The matter has been referred to the High Court for contempt of court proceedings.
A full transcript of the proceedings is available at http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk.
1. robert ferris’s evidence
Mr Ferris was the Director of Foyle Developments Ltd., owners of the Embassy Building, at the time of Bloody Sunday. He was also secretary for the Strand Traders’ Association (STA).
1.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
1.1.1 Strand Traders Association
Mr Ferris told the Inquiry that the STA had been set up in 1969 with the aim of ensuring that the shopkeepers in the Waterloo Place and Strand Road area worked together to promote the shopping area and in order to safeguard the interests of the local businesses. He said that it was a cross-community organisation, and estimated that there was a ‘50/50 split’ in terms of the sectarian make-up of the 20 to 25 members of the association.
At the time of Bloody Sunday, the STA committee comprised approximately seven or eight members, including Arthur Willman (Chairman), Charlie Duffy (Treasurer), Mr Ferris (Secretary), Brendan Duddy, Mr Chada, the manager of Littlewoods and the manager of Wellworths.
He agreed that, although the original reason for setting up the organisation had been to deal with issues such as Christmas lights for the area, by 1971, the key issue at stake was the protection of the businesses and told the Inquiry that the presence of no-go areas represented a threat to the interests of the members of the association.
He did not agree that the STA was predominantly supportive of the Unionist Stormont Government, nor did he know whether the majority of members would have been anti-IRA.
1.2 Committee of Thirty
Mr Ferris also denied any knowledge of a similar organisation called the ‘Committee of Thirty’, to which members of the STA purportedly belonged. This organisation is mentioned in a memo by General Ford in which he records meeting the Committee of Thirty in August 1971. The memo goes on to say that he subsequently met with members of STA who had been members of the Committee of Thirty when he returned to Derry in December that year. Mr Ferris told the Inquiry that he was not aware of any meeting between General Ford and the STA in December 1971.
1.3 Meeting with General Ford
1.3.1 Meeting request
Mr Ferris remembered meeting with General Ford on 7th January 1972. He said that the STA had requested a meeting with the police to discuss the protection of their property, but that Ford had also attended. He told the Inquiry that he had been surprised by General Ford’s presence at the meeting.
Mr Ferris said that he was not aware that the STA had originally requested a meeting with Brian Faulkner to discuss the security issue. However, the Inquiry is in possession of the minutes of a meeting at Stormont of the Security Committee, including Brian Faulkner, in which the approach made to him by the STA is recorded. In actual fact, it was during this meeting that Faulkner received the undertaking from the General Officer in Command (Colonel Tuzo) that the army would discuss the situation with the STA. The infamous meeting between Ford and the STA took place the following day, seemingly as a direct result of the approach made to Brian Faulkner.
1.3.2 Content of meeting
Mr Ferris said that he only had a vague memory of the meeting which took place between General Ford, Mr Ferris, Arthur Willman, the Littlewoods manager and the Wellworths manager. He believed that Superintendent Frank Lagan and the Chief Inspector of the Victoria Street Barracks might also have been present.
He said that it was not the practice of the STA to take a note of the meetings, and that meetings were typically led by the Chairman.
Mr Ferris was adamant that the STA never made any proposals on how the army should protect their businesses. The representatives had merely explained their fears and left the actual practicalities to the police.
1.4 Memo by General Ford
Mr Ferris is the only member of the STA mentioned by name in the memo General Ford wrote, detailing his conversations with the STA. Mr Ferris said General Ford’s use of his name stemmed from the fact that he had requested the meeting, not from his adopting a leading role at that meeting.
1.4.1 Security measures
In the memo, General Ford lays out the steps which he purported to have discussed with the STA to improve the protection of the buildings and to deter petrol bombers from operating in the area. These were as follows:
a. All owners of premises should impose restrictions on their doors (during opening hours).
b. General Ford agreed to the construction of two gates in an alleyway running to the west rear of Strand Road. He wrote: “this meets one of their requirements. The gates will be in position this week.”
c. “I (General Ford) said I would examine the practicability of having more OPs (observation posts) and a possible position established at the west end of William Street.”
Counsel suggested that General Ford’s comments in relation to point b indicated that a specific request had been put to the General to erect gates, thereby implying that the STA had in fact put forward proposals to the General. Mr Ferris said that the erection of gates was an obvious step that had to be taken to protect the properties and agreed that the request to erect the gates could have been put to General Ford at the meeting. However, in relation to point c, Mr Ferris denied that the STA had expressed a view as to how security should be managed.
The memo went on to say: “they (the STA members) were reasonably satisfied because they had got more than they had expected, although they stressed that it is not enough”. Mr Ferris said that he could not comment on General Ford’s remarks since he could not remember the points that the STA had put forward, with which they had been purportedly been satisfied.
The crucial part of the memo stated: “For instance, they want at a minimum the Rossville Flats cleared (5,000 people live in them and a soldier has never entered them in the history of Londonderry) and ideally the Creggan and Bogside occupied. They also wanted curfews and shooting on sight”.
Mr Ferris insisted that these comments had not been made at the meeting, representing the views of any of the traders. He said that he would not have held such views at the time and repeated once again that all the STA was interested in was their protection; how the police and army chose to protect their establishments was not their concern. He also added that he had never known that no soldier had ever set foot in the Rossville Flats.
His only explanation for the inclusion of these comments in General Ford’s memo was that an individual at the meeting might have discussed these suggestions after the main meeting had finished, although he could not comment on whom that might have been. However, he went on to say that the delegates at the meeting were not the type of people to make such comments.
When asked whether he was suggesting that General Ford had made his comments up, Mr Ferris said that he could not comment. He continued to deny that the STA had been pressing the military authorities to take tough measure to stop the riots and the bombings.
1.4.2 Reference to forthcoming NICRA march
General Ford’s memo makes reference to the NICRA march to be held in Derry and to the fact that the STA had asked whether their properties were to be afforded protection during the march. Mr Ferris said that the police never disclosed to the STA what they were going to do to protect the businesses. He reminded the Inquiry that by January 1972 there had been continuous rioting in William Street area, causing damage to premises and to employees, and that business owners were trying to do their best to protect their employees and customers.
1.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
1.2.1 Involvement with the Unionist Party
Mr Ferris wrote in his statement that he could not recall whether Commander Anderson had any connection with the Association. He further told the Inquiry that he had no personal connection with the Commander, and that he was not a member of his Unionist Party Constituency Association at the time of Bloody Sunday. He said that his involvement with the Constituency Association would have been in the late 60s.
Mr Ferris confirmed that he had been a chairman of the Derry Young Unionists, but denied that he was prominent within the Unionist Party after the early 60s. He said that he ceased to be involved in the Unionist Party in any capacity in approximately 1968 or 1969.
Confusingly, Mr Ferris then denied that he had ever been involved in the Constituency Association and said that his involvement in the Unionist Party in Derry had been confined to his chairmanship of the Young Unionists in the 1950s and early 1960s, after which his political interests ceased completely. Although he would have still described himself as a unionist, he had no longer been active in any sense.
As Counsel tried to get to the bottom of the confusion, Mr Ferris appealed to Lord Saville to intervene to question the relevance of the line of questioning. Lord Saville agreed that it did not appear relevant, and asked Mr Macdonald (Counsel for the families) to confine himself to events from 1970 onwards, although allowed him to attempt to clear up the matter concerning involvement with Commander Anderson’s Constituency Association.
Mr Ferris confirmed that he had been a member of Commander Anderson’s Constituency Association in the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, it was pointed out to him that Commander Anderson had only been the MP for Derry between 1968 and 1972, and would therefore not have had a Constituency Association prior to that date in which Mr Ferris could have been involved. However, Mr Ferris remained adamant that he had ceased to be actively involved in politics after 1966.
He denied ever having known the Commander well or having been one of his closest political associates. He also denied ever having known that Commander Anderson had been the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Home Affairs at Stormont or that he had been a member of the Joint Security Committee.
1.2.2 Setting up the meeting with General Ford
Mr Ferris agreed that, as MP for the area, Commander Anderson would have been a natural contact to approach to set up a meeting between the STA and Brian Faulkner, the Northern Ireland Prime Minister. However, he then went on to say that he had not been involved in trying to arrange a meeting between Brian Faulkner and the STA.
It was pointed out to Mr Ferris that, in his statement, he had said that his role as Secretary to the STA was to organise meetings and that, furthermore, he had earlier told Counsel for the Inquiry that he had set up the meeting attended by General Ford. Mr Ferris responded that he had set up the meeting which General Ford attended, but that he had in fact requested a meeting with Superintendent Frank Lagan, not with Brian Faulkner.
Mr Ferris said that he had never been aware of any approach made to the Prime Minister by the STA requesting a meeting, saying that he could not accept full responsibility for everything that happened within the STA. He also said that he could not recall ever being told about any response from Brian Faulkner concerning the STA’s approach to him. However, once again it was pointed out to Mr Ferris that, in actual fact, the meeting with General Ford was the outcome of the approach by the STA to Stormont, so it followed that, since he had attended the meeting, he must have been aware of the approach made to Brian Faulkner at some stage. Mr Ferris responded that he had turned up at a meeting arranged with the police to discuss the ongoing problems in Waterloo Place.
1.2.3 Delegation to STA meeting with Ford
Mr Ferris was asked to confirm that it appeared that there were no Catholics or nationalists on the delegation that met General Ford. He said that he could not answer the question, as the politics or religion of the members of the STA were never discussed.
He said that the approach to the meeting with General Ford or its content had not been discussed or established at an STA committee meeting. He agreed that Mr Brendan Duddy, Mr Charlie Duddy (whom Counsel presumed were members of the nationalist community) and Mr Chada (a member of the Indian community) had no input into any discussion as to what issues should be put forward at the meeting with the General and said that there had been no agenda for this meeting.
1.2.4 Views about security situation and Commander Anderson
Mr Ferris said that the 20 or 30 members of the STA were all in despair concerning the security situation. However, he said that he did not have any views about what should be done to improve the situation. He said that he did not share Commander Anderson’s views with regard to the security situation, and refused to answer whether or not he had voted for him.
Mr Macdonald explained that the reason for his question concerning Mr Ferris’s voting preferences stemmed from his contention that Mr Ferris was using the STA as a vehicle for communicating the views of Stormont Government hardliners such as Commander Anderson, in such a way as to give the impression that he was merely representing the views of the moderate cross-community businessmen in Derry. Mr Ferris vehemently rejected this suggestion, but refused to answer the question of whether he agreed that Commander Anderson was a Stormont Government hardliner.
Mr Macdonald asked Lord Saville to compel Mr Ferris to answer the latter question, saying that he was trying to find out whether it would have been likely for Mr Ferris to have suggested to general Ford that the Rossville Flats should be cleared and that the perpetrators should be shot on sight, or whether that had in fact been invented by General Ford. He said that here was little point in having the facility to ask question if Lord Saville would not compel witnesses to answer such questions. Lord Saville responded that he would not compel the witness to answer, but that the answer ‘no comment’ was, in fact, an answer in itself.
Mr Macdonald went on to read an extract from Stormont Hansard reporting a debate with took place in October 1971 in which Commander Anderson deplored the disbandment of the B Specials and said “unless firm action is taken and the Bogside and Creggan purged of these rioters, the sufferings of the people of Derry will go on”. Mr Ferris said that he had no opinion at that time about the policing situation and had no idea of the sort of things the Commander was speaking about when he used the expression ‘firm action’.
He acknowledged that the view of the STA was that not enough had been done to protect business premises and shoppers in the area, and that they wanted secure areas established.
1.2.5 Political nature of the STA
Mr Ferris said that the STA was a non-political, non-religious organisation and that its only interest was to look after the area and to discuss security with the police. He said that they never had any discussions with any political representatives, not even the local MP.
He said that, at the time of his involvement with the STA, he no longer had any contact whatsoever with his former associates in the Unionist Party and had no idea what Unionist Party ministers or junior ministers believed should be done to solve the problems on the streets of Derry.
1.2.6 Memo by General Ford
It was indicated to Mr Ferris that, in his memo, General Ford writes “they were suggesting these things”, implying that it was not just one person privately making this remark, but several people. Mr Ferris denied that he was one of those referred to General Ford in his memo (or in the original hand hand-written notes made by the General in the helicopter back to Belfast immediately following the meeting), despite General Ford’s attribution of these remarks to him by name and to his co-associates.
1.2.7 Damage done to property
Mr Ferris told the Inquiry that the STA estimated in the meeting with General Ford that approximately £1 million worth of damage had been done to businesses in the proceeding year alone. He was shown an extract from an interview held by a journalist with General Ford in which Ford said: “the STA says £6 million damage was done. The Army was told it had to be brought to an end”. Mr Ferris said that this figure could have been referring to the greater Derry area.
2. mary holland’s evidence
Ms Holland was a journalist for The Observer, based in Dublin at the time of Bloody Sunday.
2.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
2.1.1 Publication of information
Ms Holland was not in Derry on Bloody Sunday, but flew there on 31st January to research a story to be published on the following Sunday. This article was originally supposed to be part of a larger investigation on behalf of The Observer into the events of the day. However, during the week following Bloody Sunday, Ms Holland became aware that David Astor, the Editor of The Observer, had been told not to publish the newspaper’s planned full-scale investigation into Bloody Sunday as the Widgery Tribunal had been ordered and the authorities did not want newspapers to prejudice the conclusions that the Inquiry might draw.
2.1.2 Journalistic research
Ms Holland was largely involved in speaking with people in the Bogside who had been on the march, talking to some of the families of the dead, to Bernadette Devlin, Eamonn McCann and Father Daly. The overall impression that she gained was that the victims had all been innocent. She was repeatedly told that the Provisional IRA (PIRA) had withdrawn their arms from the Bogside, although could not remember hearing anything about the Official IRA (OIRA).
2.1.2 Published article
The Observer did in fact publish an article about an IRA sniper who admitted to having fired a shot on Bloody Sunday. Ms Holland believed that this was almost certainly due to the fact that the information contained within the article would not be deemed prejudicial. However, she admitted to being surprised by the decision to publish it at the time.
The article reported on an interview with an OIRA member, wounded in the leg and eye on Bloody Sunday. Ms Holland had known the man in question for a couple of years, through her research, and believed she had been introduced to him by Sean Keenan (senior), a senior republican in Derry.
The man had told her that he had been posted in an empty house on the corner of Cooke Street and Joyce Street, with orders to cover Bishop Street. He had fired at a soldier in the street below the house and had been wounded by another soldier returning fire. He believed that he had only been hit by the ricochets of the bullets. The soldier who returned fire had in fact been positioned on his sister-in-law’s house. The latter had overheard him reporting that he thought he had killed him.
Ms Holland said that the man had been in bed when she had interviewed him. She had not got the impression that he had been to hospital to be treated.
2.1.3 Identity of OIRA sniper
Ms Holland was shown records from the Bloody Sunday Insight Team, entitled “Mickey Doherty IRA man (Mary Holland’s lad)”. It went on to describe how this man had been hit in the leg and back, but that the wounds had been superficial. She was also told that the Inquiry had heard evidence from two Knights of Malta and a doctor relating to a man known as Red Mickey Doherty who had been treated at Vinny Coyle’s house. Ms Holland was asked to confirm whether this was the man she had interviewed. Ms Holland was not prepared to identify her source any further.
2.1.4 Letter to The Observer
The week following publication of her article, Ms Holland wrote a letter which was published in The Observer in which she sought to clarify that the sniper in her article had fired at 5:00 pm on Bloody Sunday, after the confrontation and more than a mile away from where the soldiers had opened fire. She also wrote that the IRA insisted that none of its marksmen fired within the Bogside until after the killings had taken place.
She told the Inquiry that her concern to clarify that he had not fired in the general Bloody Sunday situation and that he had been some distance away from the Bogside proper had prompted her to write the article
2.1.5 Spiked article
The Inquiry is in possession of The Observer article which had been due for publication alongside the article referring to the sniper but which had been pulled, following the announcement of the Widgery Inquiry. The article was a compilation piece written by a number of different journalists. Ms Holland believed that she did contribute to it, but could not identify the sections that she would have been responsible for.
Ms Holland could not shed any further light on the sources behind the article, and added that Observer journalists might not have spoken directly with the sources, but might have lifted their information from other newspaper or television reports.
2.2 questions on behalf of the soldiers
2.2.1 Journalistic research
Ms Holland said that, at the time of Bloody Sunday, she would have had contacts in both the PIRA and OIRA. However, she said that, aside from the sniper, people generally did not introduce themselves as belonging to either wing.
2.2.2 Sniper
Ms Holland said that she was not one hundred per cent sure that she had been introduced by Sean Keenan to the young man she later interviewed as the sniper on Bloody Sunday. However, she was sure that Sean Keenan had not introduced her to him on or after Bloody Sunday. She could not recall how the interview with him had been set up.
Ms Holland no longer had any specific recollection of the details she mentioned in her article concerning, for example, the exact location from where the sniper fired. However, she was certain that she would have believed all the details included in her article to have been accurate at the time of publication.
2.3 concluding remarks of the tribunal
Lord Saville told Ms Holland that the Tribunal might require her to identify her source at a later date.
3. Kevin leonard’s evidence
Mr Leonard was serving in the Royal Navy at the time of Bloody Sunday. He became involved in civil rights following the shooting of Beattie and Cusack.
3.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
3.1.1 Jackie Duddy
Mr Leonard went down to Barrier 14. He told the Inquiry that ‘he was up for a good fight’, and saw a crowd of 100 to 150 people rioting in the vicinity, one of whom he thought was Jackie Duddy. The latter was throwing stones. He told the Inquiry that he had got to know the Duddy family through his job as a postman.
As the soldiers began dismantling Barrier 14, Mr Leonard ran away, along with approximately 40 to 50 other people. He heard Saracens (armoured personnel carriers) entering the Bogside, and some people shouted to get stones.
However, as he reached the bottom of Chamberlain Street, he heard live shots ring out. He saw Jackie Duddy in front of him running across the car park, in the direction of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats. He heard a further two shots ring out and Jackie fell to the ground. He later witnessed Father Daly going to Jackie Duddy’s assistance, along with a group of men, but left the car park before Jackie Duddy’s body was carried out along Chamberlain Street.
3.1.2 Rossville Flats car park
Whilst in the car park, Mr Leonard took shelter by a gable wall. Although he mentioned in his contemporaneous statement that he had seen army bullets bouncing of a car in the car park, he no longer had any recollection of seeing such a car. Mr Leonard also told the Inquiry that he had not seen Father Daly’s gunman, who supposedly fired from behind the same wall where Mr Leonard was sheltering. Mr Leonard explained that he might have already left the car park by the time the gunman fired.
3.1.3 Chamberlain Street
Mr Leonard took shelter in a house at 33 Chamberlain Street, where he saw a wounded man (Michael Bridge) and a wounded woman (Peggy Deery). Four soldiers in riot gear burst into the house and he and a number of other men in the house were arrested and marched away. He was made to stand facing a wall for approximately 15 minutes before being put in a lorry and taken to Fort George.
3.1.4 Fort George
Mr Leonard and the other arrestees were made to sit on the floor of the lorry, facing forward, on their way to Fort George. He said that nobody had been mistreated en route.
When they arrived at Fort George, Mr Leonard described being pulled out of the lorry. There were dogs just outside the lorry doors, and he heard a soldier, whom he believed to be from the Green Jackets, saying something to the effect of “here is some fresh meat”.
He and the other arrestees were marched into a big building and made to stand with their hands around barbed wire. There was no heat in the building and the soldiers brought the 50 or 60 detainees an urn of tea. However, once they had drunk it, the soldiers laughed and told them that they had urinated in it. He could not say from which regiment these soldiers had been from, as he had not been allowed to lift his head throughout the period of his detention. He heard people being beaten and shouted at, but again did not see it happening as he had not been allowed to turn around.
Mr Leonard told the Inquiry that the police arrived after two or three hours, at which point the behaviour of the soldiers changed and the atmosphere became less tense. He was told by a police officer that he might be released if he gave a statement.
It so happened that Mr Leonard was one of seven people not charged with any offence. These seven men were taken behind some more barbed wire and told to stay there with a dog and soldier in sentry. He described the conditions as being very cold. After approximately four hours, heaters were brought in and they were given a cup of tea. However, throughout this time, the other men in the main room were made to remain against the wall. He told the Inquiry that he saw a lot of men who had been badly beaten and that these men had told him that the Paras had ‘run mad on them’.
3.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
3.2.1 Jackie Duddy
Mr Leonard agreed that, having seen Jackie Duddy running into the car park, he had presumed that he had been in Chamberlain Street and therefore that he had been throwing stones at the barrier. He acknowledged that this had been a presumption and that he might not actually have seen him at Barrier 14.
3.3 questions on behalf of the soldiers
3.3.1 Rossville Flats car park
Mr Leonard saw a group of four men running along a wall of the car park, trying to escape the bullets. He heard four shots ring out and saw the men fall to the ground. He had thought at the time that at least one of them had been hit, as they remained on the ground for some time. However, he later saw the men get up and run towards the flats.
3.3.2 Fort George
Mr Leonard said that he had not heard a rubber bullet fired in the back of the lorry on the way to Fort George, nor could he recall whether there had been any soldiers in the back with the arrestees.
Mr Leonard agreed that he had ‘fibbed’ (presumably about his stone throwing activities) and had therefore been released without charge. He said that he could not comment on Counsel’s suggestion that most people at Fort George lied about their activities, as he could only answer for himself.
4. lena ferguson’s evidence
Ms Ferguson, assisted in part by her colleague Alex Thompson interviewed five soldiers who were present in Derry on Bloody Sunday for a series of Channel 4 News programmes, broadcast in 1998. The programmes, which focused on issues such as shooting from the city Walls, played a part in the British Governments decision to call a fresh inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday. The journalists promised the soldiers confidentiality and attributed ciphers A to E to them (not to be confused with the Inquiry’s own ciphers).
Ms Ferguson provided the Inquiry with copies of the notes she took during her interviews with the five soldiers, redacted so as to exclude any information which might compromise the identity of her sources. The Tribunal was unhappy with the level of redaction and directed Ms Ferguson to provide them with a less severely redacted version of her notes, a direction which Ms Ferguson complied with.
The following represents a collation of the evidence given by Ms Ferguson over the course of the two days she appeared before the Tribunal, dealing predominantly with the contents of her notebooks.
4.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
4.1.1 Soldier A
Soldier A was from the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment, based on the city Walls on Bloody Sunday with the brief to prevent sectarian fighting on the Walls. He called Channel 4 News after the first programme in the series dealing with Bloody Sunday was broadcast.
4.1.1.1 Five shots fired
Soldier A told Ms Ferguson that he had overheard a sniper, positioned in a burnt out building by the city Walls, shout that he had seen somebody with a weapon. The sniper fired three distinct shots and said: “Fucking hell, I have got two with three shots”. Her notes then read ‘was ordered to shoot. A few minutes later—two more’, indicating that there had been five shots in total. Soldier A had been unsure as to whether there had been incoming fire first and stated ‘quite possibly the sniper fired first’. However, there is also an entry in Ms Ferguson’s notes from an interview with this soldier that reads ‘convinced IRA shot first’.
Soldier A added that, so far as he was aware, those five shots were the only ones fired by his platoon from the Walls on Bloody Sunday. They had been fired within the first 10 to 15 minutes of the shootings.
4.1.1.2 Location of sniper
Ms Ferguson and Mr Thompson had brought Soldier A back to Derry and had taken him up onto the Walls to identify his position on the day and that of the sniper. She said that he had had some difficulty in pinpointing his location, due to the destruction of the derelict buildings in which he had seen the sniper and of other landmarks such as the Walker Monument and the Rossville Flats. Ms Ferguson attempted to identify for the Tribunal the location pinpointed by the soldier by looking at photographs of the area. There was some confusion as to whether the sniper had been in derelict buildings directly beside the monument or in similar buildings below Roaring Meg (a cannon situated on the Double Bastion to the far East of the Walls).
4.1.1.3 Direction of shots
There was also some confusion over the direction in which the shots were fired. To the best of Ms Ferguson’s recollection, Soldier A had said that the sniper had fired down into the Bogside. Channel 4 had subsequently assumed that he had fired at the rubble barricade, due to the number of casualties in that location and the forensic evidence corroboration.
4.1.1.4 Contemporaneous investigation into shots fired
Soldier A told her that none of the weapons of the Royal Anglians had been taken for examination. Of all the soldiers, only the sniper had been debriefed at the time and none of his battalion had been called to give evidence before Widgery.
4.1.2 Soldier B
Ms Ferguson was informed that Soldier B’s solicitors had come forward to identify him to the Inquiry as Soldier INQ 027 who was a Paratrooper on Bloody Sunday. The Inquiry is in possession of redacted notes from his interviews and notes made by Ms Ferguson of the broadcast programme containing his evidence. Following consultation with her solicitors, Ms Ferguson agreed to provide the Tribunal with all the notes and videotapes in her possession concerning Soldier B, due to his waiver of his confidentiality.
4.1.2.1 Soldier B’s diary
Ms Ferguson confirmed that Soldier B had shown her his diary, but that she had made no notes of his diary entries. She described it as a military notebook, containing notes and drawings.
4.1.2.2 Absence of command and control
Soldier B told Ms Ferguson that the situation on the day had become ‘something of a shambles’, with command and control being absent during the key period of 15 minutes when the bulk of the shooting had occurred. He said that the firing had started spontaneously, with no order having been given to open fire and described some of the Paras as a ‘group of macho men, sadistic, full of glee’ as they ran into Glenfada Park, ‘enjoying what they were doing’. He said that he knew the nine soldiers who had been responsible for the bulk of the killings, and mentioned by name two soldiers whom he regarded as the main troublemakers.
Soldier B told her that, the day before Bloody Sunday, an officer had said “we want some kills tomorrow” and that those who had done the bulk of the shooting had taken this to heart.
Soldier B also made the point that Major Loden did not deserve the Military Cross that he received after Bloody Sunday as he had been in a flap on the day.
4.1.2.3 Soldier H
Soldier A told her that a soldier (identified by Lena Ferguson as Soldier H) was intellectually challenged.
4.1.2.4 The immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday
Soldier B said that some of the soldiers had been ‘elated’ that evening and had been ‘swaggering like cowboys’. He told her that, as the Regiment returned to Belfast, people in the Shankill were ‘running beside the vehicles’, congratulating them on their actions.
Soldier B felt that Colonel Wilford had been very loyal to his troops, and that his role and duty after the shootings had been to defend them. He said that Colonel Wilford had said that he would get the two main troublemakers into the SAS, as they were too much trouble for the Regiment.
4.1.2.5 The Widgery Inquiry
Ms Ferguson’s notes suggest that Soldier B indicated that there had been ‘tinkering with the evidence’ at the Widgery Inquiry and that some of those who fired had not been called to give evidence. He also made the point that some of their soldiers had their own supply of ammunition, a question that had not been adequately addressed at the original inquiry.
4.1.3 Soldier C
Soldier C was a marksman with the 22nd Light Air Defence Regiment and was one of those who contacted Channel 4 following the broadcast of the first programme in the series concerning Bloody Sunday. He told Ms Ferguson that the Paras had perpetrated some shameful and disgraceful acts on Bloody Sunday and that a number of the shootings had been unjustified.
Ms Ferguson confirmed that she was in possession of a video recording of an interview with this soldier which had not been submitted to the Inquiry for reasons of confidentiality. However, the Inquiry is in possession, once again, of redacted notes of conversations and interviews between Ms Ferguson and the soldier.
4.1.3.1 Entry of Paras into the Bogside
Soldier C had been stationed near a derelict building, some 25 yards away from the Paras as they entered the Bogside, and had followed them in. He said that he had been surprised to see the Paras going in: he had felt that there was no need for them as things had begun to quieten down.
4.1.3.2 Unarmed civilians
Soldier C told her that he had not seen anybody with weapons of any description and had heard no firing from the Rossville Flats. The Paras had been ‘firing from the hip’ at unarmed people, which was unprofessional and inaccurate. Soldier C had personally scanned the windows of the Rossville Flats but had seen nobody to fire at, so did not fire. He said that he had seen three civilians ‘go down’ in front of the Rossville Flats.
Soldier C told Ms Ferguson that there were some ‘tell-tale signs’ to support his own belief that the Paras had not come under fire. He said that the Paras had been running around in the open, rather than taking cover next to buildings, which would be normal procedure under attack.
4.1.3.3 Soldier C’s personal interpretation of Bloody Sunday
Ms Ferguson told the Inquiry that Soldier C had told her that it was the worst event he had ever been involved in and that far too much force had been used. He said that it had promoted a lot of bitterness towards the Paras in Northern Ireland and that attitudes had become more hostile. It was Soldier C’s belief that a grave wrong had been done on Bloody Sunday and that the truth should come out in the current climate of the Peace Process. It was this belief that had led him to come forward and speak to Channel 4.
4.1.4 Soldier D
Soldier D was the only one of the five soldiers interviewed who supported the army’s official version of what happened on Bloody Sunday. A confidential source had put Ms Ferguson in contact with Soldier D following her approach to them.
4.1.4.1 Army under fire
Soldier D told Ms Ferguson that the troops had come under fire as they entered the Bogside, from single shots, automatic fire and acid bombs. He said that some of the firing had come from the Rossville flats.
4.1.4.2 Innocence of those wounded or killed
Soldier D said that Support Company of the Parachute Regiment had ‘caught (the IRA) out’. He said that ‘the IRA had ruled the area, but they picked on the wrong regiment’. He had dismissed the theory that the Paras had fired recklessly at the crowd, stating that no women had been hit by army fire. He said that the people had been participating in an illegal march and therefore had all been breaking the law. He went on to say ‘it is all very well saying they were innocent. If they had not been at an illegal march, nothing would have happened’.
4.1.4.3 British citizenship
Soldier D also told Ms Ferguson that he would renounce British citizenship, were the British Government to apologise for Bloody Sunday, ‘in memory of the 51 Paras who died in Northern Ireland since 1970, upholding law and order’. He said that the Parachute Regiment had lost men at Warrenpoint and asked ‘why can’t we have an inquiry?’.
4.1.5 Soldier E
Soldier E was a Paratrooper on Bloody Sunday.
4.1.5.1 Gun fire
Soldier E also told her that the IRA had fired as the soldiers entered the Bogside and that he had seen a man with something in his hand. He said that he knew that they had come under fire as shots had been coming towards them and because they did not sound like SLR (self-loading rifle) fire. In response to Ms Ferguson’s questions, he went on to say that it was possible that the shots he heard were friendly (i.e., that they had been army fire from the Walls), although he was sure that they had sounded different to army fire.
4.1.5.2 Soldier ‘H’
Soldier E told her that another named soldier (the Inquiry staff attributed the cipher ‘H’ to this individual) was a ‘nutcase’ and ‘was considered a lunatic’.
4.1.5.3 Soldier E’s personal interpretation of the events of Bloody Sunday
Soldier E told Ms Ferguson that he did not believe that the operation had gone wrong from ‘a soldier’s point of view’. However, he said that the whole situation had been underestimated by the police and the authorities as the march had been much larger than expected. He had not been briefed to expect or to shoot armed gunmen and the military and police had been disorganised and were confused as to who was shooting and where the targets were.
Soldier E said that he was not ashamed of the Parachute regiment and that they had not been ashamed of their actions, and said that the regiment as a whole could not be held accountable for the soldiers who did overreact and ‘go beyond the line’.
4.1.6 Waiver of confidentiality
Ms Ferguson confirmed that she had approached Soldiers B and D to ask them to waive their right to confidentiality, a request they had denied. She could not recall whether the soldiers had been aware that they would be granted anonymity.
4.1.7 Colonel Wilford
Ms Ferguson also confirmed that she had attempted to make contact with other soldiers, especially those of a higher rank, but that she had only managed to speak with Colonel Derek Wilford. She has notes of these conversations and agreed to discuss with her legal advisers the possibility of providing these to the Tribunal.
4.1.8 Identifying types of shots fired
Channel 4 took Fulvio Grimaldi’s audiotape of the events of Bloody Sunday to a British army ballistics expert, experienced in dealing with the Troubles. This expert examined the tape in a sound laboratory and concluded that the tape recorded the Paras firing and the IRA replying with an automatic pistol. She said that this analysis had been corroborated by the evidence of an OIRA source, reported in Eamonn McCann’s book War and an Irish Town, who said that he had fired a Smith & Wesson handgun on Bloody Sunday.
4.1.9 Jimmy McGovern’s film ‘Sunday’
Ms Ferguson said that she had facilitated contact between Jimmy McGovern and three former British Paratroopers who had served on Bloody Sunday, and that she had assisted at the interviews between Mr McGovern and the soldiers. She confirmed that one of the soldiers in question was Colonel Wilford, one was Soldier B and one was Soldier A, C, D or E (she would not elaborate any further).
4.1.10 Location of notebooks
Ms Ferguson told the Inquiry that she would prefer not to disclose where she kept her notebooks, to ensure their security. She did confirm that nobody had had access to them apart from lawyers and Channel 4 journalists since the time they had been compiled. She gave an undertaking to the Tribunal not to tamper with them or destroy them, but did not want to hand them over to any other body.
4.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
4.2.1 Soldiers’ statements to the Inquiry
Ms Ferguson said that she had not contacted any of the five solders to enquire as to whether they have made a statement to the Inquiry, and added that she would be happy to approach them if directed to do so by the Inquiry.
4.2.2 Soldier A
Ms Ferguson was questioned about the statement ‘ordered to shoot’, which she wrote during her interview with Soldier A. She told the Inquiry that the sniper overheard by Soldier A had been ordered to shoot by a superior officer who had been on the spot with him. It was her belief that Soldier A had overheard these orders being given.
4.2.3 Soldier B
Ms Ferguson confirmed that Soldier B had told her that he had not opened fire as there had been nobody armed to fire at, and that he had said of the civilian casualties: ‘they were shot because they could be’.
4.2.4 Soldier C
Ms Ferguson clarified that Soldier C had told him that he had been involved in a checkpoint at the Embassy building and that he had entered the Bogside with the Paras. Crucially, his role on Bloody Sunday was that of marksman, briefed to look for armed IRA members and to fire at them. However, he had not opened fire as he had seen no gunmen.
Soldier C had told her that when the Paras opened fire, he had originally assumed that they were being fired on from somewhere, but had not seen anybody armed. He said that he had not had any shots fired at him and was not aware of any shots fired at the Paras, stating: ‘I was just yards away, feet sometimes. If there had been incoming fire, I would have heard it’.
4.3 questions on behalf of the soldiers
4.3.1 Shootings at the rubble barricade
Ms Ferguson agreed that she had felt that the statement in the Channel 4 broadcasts that ‘post mortem evidence proves that none of these men (those shot at the rubble barricade) could possibly have been shot by the Parachute Regiment on the streets’ was possibly overstating what they were doing.
Mr Glasgow took exception with what he interpreted as in inference in the programmes to the effect that those at the barricade had been shot by the sniper mentioned by Soldier A. He said that, based on his research, the house from which the sniper is said to have fired would have been out of sight of those at the rubber barricade, and therefore out of the line of fire for the sniper on the walls. Furthermore, it was Mr Glasgow’s contention that those at the barricade could not have been shot from any of the derelict houses near the Walls.
Ms Ferguson rejected the suggestion that the Channel 4 team had twisted Soldier A’s evidence by implying that the sniper in the derelict house had shot those at the rubble barricade. She said that, when she had taken Soldier A back to Derry, a lot of the landmarks had gone, including the rubble barricade. Soldier A had therefore seized on the one clear landmark in the Bogside, Free Derry Corner, and, in response to a question concerning the range of a bullet, had said that it would be possible to fire down into the Bogside from the position of the derelict houses. Soldier A did not specify where in the Bogside the sniper had fired.
4.3.2 Misrepresentation of interviews with soldiers
Mr Glasgow accused Ms Ferguson of partiality and of unfairness in her decision concerning what to include in the news programmes, stating, in particular, that she had edited the soldiers’ interviews so as to exclude anything that referred to people firing at the soldiers. She denied this charge saying that, firstly, it was not possible to include in the broadcasts every single thing that the soldiers had said, and secondly, that they were looking for something new and fresh, as opposed to the official well-hashed version of events which held that the troops had come under fire first.
Mr Glasgow also accused Ms Ferguson of having put her own words into the soldiers’ mouths, so to speak, by making the actors who read out the soldiers’ parts in the programme read out suggestions she herself had made, rather than the soldiers’ own evidence. Ms Ferguson strongly denied this accusation, stating categorically that the actors had not said anything the soldiers themselves had not told her.
Ms Ferguson refuted the aspersions cast by Mr Glasgow on the quality and impartiality of her work. She reiterated that the judgment regarding what to include in what were very short reports of approximately three or four minutes each was based solely on the journalistic grounds of what was fresh and new, and not on any sinister agenda. She said that they had tried to be entirely fair, and that the inclusion of Soldier D’s interview in the final broadcasts was testimony to their impartiality.
4.3.3 Redaction of notes
On the second day of her evidence, Mr Glasgow alleged that Ms Ferguson had redacted her notes not to protect her sources, but to cover up the fact that the programmes broadcast by Channel 4 had been a complete distortion of what she had actually been told by the soldiers.
Ms Ferguson vehemently denied the allegation. She reiterated that the particular theory that had been presented to them was that there had been firing from the Walls; this information was new and different to the officially known version of events and, as such, was newsworthy. She told Mr Glasgow that they had been very fair to the soldiers and that they were continuing to be fair to them by refusing to divulge their identities. She also said that she had received no complaints from the soldiers regarding the way their information had been reported in the programmes.
4.3.4 Possible existence of additional notes
Mr Elias pointed out to Ms Ferguson that some of the words attributed to Soldier E in the broadcast programmes did not appear in any of her notebooks submitted to the Inquiry. Some of the notes from the interview with Soldier A also appeared to be missing. Ms Ferguson suggested that parts of the interviews might have been written on loose bits of paper, but could shed no further light on the matter, aside from saying that she had not deliberately destroyed any material.
5. Alexander Thompson’s evidence
Mr Thompson presented the Channel 4 News bulletins. He also attended the interviews between Ms Ferguson and Soldier A. He provided the Inquiry with a typescript of the extracts of his notebook that he was willing to divulge to the Tribunal.
5.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
5.1.1 Soldier A
Mr Thompson described Soldier A as a man who had been very reluctant to talk with Channel 4, as he still felt that his life was under threat from paramilitaries and former members of the British Army. However, Soldier A was very keen to tell a different version from what had passed as the official version of Bloody Sunday, namely that only the Parachute Regiment had been involved in the shootings.
5.1.1.1 Interview with Soldier A
Mr Ferguson’s notes appeared to support those made by Lena Ferguson during the interview, and mentioned, for example the five shots fired by a sniper by the Walls and Soldier A’s uncertainty as to who fired first.
5.1.1.2 Visit to Derry with Soldier A
Mr Ferguson was not entirely sure of Soldier A’s location on Bloody Sunday, as the soldier had been unsure, but thought that he had indicated that he had been near the buildings immediately to the West of the Walker Monument, as opposed to those to the extreme West of the Walls, where Ms Ferguson believed the sniper to have been.
5.2 questions on behalf of the soldiers
5.2.1 Impetus for the Channel 4 News programmes
Mr Thompson said that, to the best of his belief, he had contacted Jane Winter at British Irish Rights Watch, following a ‘tip-off’ from her received by his colleague, Jon Snow. She had indicated to him the large number of eye-witness statements which had been dismissed as uninteresting by Lord Widgery, supplied in the body of Don Mullan’s book Eye-Witness Bloody Sunday. He had then got in contact with Mr Mullan directly.
5.2.2 Soldier 126
In one of the broadcasts, Mr Thompson read part of the statement of Soldier 126 who provided a statement to the Widgery Inquiry, in which he said he had heard an army sniper fire three rounds from the attic of a derelict house outside the city Walls. It would appear that Mr Thompson erroneously identified him as being from the Royal Anglian Regiment, as opposed to the 22 Light Air Defence Regiment.
Soldier 126 also said in his statement that he had heard the sound of automatic fire, which sounded a Thompson sub-machine gun, from the direction of the flats, and that, approximately 10 minutes later, two further shots had been fired in his direction.
Mr Thompson told the Inquiry that Soldier A had been unable to clarify whether this was the same sniper he himself had heard, or whether it was another one.
5.2.3 Shootings at the rubble barricade
Mr Ferguson did not agree that the rubble barricade would not have been visible from the derelict house that Soldier A had identified as being the sniper’s probable location. He also denied the suggestion that the programme affirmed that those shot at the barricade had definitely been shot from the Walls.
5.2.4 Firing from the Walls
Channel 4 broadcast a portion of James Porter’s recordings of army transmissions on Bloody Sunday in which they identified a number of calls made reporting shooting from the Walls.
It was pointed out to Mr Thompson that they had erroneously identified Lieutenant Colonel Walsh as having informed officers of firing from the Walls. Mr Thompson responded that the identity of the caller was not of importance; the importance of the transmission resided not in the person making the call but in the content of the call itself, confirming firing from the Walls.
5.2.5 Forensic audio expert
The news broadcasts refer to a forensic audio report of Fulvio Grimaldi’s tape which identified sustained outbursts of gunfire at the crowd. Mr Ferguson could no longer recall the name of the expert in question, although the Inquiry has received a statement from Simon Heyworth, sound engineer, indicating that he was the expert in question.
5.2.6 Rebuke
Mr Thompson concluded his evidence by chiding Mr Glasgow on his ‘unfair and frankly disgraceful’ questioning of Lena Ferguson. He said that he had been very surprised that she had been put through such an experience at a Tribunal which is supposed to be non-adversarial.
6. Vincent browne’s evidence
At the time of Bloody Sunday, Mr Browne was Northern News Editor for the Irish Press group of newspapers, based in Belfast. Following a call from Bernadette Devlin on the evening of Bloody Sunday, he drove to Derry and spent the next week writing about the events for the group of newspapers.
6.1 questions on behalf of the Tribunal
6.1.1 Bernadette Devlin
Mr Browne did not know Bernadette Devlin very well at the time of Bloody Sunday, but had become acquainted with her through his work as a journalist. He was his belief that she had called him for some other purpose, perhaps to get a telephone number, rather than to tell him about he events of Bloody Sunday. She did not ask him to go to Derry, nor did she direct him on how the press should cover the story.
6.1.2 Irish Press article of 31st January 1972
Mr Browne was asked questions regarding an article he wrote for the Irish Press. In the article, Mr Browne wrote that an OIRA member had fired one shot from a .38 revolver after seeing two men gunned down by soldiers. The story continued to say that the PIRA had pulled the man away.
Mr Browne told the Inquiry that he no longer had any recollection of the article, of the sources he used or of his research methodology, going so far as to say that if his name had not been on the article he would have believed he had been reading it for the first time when he had been shown it by the Inquiry solicitors.
He assumed that he must have met with sources in the IRA, and added that one of those might have been Sean Keenan senior. He also said that he would almost certainly have spoken to his colleague, Kieran Gill and Eamonn McCann in order to establish contacts.
6.1.3 Irish Press article or 1st February 1972
This article deals with an account of events by Fulvio Grimaldi and cites a PIRA member as saying that the PIRA had not fired until the day’s events were over. Although it does not bear Mr Browne’s name, he was asked whether he might have contributed to it or could shed any light on it, since Kieran Gill, in his statement to the Inquiry, identified some of the phraseology used as resembling Mr Browne’s.
Mr Browne said that he had no recollection of anybody he spoke to throughout the course of his investigations in Derry, whether from the PIRA, OIRA or any other organisation.
6.1.4 Collaboration with The Sunday Times
Mr Browne shared information with members of the Sunday Insight Team and contributed to their articles on the topic of Bloody Sunday.
6.1.5 Sunday Press article of 6th February
The printed version of this story contains a Sunday Times Insight Team map. Mr Browne told the Inquiry that this would have been added by a sub-editor, and that he would not necessarily have seen the map himself prior to publication.
The article itself describes the events of Bloody Sunday as part of an ‘ingenious and cold-blooded plan to flush out the IRA in the area and inflict a deadly blow on its organisation and strength’. It went on to say that the plan had been approved by the Joint Security Council at Stormont and stated that this interpretation had been substantiated by an ‘unattributable interview with an officer of the Parachute Regiment’. It was Mr Browne’s belief that a member of the Sunday Times Insight Team had conducted the interview with the officer in question and he could not assist in attempting to identify the officer in question.
Once again, Mr Browne said that he would have not recognised the article as his if it had not borne his name and added that his only recollection was of actually writing it in a hotel in Newry. He told the Inquiry that his faulty recollection was not contrived for the purpose of having to avoid identifying his sources.
6.1.6 Medical sources
Mr Browne remembered going out to Altnagelvin Hospital and presumed that he had gone there to interview doctors, however he could not recall the specifics of those interviews. He had a vague recollection of seeing some autopsy reports. He could not remember whether his stated belief that the autopsy reports did not substantiate the army’s version of events stemmed from his own interpretation of the autopsy reports or from the conversations he had had with doctors.
6.1.7 Politics of the Sunday Press
Mr Browne was shown an intelligence summary prepared by the British Army on 27th January 1972 in which it mentions the ‘Dublin Republican-aligned Sunday Press’. Mr Browne was asked whether this was a fair description of the newspaper. He responded that the paper was Fianna Fáil aligned newspaper and that there would have been different attitudes towards republicans in the paper at the time.
With regard to his own political viewpoint, Mr Browne said that when he first went to Northern Ireland in 1970 he had gone with prejudice against the republicans, as he had not previously encountered the phenomenon of authorities lying to the press. However, having personally witnessed events which were later grossly misrepresented by the British Army press office and by the Stormont and British Governments, he distanced himself from his former beliefs and formed a different opinion of republicans.
6.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
6.2.1 Role as Northern News Editor for the Irish Press
Mr Browne told the Inquiry that he did not collate the information received by all of the reporters working for the paper in Northern Ireland, and said that Kieran Gill, for example, would have phoned his material directly to Dublin.
6.2.2 Irish Press article of 6th February 1972
In this article, Mr Browne described an OIRA member firing a shot on Bloody Sunday. He agreed with Counsel’s statement that, however unpalatable it might have been in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, he had been quite prepared to publish incidents of established IRA gunfire, and also agreed that this was the only incidence of such fire upon which he reported. He said that if he had had other information at the time, he would have published it.
The same article reported on what it called a ‘bizarre story’ relating to the alleged finding of nail-bombs on Gerald Donaghy. It was put to Mr Browne that, seeing as he had published information concerning this story, however bizarre or untruthful it might have appeared, he would equally have published any ‘bizarre’ information he might have heard about the shooting of Alexander Nash (this was a reference to Kieran Gill’s statement to the Inquiry in which he said that he had spoken to a civilian gunman who had shot a revolver from the Rossville Flats, injuring Alex Nash). Mr Browne said that he had no recollection of ever hearing the story concerning Mr Nash, but that he would have included it in his article had he heard it at the time.
6.3 questions on behalf of the soldiers
6.3.1 IRA weapons
Mr Browne was asked whether he had any recollection of being told by contacts that IRA guns had not been withdrawn from the Bogside in order to avoid violence there, but to effectively prepare for resistance elsewhere. He said that he could not recall ever hearing such a story.
6.3.2 Information from the IRA
Mr Browne said that the OIRA and PIRA were in heated competition with one another at the time of Bloody Sunday, and that this might explain why the PIRA were prepared to give information about OIRA activities and vice versa. He could not recall any specific incident leading to the two wings being particularly at loggerheads in the lead up to Bloody Sunday, and had no recollection of an incident which happened a few weeks before Bloody Sunday when a British soldier had been captured by the OIRA and let go against the wishes of the PIRA.
6.3.3 Sunday Press article of 6th February
Once again, Mr Browne reiterated that he could not recall any of the sources he had used in researching the Sunday Press article. He said that he had a recollection of writing the article in a hotel in Newry, under extreme time pressures, and that Kieran Gill might have read over some of the copy whilst he was continuing to write the rest of the article. He said that it was quite possible that Mr Gill might have added or subtracted from the article, or that he himself might have made some alterations based on Mr Gill’s suggestions.
However, he added that, were Mr Gill to say that he did not read his article in Newry, then he would accept that his own memory was faulty.
6.3.4 Thomas Melarkey
Mr Melarkey has provided a statement to the Inquiry in which he describes meeting with Mr Browne and preparing a written account of his experiences of Bloody Sunday, which described hearing a number of gunshots and bursts from a Thompson machine gun. Mr Browne had no recollection of speaking with Mr Melarkey, or of receiving a written account from him.
6.3.5 Alexander Nash
Mr Elias, rebutting what Counsel for the families had previously suggested, told Mr Browne that the theory concerning the shooting of Alexander Nash by a civilian had not been formed by Kieran Gill until after 11th February, and therefore could not have been included in Mr Browne’s article of 6th February. However, despite that clarification, Mr Browne repeated that he had no recollection of hearing the theory, although added that if Mr Gill was to tell the Inquiry that he had told him, then he would accept that as true.
6.3.6 Contacts within the IRA
Mr Browne said that he could no longer recall the names of any members of the PIRA or OIRA with whom he might have had contact in the early 1970s. One name did come to his mind, but he said that it would be as useful to the Inquiry as pub talk.
7. kieran gill’s evidence
Mr Gill was a journalist with the Irish Press group of newspapers at the time of Bloody Sunday and covered the march on their behalf. He is a native of Derry. His evidence covered both his eyewitness account of the day’s events and his subsequent journalistic enquiries into the events.
7.1 questions on behalf of the inquiry
7.1.1 IRA arms
Before the march began, Mr Gill parked his car near Central Drive in the Creggan where he saw four men loading weapons into a blue estate car, one of whom he recognised as a member of the Derry City Brigade of the PIRA. He enquired as to their intentions and was told that they had orders to remove any weapons from the vicinity of the march and to take them to a safe place. The car drove off a few minutes later. He told the Inquiry that he had not seen the man he had recognised ever again.
7.1.2 Martin McGuinness
In a book entitled Hidden Truths—Bloody Sunday 1972, Mr Gilles Peress describes seeing Martin McGuinness in the Creggan, speaking to people at the assembly point of the march. Although he was in the vicinity, Mr Gill did not see Martin McGuinness, whom he believed to have been head of the PIRA in Derry.
7.1.3 Rumour of shot fired in Glenfada Park
Whilst standing in Eden Place, prior to the troops’ entry into the Bogside, Mr Gill had heard a shot. He then heard a rumour of a shot having been fired from Glenfada Park and of an ensuing altercation between PIRA and OIRA members. He had gone to investigate and had eavesdropped on some civilians talking in the street and had overheard that it was an OIRA member who had fired one shot from a rifle, and that an angry PIRA member had confronted the sniper and had told him to remove himself as there were to be no attacks on the army that day.
He did not include this in the article he wrote for the Irish Press that evening because, by that stage, 27 people had been shot and 13 of them were dead: this had superseded the other story.
7.1.4 Contact with the IRA
Mr Gill said that he had no contact with any members of the IRA on Bloody Sunday and could not have supplied any information concerning such interviews to Vincent Browne.
7.1.5 Rubble barricade
Mr Gill left Glenfada Park and went to stand on the rubble barricade from where he had a good view of the confrontation in William Street. There were approximately six to twelve people standing on the barricade and about 100 people in the immediate area, in front of and behind the barricade, all merely standing watching the action.
He described the atmosphere as being that of a typical afternoon in Derry: there was a confrontation taking place at the end of the street and people, out of interest, were looking at it. He did not see anyone with weapons of any kind. Nobody was holding stones or sticks.
7.1.6 Arrival of the army in Rossville Street
As he stood on the barricade, armoured vehicles arrived in Rossville Street and troops began taking up positions in Kells Walk. As he turned his back to leave, he heard a volley of live shots and felt a bullet going past him and receding into the distance. It was his belief that the bullet had been aimed at him as it passed through the area where he had been standing, less than a yard from his head. All the firing was coming from the same direction.
7.1.7 Young man shot
At the same time as he heard the bullet whiz past his head, he heard a thud and, from the corner of his eye, saw a young man topple over from the barricade, falling in the direction of Free Derry Corner. It was his belief that the thud was the sound of the bullet hitting him rather than of his body hitting the floor, as the young man had still been falling when he had seen him.
He described the young man as being in his late teens and thought that he had been wearing dark clothes. He had nothing in his hands. Mr Gill never learned his name.
7.1.8 Rossville Flats
Mr Gill ran for cover into the doorway of the Rossville Flats. However, there were 50 to 60 other people crowding in the doorway, trying to take shelter, so he ran on. He heard a girl shouting that there was shooting from the Walls, so he decided to make his way to St Columb’s Wells. Throughout this time, the firing continued, coming from the direction of Rossville Street.
7.1.9 Wounded people
Whilst in the area of St Columb’s Wells, he saw a teenager being carried by several men. One of them was shouting to people to find a car to take him to the hospital. He heard someone saying that he had been wounded in the leg.
Another young man was then brought into the street by two or three men who were shouting at people to help them. There was sustained gunfire at the time. He walked over and supported this young man as he was manoeuvred into a car which subsequently drove off. The young man was wearing jeans and a dark jumper. He saw no sign of a weapon of any description. The young man appeared to be unconscious, although he did not see any visible wound.
He subsequently saw one further person being put into a car in the area, bringing the total to three. However, in his contemporaneous article, Mr Gill wrote that he had seen five people being put into cars and would stand by his original story. He told the Inquiry that some of the five might not have been wounded by gunfire. In fact, he had only seen visible injuries on the first young man.
8. Disclosure of journalistic sources
8.1 Background
In September 1999, the Tribunal heard an application by ITN (owners of Channel 4 News) that the Tribunal should set aside a witness summons issued in August 1999 requiring them to produce written and video records of interviews conducted for the purpose of the Channel 4 News broadcasts concerning Bloody Sunday.
On 12th October 1999, the Tribunal ruled that the identity of the five soldiers interviewed by Channel 4 was of such predominating importance that, in the interests of justice, it should be revealed by ITN if it could not be made available by other means (e.g., through the soldiers coming forward and identifying themselves to the Inquiry, given the ruling on anonymity, or through other military statements which might have identified the soldiers in question). Lord Saville delayed making a disclosure order until all military statements had been received.
Lena Ferguson and Alex Thompson approached Soldiers A, B and D concerning the disclosure request, but the soldiers in question were unprepared to release the journalists from their confidentiality undertakings. However, Soldier B subsequently came forward to identify himself to the Inquiry as Soldier 027 and to release the journalists from their promise of confidentiality.
Mr Clarke underscored the importance of the soldiers’ evidence, but said that, without more detail and examination, it was of very limited utility. He said that there was little chance of Soldiers A, C, D and E coming forward voluntarily and that the process of taking statements from the military was at an end and had not shed any further light on the matter.
8.2 Submissions on behalf of the Inquiry
Mr Clarke went through the skeleton argument submitted by ITN’s barrister, Mr Caldecott, responding to the points made.
8.2.1 Human Rights Act
Mr Clarke dismissed Mr Caldecott’s submission that the implementation of the Human Rights Act since the Tribunal’s last ruling on the matter altered the position by underscoring the cardinal importance of freedom of expression. He said that, even prior to the introduction of the act, the Tribunal had dealt with the matter in a manner compatible with article 10 of the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights).
8.2.2 Governmental misfeasance
Mr Clarke also dismissed the argument that, as a paradigm case involving governmental misfeasance, the source should not be disclosed lest the ‘chilling effect’ of disclosure, referred to in some of the European authorities, take effect. He took the view that the soldiers’ evidence did not actually show governmental misfeasance. He also said that the fact that the material in question had contributed to the establishment of the Inquiry did not militate in favour of the preservation of confidentiality, as the programmes had not been the sole factor leading to the establishment of the Saville Inquiry.
8.2.3 Public interest
Mr Clarke argued that it was in the public interest to divulge the identity of the sources so that the whole truth be made available for examination.
He said that Section 10 of the ECHR required each case of disclosure to be looked at on its facts. It was therefore not possible to argue that an order of disclosure in this case would automatically set the ball rolling for disclosure in all future cases of a similar nature.
8.2.4 Alternative method of source disclosure
Mr Clarke argued that the submission that the disclosure order should not be made until after the Tribunal had heard the military witnesses’ evidence was not realistic; he did not feel that any of the evidence given would be detailed enough so as to reveal the identity of Soldiers A, C, D or E.
8.3 Submissions on behalf of the families and wounded
Counsel for the families submitted that it was in the interests of justice for the Tribunal to seek disclosure of the journalists’ sources. Lord Gifford argued in particular that Soldier C’s evidence was of seminal importance, due to his role as marksman on Bloody Sunday and his witnessing of the killings of three civilians.
Lord Gifford also said that the moral responsibility for the present dilemma the Tribunal and the journalists were in rested on the soldiers themselves. He made an appeal to the soldiers to not stop at doing ‘half their duty’ and to come forward to aid the search for truth and justice.
Counsel disagreed with Lord Saville’s statement that the information in its current state (i.e. redacted notes and concealed identities) was of little value to the Inquiry. Mr Macdonald submitted, that, even in its current state, the information was of considerable value to the Tribunal in establishing the truth of the events of Bloody Sunday.
8.4 Submissions on behalf of the soldiers
Mr Glasgow also supported the disclosure of sources, drawing particular attention to the relevance of Soldier D, and Mr Elias underscored the importance of Soldier E who seemed, from Ms Ferguson’s notes, to be adopting a ‘middle of the road’ approach to the events of Bloody Sunday.
8.5 submissions on behalf of itn
8.5.1 The ‘chilling effect’
Mr Caldecott submitted that the Tribunal had failed to properly address the significance of the potential effect of a disclosure order. He argued that the Tribunal only assessed the chilling effect in terms of the activities of the journalists in question and did not weigh the evidence provided by ITN as to the chilling effect of such an order on the media in general and particularly in relation to journalism in Northern Ireland.
He submitted that the Tribunal had not paid enough regard to the fundamental role of the media in a modern democracy in exposing state wrongdoing, and said that it was usually investigations by the media which led to formal or legal investigations into such wrongdoing. It was his submission that, the greater the importance of the information divulged, the greater the need to protect the sources.
8.5.2 Contribution of Channel 4 News broadcasts to setting up of Inquiry
Mr Caldecott submitted that the Tribunal had only assessed the fact that the broadcasts had contributed to the establishment of the Inquiry as a factor in favour of disclosure. He argued that this fact was equally a factor which underscored the critical importance of not ‘chilling’ the free flow of such information to the media in the future.
Mr Caldecott said that the sources would not have come forward had they not received the journalists’ guarantee of confidentiality. He argued that, should the journalists be made to reveal their sources, the chilling effect would have the effect of stifling the media from mentioning material in the first place, thereby effectively stifling the inquirial form of investigation to which that material could have contributed.
8.3.3 Article 2 of the Human Rights Act: procedural rights
Mr Caldecott submitted that, if there is a duty on public authorities to investigate suspicious deaths which are state-related, it must follow that public authorities must not stifle information which is liable to lead to such cases.
8.6 Tribunal’s ruling
Section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act (1981) sets out that a person cannot be forced to disclose a source unless “disclosure is necessary in the interests of justice…”. Lord Saville stated that the interests of justice were engaged in this case and that, therefore, disclosure to the Inquiry was necessary and proportionate in order to achieve justice and that the need for disclosure outweighed the protection of journalistic sources.
Furthermore, he said that the Tribunal had a statutory duty to carry out a full and proper inquiry under Article 2 of the ECHR, and that it was evident that all of the soldiers had given accounts which the Inquiry needed to investigate fully, an investigation that was being thwarted by the non-disclosure of the soldiers’ identities.
Lord Saville said that the objections to revealing the identities of the four soldiers paid insufficient regard to the unique nature of the Inquiry and its status as the only ever second inquiry ordered by Parliament into a given event. Furthermore, the soldiers have the benefit of anonymity and of giving their evidence in London, so in fact the journalists were not being asked to divulge the identity of their sources to the public at large, but merely to the Inquiry. He said that, due to these unique circumstances, any order concerning the disclosure of sources could not have the devastating effect on future disclosure of wrongdoing as suggested by ITN’s legal team.
Lord Saville ordered Lena Ferguson and Alex Thompson to identify the soldiers to the Inquiry and to produce all relevant material in their possession. Both journalists were recalled and refused to comply with the order, due to their undertaking to their sources. They explained their desire to help the Tribunal in every way possible, but felt that they could not, in conscience, go back on the promise of confidentiality that they had made. Lord Saville therefore referred the matter to the High Court for contempt proceedings.
SUMMARY
OF PROCEEDINGS
Monday 29th April: Paragraphs 1 and 2
Tuesday 30th April: Paragraphs 3, 4 and 8
Wednesday 1st May: Paragraphs 4 and 5
Thursday 2nd May: Paragraphs 6, 7 and 8
(Paragraph 4 represents a summary of Lena Ferguson’s evidence, heard over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday; paragraph 8 represents a summary of the submissions made on Tuesday and Thursday regarding the disclosure of sources).
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
