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16 - 19 SEPTEMBER 2002
SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE
This week, the Tribunal heard the evidence of John Goddard and Tony Stark, two members of the Praxis team who were responsible for the documentary ‘Secret History: Bloody Sunday’, commissioned by Channel 4 for the 20th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. David Mills gave evidence concerning his research into the 1972 BBC 24 Hours programme regarding Bloody Sunday.
Colin Wallace told the Tribunal that he was involved in Psychological Operations as part of the army’s Information Policy Unit at the time of Bloody Sunday and that he was aware of no specific intelligence in the lead up to the day to suggest that the IRA would take advantage of the march to attack the security forces. He will continue his evidence in London in Week 66 when the Tribunal reconvenes in Westminster Central Hall.
OTHER ISSUES
Lord Saville granted the application made on behalf of Sir Edward Heath, Lord Carrington and Sir Geoffrey Johnson-Smith for their evidence to be heard in London.
A full transcript of the proceedings is available at http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk.
1. John goddard’s evidence
Mr Goddard has worked as a documentary film-maker since 1983 and has made approximately 100 films to date, including a film made for the 20th anniversary of Bloody Sunday entitled ‘Secret History: Bloody Sunday’ which was commissioned by Channel 4 from Mr Goddard’s firm, Praxis Films Limited.
1.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
1.1.1 Film team
The team responsible for making the documentary included Mr Goddard (producer), Tony Starke (director), Tony Cook and Neil Davies. The latter was employed as a researcher due to his background in the Parachute Regiment, having served in Aden with the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment. Praxis also employed two researchers in Derry who were responsible for research on the ground, whose names have not been disclosed to the Tribunal due to the pledge of confidentiality given to them by Mr Goddard at the time.
1.1.2 Research methodology
Mr Goddard told the Tribunal that the Praxis team had begun researching the project before it was commissioned by Channel 4 by reading literature on the topic and speaking with historians and journalists (including Simon Winchester from the Guardian, Philip Knightly and members of the Sunday Times Insight Team). He had also made contact with what he called the ‘umbrella group for the families’ and said that it became known that the families approved their project, facilitating their interviews with witnesses in Derry.
He said that they had initially made contact with approximately 10 or 20 people in Derry whom they identified primarily through the Widgery transcripts and had informal talks with them concerning their experiences on the day. Once the programme had been commissioned by Channel 4, the research and development process for the documentary took from approximately February to August 1991, during which time Mr Goddard and his colleagues interviewed over 200 people, including policemen, priests, Dr McClean and local people who were either witnesses to the events of Bloody Sunday or who could provide information concerning the day.
He said that the two policemen in question had called his team and had told them that they felt that the march had been badly dealt with and that, left alone, it would have gone off peacefully. He explained the absence of notes relating to these telephone calls by saying that they would possibly only have amounted to a scribbled note and might have been binned as irrelevant, given the fact that the police officers did not want to meet the team or provide any more in-depth information. He said that the possibility that the phone calls were only hoaxes was also raised.
1.1.3. Confidentiality undertaking
Mr Goddard said that he and Mr Stark had given an undertaking of confidentiality to all of the soldiers interviewed, adding that Neil Davies would have been the only member of the Praxis team to have formally known the soldiers’ full names and addresses. However, he acknowledged that he himself had come to find out the majority of the soldiers’ names through the interview process.
The Praxis team also gave assurances of confidentiality to a number of other witnesses, including three Official IRA contacts and four Provisional IRA members.
1.1.4 Destruction of Praxis materials
Mr Goddard told the Tribunal that the Praxis team had destroyed the bulk of the production materials relating to the documentary in 1997 or 1998, due to a lack of storage space. He was adamant that the materials had been destroyed prior to the company’s receiving a letter from the Inquiry asking for disclosure of their materials.
1.1.5 Interviews with soldiers
The Praxis team conducted interviews with approximately 24 soldiers. Those located by Neil Davies were interviewed twice. The first interview, conducted by Mr Davies was very informal and was followed up by a more formal interview with Mr Goddard and / or Mr Stark.
Mr Goddard told the Inquiry that the Praxis team had sought assistance from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Parachute Regiment and the Secretary of State in contacting and identifying soldiers who had served on Bloody Sunday. However, due to their refusal to assist, the team had to rely on less formal methods of verifying the identity of the soldiers. He explained that Neil Davies knew a number of the soldiers and would have been able to confirm that they were in the relevant platoon of the Parachute Regiment. He said that they had also asked the soldiers for their warrant card or identity card which they had then attempted to match against a regimental photograph of the Parachute Regiment taken from that period.
He added that it was often clear, once they began the interviews, whether or not somebody had been there on the day, through the ease at which they recalled names of streets, places and the events of the day. He confirmed that there was no case in which the team had established that they had been told blatant untruths.
1.1.6 Individual interviews with soldiers
Counsel for the Tribunal took Mr Goddard through a number of the interview transcripts made by him and his colleagues during the making of the programme, asking for further clarification where necessary. The Tribunal has succeeded in identifying a number of the soldiers interviewed and their cipher has been provided where available: ciphers INQ represent a positive identification whereas those beginning with UKN indicate a partial identification.
1.1.6.1 Soldier INQ23: David Longstaff
Although Mr Goddard did not interview David Longstaff (one of the few soldiers who has not requested anonymity from the current Inquiry), the soldier’s name cropped up in interviews conducted with other members of the Parachute Regiment. He said that he had been told by one former Para that Mr Longstaff had had shot dead three people in Glenfada Park and that two further soldiers had corroborated this account, attributing four shootings to him.
1.1.6.2 Soldier UNK23 / INQ1413
The Tribunal is in possession of two documents which Mr Goddard believed related to UNK23, despite major discrepancies between the two documents: in the notes taken from the first, informal interview conducted by Mr Davies, the interviewee describes the events of Bloody Sunday, whereas in the transcript of the more formal interview UNK23 denies having been in Derry on the day. It was Mr Goddard’s belief that UNK23, like some other soldiers, had been truthful with their former colleague Mr Davies but that something had then happened prior to the second interview which had caused him to change his story.
The transcript of the first interview records UNK23’s recollection of Bloody Sunday. The transcript notes that the Paras had no formal briefing prior to being sent in to conduct the scoop-up operation and that they had all been psyched up beforehand. UNK23 is recorded as having said that they had been expecting snipers in the Rossville Flats and that, once in the car park, Officer O had fired a warning shot into the flats which had been followed by rifle fire which seemed to come from the city Walls. He continued: “Well, shit hit the fan then… The lads started firing. Letting loose, people were running, screaming—our guns going off. Shadows became targets. At first it was possibly put some fire into the flats, scare anybody with a gun. Then they started shooting at the barricades—they only had bricks, didn’t they. Nobody stopped to check. The platoon cracked, really—atmosphere electric—some of them were seeing targets everywhere. Fucking officer—he’d fired—fucking prat—as if we were going to say, oh, only a warning shot. Set everybody off, didn’t it. Also it wasn’t hard to believe gunmen up there. Well, who is going to say that weren’t. That there were no gunmen up in the flats. This was the Bogside—there were gunmen there since 1969… Bloody hell, man, some of those guys even fired from the hip—bloody cowboy attitude… Lost our dignity over that.”
The transcript then records UNK23 as having said that the Paras got their stories together before speaking to the Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police (RMP). UNK23 also allegedly told Mr Davies that Widgery was a ‘show job’ and that senior officers had told everybody to keep quiet about what had gone on.
Mr Goddard reiterated his belief that the soldier had been present on Bloody Sunday and said that another interviewee, soldier INQ1421, had confirmed this to him
1.1.6.3 Sergeant O
Mr Goddard both interviewed Sergeant O (who has waived his right to confidentiality) and discussed the soldier with other interviewees. He wrote in his statement that Sergeant O’s colleagues did not regard him as a particularly courageous soldier although he had been the one who stood in the open on Bloody Sunday firing his gun. Mr Goddard explained that, since the other soldiers had indicated that this was not Sergeant O’s usual way of operating, he had concluded that there had not been much return fire on the day.
1.1.6.4 Soldier INQ1884
Mr Goddard also interviewed INQ1884 who was a corporal in the Second Battalion of the Royal Green Jackets and was present on Bloody Sunday. He said that he had been a bit nervous about the reliability of the interview as the Green Jackets had not been as close to the events as INQ1884 had maintained.
INQ1884 told him that evidence taken from soldiers involved in Bloody had been falsified by the SIB, in that they had been conditioned as to what to say before the Widgery Tribunal. Mr Goddard alleged that INQ1884 told him that the younger soldiers who had done the shooting had not been put forward to give evidence, but rather older soldiers claimed more rounds than they had actually fired in order to protect the younger soldiers from the pressures of cross-examination.
INQ1884 also allegedly told him that the Paras had used far too much ammunition on the day, drawing from their own private collections of ammunition. The soldier said that he would imagine that the radio broadcasts would have picked up on this, as dispensing a magazine of 20 rounds in a few seconds would have sounded like a machine-gun.
1.1.6.5 Soldier 019
Mr Goddard did not think that he had personally interviewed Soldier 019, but recalled having listened to the taped interview of the soldier conducted by Neil Davies. He said that he recalled having been moved by the soldier’s testimony, as the man had appeared very upset. It had appeared to him that the soldier had a loyalty to his colleagues but believed that some of them had done wrong, and was therefore torn between a desire to talk and a desire to protect them on the other hand.
1.1.6.6 Soldier from Mortar Platoon
It was Mr Goddard’s recollection that this soldier had been in the second vehicle that entered the waste ground near the Rossville Flats. He said that the soldier had described the officer in charge firing a warning shot against the rules. Mr Goddard said that the soldier had told him that other soldiers then began shouting about targets and shooting, but that the soldier in question had not fired as he did not have a gun and had been unable to see any gunmen or nail bombers.
He recalled the soldier as having said that the Parachute Regiment was like a family and that if soldiers did break the rules, others would cover it up. He said that the soldier had hinted that two soldiers within the platoon had been ostracised or physically punished by their colleagues for not performing on Bloody Sunday and for breaking the code of silence on the matter.
The soldier also allegedly told him that the Paras were cutting edge soldiers rather than policemen and that they were trained to respond as soldiers to a dangerous situation. Therefore, the soldier continued, in putting Paras in a situation where danger was anticipated, it would have been known that they would open fire.
1.1.6.7 SAS soldier
Mr Goddard also interviewed a man who claimed to have been present on Bloody Sunday as part of a group of SAS men who were dressed as members of the Parachute Regiment. The man claimed that his group had engaged in a gun battle with members of the IRA near the Presbyterian Church, which had resulted in one IRA death. He said that the man’s body had been taken away by the army. The man also alleged that the army had shot dead four other presumed IRA men on the day but that their bodies had been taken away and hidden.
The man had gone on to claim that he had been involved in an undercover operation on 31st January 1972, the day after Bloody Sunday, during which his group discovered an army rifle dumped in one of the dustbins in the Rossville Flats and that he had subsequently joined an operation to recover weapons used by the IRA on Bloody Sunday which had led to a gun battle on the border, during the course of which four men were killed and five weapons recovered.
Mr Goddard said that he and his team had checked newspapers from the time of Bloody Sunday and had checked for missing people during the period but that they had found no evidence to corroborate the man’s claims. However, he said that they had not dismissed him out of hand, due to his knowledge of army life, the Yellow Card and the use of extra ammunition.
1.1.6.8 Soldier given cipher 037 by Praxis team
This transcript of the interviews with this soldier record him as claiming that it was common practice to use extra ammunition: “every time you fired you had to go in front of an SIB. If you have buckshee rounds you do not have to go in front of SIB, do you, because you never fired, did you?” The soldier also allegedly recounted an incident in which he had fired 17 bullets at a gunman for fun, for getting rid of frustration and in order to gauge how good a grouping he got with multiple rounds.
1.1.6.9 Further interview with soldier
Mr Goddard also interviewed a soldier who said that he was not present on Bloody Sunday but who told him that the disregard for the Yellow Card, extra ammunition, the doctoring of ammunition, planting ammunition and evidence and the smearing of evidence for forensics were all common practice around the time of Bloody Sunday. The soldier in question also allegedly told him that soldiers covered each other with their stories and got their stories straight, usually on the way back to base after an incident. Mr Goddard said that he had never been sure as to whether the soldier had been telling the truth when he said he was not present on the day. He had also doubted the soldier’s general credibility.
1.1.7 Offer to buy photographs of Father Daly’s gunman
Mr Goddard told the Inquiry that very early in the research process, he had received a call in his hotel room asking him to meet two men who had six photographs of Father Daly’s gunman and were willing to sell them at a price. It was his recollection that these two men (whom he believed to have been ordinary civilians) had identified Father Daly’s gunman to him but that they had merely been interested in a commercial transaction rather than providing information. Mr Goddard said that he had only offered a minimal sum for the photographs, a decision he later came to regret as he had never heard back from the two men.
He said that the first two photographs in the series of six actually showed the gunman firing his gun at the soldiers around the wall.
1.1.8 Interview with Martin McGuinness
Mr Goddard and Tony Stark also interviewed Martin McGuinness for the purposes of their documentary. He told the Inquiry that Mr McGuinness had corroborated evidence given by civilians and people such as Ivan Cooper, in that he maintained that both wings of the IRA had given undertakings not to be present on the march and that there had been no Provisional IRA (PIRA) weapons in the Bogside on the day. Mr Goddard also recalled Martin McGuinness telling him that he had not been in overall charge of the IRA on Bloody Sunday and that he had not been a member of the organisation at that time.
1.1.9 Interview with members of the Official IRA (OIRA)
Mr Goddard said that he and Tony Stark had conducted interviews with a man claiming to have been head of the OIRA at the time of Bloody Sunday and with two other senior figures within the organisation. It was his recollection that the OIRA men had got in contact with him and with Mr Stark and that their identities had been verified by one of the team’s researchers who was a local man. He said that all three men had denied that Father Daly’s gunman was a member of the OIRA.
1.1.10 Interview with the Kivelhan family
Mr Goddard also interviewed a number of members of the Kivelhan family, including Michael Kivelhan whom he described as being in his mid-40s. They had told him that a gun or guns had been brought into their flat and had been promptly dismantled. Based on this story and other sightings of weapons, Mr Goddard had speculated that the gun had first been used by Father Daly’s gunman, had then been taken to the rubble barricade, before being brought into Glenfada Park and into the Kivelhans’ home.
1.1.11 Interview with Danny McGowan
The transcript to the interview of Danny McGowan, one of the Bloody Sunday wounded, recorded that Mr McGowan had seen Father Daly’s gunman firing towards the Paratroopers. Although, in his evidence to the Tribunal, Mr McGowan said that he had seen the gunman but had not seen him fire and that there were a number of other inaccuracies in the transcript, Mr Goddard stood by the accuracy of the transcript note.
1.1.12 Differences of opinion between Mr Goddard and Mr Stark
Mr Goddard said that there were some fundamental differences in opinion between him and Mr Stark over their respective interpretations of the events of Bloody Sunday. He said that Mr Stark was of the opinion that it was highly unlikely that the army had done anything wrong, placing the blame on paramilitaries for having sparked off the shooting, whereas it was his own position that the soldiers might have been hyped up and that the wrong regiment had been sent in to conduct the operation. However, Mr Goddard added that he had never found any evidence of a conspiracy on the army’s part.
1.2 questions on behalf of the soldiers
1.2.1 Interview methodology
Mr Goddard agreed with Counsel that the initial interviews with soldiers conducted by Neil Davies could be interpreted as either less plausible than the formal interviews, due to a tendency towards army banter and the desire to tell tall stories, or more plausible, due to the ease at which the soldiers would have felt with a former colleague.
He also confirmed that, to the best of his recollection, only the second, more formal interviews were taped. These had then been transcribed by a person whom he personally trusted who would not have edited any portion of the tape.
He said that, to the best of his recollection, of 24 soldiers interviewed, only two were seriously critical of the Paras’ actions on Bloody Sunday.
1.2.2 Interview with soldier given the cipher 020 by the Praxis team
Soldier 020 told Mr Goddard that nobody had bragged or gloated about their actions on Bloody Sunday and that he had spoken with some soldiers from Support Company who all said that there was no doubt that they had come under fire first.
1.2.3 Sergeant O
Despite Sergeant O’s recollection that he had in someway been tricked by the Praxis team into participating in a programme about Bloody Sunday, it was Mr Goddard’s evidence that the team had informed the sergeant that they were interested in his experiences in Aden, on Bloody Sunday and in Parachute Regiment training. He said that Sergeant O was the first soldier interviewed by the team and that, at that stage, Praxis had not yet signed any contract for the film regarding Bloody Sunday, so they were equally interested in the three areas.
In his interview, Sergeant O said that it was difficult recollecting events from a distance as it became difficult to tell the difference between what really happened and fiction. Mr Goddard told the Tribunal that he did not think that the sergeant had any trouble in distinguishing myth from reality during the course of the interview.
Counsel took issue with Mr Goddard’s recollection that Sergeant O kept asking for the tape of the interview to be turned off (so that he could talk off the record). Mr Goddard said that he did not think that Sergeant O had asked for the tape to be switched off any more than other interviewees, and added that the absence of such requests from the transcript of the interview did not indicate that they had not been made. He said that there were many ways of indicating that the tape should be turned off without actually saying it, adding that Sergeant O was very media-savvy and would have been careful not to record any mention of the tape being switched off.
Counsel also took issue with Mr Goddard’s statement that Sergeant O’s colleagues “did not regard him as particularly courageous or ‘gung ho’, but he had apparently been the one who stood out there with bullets flying round him firing back. According to the other soldiers, this had not been his previous record”. Counsel drew his attention to the fact that none of the other interview transcripts record anybody saying that he had lacked courage in any way. Mr Goddard said that the statement had resulted from off the record conversations with two of Sergeant O’s colleagues who said that he was usually very careful in finding cover rather than standing out in the open and returning fire, and that they had found his actions on the day out of character.
Mr Goddard agreed with Counsel that some of Sergeant O’s colleagues had said that he had a reputation for conspicuous gallantry and said that he knew at the time that the sergeant had been decorated before Bloody Sunday.
1.2.4 Soldiers’ fears for their lives
Counsel suggested that the only three soldiers who had refused, on transcript, to provide the Praxis team with any detail regarding their actions or those of their colleagues on Bloody Sunday, were soldiers who said that they believed that people’s lives would be put at risk through discussing the detail. Mr Goddard said that this was possibly the case, but that he could not recall.
1.2.5 Role of the IRA on Bloody Sunday
The Praxis team came to the conclusion that there were a maximum of three IRA gunmen operating on Bloody Sunday, with Mr Goddard personally being of the opinion that there were fewer. He said that he had not agreed with Mr Stark’s conclusion that there were IRA gunmen firing from the Rossville Flats.
1.2.6 Interview with the Kivelhan family
Mr Goddard said that he believed that the interview with the family concerning the arrival of a gun in their home should have been redacted prior to the document being provided to the Tribunal, in line with the confidentiality pledge he had made to the family when conducting the interview. He clarified that he would not have chosen to redact the information concerning the gun, but rather would have anonymised his source.
He explained that, when the gun had arrived in the flat, people had been so terrified that they had broken it up and attempted to hide the pieces in the toilet and various other places. He reiterated that the family had had no knowledge of where the gun had been prior to its arrival in the flat, but that he himself had formed the hypothesis that it had started out with Father Daly’s gunman, had then been passed to the barricade where it had been spotted by the soldiers, prompting their shooting, and that it had then been moved to Glenfada Park where it had equally prompted the soldiers’ shooting, prior to arriving in the flat.
1.2.6 Interview with Danny McGowan
Mr Goddard reiterated that, contrary to Mr McGowan’s testimony to the Tribunal, the latter had told him that he had seen Father Daly’s gunman firing towards the troops and that this had slowed the Paras’ advance into the area. He agreed with Counsel that Mr McGowan must have been implying that the gunman had been either seen or heard by the advancing soldiers.
1.2.7 Interviews with members of the OIRA
Counsel read to Mr Goddard statements made to the Inquiry by a number of OIRA witnesses in which two former members admit to having fired on the day. The statements also mention the presence of a number of weapons in the area and the suggestion that one of their members had in fact been wounded by an army bullet. Mr Goddard confirmed that he had not been given this information and that the three OIRA members that he had interviewed in 1991 had told him that the OIRA was not involved in any armed activity on the day, that Father Daly’s gunman was not one of their members and that none of their members had been killed or wounded.
1.3 questions on behalf of five oira witnesses
1.3.1 Interviews with three OIRA members
Mr Goddard confirmed that the meetings with the three men were conducted in interview style, with the men responding solely to questions asked rather than adding any further information or issuing any statement. He said that all interviewees had made it clear that the OIRA had provided an undertaking to the organisers of the march that they would not be armed on Bloody Sunday. He also said that, whilst the Officer Commanding had denied any OIRA activity on the day, he had offered to look at the photograph of Father Daly’s gunman to see whether he could identify the man in questions. However, Mr Goddard said that he had not made any concerted effort to follow through on the offer made by the interviewee.
1.3.2 Identity of the three OIRA members
Mr Purvis, acting for five OIRA members, told the Inquiry that he was still awaiting clarification from his clients and was as yet not in a position to confirm whether any of them had been interviewed by Mr Goddard in 1991. However, he said that he hoped to have an answer in the near future.
2. Tony Stark ‘s evidence
Mr Stark was approached by Mr Goddard in 1991 and asked to direct the documentary: “Secret History: Bloody Sunday”, which is one of three documentary programmes he has produced and directed to date, alongside 14 one-off programmes.
2.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
2.1.1 Editorial content of “Secret History: Bloody Sunday”
Mr Stark said that when he first became involved in the programme, it was his understanding that the soldiers they were going to interview were going to speak about their role in shooting unarmed civilians in cold blood. He believed that he had gained this impression from Mr Goddard and Neil Davies. However, he said that this initial premise was not borne out by the evidence, so the programme ended up presenting a more balanced version of events.
Mr Stark agreed that he and Mr Goddard had ongoing differences of opinion concerning the editorial content of the programme, especially regarding the issue of who fired first. It was his own opinion that a soldier had first fired a warning shot to ward off a hostile crowd, and that OIRA men in the area had fired back, prompting the shooting. He said that the dispute had arisen due to the lack of actual factual proof.
2.1.2 Interviews with soldiers
2.1.2.1 Five Belfast soldiers
Mr Stark said that the meeting with five soldiers in Belfast was the most valuable interview he had conducted. He said that the soldiers had given him the impression that, in an urban situation, it was very difficult for a soldier in a policing role to distinguish between civilians and gunmen when a sniper was operating in the vicinity.
2.1.2.2 Corporal INQ1243
Although Mr Stark had no specific recollection of the interview with Corporal INQ1243, he agreed that it was highly possible that he had conducted it. He was read the statement of Corporal INQ1243 to the Inquiry, in which the soldier describes meeting with directors of a documentary programme who were accompanied by a researcher who used to be in Mortar Platoon. Corporal INQ1243 alleges that “the director made sure that the drinks kept coming…[and] would suggest something to make my account more interesting and then get me to respond”. Mr Stark said that the Praxis team had attempted to be hospitable towards interviewees but that they had by no means attempted to get them drunk and that they had not prompted the soldiers in any way.
Corporal INQ1243 also alleges that the transcript of the interview is not in fact a transcript but “an elaborate version” of what he said and that it uses language far more aggressive than that which he would have used. Mr Stark responded that the transcript note would have recorded exactly what was said at the interview, transcribed from tape without any elaboration.
The transcript also records Corporal INQ1243 as having recounted an incident of a hospital being smashed up on the Falls Road and an occasion on which he had caught two Catholics with weapons, had dropped them outside the Horseshoe Bar in the Shankill in Belfast and gone inside to inform those in the pub that the two men were outside. He is recorded as saying that he had been motivated by his belief that it was ridiculous that the men, if turned in, would only have got five years for possessing a weapon. The transcript note records the soldier as having said that the two men turned up dead five days later.
In his statement to the Inquiry, Corporal INQ1243 says that both stories were rubbish and that the director had put things into his head and got him waffling in order to make the interview more interesting. He said that he had been drunk and that “the account had been brewed up”. Mr Stark responded that he was a journalist and never attempted to try to make people say things that were not true. He said that he had been using a cassette recorder and that the transcript would have been an accurate account of what the soldier had said, although he added that he could not vouch for the fact that the soldier had been telling the truth. Mr Stark also said that he had no recollection of interviewing a drunken man.
2.1.2.3 SAS Soldier
Mr Stark said that the man in question was the only one to have mentioned anything about the SAS being present on Bloody Sunday. He said that it had been outside the scope of the programme to spend too much time checking the information given by the soldier and that any checks would have proven difficult, given the secrecy surrounding the SAS. They had therefore not included the information in the programme. He told the Inquiry that he had found the man’s story hard to believe, but that the SAS worked in mysterious ways and that it was always possible that his story could have been true.
2.1.2.4 Soldier given cipher 037 by Praxis team
This soldier allegedly confessed to Mr Stark, off the record, that he had murdered a man who had been insulting him by stabbing him in the stomach, whilst on duty. Mr Stark said that the soldier had told him that he had then called the RUC and told them that there was a body lying in the street. The soldier allegedly said that such incidents were commonplace in Northern Ireland. Mr Stark said that he had not believed the man’s story enough to include it in the film.
2.1.3
Interview with Martin McGuinness
Mr Stark could not recall any questions having been put to Martin McGuinness concerning his membership of the IRA and said that Mr Goddard must have put the questions to the interviewee when he was out of the room.
2.1.3.2 Interviews with members of the OIRA
Mr Stark could not recall having interviewed three members of the OIRA with Mr Goddard, but said that it was possible that the interviews had merely slipped his memory. However, he said that, to the best of his recollection, he had never, throughout his journalistic career, interviewed any members or former members of the IRA, and agreed that, had he in fact participated in the interview, it would almost certainly have stuck in his mind.
2.1.3.3 Interview with Bernadette McAliskey (née Devlin)
The transcript of the interview with Bernadette McAliskey records her saying that there had been an agreement between NICRA and the IRA that there would be no guns in the city on the day, although Ms McAliskey has told the Inquiry that she never had any personal knowledge of such an agreement. Mr Stark commented that he had written down what she had told him, but that it was possible that she had been passing on second-hand information and had not made that clear to him.
2.1.3.4 Interview with Danny Gillespie
Danny Gillespie, who sustained a bullet wound to his head on Bloody Sunday, has told the Inquiry that the transcript record of his interview with the Praxis team was all wrong. Mr Stark said that, if it was Mr Gillespie’s evidence that events had not occurred as recorded, then he would accept that, but added that he would have only written down what he had been told by Mr Gillespie at the time of the interview. However, he said that he had made a note at the time that Mr Gillespie was rather slow and not a very clear thinker.
2.1.3.5 Interview with Eamonn McCann
Mr Stark’s notes of his interview with Eamonn McCann records the latter as having said that, after the army had opened fire, he had seen a number of armed PIRA men deciding whether or not to return fire, but that the PIRA had decided not to because of the potential propaganda value to the republican cause of an unprovoked attack on nationalists by the army. Eamonn McCann has told the Inquiry that he never witnessed any such event and that Mr Stark clearly misunderstood something he was trying to say. Mr Stark said that, if he had not been using a recorder, he would have taken a handwritten note which he would have written up as soon as possible, and that the notes would have been an accurate account of what was said.
2.1.3.6 Interview with Nell McCafferty
Mr Stark’s notes of his interview with Nell McCafferty record her as saying that it was general knowledge that Paddy Doherty was in the IRA. Mr Stark confirmed that he had understood her to be speaking about one of the Bloody Sunday dead. However, in her evidence to the Tribunal, Ms McCafferty has said that she had not been referring to the Bloody Sunday victim, but to Paddy Deery, the son of Peggy Deery (one of the Bloody Sunday wounded about whom she had written a book), who joined the IRA after Bloody Sunday. Mr Stark acknowledged that he might have misheard Ms McCafferty during the interview but could not confirm whether or not this had happened.
2.2 questions on behalf of the soldiers
2.2.1 Leading questions asked in interviews with soldiers
Counsel suggested that Mr Stark had asked a number of leading questions to his interviewees and that, when repeating back a summary of what had been said in order to prompt further questions, had often misinterpreted or skewed the soldiers’ answers. Edwin Glasgow QC took the example of the interview with soldier 023 (Praxis team cipher), whom he said had merely been attempting to explain the law and the rules which applied to him as a soldier, but that Mr Starke had pushed him to say that the rules could not apply in practice. Mr Stark responded that the soldier had already said to him that, if presented with a choice between firing at somebody or double-checking to see if they were really a target, he would choose to protect his own life and would fire and take the consequences afterwards. He said that he had not put these initial words into the soldier’s mouth, although he acknowledged that he had subsequently attempted to get the soldier to build on them.
He said that it was entirely to be expected that a soldier telling a journalist that there were occasions on which rules were broken would waver between admitting to that and emphasising that they had to abide by the rules. He said that the overall impression he had gained from his interviews with soldiers was that there were some situations in which the Yellow Card rules were difficult to follow and that in some cases, a soldier had to work on his own initiative and might get it wrong. Such a situation would have been amplified in a situation such as the Bloody Sunday march, given the amount of people present and the atmosphere in the city at the time.
2.2.2 Interview with Martin McGuinness
Mr Stark agreed that, given the recent admission by Martin McGuinness that he was the second in command of the PIRA in Derry on Bloody Sunday, he could state that Martin McGuinness was the only PIRA member interviewed by the Praxis team for the purposes of the documentary. However, he said that, at the time, he had interviewed him as a member of Sinn Fein and that Martin McGuinness had clearly stated that he was not speaking on behalf of the IRA. Although Mr McGuinness has no recollection of the interview, Mr Stark had no doubt that the interview had taken place.
3. David mills’s evidence
In 1972, Mr Mills was a producer for the BBC on a current affairs programme called ‘24 Hours’ and was asked to prepare a programme on the findings of the Widgery Tribunal. He therefore spent approximately four to five weeks in Northern Ireland attending the Widgery proceedings and conducting research on the ground through interviews with the army and civilians.
3.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
3.1.1 Meetings with the army
3.1.1.1 Pressure brought to bear concerning the contents of the programme
Upon his arrival in Northern Ireland, Mr Mills met with Lieutenant Colonel Colin Overbury and Colin Wallace on 13th March 1972 at Army HQNI to discuss the level of co-operation the army was prepared to give him in making the programme. The Tribunal is in possession of a memo prepared by Colonel Tugwell after this meeting which reads: “clearly we cannot accept the proposals as they stand. However, Mills will probably agree a deal of amendment to keep us in. Rather than turn the proposals down flat, it would be better to make alternative, watertight proposals. It will then be up to 24 Hours to agree our terms or turn us down. If they turn us down, we will be in a stronger position to twist BBC’s arm at a higher level to drop the programme as proposed altogether”.
Mr Mills said that his intention had been to produce a programme which showed both sides to the story and could not recollect any pressure being brought to bear on him concerning the contents of his programme, adding that he would not have bowed to any such pressure.
The army’s alternative proposals, of which the Tribunal has a copy, contain some ‘governing conditions’, one of which is that Chief Superintendent Lagan was not to take part in the programme. Mr Mills said that it was never communicated to him that Mr Lagan should not participate in his programme, although he had not managed to secure an interview with the Chief Superintendent. He added that this was almost certainly due to a refusal to participate on Mr Lagan’s part, as he had felt personally that Mr Lagan’s evidence to the Widgery Tribunal had been very revealing and that an interview with him would have been very valuable in understanding some of the mistakes made on Bloody Sunday.
3.1.1.2 Interviewing soldiers who had opened fire
He said that he was initially given a clear indication that he would be allowed to interview the soldiers who had opened fire. It was his belief that this offer had been withdrawn due to the direction in which his conclusions had rapidly moved. However, he acknowledged that the withdrawal of the offer could also have been prompted by the individual soldiers’ own desire not to participate.
3.1.1.3 Meeting with General Ford
Mr Mills had an informal discussion with General Ford when he first began researching the programme. He said that he had sensed that General Ford felt that the best way for the army to defend itself was to be open about what had happened on Bloody Sunday. Mr Mills said that he had gained the distinct impression that General Ford was of the view that the army had performed badly on the day and that things had gone badly wrong. He said that the General had tried to argue that this was understandable, given the pressures under which the soldiers operated. He recalled the General as having said that the army was unsuited to a policing role and that to put young, armed soldiers in such a situation would inevitably lead to incidents such as Bloody Sunday.
3.1.2 Interviews with civilians
Mr Mills told the Tribunal that he had interviewed a number of key witnesses who appeared before the Widgery Tribunal and had also spoken to a number of other people in the Bogside. He explained that he was not attempting to seek out evidence, but rather to better understand the information presented to Lord Widgery. Although he did also speak with a number of people who had not given evidence, he had no memory of having spoken to people who were unwilling to appear before the Inquiry, adding that his strong impression was that people had nothing to hide and that there was no attempt to conceal anything.
3.1.3 Shots fired from the Rossville Flats area
Mr Mills said that one or more of the civilian interviewees living in the Rossville Flats had told him that they had heard between one and three shots fired from the Flats on Bloody Sunday, but that nobody knew who had fired and there appeared to be genuine puzzlement concerning the issue. However, he also added that, having reacquainted himself with his notes from the time, the shots referred to could have been those fired by Father Daly’s gunman in the car park of the flats.
3.1.4 Photographs of Father Daly’s gunman
Mr Mills told the Tribunal that he had gone looking for the photographs of Father Daly’s gunman after hearing about the event from Father Daly and other witnesses and that it was possible that he had taken the only copies of the photographs of Father Daly’s gunman from RTE and subsequently lost them.
3.1.5 OIRA
Mr Mills said that, in the course of his research, he had discovered that some Officials, who had been in the Bogside as the Paratroopers entered the area, panicked and tried to leave the Bogside in a car. He said that he had been told that, in their haste to get away, they had reversed into a wall. It was his belief that he had first heard this story from Peter Pringle of the Sunday Times Insight Team and that he had subsequently seen a damaged wall somewhere to the west side of Glenfada Park North. He also recalled being told that the Officials had been armed, but said that none of them had fired before fleeing. He said that it had occurred to him that one of them might have fired later, explaining he incidence of Thompson machine-gun fire heard by Simon Winchester late that afternoon.
3.1.6 Letter to Colonel Tugwell
Having completed the research for his programme, Mr Mills wrote a letter to Colonel Tugwell, thanking him for his assistance and giving him some information concerning his findings. In the letter, Mr Mills deals with a number of topics, including his belief that there were no more than three or four gunmen present when the firing started.
He told the Tribunal that he had been very angry at the conclusions of the Widgery Tribunal due to the way in which they had distorted what had happened on Bloody Sunday and, having worked closely with the army, he felt the need to express his strong reservations to Colonel Tugwell. However, he said that, on the other hand, the army had given him a lot of help and that such a relationship was a useful one to maintain as a journalist and he did not want to break off all contact by being too vociferous in his condemnation.
3.1.6.1 Gerald Donaghy
The letter mentions Mr Mill’s own conclusions regarding the case of Gerald Donaghy and reads: “you are quite right about O’Donhehey [sic], he was seen with a nail bomb earlier in the afternoon—again I must admit I am doubtful about Lord Widgery’s conclusion. I am sure he was efficiently searched by IRA sympathisers before he left the Bogside to ensure there were no incriminating objects on him”.
Mr Mills said that, in his discussions with Mr Wallace and Mr Overbury, it was accepted that the nail bombs had been planted on Gerald Donaghy. He said that he could not recollect the two men ever openly stating that the bombs had been planted, but they made no attempt to deny the allegation and, through their body language and responses, gave the impression that they knew that the bombs had in fact been planted.
He said that Mr Wallace and Mr Overbury had not attempted to defend the planting, but had perhaps tried to justify it on the basis of evidence which they claimed to have that Gerald Donaghy had been throwing nail bombs earlier in the afternoon. He said that at the time he had found this information perfectly credible, but he now suspected that it had been a piece of black propaganda. He added that, in the Bogside, there was not a culture of lying about incidents such as throwing nail bombs, and that had Gerald Donaghy actually been throwing nail bombs earlier in the afternoon, he would have been deemed a hero and there would be clear evidence before the Tribunal of that fact.
He also said that it seemed inconceivable to him at the time that people in the Bogside would have allowed somebody to be taken from the area with nail bombs in their pockets.
3.1.6.2 OIRA activity
In his letter, Mr Mills relayed to Colonel Tugwell information concerning the car load of Officials who drove into a wall in Glenfada Park. However, he also told the Colonel that “minutes after, three of them started shooting from some way back near Free Derry Corner. The fourth circled around and was shot by Soldier G or F”. He told the Tribunal that he was surprised to read this in his letter as it was not what he now recalled. He said that he must have had some reason for including the information in the letter, but that it had been written in haste. He believed that the point he had been trying to made to Colonel Tugwell was that nobody in the Army Legal Team had ever mentioned this to him but that it had been easy to discover that the OIRA had been present on the day, since nobody in the Bogside was denying it.
However, he reiterated that he did not think that the OIRA had in fact started to shoot and believed that section of his letter to be inaccurate.
3.1.7 PIRA activity on Bloody Sunday
Mr Mills recalled being told that the PIRA had not been present in the Bogside, not because they feared a gun battle with the army, but rather because they feared that the army might attempt to retake control of the Creggan whilst everybody was on the march. He said that he had been told that the PIRA had brought its weapons to the Creggan and had remained there for the afternoon.
3.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
3.2.1 Planted nail bombs
Mr Mills reiterated that he had formed the strong impression that both Mr Wallace and Mr Overbury believed the bombs to have been planted on Gerald Donaghy. He said that, had they not held such a belief, they would have tried to persuade him that the bombs had not been planted, but that they had made no attempt to deny the allegation.
3.2.2 Meeting with General Ford
Mr Mills confirmed that General Ford had left him in no doubt that he was of the view that the army had performed badly on Bloody Sunday and that the army was unsuited to the policing role which it had been given. He said that the had been surprised that, during his meeting with the General, there had been no discussion of a gun battle, but that all the discussion had centred on the dilemma of putting young troops into a situation such as policing a civil rights march. He confirmed that General Ford had not suggested that he had ever protested to senior officers or to politicians that putting 17- and 18-year old soldiers into such a situation would inevitably lead to incidents nor that he had ever put in place any precautionary measures to prevent such inevitable incidents taking place.
He said that it was General Ford’s belief that the army could best protect its reputation by allowing the soldiers to speak to the media in person, explaining how difficult it was to make split second decisions and how honest mistakes could be made. He said that it was the General’s opinion that that would have been credible and persuasive evidence for the British population which, at that stage, was very supportive of the army.
3.3 questions on behalf of the soldiers
3.3.1 Letter to Colonel Tugwell
3.3.1.1 Motivation behind letter
Mr Mills said that the purpose behind the letter sent to Colonel Tugwell was to thank the Colonel for his assistance and that of his staff, to attempt to keep the relationship with the army active as it would prove helpful in the future, and to express his concerns about the Widgery conclusions.
He agreed that he had been cautious in what he said about the findings of the Widgery Tribunal, despite the fact that he had been shocked by them and fundamentally disagreed with them. He also acknowledged that he had never expressly told anyone in the army or in the Army Legal Team that he had been shocked, but said that they all shared a common view of what happened and that he sensed that they were not denying his own understanding of events. He said that he wanted to express his anger at the Widgery Tribunal without shooting himself in the foot by destroying a very beneficial relationship with the army, and added that his contacts had in fact provided him with considerable help for two or three stories he subsequently worked on.
3.3.1.2 Gerald Donaghy
He agreed with Counsel’s statement that he had personally known for 30 years that a savage injustice had been done by witnesses and by Lord Widgery to Gerald Donaghy and his family, as he knew that the bombs had been planted and that senior army officers were also aware of the situation. Counsel then suggested to him that he must have been delighted when the current Inquiry was set up as the opportunity had at last arisen for him to clear his conscience and bring his information about Gerald Donaghy out into the open. Mr Mills responded that he had not felt that he had any particular secret to share as he thought that everybody would now have accepted that the bombs had been planted on the victim.
He was asked to explain what he had meant in the letter by the statement: “I am sure he was efficiently searched by IRA sympathisers before he left the Bogside”. He responded that, at the time, almost every single Catholic in the Bogside would have been an IRA sympathiser, in that they would have sympathised with the cause that the IRA was pursuing.
He told the Tribunal that, when he wrote to the Colonel “you are quite right about O’Donhehey [sic]…”, he was attempting to prove to the Colonel that he was trustworthy, as he was repeating back something that the army had told him without naming his exact source in the army. He said that Colonel Tugwell would have been much more likely to pursue the relationship if he proved himself to be trustworthy and on the army side.
3.3.1.3 IRA activity
In his letter, Mr Mills wrote: “having spent some time in the Bogside, I am fairly sure that the IRA were not there in force”. He rejected Counsel’s suggestion that this meant that he was satisfied that they were there, but merely not in force, reiterating that he was merely being careful in his wording to the army with which he wanted to maintain a relationship. He told the Inquiry that in fact he had been fairly sure that they had not been there in any armed capacity at all: there might have been individual members of the IRA on the march, as marchers, but that the IRA as an armed organisation had not been present.
The letter went on to describe how the IRA had remained in the Creggan for the afternoon, playing soccer. It was Mr Mills’ initial belief that this information had come from Mr Overbury, but he told the Tribunal that, upon reflection, it could not conceivably have come from this source. Counsel asked how he could have come to name Mr Overbury in his signed statement as the source of the rumour, had it in fact not been conceivably possible that the information could have come from him. He responded that he had signed the statement relatively quickly, but that, since then, he had had occasion to go through it in more detail and had discovered the inaccuracy.
He confirmed that the story of Officials being present in Glenfada Park had been corroborated by a number of witnesses and that rumours to that effect had been circulating at the time. He reiterated that he had passed the information on to Colonel Tugwell in an attempt to show him that there was an openness about the events of Bloody Sunday in the Bogside and that nobody was trying to suppress information.
3.3.1.4 Colonel Tugwell’s contemporaneous response
Mr Glasgow made a statement on behalf of Colonel Tugwell, suggesting that Mr Mills’ current explanation of his letter to the Colonel was a tissue of lies which he had made up in an attempt to wriggle out of the letter. Mr Mills refuted the allegation.
3.3.2 Photographs of Father Daly’s gunman
Mr Mills said that he could no longer remember the circumstances in which he had obtained the photographs of Father Daly’s gunman from RTE, but acknowledged that he may well have taken them without permission. He reiterated that he did not know what had subsequently happened to the photographs.
3.3.3 Interview with General Ford
Although General Ford no longer has any recollection of expressing concern to Mr Mills concerning the policing role given to young soldiers, Mr Mills said that he had a very clear recollection of the General having expressed such fears. He also said that he clearly recalled that the General had made no meaningful mention of a fire fight when discussing the events of Bloody Sunday and that he had been surprised at this omission at the time.
He agreed that General Ford had been tenaciously loyal to his soldiers and said that he was doing his best to protect them, believing that their best method of defence would be to evoke the sympathy of the British population for young soldiers in the army who were faced with a very difficult situation.
3.3.4 Shots fired from the Rossville Flats area
Mr Mills said that he had returned to the flat in which the photographer Fulvio Grimaldi had sheltered on Bloody Sunday, where a number of people told him that shots had been fired from the Rossville Flats on Bloody Sunday. He said that people genuinely did not know by whom or from where the shots had been fired, but they had not attempted to conceal their belief that they had heard gunshots. Mr Mills said that he had deduced that the shots must have been fired from the Flats themselves as opposed to from the ground, as a gunman at ground level would have been easily visible from the flats. He said that he had never formed the suspicion that shots had been fired from the actual flat in which Fulvio Grimaldi had sheltered.
3.3.5 Slant of the documentary
Mr Mills said that none of the army personnel with whom he spoke had expressed concern regarding his approach to the planned documentary in terms of it presenting an unbalanced or unfair view of the events of Bloody Sunday. Counsel asked him whether the army personnel might have had any cause to suspect that, whilst posing as a genuine BBC journalist, he was in fact thoroughly dishonest. Mr Mills rejected this inference and also rejected Counsel’s suggestion that, in light of the answers he had given to the Tribunal, people might be genuinely concerned about his honesty.
3.3.6 Meetings with Colin Overbury
Mr Mills said that, to the best of his recollection, Mr Overbury had been present at a meeting when he had been informed that a member of the legal team had been engaged in a gun battle with the IRA, during the course of which he had lost his arm. He said that he recalled Collin Wallace and Mr Overbury as having re-enacted the episode where their colleague had jumped out in to the street, shooting with a handgun as if he had been in a Wild-West shoot out. Counsel questioned whether the two men would in fact have been joking about an incident which had left one of their colleagues without an arm, to which Mr Mills responded that they were not men to over-dramatise. Counsel then put it to Mr Mills that he was talking nonsense and that no such meeting occurred with Mr Overbury at any time. Mr Mills responded that the incident had definitely occurred, although reiterated that he could not swear 100 percent that Mr Overbury had been present. He said that there was nothing improper about the conversation, but that it was merely a way of coping with an unpleasant incident using gallows humour.
3.3.7 The army case
In his statement to the Inquiry, Mr Mills wrote: “I got the clear impression from them [Mr Wallace and Mr Overbury] that they viewed the defence of the army’s position as something of a charade”. He said that charade was perhaps too strong a term, but that the substance of what they were saying and their body language supported his own growing belief that it was in fact a charade. He said that, had there been a fire fight and had the soldiers’ lives been at genuine risk, he would have picked up a very different impression from the meetings. He said that his recollection of Mr Overbury was that he was a delightful person who did not try to defend the indefensible in his company.
4. colin wallace’s evidence
Mr Wallace worked at Army HQNI at the time of Bloody Sunday.
4.1 questions on behalf of the Tribunal
4.1.1 Public Relations at HQNI
Mr Wallace told the Tribunal that he was sent to army HQNI in October 1968, before the Troubles began, where he took the post of Assistant Command Public Relations Officer. The job was initially that of a public relations officer, promoting the army within the community, organising community events, recruiting, sending editors overseas to visit Irish regiments and ensuring that those events gained favourable publicity for the army.
4.1.2 Information Policy Unit
Mr Wallace said that he worked extensively with the Information Policy Unit in the early 1970s but only officially joined the unit in 1973, first as Information Officer, and subsequently as Senior Information Officer in the Psychological Operations (PsyOps) Unit. He said that PsyOps was part of the Army Intelligence Branch, but that, for cover purposes, operated covertly within the Information Policy Unit, headed by Colonel Tugwell and staffed by a number of people including Lieutenant Colonel INQ1873 who was trained in psychological warfare.
Mr Wallace said that Information Policy activities were carried out at three levels of consciousness: to the press, it was a liaison section that provided a link between the army operations network and the press room; at certain levels within the Security Forces it was seen as a counter propaganda organisation dealing in ‘white’ information, but in fact it also engaged in black operations or ‘dirty tricks’. He said that in the early 1970s, Information Policy and the issuing of misinformation was aimed predominantly at republicans.
4.1.3 Psychological Operations
A Ministry of Defence (MoD) document from 1974, entitled “An Introduction to Psychological Operations” defines psychological operations as “an all-embracing term defined by NATO as planned psychological activities in peace and war, directed towards enemy, friendly and neutral audiences, in order to create attitudes and behaviour favourable to the achievement of political and military objectives. Strategic psywar pursues long-term and mainly political objectives. It is designed to undermine an enemy or hostile group to fight and to recuse the capacity to wage war. It can be directed against the dominating political party, the government and / or the population as a whole, or particular elements in it. It is planned and controlled by the highest political authority”.
Mr Wallace said that it was an accurate summary of the types of activities carried out by Information Policy in 1972. He said that a lot of effort went into concealing the role of Information Policy within the army and that even members of the army public relations staff were not aware of its role.
He told the Tribunal that the Information Policy Unit and the PsyOps Unit were one and the same, in that PsyOps was merely one of the functions of Information Policy. He explained that PsyOps was a specific term relating to disinformation, or using “psychological means in support of a military objective. In particular, its main function was to maintain public support for the Security Forces and their activities, to cause dissension in the ranks of the terrorist groups and to wean their supporters away from them”.
Mr Wallace said that in the lead up to Bloody Sunday, the PsyOps team comprised Colonel Tugwell, Lieutenant Colonel INQ1873, Hugh Mooney, himself and various other army personnel
4.1.4 Hugh Mooney
Mr Wallace said that information from the Secret Intelligence Service sources was usually relayed to him via Hugh Mooney. Although it is Mr Mooney’s evidence that he was not involved in PsyOps and that his role largely involved improving the image of the British Army through press briefings, Mr Wallace said this was totally incorrect. He said that Mr Mooney’s role was largely comprised of supplying information to discredit paramilitaries and left-wing groups.
It is Mr Mooney’s contention that Mr Wallace never worked for Information Policy and that he had grossly misrepresented his access to Intelligence people, information and documents. Mr Wallace denied this allegation.
4.1.5 Lead up to Bloody Sunday
Mr Wallace said that, although he could no longer recall the specifics, it was his recollection that there was a lot of political pressure on the Government from local businesses in Derry in the run up to the Bloody Sunday march, urging them to do more to protect properties in the city centre. He said that PsyOps had been assessing the situation to see what could be done.
4.1.6 Knowledge of army plans for Bloody Sunday
Mr Wallace said that he had no input into the operational planning for Bloody Sunday, but that he had been informed of the army’s outline plans for the march by the middle of the week leading up to Bloody Sunday. He said that he would have known that the basic plan was to reroute the march and to arrest a large number of rioters. He told the Inquiry that it would have been imperative for the Information Policy Unit to know about the army plans in order to deal effectively with the PR issues arising out of them. He said that his role was mainly looking at personalities to see whether any known figures would be orchestrating trouble and to look for information to assess whether paramilitary organisations such as the Ira would be active on the day.
He said that Information Policy had been aware at the time that the operational plan had been put to the UK Prime Minister, during a meeting between him and the Chief of General Staff. He also added that General Ford and Colonel Wilford would not have embarked on the plan without it first having been rubber-stamped by the MoD, due to the political sensitivities involved.
4.1.7 Intelligence concerning potential violence on Bloody Sunday
4.1.7.1 Intelligence concerning IRA plans for the day
He said that, following the army handling of the Magilligan march the previous week, the Information Policy Unit was expecting large scale rioting during the course of the Bloody Sunday march, but that they had not received any specific information to indicate that this would be greater than usual. However, he said that the overall picture was that the IRA would not use violence on the march. He said that, as the week progressed, the information that they were getting back from all reliable sources indicated that the march organisers had a strong assurance from both wings of the IRA that they would not use the march as cover to fire on the security services and that, therefore, if any violence was to be expected, it would have come from the hooligan element and not from the march itself.
He acknowledged that he might not necessarily have been privy to all highly sensitive information concerning the IRA’s plans for the day, but said that, bearing in mind the political sensitivity surrounding the march in terms of public relations and Information Policy, it was difficult to believe that he would not have been made aware of all such information. He also added that the army operational plan itself indicated that the army did not expect the IRA to be there in force.
4.1.7.2 Intelligence concerning ‘free lancers’
However, he clarified that this did not mean that they were expecting no IRA fire at all, explaining that the Information Policy Unit had been aware that there were difficulties within the leadership of the PIRA and the OIRA and that there was always the possibility that individuals might act on their own initiative. He said that it was a relatively small issue, but one that had to be taken into consideration and that they had no intelligence to suggest that this would in fact occur.
4.1.7.3 Intelligence concerning potential rioting
Mr Wallace said that it was recognised that there might be serious problems if the marchers attempted to force their way through the army barriers to the city centre, but added that they had specific intelligence that the march organisers would not do so. He explained that the intelligence from sources such as the RUC and local army units was that the marchers would have a token demonstration at the barriers but would then turn away and follow a different route.
4.1.7.4 Army documents
The Tribunal is in possession of a number of army documents which address the outlook for the Bloody Sunday march. One, a HQNI operational summary for the week ending 28th January 1972 reads: “intelligence reports indicate that the IRA are determined to produce a major confrontation by one means or another during the march”. Mr Wallace remained adamant that his recollection concerning the absence of any intelligence to suggest that the IRA might be present was accurate. He said that there were concerns that elements of the IRA might use the Derry Young Hooligans to have a confrontation with the army at the barrier, but that this was an entirely different situation to a confrontation with the marchers themselves.
Mr Wallace was also read two further documents. The first, another operational summary, dated 30th January, stated: “apart from a hardcore of professional hooligans who will certainly be seeking to exploit the situation as the rally disperses, if not before, gunmen may be present”. The second, the notes of Brigadier McClellan’s co-ordinating conference with the officers responsible for carrying out his orders for the march read: “IRA activity to take advantage of event”. Mr Wallace said that the presence of gunmen at riots was commonplace in Northern Ireland at the time, both in republican and loyalist areas, so these assessments merely reflected a threat that was always present. He added that it was indicative that the Brigadier did not highlight any specific threat of a major nature from gunmen.
4.1.7.5 Source quoted in army signal of 27th January 1972
The Tribunal is also in possession of the transcript of a signal sent from the Director of Intelligence to the Commander of Land Forces. It reads: “source believes that the marchers will be armed with sticks and stones and he expects that the IRA will use the crowd as cover. The organisers are determined to have their revenge to what they regard as a humiliating defeat at Magilligan where they found themselves with nothing more lethal than sand to throw”. Mr Wallace said that he had been aware of the contents of the signal at the time but that, once again, it represented the standard threat posed by any potential rioting.
He added that, although it would appear from the memo that the identity of the source was known to Brigadier McClellan, it was important to note that there was no grading as to the reliability of the source (explaining that all such documents would have been graded to indicate the perceived reliability of the information). He added that the source in question also said that John Hume MP would be speaking at the rally, whereas by that stage, Information Policy knew that Mr Hume was not going to be present. He said that, had the memo been circulated to Information Policy at the time, the fact that it contained one inaccuracy would have made the Unit question the reliability of the source himself.
4.1.7.6 Intelligence assessments issued after Bloody Sunday
Mr Wallace said that, after Bloody Sunday, when the Widgery Tribunal was set up, most of the briefings from Whitehall and from the MoD indicated that they had reliable intelligence prior to the march that the IRA was going to confront the army. However, he reiterated that the view of Information Policy prior to Bloody Sunday was that the assessments contained nothing more than the standard risk that gunmen might use the hooligan element as cover to attack troops at the barricade. He said that the Information Policy view was very different to that later put out by Whitehall that the IRA was going to use the actual march, as opposed to any potential rioting.
In particular, Mr Wallace referenced a report made by Brigadier Tipple in 1972, stating “a reliable and detailed intelligence report received during the week preceding the march confirmed earlier reports by including the forecast that the IRA would be using the crown and hooligan cover techniques during the march on 30th January to provide opportunities for attacks on the Security Forces”. He said that this was the report he had in mind when he said that intelligence reports had been rewritten retrospectively to create a threat which did not in fact exist.
4.1.8 Background to PR plan put in place for Bloody Sunday
4.1.8.1 Directive from the MoD
Mr Wallace said that, following Magilligan, a number of politicians had been furious about the apparent lack of action by the Parachute Regiment, whereas the civil rights movement and the nationalist community believed that the Paras had used unnecessary force. He said that Unionist politicians had been outraged by the army’s apparent failure to deal with an illegal march, and that complaints made by them to Downing Street had resulted in a strong directive from John Groves, Chief Press Officer with the MoD, that such images of the army being browbeaten by marchers should never be allowed to reappear on television.
Although Mr Wallace was shown a document written by Anthony Stephens, MoD, on 26th January which appears to indicate that the author was not aware that a directive had been given to the effect that scenes similar to those at Magilligan should not occur again, he was adamant that such a directive had been made. He added that the Protestant community was becoming more upset by the sight of illegal marches on television than they were by the IRA’s campaign and that the Stormont Government was particularly concerned about this reaction. Again, he was shown the minutes of a meeting of the Joint Security Committee (JSC) on 27th January 1972 which did not seem to indicate that the JSC had been particularly concerned by the publicity generated by the Magilligan march. Mr Wallace responded that, although it might not appear so from the JSC point of view, the difficulty lay in the public perception created by the television coverage.
4.1.8.2 Political pressure
Mr Wallace said that he had been told that Faulkner had spoken directly with Ted Heath following the Magilligan march and had told him that something had to be done to prevent illegal marchers abusing British soldiers. He said the Information Policy unit received numerous cables and PR directives from Downing Street following the Magilligan march, given that the role of Army Public Relations was to present the British Army in the best possible light, not just to the community in Northern Ireland, but also to the public in Britain, as the more disillusioned the British electorate became with the army, the less likely they would be to support the Government in any subsequent election.
4.1.8.3 Northern Ireland Cabinet Committee meeting of 27th January 1972
The Tribunal is in possession of the minutes of a meeting of the Northern Ireland Cabinet Committee, chaired by Ted Heath, that took place in Downing Street three days before Bloody Sunday. They read: “criticism of the Security Forces for not entering those areas [the Bogside and the Creggan] must be countered by pointing out that it is a matter of military judgment to choose the best place for achieving the aim of preventing the march from reaching its destination. Maximum publicity should also be secured for arrests and court proceedings”. Mr Wallace confirmed that he was aware before Bloody Sunday that it was the wish of the UK Government that maximum publicity should surround any arrests and prosecutions following the Bloody Sunday march.
4.1.8.4 No last minute changes to PR plan
Mr Wallace said that, to the best of his knowledge, there were no last-minute warnings of likely IRA activity on the day. He explained that this recollection was based on the fact that the army operational plan had not, to his knowledge, changed at the last minute and that there was no material change in the plan at the last moment to indicate that there was any new intelligence which was being taken into account. He said that Information Policy had been made aware of the army plan mid-week, so that they could make a corresponding PR plan and that had there been any information from a reliable source that the IRA planned a major armed confrontation with the army, there would have been modifications both to the army plan and to the PR plan. He explained that he was inviting journalists to go to Derry to witness a successful arrest operation and that, had it been probable to turn into a gun battle between the IRA and the army, they would not have encouraged journalists to cover the event.
4.1.9 PR plan put in place on Bloody Sunday
Mr Wallace said that, whilst the actual army operational plan was designed by the Brigade in conjunction with the Commander of Land Forces, General Ford, Information Policy was to look at the impact of the implementation of such a plan on the media and the population as a whole. He said that they had therefore had to look at the operational plan in some detail in order to decide the best way to prevent the army in the most favourable light.
4.1.9.1 Colonel Tugwell
Colonel Tugwell has explained to the Tribunal his presence in Derry on Bloody Sunday by saying that he had never seen a civil rights march before and so he asked General Ford if he could accompany him to Derry on the day. Mr Wallace said that there was more significance to Colonel Tugwell’s presence than that. He said that due to the scale of the march and to the events at Magilligan, the PR element to the Bloody Sunday march was of extreme importance to the Information Policy Unit and it was his belief that Colonel Tugwell had accompanied General Ford in order to ensure that the PR element of the exercise was maintained throughout the operation.
4.1.9.2 Rumours spread by Information Policy prior to the march
Mr Wallace said that, although the Information Policy Unit did not have reliable intelligence that the IRA planned to use the march, they put in place various pre-emptive measures to counter such a possibility. For example, they had spread rumours, through unattributable press briefings, that the army might raid the Creggan whilst people were on the march and that, in order to reinforce the rumours, the army had increased the number of vehicle checkpoints between Derry and the Donegal border. He explained that it was part of the Information Policy strategy to unsettle the IRA and any plans they might have had for the day.
4.1.9.3
Use
of the Parachute Regiment
It was Mr Wallace’s belief, both at the time of Bloody Sunday and now, that the Magilligan march was the genesis of the arrest operation which became Bloody Sunday. He said that the army and MoD felt that the Parachute Regiment’s image had been damaged by the television coverage at Magilligan and that, if the arrest operation was successful on Bloody Sunday, this would reinstate their image and would take some of the pressure off London from the Stormont Government. He said that he had discussed this with Colonel Tugwell at the time.
Mr Wallace also said that there was a second reason for selecting the Parachute Regiment, stating that they were not a local unit and that, therefore, any adverse reaction caused by them on the day would not be directed at local units and would not undermine the latter’s work in relation to community relations. Again, it was his recollection that he had discussed this with Colonel Tugwell at the time.
He said that the army had decided to put on a show and have hundreds of arrests in front of the television cameras. He said that the key think was to effect these arrests from the hooligan element which was the main bone of contention for the traders. He also said that the Paras had been selected to placate the Unionists and to demonstrate a new ‘get-tough’ policy on the part of the army, since the Stormont Government did not believe that the army was taking a robust enough line with illegal marchers. He said that he had no information to suggest that the Paras were to use excessive violence to placate the Unionists and, although he described some Paras as ‘downright thugs’, he said that this had not, to his knowledge, been a reason for selecting them for the operation.
4.1.9.4 Invitations to the press
He said that it was believed that, from a PR point of view, the march would be a success, and that this was the motivation behind Information Policy’s encouragements to the press to attend. He reiterated that Information Policy would not have taken the risk of inviting journalists to watch a gun battle at the march and that therefore, the reliability of the intelligence received prior to the march was of the utmost importance. He said that the Unit’s assessment of the intelligence materials provided to them was that the risk of gunmen operating was very low.
4.1.10 Army action on Bloody Sunday
Mr Wallace told the Tribunal that the way the army reacted throughout the day’s events suggested that they did not expect any hostility from the IRA on the day, and added that the arrest operation possibly only went ahead because the army believed that they would not be confronted by gunmen.
He said that the helicopter cine-film footage of the day confirmed his theory in that it showed the army personnel carriers stopping in the Rossville Flats area, with the rear doors opened towards the Flats. He said that the army would not have risked this exposure had they genuinely expected armed gunmen to be present. Although he was shown a number of photographs which appeared to indicate that the rear of the vehicles was actually positioned away from the Flats, Mr Wallace remained adamant that the rear doors were opened to areas from which the army could have expected potential gunmen to be in position.
It was also Mr Wallace’s contention that the army had not deployed enough snipers to deal with a possible IRA attack. He said that in designing a military plan, commanders plan for a worst-case scenario so, if there had been reliable information to suggest that gunmen would be operating in the area, he would have expected snipers to be deployed further forward into the area to cover the troops who were trying to arrest rioters.
He said that the army plan for the day, its actions and the intelligence available were all at odds with the suggestion that a gunfight was expected.
4.1.11 Statements issued after Bloody Sunday
Mr Wallace said that overnight on 30th January, Colonel Harry Dalzell-Payne from the MoD, produced a press briefing document which alleged that some of those who had been shot had links with the IRA, and that this information had been used by Colonel Tugwell in subsequent press briefings. He told the Inquiry that the MoD’s claim was at odds with Information Policy’s information and, seeing as Information Policy was the only potential source for the MoD, he did not know from where they had got this information.
Mr Wallace said that the only information that his Unit had received concerning the republican connections of the deceased was that Gerald Donaghy was a member of na Fianna. It was his belief that this information had come from 8th Brigade. He said that the statement issued by the MoD was completely false as there was no information on any of the other victims.
4.1.12 Special Branch documents
The Tribunal is in possession of a number of confidential reports concerning the Bloody Sunday dead and wounded prepared by Special Branch, at the request of the Chief Inspector, following Bloody Sunday. The response, accompanying the individual reports, states that four of the dead and wounded had previously come to the attention of the Special Branch.
4.1.12.1 Patrick Doherty
Mr Wallace said that he had not seen the document pertaining to Paddy Doherty which records that one of his relatives was a member of the Women’s Action Committee, aligned to Sinn Fein, and said that the information would have been so trivial that Information Policy would not have recorded it.
4.1.12.2 Gerald Donaghy
The report states that Gerald Donaghy was “not known to be a member of any illegal organisation prior to his death” on Bloody Sunday. It adds that, on 27th August 1970, he had been found with a belt of blank .303 cases in his possession on Strand Road in Derry, but that “since then he has not come under notice”.
4.1.12.3 Joseph Friel
The document concerning Joseph Friel reports that he had never come under notice, but that one of his family members had joined na Fianna in August 1970.
4.1.12.4 Joseph Mahon
The report concerning Joe Mahon states that he “came under notice in August 1970 when he was identified as a member of Fianna na hÉireann in Londonderry. This group to which he belongs is aligned to the Provisional IRA. Since August 1970 he has not come under notice from a Special Branch aspect”.
4.1.13 The Widgery Tribunal
4.1.13.1 Information concerning witnesses, the dead and wounded
Mr Wallace told the Tribunal that he had been seconded to the Army Legal Team on the day that the Tribunal was announced in order to liaise with the intelligence community and other sources to ascertain whether any intelligence existed on civilian witnesses giving evidence and on the dead and wounded. He said that he had looked to see if people were members of Sinn Fein or of other organisations which might affect the content of their evidence. He believed that he would have produced summaries of the information found for the Widgery Tribunal.
4.1.13.2 Involvement with soldiers giving evidence
Mr Wallace said that his involvement with soldiers during the Inquiry consisted solely of briefing them about procedure and expected behaviour and informing them of the identities of the relevant people on the Inquiry, in order to familiarise them with the way in which the Inquiry would work. He said that he had not rehearsed with the soldiers the evidence that they would give as their statements had already been submitted to the Treasury Solicitor’s department. He said that all interviews with soldiers had been carried out by the Army Legal Service and the Special Investigation Branch.
He also said that he did not believe suggestions made by a member of the Royal Green Jackets during an interview with Praxis that older soldiers had claimed more responsibility for what had happened when giving their evidence in an attempt to protect younger soldiers from the Tribunal proceedings, stating that the system would have precluded that from happening.
4.1.14 ‘The Knocking Game’
The Tribunal is in possession of a document entitled ‘The Knocking Game, a Case Study in Propaganda’, which Mr Wallace said was written by Colonel Tugwell and demonstrated the PsyOps approach to allegations about the Parachute Regiment. He said that it was given to visiting journalists in an attempt to demonstrate that there was a prolonged campaign against the Parachute Regiment of allegations of misbehaviour and that a number of these allegations were false.
The document states: “perhaps the most disgusting aspect of the Londonderry propaganda campaign is the manner in which the ‘Derry mart