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9 - 12 DECEMBER 2002
Evidence heard
This week, the Tribunal heard from a number of former and serving military and MoD personnel.
A full transcript of the proceedings is available at http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk.
1. anthony stephens’ evidence
At the time of Bloody Sunday, Mr Stephens was a senior civil servant within the Ministry of Defence (MoD), where he held the position of Head of Defence Secretariat 10 (DS10), reporting to Arthur Hockaday. DS10 was responsible for providing policy advice to Ministers and military staff concerning the Army’s involvement in Northern Ireland and for playing a liaison role between the MoD and the Foreign and Home Offices. Mr Stephens was in frequent contact with the General Officer Commanding (GOC), General Tuzo and the Commander of Land Forces (CLF), General Ford.
1.1 Role and responsibilities
Mr Stephens described how security policy and political policy in Northern Ireland were inextricably linked at the time of Bloody Sunday and said that the role of DS10 and other departments dealing with the area was to enable all relevant information to be analysed in order to assist in the development of strategic political objectives for Northern Ireland. His primary role was to keep himself fully informed of all matters which would have an influence on the formulation of political policy for Northern Ireland, including trends in military thinking, and to pass this on to the relevant Ministers so that military policy did not in effect frustrate the Government’s political objectives in Northern Ireland.
1.2 Lethal force against marchers and / or rioters
Mr Stephens described a high degree of exasperation within MoD and Whitehall concerning the hooligan activity in Derry and across Northern Ireland. However, he denied ever having been aware that senior military personnel and civil servants were considering the shooting of unarmed rioters as a method of dealing with the problem.
He was shown a number of documents, including General Ford’s memo of 10th January, which indicate that the suggestion of using lethal force against unarmed civilians was being widely contemplated by the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, by Cabinet ministers, by the Lord Chancellor and by some of the most senior military figures in Northern Ireland. However, despite his role within DS10 and despite having seen some of the documents at the time (such as Colonel Dalzell-Payne’s report on marches (c.f. Week 68, paragraph 3.1.4.2)), Mr Stephens claimed to have been wholly ignorant of any suggestion of a departure from the principles of the Yellow Card.
Furthermore, it was his belief that General Ford’s memo of 10th January, positing that the “minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order” in Derry was to “shoot selected ringleaders amongst the DYH [Derry Young Hooligans]” had never come to the attention of the MoD.
1.3 Considerations behind the military operation planned for Bloody Sunday
In January 1972, the Westminster government was intending to introduce a political initiative in Northern Ireland in February or March that year which was designed to deal with some of the fundamental inequalities faced by the nationalist communities, such as access to housing. Mr Stephens acknowledged that the initiative was intended to introduce certain reforms favourable to the nationalist community on the one hand, but equally to limit those reforms so as to prevent a Protestant backlash against Westminster, and also to keep Brian Faulkner in power in Stormont. He acknowledged that the greatest fear at the time within the British establishment was that it might provoke a Protestant backlash, effectively leading to a civil war situation in Northern Ireland which would be either beyond their control or would necessitate a huge commitment in terms of troop levels. A large number of political decisions and initiatives at the time were therefore dictated by the need to satisfy Protestant opinion.
However, he denied Counsel’s suggestion that the Bloody Sunday operation had been specifically designed to placate Protestant public opinion by dealing a blow to the Bogsiders and to NICRA (described in one official document as the active ally of the IRA), thereby preventing a Protestant backlash. It was his initial evidence that the idea of pacifying Protestant sentiments never came into the planning of the operation, although, having been shown a number of documents suggesting the contrary, he acknowledged that it had played some role in determining how the march was to be handled. Nevertheless, he remained adamant that the operation planned for Bloody Sunday did not in any way represent an introduction of firmer measures to deal with hooligans or a clear “change in policy” regarding the Derry situation (as suggested by Colonel Roy Jackson, commanding officer of the Royal Anglian Regiment on Bloody Sunday).
1.4. Prior knowledge of the operation planned for Bloody Sunday
It was Mr Stephens’ evidence that he would have been aware a few days before Bloody Sunday that the Army was planning an arrest operation on the day, in the event of large-scale rioting, and that 1 Para was to be deployed in the role of arresting force. However, it was his understanding that the Army was intending to arrest between 10 and 20 persons, rather than the hundreds which has been suggested latterly. He agreed that he and his colleagues in the MoD would have been aware of the possibility of the arrest operation leading to a ‘shooting war’, but said that he had not formed the opinion that there was a serious risk of this occurring. He said that the MoD and the government would have been aware that the planned arrest operation contained a risk that innocent marchers would be ‘harmed’, but felt that the Government would not have sanctioned the operation had it appreciated the level of risk involved.
2. INQ406’s evidence
INQ406 was the Operations Officer for the 22nd Light Air Defence Regiment (22 LAD) at the time of Bloody Sunday, responsible for running the operations room during military operations and for drafting plans and orders for operations in which his regiment was involved. He spent Bloody Sunday at 22 LAD’s tactical headquarters in Victoria RUC station, keeping track of the operations on the ground, briefing Colonel Ferguson as to the situation on the ground and running the operations room.
A large part of his evidence dealt with the radio communication networks operating from Victoria RUC Station on the day and with 22 LAD’s communication log for the day which INQ406 told the Tribunal was incomplete and inaccurate due to the inexperience of INQ1041, the watchkeeper appointed by him on the day.
2.1 General Ford’s attitude towards the situation in Derry
INQ406 spoke with Colonel Ferguson concerning General Ford’s visit to Derry on 7th January, when he met representatives of the Strand Traders’ Association. He gained the impression that the General thought that too soft a line was being taken by the Army in Derry and that they were not doing very well at preventing hooliganism or at apprehending those responsible.
It was his opinion that General Ford had ordered the use of 1 Para at Magilligan and on Bloody Sunday to ‘show 8th Brigade how it was done in Belfast’ in an attempt to toughen them up. He said that he had never since come across any internal Army gossip or rumours to suggest that 1 Para was working to any hidden agenda on these occasions, but said that the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Green Jackets (2 RGJ), deployed alongside the Paras at Magilligan, had been taken aback by the aggressiveness and violence of the Paras’ handling of the marches, leading to considerable discussion between 22 LAD and 2 RGJ officers. However, he could not recall any discussions that it would be wrong to use them as the arresting force on Bloody Sunday.
2.2 Launch of the arrest operation
2.2.1 Paras’ entry through Barrier 14
The tape recordings of Army communications on Bloody Sunday made by James Porter (known as the Porter tapes) record a request from 1 Para’s tactical HQ to 22 LAD’s HQ to lift Barrier 14 to enable them to enter the Bogside, but record no order being given from Brigade HQ to this effect. This would indicate that Brigade did not order the barrier to be lifted (thereby ordering the arrest operation), but rather this had come about due to a request by 1 Para directly to 22 LAD HQ. INQ406 acknowledged that this was what the Porter tapes suggested but did not feel that this was an accurate understanding of the day’s events. He told the Tribunal that he had a recollection of having received a telephone call from Brigade HQ (which could not have been recorded by Mr Porter) ordering him to lift the barrier. He recalled the person giving the order as having been irritated in some way, either because they themselves were under pressure or because they felt that 22 LAD had not acted quickly enough in lifting the barrier.
He refuted Counsel’s suggestion that he was in fact confusing a sense of irritation from Brigade with pressure brought to bear on him by the Parachute Regiment to lift the barrier in question, but could not explain the absence of either any record at Brigade HQ or any suggestion from those present on the day that they did in fact call him to order him to lift the barrier.
2.2.2 Paras’ entry through Barrier 12
None of the communication logs for Bloody Sunday record an order or request to lift Barrier 12 (through which the Paras entered the Bogside in vehicles). INQ406 also confirmed that he had no recollection of having received a request or having requested that the barrier in question be lifted.
2.3 IRA bug tapes
The Tribunal is in possession of a tape which purportedly represents the recordings made by an IRA bugging device at Victoria station. Two voices on the tape speak of the Paras having killed the wrong people, of General Ford ‘lapping it up’ and other issues pertaining to the day’s events. INQ406 was asked to attempt to identify the voices in question and thought they might have been those of INQ1041 (the watchkeeper on the day) and INQ1814.
2.4 Impression of Bloody Sunday
In his statement to the Inquiry, INQ406 wrote that he “never felt that the Brigade had the day properly under control. In fact,my feeling at the time was that the day ran us rather than we ran the day. Possibly, the reason is that people were looking in two directions for their orders”, i.e. from Brigadier MacLellan and General Ford. INQ406 said that he did not know whether his impression was correct in any way.
2.5 Shooting nail bombers
INQ406 was shown a transcript of the Porter tapes from 28th January, two days before Bloody Sunday, which makes reference to a soldier having seen a nail bomb. The response is, “why did you not shoot him?”. It continues:
“I can see the nail bomber. Do you want me to shoot him? He has nothing in his hands. Over.”
“Register absolutely certain the person you can see is the nail bomber.”
“Positive.”
“Shoot him dead.”
“Missed him by about two inches.”
“Bad shooting.”
INQ 406 could not recall the incident in question nor any other occasions on which an instruction had been given to shoot dead somebody who had nothing in their hands.
3. John harding’s evidence
Mr Harding is the Senior Historian and Deputy Head of the Information Exploitation Analysis branch of the MoD (formally known as the Army Historical Branch), responsible for co-ordinating the searches made by the MoD for material relevant to the Inquiry, in support of the MoD’s Bloody Sunday Unit.
He explained the processes in place for providing information to the Inquiry and refuted any suggestion that he had been hindered in his efforts by anybody or that any documents had been suppressed in any way.
In relation to the 1,000 photographs taken by the Army on Bloody Sunday, Mr Harding told the Tribunal that he had not managed to find any reference to them after 1972. He presumed that they might have been destroyed due to their lack of evidential value, but was not prepared to countenance the suggestion that they might have been deliberately suppressed by the Army due to their ‘unhelpfulness’ to the Army’s case. He did not feel that the fact that none of the photographs taken on the day, by ten photographers from seven different regiments, had survived was in any way suspicious.
Furthermore, he denied that his method of asking the Parachute Regiment itself to conduct the search for the photographs was akin to asking a murder suspect to search his own house for a weapon. And although he did acknowledge that the only guarantee that the search had been done properly was the word of the Parachute Regiment, in circumstances where, Counsel posited, it “stands charged with mass murder”, he felt that they would have obeyed orders given through the military chain of command.
4. INQ 1869’s evidence
In 1972, INQ1869 was General Staff Officer, Grade II (GSO2) Plans, based at Army Headquarters Northern Ireland (HQNI) in Lisburn, responsible for military operational plans. In terms of operational planning, he was fourth in the chain of command after the GOC, the CLF and a recently appointed GSO1. He was also responsible for acting as the secretary to the Director of Operations Committee (DOps) which was the body responsible for taking decisions concerning security matters in Northern Ireland which were arising from week to week.
4.1 Lack of discussion or awareness of planned arrest operation
The minutes of the DOps meeting of 26th January 1972 discuss the planned march for Bloody Sunday and provide a broad outline of the Army’s plans to prevent the march from proceeding to the Guildhall. However, they make no reference to the possibility of arrests being conducted on the day nor indeed to any planned arrest operation, indicating that such matters were not discussed at the meeting, a fact described by Lord Saville as “odd, to put it at its lowest”. Furthermore, General Tuzo also refrained from mentioning anything about an arrest operation when discussing the plan for dealing with the march at the Joint Security Committee meeting of 27th January. However, INQ1869 felt unable to comment on whether this indicated that senior officers were taking secret decisions in relation to the operation, keeping a part of the military plan secret from others responsible for military planning in Northern Ireland.
INQ1869 told the Tribunal that he had been unaware of any planned arrest operation until the evening of Bloody Sunday. However, he agreed with the suggestion put to him by his own Counsel that this was not unusual given that he was responsible for ‘province-wide’ rather than city-specific military planning. The two operations in which he was involved in the planning, cited by Mr Bradley QC in supporting this contention, were the internment operation and Operation Motorman. However, it was questioned whether in fact Operation Motorman qualified as a ‘province-wide’ operation rather than one centred on Derry.
4.2 Bloody Sunday
INQ1869 told the Tribunal that he had returned to HQNI on Bloody Sunday after seeing television reports concerning the events in Derry and had opened the safes in the strong room containing all top-secret documentation in order to enable the Chief of Staff, Brigadier Tickell, to gain access to any documents he may have required in dealing with the aftermath of the events.
In an interview with a journalist, INQ1869 described being “shocked” at the events of Bloody Sunday, believing that “it was a bad day for the Army”. He confirmed that his suspicions at the time were that innocent people had been killed, but could not recall whether he had discussed these sentiments with Brigadier Tickell and others at HQNI or whether they had shared his feelings concerning the day’s events.
4.3 DOps brief for 30th and 31st January 1972
A daily security brief was prepared for the DOps committee in 1971 / 1972, providing an update on the security situation and listing any security incidents that had transpired over the course of the previous day. The brief prepared in relation to Bloody Sunday lists a series of alleged incidents such as shots fired at the soldiers and return fire at nail bombers and snipers which appears to have come from 8th Brigade’s log of the day.
The Brief then goes on to provide an overview of the day’s events describing how, between 16:10 and 16:50, three companies had entered the Bogside in order to arrest rioters, coming under a “fusillade of fire of 50 to 80 rounds from snipers on Rossville Flats and Glenfada Flats”. It went on to say that “complete indiscriminate fire came from the gunmen, some of whom were shooting from within and behind groups of rioters, undoubtedly causing civilian casualties. Well over 200 rounds were fired at the soldiers”.
INQ1869 could not explain how the brief was so inaccurate in terms of the soldiers’ movements on the day and could shed no light on who might have authored it. Equally, he could not explain why an appended document, listing the alleged targets engaged by 1 Para with grid references identifying the location of the target and of the individual soldier shooting, had not identified the soldiers responsible for the shooting by name, cipher or rank.
4.4 General Ford’s memo of 10th January 1972
INQ1869 said that he had no recollection of having seen the memo, but that he may have done so and may have stored it in his safe. However, he could not recall any discussion relating to the suggestion of shooting rioters or of adapting high-velocity rifles to fire smaller bullets at them. Michael Mansfield QC suggested that, given that there is evidence from various documents that such matters were discussed and indeed that conversion kits had been sent to Northern Ireland to adapt high-velocity weapons to shoot smaller bullets, such matters were kept fairly well hidden even within HQNI. INQ1869 did not believe that such matters were deliberately ‘hidden’ but rather that he had merely had no part in any such discussions.
It is General Ford’s evidence that, in the week before Bloody Sunday, he had instructed a member of the General Staff to prepare a paper concerning the need to shoot into crowds, given the perceived lack in the Army’s armoury which “could only be met with a lethal weapon”. According to General Ford, the paper also dealt with the suggestion that it would be necessary to adopt the ‘disperse or we fire’ tactic used by the British Army overseas. Given that INQ1869 was responsible for operational planning at the time, he was asked whether he was responsible for preparing the paper or whether he had become aware of its existence. He was adamant that he was not responsible for it, although as GSO2, Plans this type of role would have been within his area of responsibility, and suggested that GSO1, Plans or GSO2, Operations could have been responsible for its drafting.
INQ1869 also said that he could not recall any discussions to the effect that the intervention of the Army on Bloody Sunday in stopping the march and conducting an arrest operation was something of a ‘set piece’ designed to demonstrate that the Security Forces were firmly in control of the situation and to assuage the concerns of Protestants at the apparent toleration of civil rights marches, as alleged by Colin Wallace (c.f. Week 65, paragraph 4).
5.
Mr brobson’s evidence (also
known as INQ1868)
Mr Brobson, who was 18 at the time of Bloody Sunday, was a Corporal attached to the Lisburn detachment of the Special Investigations Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police (RMP), reporting to Captain INQ1870. He was sent to Derry on the evening of Bloody Sunday to assist in the RMP’s investigation into the shooting incidents on Bloody Sunday. He was responsible for taking a number of statements from soldiers involved, including those of Soldiers H, M and Y, all of whom fired shots on the day. Although he could not recall much detail concerning his role in the interviewing process, he felt that soldiers, as a general rule, would have been apprehensive of the RMP.
5.1 Statement-taking process
Mr Brobson could not recall having been provided with any details as to the specific shooting incident in which each soldier he interviewed was involved, indeed he did not even think that he had known at the time of taking the statements that civilians had been killed on the day. It was his evidence that he knew absolutely nothing about why he was in Derry, save that he was to take statements from soldiers. He thought that he had merely been randomly allocated soldiers to interview and had then taken them through their story, asking them to provide as much detail as possible. He would then have asked the soldier to read through the statement, agree its contents and sign it. He then countersigned the document and gave it to Captain INQ1870 who would have gone back to the soldier for additional details.
Soldier M’s version of events appears to contradict that of Mr Brobson. The soldier contends that he was not allowed to relate the events in his own words but was asked a series of questions to which he gave short answers. Soldier M has given this as an explanation for the fact that his RMP statement differs from and is less complete than subsequent statements made by him concerning his actions on the day. He has also said that he was not given the opportunity of going through the statement to check for accuracy and completeness.
Mr Brobson did not feel that Soldier M’s account of the statement-taking process corresponded with the procedure he adopted on the day. He also denied that he would have been in a position to add further detail to the soldier’s statement, as suggested by Soldier M.
Counsel suggested that, given the inclusion of grid references in the soldiers’ statements and given that maps, identifying the soldiers’ individual positions on the day and the position of their ‘targets’ were appended, he must have made use of a map. However, although he was taking statements from soldiers dealing with shooting incidents in a city that neither he nor the soldiers had previously visited, it was his recollection that he did not have a map to assist him in pinpointing the soldier’s version of events, nor did he get the soldier to mark their positions on a map, although he acknowledged that it was possible that this had merely slipped his memory.
However, he did recall Captain INQ1870 standing at one end of the Corporal’s Club in Derry where the statements were being taken, plotting on a map of Derry the positions of soldiers who had fired and evaluating the evidence the Paras gave in their statements, but was unable to help the Inquiry as to what had subsequently happened to the map.
6. INQ1832
INQ1832 was General Ford’s Personal Assistant, based at HQNI, having previously served in the Royal Ordinance Corps in Derry. As such his duties included coordinating the General’s diary, accompanying him on visits and taking dictation from him. He shared an office with the General’s Aide de Camp (ADC), INQ2.
His evidence centred on the Operations Diary he compiled the day after Bloody Sunday, having been instructed by General Ford to keep record of the General’s movements on the day. The diary presents itself as having been dictated by General Ford but was in fact compiled by INQ1832 on the basis of his recollections of the day’s events and those of INQ2.
6.1 Embassy observation post
6.2 Barrier 14
INQ1832 witnessed the Paratroopers forming up behind Barrier 14 prior to their entry into the Bogside. He said that at this stage the bulk of those rioting had dispersed, leaving approximately 20 people in the vicinity of the barrier.
6.3 Gunfire heard on the day
It was INQ1832’s current evidence that the first gunshots he heard on the day were approximately five low-velocity pistol shots, fired within a minute of the Paras’ entry into the Bogside. However, his previous accounts of the day’s events, namely Ford’s Operational Diary and his 1998 statement make no mention of low-velocity, describing merely hearing gunfire from the direction of the Rossville Flats. Furthermore, the General’s and INQ2’s accounts of the day equally merely mention gunfire rather than low-velocity fire. Although he conceded that the sound might have been that of baton rounds being fired, it was his opinion that it was in fact low-velocity fire, denying the suggestion made that he had recently described the shots in this way in order to suggest that the Paras were fired on first.
Within seconds he heard the sound of high-velocity gunfire and, although General Ford was standing near him at the time, he could not recall the General’s reaction to the sound of Army fire.
6.4 Operations diary
INQ1832 was adamant that the General had not dictated the Operations Diary, as indicated in the document and by General Ford himself, but that he had merely approved its contents. He maintained that the document represented his and INQ2’s recollections of the General’s movements and conversations on Bloody Sunday but contained no original input from General Ford. He could not explain why General Ford had added his signature to a document which stated that he had dictated it when in actual fact he had not, nor could he explain how the General had come to state twice under oath to the Widgery Inquiry that he had in fact dictated the diary, but remained adamant that it had not been compiled in this manner.
6.5 ‘Post mortem’ meetings following Bloody Sunday
INQ1832 attended a number of ad hoc meetings chaired by General Ford following Bloody Sunday, set up in order to assess what had happened on the day. It was his recollection that Colonel Tickell, Colonel Tugwell and three General Staff Officers had been present at these meetings. He said that he had not been aware of any criticism of what had taken place on Bloody Sunday or any discussions about what might have gone wrong and that ‘nobody had lost their job’ over it.
6.6 Document prepared in October 1988
Having been notified by the MoD that he might be called upon to give evidence to the current Inquiry, INQ1832 wrote a statement detailing his recollections of and involvement on Bloody Sunday. The four-page document was based on an earlier report he had written in 1972, itself based on notes compiled on Bloody Sunday itself and in the days following it. However, having kept this 1972 report for sixteen years, he destroyed it after writing his 1998 account of events.
In his evidence to the Inquiry’s solicitors, INQ1832 said that his motivation in keeping documents and manuscripts relating to Bloody Sunday was that he “had a sixth sense that the events of the day might come back to haunt [him]”. Given the fact that he was at the Observation Post on the Embassy Ballroom, with a view commanding the Bogside, at precisely the time Major Loden documented the bulk of the Army shooting incidents as having taken place, Michael Mansfield QC suggested that, contrary to what he wrote in his 1998 report and what he had told the Tribunal, he had in fact seen something terrible on Bloody Sunday which he knew would come back to ‘haunt’ him. He denied this, saying that he had misused the expression but could not explain how he had missed the key events of the day given his vantage point. He further denied the suggestion that he had destroyed his contemporaneous notes as they indicated that, whilst on the roof of the Embassy Ballroom, he had witnessed what was “effectively a massacre”.
SUMMARY OF
PROCEEDINGS
Monday 9th: Paragraph 1
Tuesday 10th: Paragraph 2
Wednesday 11th: Paragraph 3, 4 and 5
Thursday 12th: Paragraph 6
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
