The Bloody Sunday Inquiry The Families Speak Out Edited and introduced by Eamonn McCann Pluto Press London • Dublin • Ann Arbor, MI First published 2006 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Distributed in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by Columba Mercier Distribution, 55A Spruce Avenue, Stillorgan Industrial Park, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Tel: + 353 1 294 2556. Fax: + 353 1 294 2564 www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Eamonn McCann 2006 The right of Eamonn McCann to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7453 2511 4 hardback ISBN 0 7453 2510 6 paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Curran Publishing Services, Norwich Printed and bound in the European Union by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England CONTENTS Acknowledgements v Chronology vi Introduction 1 1 Campaign 21 2 Saville 43 3 Lawyers 57 4 Media 68 5 Heath 78 6 Soldiers 85 7 Neighbours 109 8 IRA 124 9 London 132 10 Conclusion 150 Afterword 181 Acknowledgements This book was commissioned the Bloody Sunday Trust. Among those whose support was important are Gemma Cairns, Tracey Collins, Patricia Coyle, Nuala Crilly, Tony Doherty, Seamus Farrell, Pat Friel, Ciaran Gallagher, Angela Hegarty, Jean Hegarty, Paul Hippsley, Kitty Holland, Luke Holland, Goretti Horgan, Matty Horgan, Catherine Kelly, John Kelly, Adrian Kerr, Paul McCauley, Conal FcFeely, Britt Madsen, Christy Moore, Hilary Morton, Jim O’Neill and Anita Villa. The photographs of the interviewees are by Mark Willets. Other photo- graphs courtesy of Hugh Gallagher, the Derry Journal and the Bloody Sunday Trust. Eamonn McCann September 2005 Acknowledgements v Chronology The Bloody Sunday Inquiry was announced by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a statement to the House of Commons on 29 January 1998. The members of the Tribunal appointed to conduct the Inquiry were Lord Saville of Newdigate, Judge William Hoyt, former chief justice of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, and retired New Zealand judge, Sir Edward Somers. Somers withdrew for health reasons in July 2000 and was replaced by former Australian High Court judge, John Toohey. Saville made his introductory statement at Derry Guildhall on 3 April 1999. Oral hearings began at the Guildhall on 27 March 2000, with the opening speech by Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the Inquiry. The first witness took the stand on 28 November 2000. The Tribunal ruled in December 1998 that military witnesses should be publicly identified, other than in exceptional cases. This ruling was reversed by the Court of Appeal in London in July 1999. In August 2001, the Tribunal ruled that, other than in exceptional cases, soldiers should testify at Derry Guildhall. This ruling was reversed by the Court of Appeal in London in December 2001. In May 1999, the Tribunal upheld an application from a number of police officers to give their evidence from behind screens. In February 2002, most of the other police officers scheduled to testify applied for and were granted screening. An application by lawyers for the families for judicial review of this ruling was rejected by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal in March 2002. The Inquiry moved to the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, on 24 September 2002 to hear the testimony of British soldiers and others. Hear- ings continued at Central Hall until 21 October 2003. The Tribunal then returned to Derry, where hearings resumed on 29 October 2003. The main body of evidence was completed on 13 February 2004. In June 2004 two additional witnesses were heard. Clarke’s closing speech was delivered at the Guildhall on 22 and 23 November 2004. The Tribunal sat briefly on 27 vi The Bloody Sunday Inquiry January 2005 to hear evidence from a final witness. In all, the Inquiry sat for 434 days. The cost of the Inquiry was around £155 million. The Tribunal’s report is expected to be published in early 2006. Lord Gifford (on the left) and Sir Louis Blom-Cooper Lord Saville TRIBUNAL MEMBERS The Honourable Lord Saville of Newdigate (Chairman) The Honourable Mr William Hoyt The Honourable Mr John L. Toohey (Mr Toohey replaced Sir Edward Somers, who retired on health grounds in July 2000.) COUNSEL TO THE INQUIRY Christopher Clarke QC Alan Roxburgh Cathryn McGahey Bilal Rawat Chronology vii Arthur Harvey QC, Barry MacDonald QC, Seamus Treacy QC, Michael Lavery QC, Karen Quinliven, Tom McCreanor, Ciaran Harvey, Brian McCartney and Fiona Doherty (instructed by Madden & Finucane) represented Gerard McKinney, William McKinney, Gerald Donaghey, Michael McDaid, John Young, Michael Kelly, Jackie Duddy, Kevin McEl- hinney, Hugh Pius Gilmour and John Johnston (killed); Joseph Friel, Joseph Mahon, Patrick O’Donnell, Patrick McDaid, Alana Burke and Damien Donaghey (wounded); and Patrick Campbell, Margaret Deery and Daniel McGowan (wounded, now deceased). Lord Gifford QC and Richard Harvey (instructed by McCartney & Casey) represented James Wray (deceased). Michael Mansfield QC and Kieran Mallon (instructed by MacDermott & McGurk) represented William Nash (deceased), Alexander Nash (wounded/now deceased) and Daniel Gillespie (wounded). Michael Mansfield QC and John Coyle (instructed by Desmond J. Doherty & Co) represented Bernard McGuigan (deceased). Declan Morgan QC and Brian Kennedy (instructed by Brendan Kearney, Kelly & Co) represented Michael Bridge and Michael Bradley (wounded). Eilis McDermott QC and Mary McHugh (instructed by Barr & Co) represented Patrick Doherty (deceased). Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC and Paddy O’Hanlon (instructed by Francis Keenan) represented the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). Edwin Glasgow QC, Edward Lawson QC, Gerard Elias QC, Sir Allan Green QC and Rosamund Horwood-Smart QC (instructed by the Treasury Solicitors) were the lead barristers representing military witnesses. viii The Bloody Sunday Inquiry Introduction The smoke hadn’t cleared from the Bogside when Captain Mike Jackson, second-in-command of the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, standing in the lee of the Rossville Street Flats, began pondering the notes that the Bloody Sunday families believe were to become the basis for a cover-up of murder. Huddled in the houses and flats into which they had fled, looking fear- fully out on the scene, neighbours of the dead were already resolving that, however long it might take, there’d be a reckoning. In the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster more than 31 years later, in October 2003, General Sir Michael Jackson, as he now was, Chief of the General Staff, Britain’s number one soldier, was explaining to Michael Mansfield, barrister for the families of some of the victims, that he could remember next to nothing about compiling the Bloody Sunday ‘shot list’ and could not explain why none of the shots described in his list appeared to conform to any of the shots actually fired. This book is the Bloody Sunday families’ account of how they succeeded in forcing Jackson and his soldiers and superiors to explain, if they could, in public and under oath, how and why they had killed or wounded 28 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry on 30 January 1972. The first official show of trying to establish the truth was phoney. On the day after the killings, Prime Minister Edward Heath asked the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery, to conduct a public inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921. Widgery didn’t waste time. He defined his remit narrowly, to cover events on ‘the streets of Londonderry where the disturbances and the ultimate shooting took place’ over ‘the period beginning with the moment when the march ... first became involved in violence and ending with the conclusion of the affair and the deaths’. There was to be no examination of prior military or political plan- ning or of suggestions of subsequent cover-up. Widgery sat on 17 days between 21 February and 14 March, hearing 114 witnesses, of whom 30 were Derry civilians. Hundreds of eyewitness statements, mostly collected Introduction 1 by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), organisers of the 30 January march, were made available to Widgery and were ignored by him. Six of the 14 wounded were not approached for an account of how they’d come to be shot. Widgery’s selection of soldiers to give evidence was significant, too. Company Sergeant Major (CSM) Lewis, who had commanded Support Company of the First Paras, which probably fired all the fatal shots, made himself available to testify, but inexplicably, as it seemed at the time, wasn’t called. Widgery passed his 39-page report to Home Secretary Reginald Maudling on 10 April. It was published on 18 April, eleven weeks after the event. Heath’s government didn’t wait for Widgery’s hearings, much less his report, before disseminating its own version of events. On 1 February, as Widgery’s appointment was being announced in the House of Commons, British Information Services (BIS) was distributing to wire services and broadcasting outlets across the world a document headed ‘Northern Ireland: Londonderry’ telling that, ‘Of the 13 men killed, four were on the security force’s wanted list .… One man had four nail bombs in his pocket .… Throughout the fighting that ensued, the army fired only at identified targets – at attacking gunmen and bombers .… The troops came under indiscriminate firing.’ The document ended with a list detailing 14 separate shooting inci- dents which it suggested made up the ‘fighting’. These were the 14 inci- dents on the ‘shot list’ in Jackson’s handwriting, which was to come to light more than three decades later.