1 Tuesday, 17th September 2002
2 (9.45 am)
3 MR JOHN GODDARD, (continued)
4 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH (continued)
5 MR ROXBURGH: Could we have on the screen, please, AM42.4.
6 Mr Goddard, is this your note of an interview of
7 Fergus McAteer.
8 A. It is.
9 Q. We can see at the beginning that it describes Mr McAteer
10 as:
11 "Son of Eddie, Nationalist Party councillor till
12 1989 and somewhat tainted. On the other hand, an
13 accountant, clearly middle class, educated, well-off,
14 not bitter or paramilitary et cetera."
15 Mr McAteer has given evidence to this Inquiry and
16 I think it is fair to say he took exception to the
17 description of him as being "somewhat tainted"; can you
18 explain what you meant by saying that?
19 A. If you remember these were internal documents that were
20 never expected to see the light of day, but it was not
21 meant to be derogatory, it was purely in credibility
22 terms, one would look for people who were known to have
23 no allegiances and could speak about actual events
24 without any possible biases or prejudices from either
25 side.
1 Q. Was it the fact he had been a nationalist councillor
2 until 1989 that caused you to describe him as "somewhat
3 tainted"?
4 A. If we had two witnesses saying exactly the same thing,
5 one having been a Nationalist Party councillor and the
6 other not, the latter would be the preferable option.
7 But then you take elements into the equation like, you
8 know, how good they might be on camera, how good they
9 might be in telling the story and making the point.
10 But, yes, it is the nationalist councillor that caused
11 that comment.
12 Q. Could we have AE5.1 on the screen, please. Is this your
13 note of an interview of Mickey English?
14 A. Yes, it is.
15 Q. We can see there the introduction:
16 "Stephanie's father, Sinn Fein supporter although
17 not member at present."
18 Who is Stephanie?
19 A. I do not know. I do not remember Mickey English either,
20 I am afraid.
21 Q. But you have no idea why it was material to make a note
22 that he was Stephanie's --
23 A. I would imagine Stephanie must be another witness where
24 there are notes on what she saw on the day as well.
25 Q. Was Stephanie one of the people who assisted you with
1 research for the documentary?
2 A. No, the two researchers were both male.
3 Q. Could we have next on the screen, please, AM255.14 on
4 the left and AM255.16 on the right. Do we not have that
5 page?
6 THE TECHNICIAN: We only go up to page 14, I am afraid.
7 MR ROXBURGH: Is the document we have on the screen at
8 AM255.14 your note of an interview of Danny McGowan, who
9 was one of the people wounded on Bloody Sunday?
10 A. It is.
11 Q. Do you remember this interview?
12 A. No.
13 Q. When you conducted these interviews, did you have with
14 you any map or set of photographs to assist the
15 witnesses to explain where they were or where things
16 happened?
17 A. Yes. We normally had -- or I normally had the sort of
18 basic guide that Widgery used for the streets around the
19 events and I used the sort of two- to three-dimensional
20 map that the Sunday Times published in January
21 or February 1972.
22 Q. What about photographs?
23 A. Not that I recall, no.
24 Q. In the section of the note, we now have the document
25 I wanted. In the section of the note on the left, your
1 note, headed "Story," the account begins:
2 "Ran up Chamberlain Street and across to gap between
3 blocks 3 and 2.
4 "Goes through, shots raining through the flats
5 doorway from Chamberlain Street direction. Sees Bradley
6 shot near him. Looks back as he is going through.
7 "Sees gunman with revolver edging along gable end
8 and loosing off 'few shots' around the gable end. 'It
9 slowed the Paras' advance. Meant lots more people got
10 to safety. Probably saved even more deaths. The Paras
11 were already shooting heavily by now.'"
12 Should we take the words in quotation marks as being
13 the actual words used by the witness?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. What we have on the right-hand side of the screen, is
16 a statement made by Mr McGowan to this Inquiry in which
17 he comments on your note which had been shown to him,
18 and he says halfway through the statement:
19 "Some of the contents of this document are
20 inaccurate.
21 "(a) I did not run up Chamberlain Street and across
22 to the gap between blocks 2 and 3. As I said in my
23 statement to Eversheds, I made my way from Free Derry
24 Corner towards blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats.
25 "(b) It was through the gap between blocks 1 and 2
1 that I saw a man with a handgun at the gable end of
2 Chamberlain Street. I did not see the gunman fire any
3 shots. I only saw him holding the gun."
4 Is there a possibility that you have misunderstood
5 or misrecorded what Mr McGowan was saying to you when
6 you wrote that he had seen a gunman loosing off a few
7 shots around the gable end?
8 A. There is always the possibility, but I would doubt it.
9 We would have also moved to an audio recording and
10 a transcript, so that might clarify the matter if that
11 transcript is in the bundle that was supplied to you.
12 Q. I am afraid it is not?
13 A. Well, I would stand by my note.
14 Q. In the note that you made there is another paragraph
15 third from last, which reads:
16 "Shooting eases after good five minutes at least.
17 He crawls up to top of area behind back of block 2 of
18 Rossville Street Flats, near block 3, and is bent over,
19 pulling injured man (Patsy Campbell) to cover when Danny
20 is shot from behind."
21 Mr McGowan's comment on that, in the last
22 sub-paragraph of his statement is:
23 "The document is wrong about the position I was
24 standing in when I was shot and I prefer to rely on my
25 statement to this Inquiry in relation to this."
1 Before we go any further: do you have any
2 recollection of this interview which is likely to be
3 good enough for you to deal with the detail of what
4 Mr McGowan told you about the location in which he was
5 shot?
6 A. No, I cannot put a face to Mr McGowan at all, I am
7 afraid.
8 Q. In that case I am not sure it would be profitable to
9 take this any further, save to ask you whether there is
10 any reason, in your own mind, to doubt that the
11 paragraph from your note, third from last, accurately
12 records what Mr McGowan told you?
13 A. I would stand by my note.
14 Q. Can we move on to page AK17.24. Is this your note of an
15 interview of Noel Kelly?
16 A. It would appear so, yes.
17 Q. Do you have any recollection of this interview?
18 A. No.
19 Q. In the section headed "Story," the note reads as
20 follows:
21 "After seeing Donaghy and Johnston shot he ran
22 through to Abbey Park and saw two McKinneys laid side by
23 side (been carried there and then dropped) and looking
24 into Glenfada Park saw Mahon crawling towards him, 'help
25 me, help me'.
1 "Wray dead by wall which was covered in his blood.
2 "Moving to help Mahon when Para appeared by gable
3 end, either black or wearing gas mask. 40 feet away,
4 and I was waving a hanky. He swung rifle round
5 instantly, and I went to move away. He fired three
6 shots and I fell, on floor."
7 With that in mind can we look at part of Mr Kelly's
8 evidence to this Inquiry. Can we keep the note on the
9 left-hand side of the screen, or on the right, and on
10 the other side put the transcript of Day 62, page 40.
11 Can we go to line 12 on page 40, where Mr Kelly was
12 asked:
13 "Question: Do you recall telling the journalist
14 [that is you] that the man was either black or was
15 wearing a gas mask?
16 "Answer: There was actually a situation had taken
17 place there during that. What they had done [I think
18 that is a reference to you and your colleagues] was they
19 had shown me pictures and they had asked me did
20 I recognise anybody from the pictures and there was a
21 point where I had said, 'Well, there is one of them
22 there that looks familiar', but I could not say because,
23 in recollection, the thing that I really remember about
24 the soldier was watching his rifle. Maybe it was
25 a natural reaction, and there was one particular
1 gentleman that I pointed out and I said, 'He looks
2 familiar, but I cannot say that that is actually the guy
3 who was in Glenfada Park', and he said 'You know, do you
4 keep abreast of current affairs and I said 'I would,
5 yes'.
6 "He told me then about an incident that had happened
7 in Angola. There had been a civil war and British
8 mercenary had gone across. I can remember it was on the
9 British news where a group of mercenaries had carried
10 out an atrocity in the village but before they had
11 escaped the village had been surrounded and there had
12 been a gun battle and two or three of them had been
13 captured. I can remember from the news this one
14 particular man coming into the trial in Africa with what
15 I would describe as a surgical gown on that a surgeon
16 would wear during an operation and on crutches and him
17 coming in and he was found guilty.
18 "The guy said to me 'that was the man in
19 Glenfada Park' and his nickname -- can I name names?
20 "Question: This is somebody who is dead?
21 "Answer: That his nickname was Colonel Callon and
22 that he had been the paratrooper that had been doing the
23 shooting in Glenfada Park.
24 "Question: That is what the journalist said to you?
25 "Answer: Yes.
1 "Question: Did he show you a picture of this man?
2 "Answer: He did, yes.
3 "Question: Did you recognise him as the man you had
4 seen in Glenfada Park?
5 "Answer: No."
6 Having read that, Mr Goddard, can you remember, did
7 you show this witness a photograph of a soldier who had
8 been a mercenary in Angola?
9 A. I have no recollection of mentioning Angola, ever
10 knowing about Angola, referring to Angola with anyone or
11 even Colonel Callon.
12 The second point is I think it highly unlikely that
13 we would show pictures of soldiers in action on
14 Bloody Sunday and expect people to recognise them.
15 Q. Did you have any reason to believe that you were in
16 a position to identify, by reference to any photograph,
17 a particular soldier who had been shooting in
18 Glenfada Park?
19 A. No. I would like to be clear: I do not remember and
20 I do not think I, or any of my colleagues, raised this
21 Angola mercenary or Colonel Callon matter.
22 Q. Can we have on the screen, please, M87.4. This is, as
23 you can see, part of Mr Stark's statement to the
24 Inquiry. In paragraph 13, he says this:
25 "Neil Davies was not, I believe, involved in the
1 production process after the original research period,
2 when I was editing the programme and writing the script.
3 John Goddard and I had an on-going debate about the
4 editorial content of the programme and, as I recall, it
5 was not an easy job even then ... to be able to piece
6 together the story."
7 Can you describe for us from your perspective, what
8 was the nature of your on-going debate with Mr Stark
9 about the editorial content of the programme?
10 A. It ranged over most matters, it is quite hard to
11 characterise it now, interesting and volatile at times,
12 friendly and creative at other times. Tony -- I mean,
13 I do think Tony was responsible for whatever qualities
14 the film finally had in many ways and he did a very good
15 job on it.
16 Q. Does this just mean that you worked closely together and
17 had a lot of discussions about what should go into the
18 programme, or does it mean that there was some more
19 fundamental difference of opinion between you and
20 Mr Stark about what line the programme should take?
21 A. I think there were fundamental differences. I mean,
22 again you would really have to ask him, but as
23 I remember his point of view was that it was highly
24 unlikely the Army had done anything wrong and therefore
25 that the paramilitaries in the community must have
1 sparked events.
2 My own point of view was possibly towards the other
3 way, that the Army may have -- soldiers may have been
4 hyped up. I never believed there was a conspiracy, and
5 we found no evidence of that, but the soldiers may have
6 been hyped up and were the wrong regiment in the wrong
7 place at the wrong time.
8 So there was that general difference. I think we
9 also had significant differences on whether there was
10 one, two or three revolvers in the vicinity at the time
11 and if there were one, two or three, what relevance they
12 had to the beginning or development of the tragic
13 events.
14 Q. What was your view about the revolvers and what was his?
15 A. I think -- well, the final script came to the conclusion
16 that an odd shot, possibly from the lieutenant, if you
17 remember two witnesses said that a lieutenant had fired
18 warning shots into Chamberlain Street and that that
19 might have been the actual spark in terms of noise that
20 had caused the soldiers to believe they were under fire
21 and so on.
22 I finally agreed that that was a credible theory.
23 In terms of the one, two or three revolvers being in the
24 area, I think we could certainly tie down that there
25 were two in the area and that one was fired after the
1 soldiers had begun firing and that the second one in
2 Glenfada Park, there was no evidence of that being fired
3 at all.
4 Q. Is the first one to which you refer, the one that was
5 fired at the back of Chamberlain Street?
6 A. By the man in the picture that we discussed yesterday.
7 Q. Thank you, Mr Goddard, I have no more questions.
8 Questioned by LORD GIFFORD
9 LORD GIFFORD: Mr Goddard, my name is Anthony Gifford,
10 I appear for the family of James Wray. On behalf of the
11 family, I would like to thank you for the work you did
12 in bringing Bloody Sunday to the public's attention.
13 May I take up the point that I raised yesterday in
14 relation to the man with the nickname. This former
15 soldier was potentially a very important witness for
16 your programme?
17 A. He was, yes.
18 Q. He was more ready to speak about unlawful conduct on the
19 part of the soldiers than any other witness?
20 A. He was, and significantly, of course, he was willing to
21 speak on camera.
22 Q. Can we look at the two pages that I flagged up
23 yesterday. On the one side could we put O18.1 and on
24 the other O28.1. The notes in the top right-hand corner
25 I believe are in Mr Tony Stark's handwriting?
1 A. I do not know, sir.
2 Q. He says so. The one we see, "Notes from Neil's untaped
3 interview," you understand "Neil" has been crossed out,
4 and Mr Roxburgh told us, he must have reason to have
5 done so, that the other one said "Notes from Neil's
6 taped interview"?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Mr Roxburgh, is that right because it seems to be that
9 the top right-hand corner of the right-hand one is
10 illegible?
11 A. Yes, it is right.
12 Q. One is on 25th May and one is on the 28th. We know that
13 the one on 28th is with the man with the nickname
14 because the nickname was written on the page, was it
15 not?
16 A. It was, yes.
17 Q. And we also know that on the longer, taped interview,
18 which we will look at in a moment, O19, the initial
19 appears?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. But referring back to a previous conversation on the
22 25th?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Without going through it in detail, Mr Goddard, although
25 the topics are in different orders and sometimes
1 different, both of these documents contain similar
2 fairly pronounced views on the behaviour of the
3 soldiers?
4 A. They do.
5 Q. You have had a chance to look at them?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. I mean, for instance, both talk about laughing about the
8 Yellow Card?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And it would seem, would it not, that these two
11 documents are notes of conversations with the same
12 soldier?
13 A. It would seem so.
14 Q. Can you help us as to why, on 25th there was one
15 conversation, apparently taped, and on the 28th another
16 conversation not taped?
17 A. No, I just do not understand it, unless it was
18 a mistake. The only other thing that crossed my mind
19 was if the typist had typed the date that she did the
20 transcription as opposed to the date that the interview
21 took place.
22 Q. You have had a chance like us to read them. The two
23 notes, although they cover some of the same ground are
24 clearly not the same conversation, are they?
25 A. No, no.
1 Q. If Neil Davies saw this man on the same day, how would
2 it be that two separate conversations covering the same
3 ground had occurred?
4 A. I do not know, I do not understand it. I was racking my
5 brains last night. As I recall Neil did see this man
6 with the nickname on one day and then he stayed in the
7 area for a couple of days while I went down and we did
8 a more thorough interview. So there was only a day or
9 two-day gap between the informal chat that Neil had with
10 the guy and my own sort of more in-depth interview.
11 But I cannot explain the date incongruence.
12 Q. Your in-depth interview, is that the one we find at
13 19.1?
14 A. I think so, yes.
15 Q. Could we have O19.1 on the screen. That is the one we
16 have been told has the initial and the common surname?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. In the original?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Reading that interview, would you agree with me that it
21 ranges over a number of fairly general topics, not many
22 of which are directly about Bloody Sunday?
23 A. I would agree with you.
24 Q. Does that mean that you had decided, as it were, to
25 start with the general and later go to the particular?
1 A. Two things really: one was, yes, you start with the
2 general to put people at ease and then go to the
3 particular on what are highly sensitive subjects and,
4 secondly, we were still interested in the Parachute
5 Regiment generally, in the P company training and in the
6 Aden situation.
7 Q. Am I also right in saying that in that interview, in the
8 O19 pages, there is no reference to this man not having
9 been at Bloody Sunday?
10 A. There is no reference, no.
11 Q. Does that mean that there was a further portion of the
12 interview which is not in O19?
13 A. It would suggest either there was a further portion that
14 was transcribed but we have not got and have not
15 supplied, or that there was a further portion on the
16 very sensitive subjects that he did not want recording.
17 Q. You have not been able to locate any further portions of
18 the interview of that man?
19 A. No.
20 Q. You have expressed a view that the explanation for him
21 saying in this fuller interview that he was not at
22 Bloody Sunday is that he was then being truthful and
23 previously being bragging?
24 A. Bravado previously, yes, yes.
25 Q. It could of course be the other way round?
1 A. It could be, yes.
2 Q. You simply do not know?
3 A. I suspect the latter.
4 Q. You suspect that he was not at Bloody Sunday?
5 A. No, I suspect that he was at Bloody Sunday, yes, that he
6 was at Bloody Sunday. His initial remarks were correct,
7 but he decided that the better part of valour was to not
8 be involved and therefore he just came up with the
9 blanket "I was not there", which is impossible to
10 pierce, basically.
11 Q. Possibly having consulted other people?
12 A. Probably, yes, yes.
13 Questioned by MR GLASGOW
14 MR GLASGOW: Mr Goddard, my name is Glasgow, I represent
15 a large number of the soldiers, including O, O19 and
16 162, to refresh your memory, the soldiers you spoke of
17 yesterday, who, as you know, accepted they spoke to
18 Praxis.
19 A. The three who waived confidentiality?
20 Q. Absolutely. For your assistance and others I ought also
21 to tell you that we believe we act for all soldiers who
22 were in Mortar Platoon who you describe, perfectly
23 properly, as the arrest squad, and their instructions to
24 us are that none of those, other than the three I have
25 mentioned, spoke to any member of Praxis. I hope you
1 know where we are?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Could I take you to the second page of your statement,
4 M86.2. While that comes up, it is just if you can help
5 the Tribunal a little bit more about the production
6 period and what went on during it. Could we look at
7 paragraphs 5 and 6 together, please, Mr Goddard. You
8 said in your statement right at the top that you thought
9 the research and development took three to six months.
10 Without criticism, I think from the other matters
11 you said in your evidence it must have been rather
12 longer than that, must it not?
13 A. The formal research and development process was
14 certainly from February through until August. I mean,
15 by that I mean that we were actually, I believe,
16 contracted and being paid. Research work had been going
17 on when we had the time and some personnel, possibly for
18 a year before that.
19 Q. The year being from the middle, in your recollection,
20 from the middle of 1990 to the autumn of 1991?
21 A. Possibly even earlier, possibly the spring of 1990.
22 Q. Yes. Looking at paragraph 6 to refresh your memory from
23 what you said of the order of events, was your
24 recollection that Neil Davies was the first man to
25 contact soldiers and then you followed up, or had there
1 already been the meeting that you and Mr Stark had had
2 with the five soldiers in Belfast?
3 A. No, the five soldiers in Belfast were very late in the
4 timescale, they were August/September 1991. We were
5 about to film, indeed I think we were actually filming
6 in the autumn of 1991 when we saw those five.
7 Q. So Mr Davies had already made contact with all his, if
8 I may call them his soldiers, the people he had made
9 contact with?
10 A. During the period February to August, possibly even
11 slightly earlier in that period of 1991.
12 Q. Yes. It was from the reports that you received from
13 Mr Davies, without any criticism of him, that you
14 recognised that there was, putting it at its lowest,
15 a risk that Army banter, as you call it between him and
16 his ex-colleagues might have led to people telling tall
17 stories?
18 A. It is a natural development. I mean, you know --
19 Q. I was not being critical, sir?
20 A. No, you put soldiers together, they will banter. You
21 put lawyers together, they will gossip. You just have
22 to be a little bit more precise.
23 Q. You were conscious of the risk that some of the stories
24 that he came back with might be tall stories?
25 A. It is a two-edged sword, I think, in that many of Neil's
1 initial interviews may actually be close to the reality.
2 On the other hand, they might be tall stories, yes.
3 Q. Therefore it was not a risk, sir, that you saw simply to
4 which he was exposed, it was a risk that you were
5 conscious of even when you were talking to soldiers; is
6 that right, or less so?
7 A. There is a risk, but it is less so because we are --
8 Tony Stark and myself were non-military and really the
9 gossip was less and we were homing in on the sparse
10 skeleton of events.
11 Q. When you were talking to the five soldiers in Belfast,
12 you did not get the impression, so far as you could,
13 from that conversation, that you were being told tall
14 stories or tall stories by them?
15 A. The interview in Belfast was a very serious affair with
16 very serious people who were taking things very
17 seriously because they lived in Ireland and took the
18 fact that they were even talking to us as a real step,
19 that they considered quite carefully.
20 Q. It would be fair to say this, of course, was long before
21 anybody knew there was going to be this Inquiry?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. They were talking to you about the film?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. It had apparently come to their knowledge that inquiries
1 were being made?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And it appeared to you that at least those five were
4 anxious to tell you their side of the story, may I say,
5 warts and all, including the criticisms that they had to
6 make?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. They quite openly made criticisms?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. They accepted that inaccurate stories were told?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And again I hope not precising it too much, the burden
13 of what they had to say was that they honestly believed
14 that this had not happened on Bloody Sunday; true or
15 not, that was what they were telling you?
16 A. Sorry, I do not follow that latter point.
17 Q. Despite the criticisms they accepted and the fact that
18 they were prepared to accept that stories were made up
19 and soldiers supported one another, the account they
20 were giving you, whether true or not, was that they did
21 not believe that that sort of thing had happened in
22 respect of Bloody Sunday?
23 A. What sort of thing?
24 Q. Stories being made up?
25 A. Oh, I think they believed that there were myths that had
1 been made up on both sides about Bloody Sunday, but they
2 wanted to put the record straight and, you know, as
3 I say, over three or four hours that is what they
4 attempted to do.
5 I mean, I do not believe that there were any tall
6 stories told that night because there were five of them
7 who were telling similar stories that cross-referenced,
8 I mean, they would have had to have learnt a very
9 careful script if they were going to come over with
10 that.
11 Q. If it is not an unfair question: did you, as an
12 experienced journalist, get the impression that they
13 were telling you what they believed to be the truth, at
14 least at that time?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. You did?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Summarising the whole thing, as you did for the Tribunal
19 in the early stages of your evidence, your recollection
20 is that of all the soldiers that you spoke to and
21 Davies, the 24 in all, two were seriously critical of
22 people having been shot who should not have been shot?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Only two?
25 A. I believe that would be it, yes.
1 Q. Could we move to your next statement, please, at M86.5.
2 Mr Goddard, paragraphs 2 to 4 were the only ones I would
3 ask your help again with, if you can.
4 Your recollection today is that Neil Davies made his
5 original interviews without taping them and that you and
6 Mr Stark took over the more formal journalistic process,
7 sometimes in his company?
8 A. Yes, that is as I understand it. He may have made one
9 or two with audio tapes, but I do not think that was the
10 general trend.
11 Q. There would have been a time when all the audio tapes
12 would have been stored, would there, and all the films?
13 A. Yes, yes, for several years.
14 Q. Could we just know this, Mr Goddard: was there just one
15 big clear-out of material -- just to remind you, so I am
16 not trapping you in any way -- which appears from what
17 you have said at paragraph 2:
18 "We had a big clear-out," or was it a gradual
19 process over the years?
20 A. I should just explain it, a production company is
21 a little bit shambolic, it is not the Civil Service or
22 a legal office where everything is precise, one moves on
23 to the next project and what is gone is history.
24 I think it was probably a gradual clear-out and then
25 suddenly the Bloody Sunday material was seen, we had
1 finished that seven years ago, "what is it still doing
2 here," that would be the reality.
3 I think if you fetched up 500 TV producers here, 498
4 of them would have thrown it out within a year. To
5 answer your question, it would be a gradual clear-out
6 and then whatever was found in the mid 1990s would have
7 gone then. It might have been 1996, it might have been
8 1997.
9 Q. And you had no more material to look at or listen to
10 than that which you have obviously disclosed to the
11 Inquiry?
12 A. Everything we have came across to the Inquiry from
13 Praxis and -- I think Tony Stark had some material that
14 we did not have and he has handed that over as well,
15 that is more documents than tapes.
16 Q. Over the page, if we may, then -- I will ask no more
17 about that -- 86.6. I want you to help the Inquiry
18 again, if you will, about the identification of the
19 soldiers.
20 You say in paragraph 7, it may be a loose way of
21 putting it:
22 "We compared the photos on their warrant cards with
23 ..." The photograph you had.
24 Can I suggest to you that really cannot be right;
25 soldiers do not carry their warrant cards when they
1 retire, do they?
2 A. Most of them that I saw had some card or reference
3 document that had a photo on, but I was never quite sure
4 what it was.
5 Q. You say the photos on their warrant cards. I was going
6 to suggest to you that a soldier does of course have
7 a warrant card while he is serving but returns it --
8 A. When he retires.
9 Q. And actually has to sign to give it in for fear it may
10 be misused. You believe that they produced some
11 military document with a photograph on?
12 A. It was not like a CID identification card, but it was,
13 with a couple of them it was some sort of, a cardboard
14 card that folded over. I think with one or two that
15 I saw, they did not have anything like that so we had
16 a look at a photo of them with colleagues and -- in
17 uniform and took it from there.
18 Q. And you really were satisfied, were you, that whatever
19 the document was they produced, the soldiers who spoke
20 to you were who they said they were?
21 A. You are in a grey area here. We do not have legal
22 powers. We are not the police or a court.
23 Q. It was not a criticism, but you will understand I am
24 very concerned that the Tribunal should know whether or
25 not, in your own mind, there is any issue as to whether
1 the people you spoke to were who they said they were?
2 A. Only with the one that I identified as a crazy, that
3 I saw in Birmingham. He was the only one. I mean,
4 there was always Neil's personal reference to these
5 guys. There was this warrant card or whatever it was,
6 or photographic evidence. There was the reference to
7 the regimental photograph and then once you began
8 talking to them, they either knew, you know, you have
9 the feel or not. If somebody says he is Bill Jones and
10 he turns out to be Frank Smith in reality, there was no
11 way we could really progress that because we did not see
12 most of these people in their own homes.
13 Q. And the interviews that you taped were all transcribed
14 by the lady you knew, who you trusted?
15 A. Yes. We had one audio typist, perhaps a second, but
16 they had all, you know, both had worked for us for
17 10 years.
18 Q. And they would transcribe everything that there was on
19 the tape?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And it would be up to you to edit anything, not the
22 typist?
23 A. Edit -- they would just transcribe it.
24 Q. Everything?
25 A. Yes, yes.
1 Q. So if, for example, somebody were to say, for good or
2 bad reason, "turn the tape off, I want to tell you
3 something," that would appear on the tape?
4 A. It would, yes and then Tony or I or possibly Neil would
5 have read through the transcript with the tape running
6 to check that it was correct and also the odd words that
7 were indecipherable could be filled in by ourselves, if
8 possible.
9 Q. Over the page, if we may, to M86.7, can I just make sure
10 that we all have the picture correct now: it is your
11 belief, doing the best you can, that the interviews at
12 O18, O19 and O28 are all with the same man?
13 A. No, I find that plausible, but I think 18 and 19 are one
14 man and 28 possibly another, but I am possibly as
15 confused as --
16 Q. I am sorry, maybe it is my fault and if it is I will be
17 corrected. I thought -- I do not mean this to be
18 critical -- that you agreed with my learned friend
19 Lord Gifford a moment ago?
20 A. I said it was plausible. I do not know. I do think,
21 having read them again last night, that 18 and 19 were
22 the same man. 28 I do think is someone else, but there
23 are phrases and points made that are identical. So --
24 Q. But what you are firm about, Mr Goddard, as far as you
25 can be after these years, is that the man you
1 interviewed and we see at O19, is the same man that
2 Mr Davies had interviewed at O18?
3 A. I am fairly sure of that, yes, yes.
4 Q. And your belief now is that you interviewed 19 together?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And indeed that Mr Davies was "astounded", in your
7 words, at the turn round between 18 and 19?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. That is your recollection, a clear recollection of
10 Mr Davies being astounded, despite the fact that in your
11 statement you were confident that you had done the
12 interview on your own?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. It is that easy to be confused, is it not, sir?
15 A. It is, but you have to remember when we were making this
16 film we were probably the world's experts on
17 Bloody Sunday, we knew every wrinkle. As I begin to get
18 more back into it, re-reading, more and more comes back
19 to me.
20 If I were to spend a month re-reading everything and
21 just thinking about it, I could probably tell you
22 categorically on everything, and that is one point I do
23 now remember clearly, that Neil was present for that
24 one.
25 Q. Forgive me, sir, in your statement, as we see and you
1 told the Tribunal yesterday on oath, you remembered the
2 trip back on the train from Llannelli and you did the
3 interview on your own?
4 A. No, I did the trip back on my own, certainly, yes.
5 Q. You remembered doing the interview on your own, sir?
6 A. Initially, yes. I think I did change it yesterday, that
7 I thought Mr Davies was there.
8 Q. You did, I was not being critical. I just say to you,
9 it is quite easy, is it not, to be very confident of
10 something like that one minute and then equally
11 confident that your colleague was not only there, but he
12 was astounded at what happened the next?
13 A. Yes, because he could be astounded without being there,
14 could he not?
15 Q. Could we look at M86.8, please. If you need to go back
16 to the interviews, please tell me, Mr Goddard, otherwise
17 I will try not to waste everybody's time. We are now
18 talking about O20. This is the interview with the
19 soldier at O20. Does that ring a bell; do you remember?
20 A. Not desperately, no.
21 Q. Perhaps we could have a look at it, in that case. Could
22 we have, please, O20.1. You helped Mr Roxburgh and the
23 Tribunal with this yesterday. It starts into
24 a sentence, as so many of them do. There is no
25 criticism of that, you have broken the ice and then he
1 is talking about the company he is in, 1 Para; do you
2 remember that?
3 A. Yes, yes.
4 Q. Again in summary, it would be right to say that he said
5 some very remarkable and astonishing things about
6 misbehaviour in the course of his interview?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. When he got to talking about Bloody Sunday, he appeared
9 to give you a rather careful and more considered series
10 of answers?
11 A. He did, yes.
12 Q. Could we look together, please, perhaps in fairness to
13 him, pick it up at O20.62. Again, to remind ourselves,
14 Mr Goddard, this is a soldier who has no idea that
15 Bloody Sunday is the thing that is being investigated,
16 you are telling him that you are interested in the whole
17 of his history in the platoon?
18 A. No, I think we are on Bloody Sunday solely by the time
19 we got to this guy.
20 Q. By the time you get to this stage you are on
21 Bloody Sunday?
22 A. No, by the time we interviewed this particular man,
23 Bloody Sunday was in production and we were moving
24 ahead. So Bloody Sunday would have been the prime area,
25 Aden and the rest would have been the secondary area.
1 Q. I will not waste people's time, of course. The Tribunal
2 can see for themselves, the first 60 pages of this
3 interview are largely composed of dealing with other
4 matters?
5 A. Yes, yes.
6 Q. You dealt extensively with what went on in Aden and his
7 earlier career?
8 A. Yes, yes.
9 Q. You come to Bloody Sunday -- if I oversimplify it,
10 please tell me -- the point he was making at O20.62,
11 that on Bloody Sunday, nobody gloated or bragged about
12 anything?
13 A. Yes, he makes that point, yes.
14 Q. You go on and ask, very properly, did anybody say what
15 had happened, what they thought had happened. Again an
16 extensive answer, and over the page at O20.63, please,
17 you ask again, properly:
18 "So did you speak to some of the guys in Support
19 Company when they came out, was there any doubt whether
20 they came under fire first?"
21 And he told you, truthfully or not:
22 "There was no doubt at all.
23 "Question: No doubt at all?
24 "Answer: No, there was no doubt at all they came
25 under fire first, according to ..." et cetera.
1 Could you just help with a little bit below that,
2 Mr Goddard, "question" and "[something] speak", is it
3 "together", is that just the transcription of the
4 questioner and the interviewer?
5 A. Yes, they speak together, yes.
6 Q. It is like me trying to ask questions. May we go on,
7 please, I take it very shortly, to O20.65. Again on
8 that page he was saying, five or six lines down:
9 "I mean, if asked, no doubt whatsoever. I mean the
10 blokes, you know, I mean the blokes would openly admit
11 and say, 'No, we fired,' and, you know, someone, there
12 was a gunman and we opened fire. The blokes were
13 amongst each other, but they did not, they said they
14 came under fire."
15 At the bottom of the page:
16 "They have no reason to lie to you because you were
17 ..."
18 Effectively you were suggesting they would not have
19 had any reason to lie to him and he was agreeing?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. That was the tone of the account he gave of
22 Bloody Sunday?
23 A. It was, yes.
24 Q. Despite having admitted that serious failings and
25 mistakes and wrong things had been done on other
1 matters?
2 A. Indeed.
3 Q. Could we go back, please, to M86.8, just to remind you.
4 We know that of course O21 and O22 are both the
5 interviews with Soldier O?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Looking at paragraph 21, if we may, when he was invited
8 to come over from I think Holland, where he was living
9 at the time, do you remember?
10 A. I think it was Holland or Belgium, yes.
11 Q. In the third line, he was asked to:
12 "... come over and give an interview on his whole
13 Army career including Bloody Sunday."
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Did anybody tell him that you were investigating
16 Bloody Sunday, do you know, or did that only come up at
17 a later stage?
18 A. No, I would think he would have been told before he came
19 over that we were interested in three things: Aden,
20 Bloody Sunday, and the P Company training.
21 Q. It is not a criticism, Mr Goddard, but I have to put it
22 to you because it is part of O's evidence. His clear
23 recollection is that he was asked about the history of
24 Mortar Platoon and his own career and it was only when
25 he got here that he realised you really wanted to talk
1 to him about Bloody Sunday; do you think that may be
2 right?
3 A. No, as I say, at that point -- you see, this business is
4 partly journalism and it is partly business. If we
5 could get three films about the Parachute Regiment, that
6 would be better than one, so you know, I was pursuing
7 three. Bloody Sunday obviously turned out to be, in
8 television terms, the most interesting and most
9 relevant. You know, if we had got the other two and not
10 Bloody Sunday, that would have been fine too.
11 As to whether he was actually told by Mr Davies, "It
12 is Bloody Sunday mainly and Aden and P Company as
13 secondary," I do not know.
14 Q. What I am putting to you, Mr Goddard, is that for
15 whatever reason and however acceptable this may have
16 been and however proper this may have been, he was led
17 to believe that he was coming over to talk about his
18 career and the history of Mortar Platoon and that Praxis
19 as a team deliberately did not tell him that he was
20 going to be questioned about Bloody Sunday until he got
21 here; do you think that may be true?
22 A. I would not have thought so, no. I mean, if you look at
23 the transcript it ranges over lots of things and
24 Bloody Sunday is not huge.
25 Q. May I ask in that respect: why do you say that he was
1 the one exception to people being told clearly what was
2 in your mind at the outset?
3 A. In terms of Bloody Sunday, he was the very first and
4 I think he was several months before we saw anybody
5 else.
6 Q. Why did you not treat him like everybody else? Why did
7 you not tell him upfront what it was all about?
8 A. Because it was not about Bloody Sunday at that point.
9 We had no signed contract, as I recall. Bloody Sunday
10 had only clarified as the project several weeks later.
11 Q. So the purpose of interviewing all the soldiers was made
12 clear to them, with the exception of O?
13 A. Well, it was made clear to O, in that we were looking at
14 those three areas: Aden, Bloody Sunday and the Parachute
15 Regiment in general, specifically P Company training.
16 When we came to the others, they were told Bloody Sunday
17 full stop, because it was Bloody Sunday full stop by
18 then. But I still encouraged the others to look at Aden
19 and P Company because there may have been other projects
20 we could have developed later.
21 Q. Mr Goddard, you said yourself yesterday to the Tribunal
22 very openly that everybody was told from the outset what
23 they were going to be asked about, with the exception of
24 O?
25 A. With the exception of O, who was told it was those three
1 areas.
2 Q. You have your paragraph 21 there. When you started to
3 ask him about the whole of his career, do you think it
4 is possible that the interviews are in the other order
5 and that it is 22 before 21? I have to make clear I am
6 not putting anything to you because he cannot remember
7 either, it seemed to us to make more sense?
8 A. It is possible, I do not know.
9 Q. Because O22 actually opens with what seems to be the
10 most general of introductions, does it not?
11 A. It does, yes.
12 Q. We could look at O22.1, almost as if it is the first
13 meeting?
14 A. It does, yes, yes.
15 Q. "So where do we begin"?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Might I, O and perhaps others, draw your attention to
18 the first substantive reply, when he says, "Down memory
19 lane," and he says:
20 "The trouble is, you don't know when starting down
21 memory lane whether you're still telling, like what
22 you've developed into fiction and built in your mind."
23 He said that quite openly in almost his first
24 answer.
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. It is difficult looking back 20 years to know whether
2 you are repeating what you have told yourself happened?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Did he appear, when you were interviewing him, to be
5 careful about that when he discussed matters with you?
6 A. Careful about?
7 Q. To try to distinguish between what might have built up,
8 as he calls a fiction or a myth, and what he could be
9 confident of?
10 A. He was a very bright guy, I do not think he had any
11 trouble really in distinguishing myth from reality.
12 Q. Leave the interview there if you need it. Your
13 recollection is that he kept asking for the tape to be
14 turned off?
15 A. No, not that he kept asking, but there would be times
16 when most of the soldiers, and indeed most interviewees
17 might say "could we just turn the tape off for a minute
18 while we discuss ..."
19 Q. You did not mean to suggest that O in particular kept
20 asking for it to be turned off?
21 A. No, not as I recall, no.
22 Q. Forgive me sounding defensive on his behalf, but I think
23 that is what you were said and may have been taken,
24 certainly by him, as a serious criticism. If you look
25 at M86.8, you appear to justify what you claim to be
1 missing from the transcript by saying, at the bottom of
2 the page, the last few lines:
3 "He kept asking for the tape to be turned on and
4 off," and I suggest to you there is not a single
5 reference in any of the pages of transcripts, the scores
6 of pages of transcripts, not once does he ask for the
7 tape to be turned off.
8 Why do you say that?
9 A. That is my memory.
10 Q. It may be your memory, did you not check the transcript
11 to see whether it was a reliable memory to give in
12 criticism of somebody on oath before giving it?
13 A. There are actually ways, with respect, to say "turn the
14 tape off". One could even put one's hand over and turn
15 it off. The soldier could or he could just indicate and
16 we could. Again, I repeat, this was a very media-savvy
17 guy. He probably would be even careful that he was not
18 indicating he wanted the tape turned off.
19 Q. Are you able to draw any example to the Tribunal's
20 attention on the transcripts of an occasion which
21 justifies your comment, that he kept asking for the tape
22 to be turned on and off?
23 A. No.
24 Q. If we go over the page to M86.9, could we look at
25 paragraph 25 together. You say in paragraph 25, quite
1 rightly, that this is the same man, 22 as 21.
2 "His colleagues did not regard him as particularly
3 courageous or 'gung ho', but he had apparently been the
4 one who stood out there with bullets flying round him
5 firing back. According to the other soldiers this had
6 not been his previous record."
7 Can you draw the Tribunal's attention to one
8 occasion in any of the transcripts in which any soldier
9 said anything derogatory or otherwise about Soldier O?
10 A. Not on the transcripts, no.
11 Q. Not one?
12 A. No.
13 Q. You raised O with a number of people whom you
14 interviewed?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. He occurs on a number of occasions?
17 A. He does, yes.
18 Q. You ask on the transcript, a number of times and was O
19 there?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Of course we are talking in ciphers, you would have
22 given his name?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And on a number of occasions soldiers agreed that he
25 was?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Not once did any one of them say that he was a man who
3 lacked courage or that he had not done what he said he
4 did; that is right?
5 A. That is right, and I would not question that, no.
6 Q. And not once did you suggest, in any of the transcripts
7 that we have, that there was any doubt in your mind as
8 to whether O had been telling you the truth?
9 A. No.
10 Q. But you reached the conclusion, did you, that he was not
11 a man of courage and, therefore, unlikely that he had
12 stood and returned fire?
13 A. No, I did not reach that conclusion at all, no.
14 Q. When you say "his colleagues did not regard him as
15 particularly courageous," and therefore it indicated to
16 you that there was not much return of fire, were you not
17 intending to convey the impression that O would not have
18 been standing where he said he was if there had been
19 fire, because he was not a man of conspicuous courage?
20 A. No, what I was intending to convey was he was not
21 considered gung ho courageous, who would do things with
22 bravura, any kind of over the top, illogical acts of
23 courage.
24 The two or three soldiers who off the record said
25 that it was not his normal actions, that he was normally
1 very careful in finding cover, in looking after his men
2 and so on, rather than standing out in the open and
3 returning fire, found it unusual on that day that he had
4 done so.
5 Q. Did nobody at all, Mr Goddard -- I do not suggest he
6 told you himself -- did nobody tell you that O did have
7 a reputation for conspicuous gallantry?
8 A. Yes, people said that as well, but careful conspicuous
9 gallantry. This was an unusual occurrence for him.
10 Q. If people did tell you that O was conspicuous for his
11 gallantry, did you really think that the sentence:
12 "His colleagues did not regard him as a particularly
13 courageous or gung ho soldier," was a fair thing to put
14 in your statement about him?
15 A. Courageous and gung ho, as I say --
16 Q. No, courageous or gung ho, if we are going to split
17 hairs. Did he tell you that he had been decorated even
18 before Bloody Sunday?
19 A. No, I knew that.
20 Q. You knew it without him telling you?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And he did not refer to it himself?
23 A. No.
24 Q. You recall O23. Again, you helped the Tribunal with
25 that yesterday. Would it help you to just refresh your
1 memory of what the transcript looks like?
2 A. It would help, yes, yes.
3 Q. In that case I will take it as shortly as I can. If we
4 look at O23.1, it is the one with E1 at the top corner;
5 do you remember?
6 A. I do, yes.
7 Q. And a fairly lengthy interview?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. What I want you to help the Tribunal with, Mr Goddard,
10 is the way in which the extracts from this interview,
11 whether you believed it or not, were portrayed on the
12 programme. Because if we look at X17.32, we find the
13 transcript of the programme, do we not?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. That is the transcript for the programme as it was sent
16 out?
17 A. Yes, I will take it as so.
18 Q. If you look at Soldier E, that is why I showed you the
19 start of it, this is transcript 23?
20 A. I will have to take your word for that, yes.
21 Q. It is the quotation, you see. What you have done here
22 is to take a series of little bits and put them together
23 as one quotation spoken by an actor, have you not?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. So the phrase we see attributed, the paragraph we see
1 attributed to Soldier E, which reads:
2 "The blokes would be hyped up, they are expecting a
3 gunman to come, suddenly four people dash out, bang
4 bang. I mean you are talking about a split second. He
5 could have thought: oh, maybe the first one had his hand
6 in his jacket or his arm down somewhere and he thought:
7 oh, he is going bring a rifle out or a pistol out or
8 something. Bang bang. You do not know, reasonably it
9 could happen. The fellow could be that hyped up with
10 adrenalin. It might just be the way he runs. He has
11 fired first."
12 That in fact is taken from one of the Belfast
13 interviews; that is right?
14 A. I mean, I do not know without going through them
15 rigorously, I do not know. It is taken from
16 an interview, but which one; you would have to show me
17 the section.
18 Q. Could we go to O40.17, then. I have given you
19 a misreference. I will have to check that and come back
20 to you. I am sorry to have wasted your time on it and
21 everybody else's. I will come back to you on it,
22 Mr Goddard.
23 Could we go on to O27, which we find on M86.11.
24 Again, looking just at the bottom half of that, is it
25 still your recollection, sir, that these are interviews
1 with the same man, despite the questions that were asked
2 of you by my friend Lord Gifford?
3 A. I think so, yes.
4 Q. You still think 27 and 28 are the same man?
5 A. I think so, I think so.
6 Q. Looking at what you say about the man you were
7 interviewing as O27 who, putting it neutrally, may be
8 the same man as O28 and O19 and O18, they all may be the
9 same man?
10 A. No, I do not think so.
11 Q. You doubt that?
12 A. I doubt that.
13 Q. But you think O27 and O28 are the same?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Can we concentrate, then, on O26, because you never met
16 him at all?
17 A. I do not think so, no, I just listened to the audio
18 tape.
19 Q. But you have a memory of listening to it?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And from your memory of listening to the audio tape --
22 and when would that be, sir?
23 A. Probably within a day or two days of receiving it.
24 Q. We are thinking back to 1991, over 10 years ago?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. So when you made your statement, doing the best you
2 could, you were thinking back to a tape that you had
3 listened to 10 or 11 years ago?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And you say of that at 36, I ought to make clear, just
6 to remind you, we are here talking about 162, who is one
7 of my clients, which is why I am asking you as carefully
8 as I may -- 19, I am sorry:
9 "I do recall that the circumstances of this
10 interview were difficult."
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. What did you mean by that? How could you recall the
13 circumstances of the interview being difficult if you
14 never met him and you were not there?
15 A. I think it was difficult -- again, this is from memory
16 and all I have to jog my memory is re-reading the
17 transcripts, short as they are. But I think it had
18 taken some -- there was some difficulty in arranging it
19 in -- as to precisely where, in that the interviewee did
20 not want to meet at home and -- I do not think it was
21 quite comic cuts of, "be at this telephone box and
22 I will ring you and then we will meet further along,"
23 but there was an element of that, as I remember.
24 Q. You recall from listening to the tape that he had
25 loyalty to his colleagues but he thought some had done
1 wrong?
2 A. From listening to the tape and from re-reading the
3 transcript recently.
4 Q. From re-reading the transcript?
5 A. Well, re-reading the notes and so on that we have.
6 Q. At O27?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Could we look at O27 together, please. I think it is
9 just the single page, is it not, sir?
10 A. I am not sure.
11 Q. That is what we looked at O27 as just being the single
12 page?
13 A. Single page, yes.
14 Q. What was there on reading that that led you to the
15 position that this was a troubled man, "very moved and
16 loyal to his colleagues but conscious that they had done
17 wrong"?
18 A. Troubled man and very moved. This reminded me that the
19 audio tape, he was clearly very upset and I thought
20 moved by remembering these events. I think, for
21 instance, there was a sob as he talked about cutting the
22 trousers off and the acid and so on.
23 As to the troubled man, there is probably nothing in
24 those words to indicate that, but the general tenor of
25 the whole audio tape was -- gave me that impression.
1 Q. He did tell you that he thought people's lives were at
2 risk on Bloody Sunday, did he not?
3 A. I was not there and I do not recall that --
4 Q. I should not have said that. It was on the tape. We
5 have passing reference to it:
6 "... still killing people over this, you know."
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. He was not the only soldier, again rightly or wrongly,
9 who told you that he was still concerned about his own
10 and his colleagues' safety, a number of them?
11 A. I think it was fair to say of every soldier and that was
12 why all of them were given confidentiality.
13 Q. I do not doubt that for a moment, but even O, whose
14 courage was spoken of, told you that he personally was
15 concerned for his safety?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. He told you that he knew his name was on a list?
18 A. I do not recall, I do not recall, possibly.
19 Q. But he did not want to talk about the detail of the
20 person who he knew he had shot?
21 A. This is O, going back to O?
22 Q. Yes?
23 A. Yes, I think he stopped at that point. "I will go no
24 further," he said, yes.
25 Q. And said why?
1 A. Probably, yes.
2 Q. Forgive me, Mr Goddard, you implied that he, like
3 others, was not prepared to talk about the detail. But
4 the only three soldiers we have on the transcripts who
5 refused to talk about the detail were soldiers who said
6 they believed that people's lives were at risk by
7 talking about the detail of who was killed, rightly or
8 wrongly?
9 A. Possibly, I do not recall.
10 Q. And the passage that we see, if we go back to M86.11,
11 the passage that we see at paragraph 36 is really all
12 derived, to the best of your knowledge, from listening
13 to the tape 11 years ago, or whenever it was?
14 A. Yes, I mean then and obviously, you know, it would be
15 discussed at the time and it clearly made an impression
16 on me.
17 Q. Could we move to the interview at O32, please, if we
18 take it from your note at M86.12, over the page. This
19 is the Birmingham man with the deep tan, you remember?
20 A. I do.
21 Q. Could we look, please, at paragraph 42 at the top of the
22 page, M86.13, you found him very plausible:
23 "... one or two details that no-one else had
24 mentioned which proved correct."
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. And, Mr Goddard, on reading your statement one had the
2 impression that this was a man who you had some
3 confidence in, who you believed and the veracity,
4 accuracy of his statement you tried to check out?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. But in fact you told the Tribunal yesterday that you
7 dismissed him almost immediately as being a wild goose
8 chase?
9 A. I did, yes.
10 Q. There really is absolutely nothing in what you said to
11 Eversheds and in the statement you made about this man
12 to give the Tribunal any indication that you thought he
13 was so unreliable that you dismissed him immediately as
14 being a goose chase; in fact you rather implied the
15 contrary?
16 A. The fact that I dismissed him as a goose chase would not
17 mean that we would not follow it up and try and
18 cross-check and so on. So my own personal feelings
19 would not mean we would not follow it up in case there
20 was some validity in it.
21 Q. Mr Goddard, is it possible that the opinions you have
22 expressed about your recollections of some of these
23 soldiers have come to you as you have been going through
24 your evidence, if I may put it in that way?
25 A. My recollections are clarifying as we go along, yes,
1 yes.
2 Q. If he is a man who you regarded as to be dismissed
3 immediately and on a wild goose chase --
4 A. Who I regarded, yes. It does not mean that we would not
5 have pursued him and cross-checked.
6 Q. It is possible that others took him more seriously?
7 A. It would not matter if others took him more seriously,
8 he was one of very few soldiers who were prepared to
9 talk to us. We would have pursued it as much as we
10 could. In the end none of his material was used because
11 we could not cross-check enough and we just found him
12 too dubious. My initial reaction, "this is a crazy man,
13 I do not want to be here, this is a goose chase," would
14 not come into the equation.
15 Q. When you gave your evidence to Eversheds and for this
16 Tribunal?
17 A. I am sorry, I do not know who Eversheds are.
18 Q. The people who questioned you, sir. You did not give
19 any hint of the fact that even you personally thought
20 this man was totally incredible; you described him as
21 plausible and giving details that no-one else had given
22 which proved to be correct?
23 A. He was very plausible and he did give details that
24 no-one else gave, I mean, that is fact, really. The
25 plausibility was my judgment. The details were facts,
1 what he said was correct from cross-reference to another
2 three or four witnesses.
3 Q. Also if we go over the page to M86.14, the soldier who
4 gave you the interview at O36, I will produce it if we
5 need it, I think you probably remember it, he was the
6 man who you were also very suspicious of, do you
7 remember, you say at paragraph 48, if you have your
8 original statement there --
9 A. I did not do this interview, so I have no personal
10 face-to-face, eye contact judgment that I could make on
11 this person, but looking at it editorially it seemed
12 hard to believe.
13 Q. And you seriously considered -- I mean you as a team --
14 whether he was a set-up?
15 A. That is a possibility. You are in murky waters with
16 some of this.
17 Q. I am sure you are, sir. What did you mean by that, that
18 he had been set up by somebody else, or that he was
19 setting you up? I did not understand what the phrase
20 meant in this context?
21 A. Either/or, either/or.
22 Q. Could we look quickly, please, at the transcript of the
23 programme that went out. I will see if I can help with
24 that without wasting anybody's time any more. Could we
25 go back to OX1.71. It is the transcript of the
1 Channel 4 programme that I confused you with last time,
2 and myself. Are you with me?
3 A. Yes, yes.
4 Q. There are a few points in the programme itself that you
5 have not yet helped the Tribunal with, and I would be
6 grateful if you would. Could we go to X1.7.21. This is
7 the view that was actually broadcast in the middle of
8 the page, the commentator:
9 "Both the Provisional and the Official IRA gave this
10 assurance, concerned about losing support if innocent
11 people died in an attack. But our research has revealed
12 the presence of up to 3 gunmen in the Bogside when the
13 paratroopers came in."
14 Does the phrase "up to three gunmen," Mr Goddard,
15 reflect what you were talking about this morning of the
16 slight difference between yourself and Mr Stark?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Three was the maximum, you thought?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And your view was probably less?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And is the research that led to that conclusion all
23 before the Tribunal now or do you think that some of it
24 got lost when the papers were destroyed?
25 A. No, I believe it is all before the Tribunal.
1 Q. So the material that you have disclosed, you think
2 evidences even the high point of the three gunmen?
3 A. No, the two gunmen, two gunmen, yes.
4 Q. To take them together, could we look again at X1.7.23,
5 two pages on, referring to evidence given to Widgery:
6 "He said he had fired three warning shots to ward
7 off a hostile crowd."
8 Do you remember Lieutenant N?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. "He also revealed that he had heard no other shooting
11 before these shots. This is what is most likely to have
12 happened next. The sound of the soldiers shots raised
13 up Chamberlain Street and was heard by IRA gunmen in the
14 tall Rossville Flats."
15 Do you know what research led you to the conclusion
16 that there had been IRA gunmen in the tall
17 Rossville Flats?
18 A. No. We were into the area of disagreement between
19 myself and Mr Stark here.
20 Q. Maybe I ought to have asked Mr Stark, I thought I ought
21 to put it to you?
22 A. Yes, I think it is a question for Mr Stark although --
23 yes, I am not sure, in fact, I do not believe there were
24 IRA gunmen in the tall Rossville Flats.
25 Q. Having regard to the care with which, doubtless rightly,
1 you have told the Tribunal that dubious matters were
2 excluded and anything that could not be checked was left
3 out, do you think it likely that the programme would
4 have been broadcast on Channel 4 unless those
5 responsible for its production had been satisfied that
6 there was at least one piece of evidence to support the
7 suggestion of gunmen, in the plural, in the
8 Rossville Flats?
9 A. There is evidence and indications that there may have
10 been one or two. I do not believe those. I do not
11 believe anyone went into -- or rather did not go up the
12 tall Rossville Flats, they may have gone through them or
13 behind them.
14 Q. Could we look over the page, please, at 24, because
15 I should have shown you the context in which the remark
16 was made about paratroopers not talking to you:
17 "The paratroopers we have spoken to who were closest
18 to the start of the firing inside Free Derry are now
19 very reluctant to talk about what happened next."
20 That, Mr Goddard, is a reference to the three
21 soldiers we see who told you why they felt in fear of
22 speaking about the individuals who were shot?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Could we please go back now to OX1.7.6 and I will see if
25 I can help you with the passage. I am afraid I find
1 very difficult to follow. It is probably my fault. The
2 top of the page -- this is the quotation from soldier A,
3 you remember. For reasons that you have explained you
4 got actors to read out what they had said?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. In order to make sense of this section, "discrimination
7 in an urban situation," finishing with, "nobody wants to
8 die," can you accept, without my going through the
9 detail, that the sentences in that apparently continuous
10 quote are in fact spread over a very large area of the
11 transcript?
12 A. Yes, I will accept that, yes.
13 Q. Again I know nothing of television and I am not being
14 critical, but you pick the most interesting quotes and
15 stick them together so that the actor reads them out as
16 if they were all one passage?
17 A. Possibly, yes.
18 Q. Forgive me again sounding defensive on behalf of the
19 soldier, but where the soldier on interview has also
20 been careful between those passages to make his point
21 about other matters which may be rather more in his
22 favour, do you still regard that as fair and good
23 journalism to cut them out and stick only the bits
24 together you want?
25 A. It is provided one does not really go against the
1 general tenor that the interviewee is looking to
2 postulate, then it is acceptable, but it is a grey area
3 and a fine line.
4 Q. We can read it for ourselves. I will not take people's
5 time, I think it is probably more a matter of
6 submission. If necessary I will dig out the references.
7 Thank you for your answer.
8 The last matter I wonder if you could help with
9 again is AK45.1. It is the interview that you had,
10 Mr Goddard, with the Kivelhan family. You dealt with
11 this in your evidence yesterday. Can we have the top
12 few paragraphs. You interviewed Michael with his mother
13 and two sisters and other members of the family around,
14 in summary?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Do you happen to know anything about the mother, what
17 sort of age we are talking about?
18 A. No, I cannot even remember Michael's face.
19 Q. I do not want this to sound remotely like a trap or an
20 unfair question. The reason why I am asking you these
21 questions is that the Tribunal has been trying for over
22 two years to trace this family and we do not know
23 whether anybody can help.
24 What we do have and what led to the Inquiry,
25 I think, is a statement from a Mrs Kivelhan at AK38.1,
1 which I think is what led to, from the memory of
2 two years ago, our inquiry as to whether this family was
3 being traced.
4 If we look at AK38.1.
5 THE TECHNICIAN: I am sorry, we do not have it.
6 MR GLASGOW: Will you take it from me, and I will be
7 corrected if I am wrong, Mr Goddard, we have a lot of
8 statements that were made to various people at the time
9 by NICRA and others. I take no point on who collected
10 this statement, but it is not one of yours. A Mary Ann
11 Kivelhan of an address, which I am not sure was given,
12 but gave a statement at the time of Bloody Sunday, a few
13 days after Bloody Sunday, referring to the fact that she
14 was in her mother's home at Glenfada Park when the
15 shooting started.
16 What I would like you to help the Tribunal with, if
17 you can, that lady, helpfully, disclosed that she was
18 50 years old at the time?
19 A. At the time of Bloody Sunday.
20 Q. Of Bloody Sunday and that she was going to her mother's
21 home at Glenfada Park. So we have somebody who was 50
22 at Bloody Sunday who would be 80 today and in her upper
23 70s -- the statement has been found. I hope you can see
24 what I was struggling with. Are you with me?
25 A. I am, yes.
1 Q. The reference to her being 50 at the time and going to
2 her mother's home. It has rightly been blanked out,
3 I hope I may be permitted to refer to the fact that it
4 was in Glenfada Park?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And it looks as though the mother that she is referring
7 to would obviously be long dead today, even by the
8 standards of longevity in this city.
9 Casting your mind back to your interview with
10 Michael, Mr Goddard, unless there is anything else that
11 helps you on that page, I showed it to you because it is
12 that that led to our inquiry.
13 We go back to your own recollection at AK45.1. We
14 now know that Michael was telling you that he had been
15 with his mother and two sisters and, as you understood
16 it, in a flat somewhere in Glenfada Park or in that
17 area?
18 A. Yes, yes.
19 Q. Do you have a recollection of what sort of age Michael
20 was when you spoke to him?
21 A. I think he was in his 40s.
22 Q. In his 40s?
23 A. Early 40s, yes.
24 Q. And you found him to be believable up to a point, but
25 all the contentious stuff which is off the tape. The
1 only contentious stuff you say, in the last few lines,
2 if we go to the last four lines, the contentious stuff
3 is the man with the short arm in the flat and the nail
4 bombs dumped in the street?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. We come back to what you were able to tell the Tribunal
7 about this yesterday. Your recollection is, first of
8 all, you thought that that was confidential material
9 that you were not going to disclose; I do not say that
10 critically?
11 A. Praxis did not have it and I did not think Channel 4 had
12 it and I think it should have been redacted.
13 Q. You thought you owed a duty of confidentiality?
14 A. I gave a duty of confidentiality to this family and
15 these people and would have adhered to that, but the
16 document was in before I knew it.
17 Q. Forgive me, again without rudeness. I understand
18 entirely and appreciate why, despite the fact my clients
19 have not asked for it, you wanted to give
20 confidentiality in terms of identifying who you were
21 talking to, but how on earth could you or Praxis have
22 thought that you could give confidentiality to what
23 people told you about what you euphemistically, when you
24 are talking about a civilian, call "contentious objects"
25 but when we are talking about soldiers we rightly call
1 them "guns" -- why did you think you could properly, or
2 even honestly withhold the fact of what you were being
3 told about from this Tribunal, why are civilians any
4 different from soldiers?
5 A. No, this interview was given on the base -- they would
6 not have even talked unless one gives an undertaking
7 that everything that was told to us was confidential and
8 we would not reveal their identity without their
9 permission.
10 Q. It is only a question of the attribution of who is
11 speaking?
12 A. No, there would not have been a conversation without an
13 undertaking of confidentiality without their permission.
14 Q. I understand and I wholly appreciate, I am sure
15 everybody does, why you did not want to disclose the
16 identity, even by a reference to whom you were speaking
17 to, but the fact that, talking bluntly, a gun had been
18 passed round by civilians, that was not something that
19 you thought was proper to withhold?
20 A. From the Inquiry?
21 Q. Yes?
22 A. No, no, not the information, the identity is what we are
23 concerned with and then obviously one would have asked
24 them for permission to pass over their identity as
25 witnesses.
1 Q. You cannot help the Tribunal now with where these people
2 were when you spoke to them or what address you could
3 give?
4 A. I could possibly find the house where they lived.
5 Q. You could?
6 A. Possibly.
7 Q. And if asked by this Tribunal I am sure you would do
8 your best to help them research --
9 A. It is in the public domain now.
10 Q. Your recollection is that you were given a very, very
11 detailed account of what happened with what you refer to
12 as the "contentious object"?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And the very, very detailed account of what happened is
15 the handling of the gun or the gun and the nail bombs?
16 A. Primarily the gun. It was suddenly in the flat and
17 people were so terrified it was broken up and attempts
18 were made to drop it down the toilet and various other
19 places.
20 Q. Broken up?
21 A. Broken up, yes.
22 Q. Your understanding was that it had already done the
23 rounds by the time it got to the flat?
24 A. No, it just makes sense on the timescale.
25 Q. I just want to get it in the right order. Do you
1 believe, whether you are right or wrong, that piecing
2 together the stories you had been told, this was a gun
3 that had started its life at the gable wall and had
4 moved round the Rossville Flats and finished up in
5 Glenfada Park?
6 A. I do not want to waste anyone's time -- there are three
7 possibilities. That is one, that it started out with
8 the man in the "24 Hours" picture, went to the barricade
9 where it was seen by the soldiers and caused firing and
10 went into Glenfada Park where it was seen and caused
11 firing.
12 That would be one explanation. Another one would be
13 that it was always in Glenfada Park, whether it ever
14 came out of that flat or not. And another explanation
15 would be that it was on the barricade and then went into
16 Glenfada Park, which would mean there were two
17 revolvers.
18 Q. I did not want anybody, let alone myself, to read too
19 much into what you said yesterday, but your words, at
20 the end of a tiring day, were that you were given
21 a very, very detailed account of what happened with this
22 "contentious object"?
23 A. Yes, in the flat, by these people. They had no
24 knowledge of where it had been previously.
25 Q. And the conclusion that you came to, in your words --
1 I read them back so that there is no risk of error:
2 "We were given hints that there were these
3 contentious objects in this area by one or two other
4 witnesses and with our various diagrams, if you trace
5 the possible progress of one of the contentious objects
6 from the man in the Rossville Flats round the barricade
7 and then to this area, in terms of time and the
8 shootings, it would go to explain a number of events."
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. That was the conclusion you came to?
11 A. It is one conclusion which I personally would favour,
12 yes, yes.
13 Q. Thank you for your patience with me, sir.
14 Questioned by MR ELIAS
15 MR ELIAS: Just a few matters, Mr Goddard. Could we look,
16 please, first of all, at AM255.14, your interview with
17 Mr Danny McGowan.
18 A. Could I ask who --
19 Q. My name is Elias, I appear for a number of former
20 military personnel.
21 If you look at the middle of that page, the
22 paragraph that begins "Sees gunman with revolver." You
23 have already told the Tribunal that those parts of this
24 which are in quotation marks would be, as far as you are
25 aware, the words that would have been used by
1 Mr McGowan.
2 He told you, did he, in this account, that the
3 gunman with the revolver edging along the gable end and
4 loosing off a few shots, slowed the Paras' advance?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And by that he must have been implying, must he not,
7 either that the gunman had been seen or heard by
8 soldiers advancing?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. I move from that to ask you, please, about document
11 O17A.1. This is the first page of three, as you will
12 recall. I do not want to take time over it, we looked
13 at it yesterday, but of your interviews with two
14 Official IRA men in June 1991 and, over the page, I do
15 not ask it to be put up for a moment, but with the
16 Officer Commanding.
17 May I ask you this, please: did you understand that
18 the Official IRA men that you were interviewing were, as
19 it were, to put it in shorthand, put up by the Officials
20 to give you the Official IRA version of events?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. What you were told on O17A.1, according to the note, is
23 that there was no Official IRA member who had been
24 involved in any activity on the day, I paraphrase and
25 summarise, but that is essentially what you were told,
1 was it not?
2 A. It was, yes.
3 Q. And that, at O17A.2, was effectively, was it, what was
4 confirmed by the man who you have noted as "the Officer
5 commanding the Officials at the time." In the middle of
6 that note:
7 "No Officials killed or wounded"; he would have told
8 you that quite categorically too, would he?
9 A. He would, yes.
10 Q. Below that:
11 "Not know of any Official there with weapon who
12 fired, because we would have claimed him -- been
13 a propaganda coup" and so on.
14 It was made absolutely clear to you no-one had fired
15 on behalf of the Official IRA at any time that day,
16 correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. No-one had been injured or wounded in any way who was an
19 Official?
20 A. No.
21 Q. That was the account in 1991?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. I would like you, please, just to spend a moment or two
24 looking at an account put forward in 2002. Could I ask,
25 please, we look at document AOIRA1.6. If I tell you
1 this is an account of a volunteer member of the command
2 staff of the Official IRA at the time, as he claims; do
3 you follow?
4 A. Yes, yes.
5 Q. In paragraph 17, just to put it in the geographical
6 context:
7 "I was in Columbcille Court when the first shots
8 were fired. I was in fact on a balcony in the
9 Columbcille Court flats and heard shouting from below
10 me."
11 Do you see?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Going on to paragraph 20 at the foot of the page:
14 "I looked from my position [that would be in
15 Columbcille Court] and saw one of the soldiers I had
16 seen near the Presbyterian Church roof was putting his
17 head up from a secure position. He had a rifle in his
18 hand, was sighting down the weapon towards the marchers.
19 I believed that he had probably been the man who fired
20 the shots that had previously injured civilians and
21 believed he was about to fire again. In a defensive
22 action I fired one shot at him and one shot only."
23 Were you -- forgive me, I do not mean it ironically
24 at all -- were you, world experts on Bloody Sunday, as
25 you put it, aware of such a suggestion or account?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Were you aware of that from anything that the Official
3 IRA told you?
4 A. No.
5 Q. But you had it from other sources, did you?
6 A. There was just a hint from one witness as I remember,
7 but we could not stand it up and they would not really
8 talk about it.
9 Q. So you were aware of it at the time, in 1991 when making
10 your programme, but you were not aware of it from the
11 Official IRA?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Can we move on in the same statement to paragraph 25 at
14 page 1.8. Having spoken of firing the shot, he says
15 this:
16 "I was carrying the weapon. I dumped it in the boot
17 of the car which was parked in Glenfada. I cannot
18 recall if we had parked it in Glenfada the night before
19 and left it, or if we had driven back to the Bogside Inn
20 and left the car there to be driven back up the next
21 day ... The car was later collected by another
22 volunteer ... But there was no other weapons in the boot
23 of that car, you see."
24 Was the dumping of a weapon in the boot of a car in
25 Glenfada Park something of which you were aware at the
1 time of this programme?
2 A. There was a hint that the revolver in the flat
3 eventually was taken outside and put in a vehicle.
4 Q. That, on this account anyway, would have been another
5 weapon?
6 A. No, it would be the weapon, presumably this weapon that
7 went into the flat that your colleague has just talked
8 to me about and then came out of the flat and into the
9 car.
10 Again, there was only a hint, nobody would talk
11 about it and no Official would talk about it, so we just
12 could not pursue it.
13 Q. And the Officials you did talk to, putting forward the
14 Official account, said quite the contrary, that there
15 were no weapons used by any Official?
16 A. No weapon, no guns in the area and so on, yes.
17 Q. Could we look, please, at another statement, AOIRA2.8.
18 Another volunteer member of the command staff of the
19 Official IRA. At paragraph 26:
20 "I am aware that a volunteer was injured in gunfire
21 which occurred after the main events of the
22 Bloody Sunday march but before the ceasefire was called.
23 He was treated in the Derry area. He was not
24 transferred from Derry to Donegal or any other location
25 for treatment. He was not particularly badly wounded."
1 It follows from what you already told the Tribunal
2 you were not given that account, you were given the
3 opposite account by the Official IRA in 1991.
4 Did your programme discover the fact that
5 a volunteer Official was injured in gunfire?
6 A. No.
7 Q. I move on to a third statement, please, at AOIRA3.3. At
8 paragraph 8, again a volunteer command staff member,
9 says this:
10 "I was aware of one weapon which was in the Bogside
11 area in a static dump. This was a .303 rifle which was
12 damaged."
13 You were not told about this by the Officials in
14 1991, did your programme know anything about it?
15 A. Again, there was a hint about this, but the Officials
16 did not talk about it. Again, we could not stand it up.
17 As I recall it was not found by the volunteers and it
18 was not used, so we left it.
19 Q. In paragraph 9, according to this witness:
20 "There was another weapon which was in the area that
21 day, it was in the possession of another volunteer.
22 I am not prepared to name that volunteer but believe he
23 will give his own evidence ... The volunteer was
24 a member of the command staff and he had a handgun he
25 was carrying for personal protection."
1 That was not revealed to you by the Officials in
2 1991, was it?
3 A. No.
4 Q. You were not aware of it, were you?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Finally to AOIRA4, please, 4.2, another member of the
7 command staff of the Official IRA, as you will see at
8 paragraph 7. Could I ask you, please, to go with me to
9 paragraph 31 at page 4.7. At the top of the page, an
10 account of a meeting:
11 "I met with other volunteers and got reports from
12 them but cannot recall exactly whom I met ... I attended
13 that meeting and reported the shots that I had fired and
14 was present when another command staff volunteer (whom
15 I will not name) reported that he had also fired
16 a single shot from the Columbcille Court area. He
17 reported that he believed he had actually hit the
18 soldier at whom he had been aiming."
19 Was that something known to you?
20 A. Which one?
21 Q. That a soldier had been hit, it was suggested, by an
22 Official firing?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Without going into further details of this statement,
25 the Officials with whom you met, not only did not admit
1 that a member of the Officials had been Father Daly's
2 gunman, as we have been calling him, they said quite the
3 contrary, did they not?
4 A. They did.
5 Q. May I just ask you a question or two about the
6 photographs of Father Daly's gunman that you spoke about
7 yesterday. Forgive me if I am confused when I should
8 not be about it; you saw six photographs, you believe,
9 six stills?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. They were available in the Irish Republic?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. You made an offer which you regretted being as small as
14 it was for them?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Can you assist about them at all; were they of the same
17 individual?
18 A. I believe they were almost like a film sequence: three
19 shots, three photographs, film term for photographs
20 shot, three photographs of the individual facing towards
21 where the Army were coming from and then three shots of
22 him reversing and going out.
23 Q. I am not quite clear whether you were saying yesterday
24 that they were shots taken from a video film or whether
25 you are saying that they were, what I might call
1 ordinary photographers?
2 A. I have always thought of them as ordinary photographs,
3 but it is an interesting suggestion. If somebody had
4 taken a little bit of video, one could take stills of
5 that video which would explain the very, very poor
6 quality.
7 Q. The position is that you thought they were photographs,
8 but you do not know; is that right?
9 A. I think 90 per cent certain they were photographs.
10 MR ROXBURGH: Sir, I have no further questions.
11 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Goddard, it is the Chairman again. Thank
12 you very much indeed for coming here to assist us. It
13 may -- sorry, you wanted to ask a question.
14 MR PURVIS: I am Mr Gareth Purvis, on behalf of the five
15 Officials.
16 LORD SAVILLE: I did look across, I did not see you getting
17 up.
18 MR PURVIS: If I could briefly ask Mr Goddard a few
19 questions.
20 LORD SAVILLE: Yes, of course.
21 Questioned by MR PURVIS
22 MR PURVIS: As I have stated, I represent the five Officials
23 who are contributing to the Tribunal's Inquiry.
24 If I could ask firstly, could document M86.16 be put
25 on the screen. It is paragraph 57 on that page,
1 Mr Goddard. You state in that paragraph, in the opening
2 sentence, that you and Mr Stark had an interview with
3 two senior Official IRA men?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Your recollection is that Mr Stark was present?
6 A. It is, yes.
7 Q. But the notes that have been previously exhibited were
8 your own notes?
9 A. I think there is a set of notes from Tony and a set from
10 mine.
11 Q. Would it be fair to say that, as you described in the
12 following sentences, that word was put out by yourself
13 through your researchers to see if the Officials would
14 come forward and speak to you?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And in due time they responded to that word being put
17 out?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And you said yesterday that you met, you believe,
20 somewhere in an arts centre somewhere in the centre of
21 town?
22 A. Yes, I think that was the location.
23 Q. And there were two meetings, the 14th June 1991 and then
24 a following one five days later on the 19th June?
25 A. With the single individual, I believe so.
1 Q. The single individual. The first meeting, was it not
2 with the two Officials?
3 A. Yes, yes.
4 Q. And then a separate meeting with the person described as
5 the O/C?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. And the notes, perhaps if O17A.1 could be put up on the
8 right-hand side, the notes appear in a question and
9 answer format. Is that the way the meeting was
10 conducted, in an interview style?
11 A. Yes, yes.
12 Q. So they responded to questions put by you?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. They did not read out a lengthy statement or provide any
15 other information apart from what was asked by you?
16 A. Not as I recall, no.
17 Q. You say that you do not remember their names and may
18 possibly not even have known them at the time?
19 A. I think that is the case, yes.
20 Q. So you were going simply on rank?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. To identify them?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. How long did each of these meetings last?
25 A. With the two men certainly an hour, possibly longer.
1 With the single individual an hour, maybe two at the
2 most.
3 Q. So the notes would only give a very brief summary of all
4 the matters discussed.
5 A. Certainly with the second man. My own sort of approach,
6 I normally talk about anything and everything, you know,
7 as part of it.
8 Q. It would be similar to the format you described for the
9 interviews with the soldiers, breaking the ice session,
10 talking about sport or other matters and then getting
11 into the meat of the issue?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Even if we take aside the introductory passage, would it
14 be fair to say there would have been notes that would
15 only give a summary of the meat of the issue, of the
16 issues of Bloody Sunday that were discussed?
17 A. Yes, yes.
18 Q. And the demeanour of the two Officials and the separate
19 O/C, was it co-operative, was it helpful?
20 A. The single interview was very friendly, very helpful,
21 very co-operative. The interview with the two, since it
22 was a two on two, it was a bit more formal and a bit
23 more -- not quite staged, but journalistic, in that it
24 was a formal question and a precise, formal response.
25 Q. Do you feel it would have been more helpful if you could
1 have spoken to the two seniors separately, on an
2 individual basis?
3 A. Probably, probably, yes.
4 Q. Because of the numbers involved it made it more
5 formalistic, as you called it?
6 A. Yes, yes.
7 Q. It is clear from both meetings on the 14th and 19th June
8 that the Officials' presence made clear in answer to
9 your questions that there was a general undertaking
10 provided to the organisers of the march?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. That the Official policy coming down from command was
13 that they would not be present, or not be present with
14 arms?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And that was confirmed at the second meeting?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And they gave reasons in a detailed answer, as seen, the
19 sixth paragraph on O17A.1, and they described how that
20 undertaking came to fruition?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. As they say, it was not anything formal, everybody knew
23 everybody else, it was a general understanding, it was
24 couched in those terms?
25 A. I think it was a general understanding, but I think it
1 had also been formally given and accepted, yes.
2 Q. If you could put up O17A .3. This is entitled
3 "Information from Officials," dated 19/6/91. The first
4 paragraph describes it as an implicit agreement and
5 knowledge that there was to be no military activity on
6 the march?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. In the third paragraph below it gives reasons why no
9 weapons would be there. It is noted (a) to (e)?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Who was that information provided by, was it the O/C or
12 by the two gentlemen?
13 A. The two, yes.
14 Q. They set this out as they described it, in a logical
15 fashion?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. The explanation for this undertaking?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. If on the left-hand side we could have up AM86.15, that
20 paragraph, as it states, details an interview with
21 Martin McGuinness that you and Mr Stark undertook?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Would it be fair to say that the same information was
24 coming from him as from the Officials?
25 A. It was, yes.
1 Q. The very last line of that paragraph on that page is:
2 "His response was the same as we had heard from
3 people like Ivan Cooper and others."
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. This was not coming from both wings of the IRA, it was
6 coming from various other sources?
7 A. That there had been an undertaking?
8 Q. Yes?
9 A. That was almost a universal agreement, yes.
10 Q. Who were the others referred to, do you remember?
11 A. Ivan Cooper, I think people like Bishop Daly and the
12 doctor, in addition to, if you like, ordinary people,
13 the people of some standing in addition to ordinary
14 people.
15 Q. People of substance, people who would know what --
16 A. Yes, yes, I think there were two other priests we had
17 talked to also indicated they were confident those
18 undertakings had been given and would hold, you know,
19 that sort of indication and witness.
20 Q. It would be fair to say these were people, as you say,
21 of substance, of standing, who would liaise with the
22 organisers of the march and who would know what the
23 procedure was for that day?
24 A. Who were involved in the organisation and were concerned
25 that nothing would go astray, yes.
1 Q. If we could turn back to A17A.1. In the second portion
2 of that page, the bottom portion, where it says:
3 "Reconstructed conversation with two Official IRA
4 men ... continued."
5 You raised the specific issue at that point, it
6 would be fair to say the first question refers to
7 Father Daly's gunman, the Chamberlain Street incident?
8 A. That is right, it does refer to that, yes.
9 Q. And you probed in that issue, suggesting various
10 reasons?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And their answer was: it was not a direct denial, would
13 it be fair to say, but they said it was a possibility?
14 A. They did when really pressed, you know, there was a flat
15 denial for -- their basic response, I think, would be
16 that there definitely was not an IRA presence or
17 response.
18 Q. It was explored that it would be beyond Official policy?
19 A. Yes, yes.
20 Q. And that was further taken up with the O/C, is that
21 correct?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And if I could perhaps have O17A.2. You raised the
24 issue of a picture being available of this man or
25 a series of photographs?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. The second last line on that page, the note says:
3 "If get pic of the man to him he will identify it if
4 he knows him."
5 So he offered to do that?
6 A. He did, yes.
7 Q. Again that was not saying, "It is nothing to do with us,
8 there is no point taking this any further"?
9 A. He was fairly adamant that no member that he knew of had
10 been involved in anything in terms of firing, but he did
11 agree to look at the photograph, yes.
12 Q. He did not close the door?
13 A. No, he said he would look at it.
14 Q. I think you said yesterday for one reason or another the
15 picture was not seen by him?
16 A. We got the photo very late and, you know, sent word out,
17 in whichever way it went out, that we would like him to
18 look at it and we just never got it together to do it.
19 Q. When you say "very late, never got it together," the
20 programme date was coming up, so?
21 A. Yes, it went out very late. I think it was
22 probably October and, you know, we had no response and
23 transmission date arrived before we could do it. In
24 retrospect I think we should have made more effort.
25 Q. Would it be fair to say that transmission date was not
1 the date you would have preferred?
2 A. I had no thoughts on it, to be frank. I mean, the
3 crucial thing was that ours was transmitted before the
4 BBC's.
5 Q. If it had not been for that event, perhaps you would
6 have wanted the following month in January 1992, which
7 would have been closer to the anniversary date?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. When it perhaps would have been more in the public
10 attention?
11 A. It got a lot of attention anyway, yes. I mean, rule of
12 television, if you are first you are the one and if you
13 are second, you almost do not exist and our film got all
14 the attention.
15 Q. What I am really suggesting is perhaps you were pushed
16 in time and that is why the photograph never did go back
17 before the O/C?
18 A. There was an element of that. Looking at it now we
19 should have made the effort, yes.
20 Q. Thank you very much.
21 MR ELIAS: Before Mr Roxburgh asks the final questions, we
22 simply wonder, Mr Purvis having asked the questions he
23 has, whether he is in a position to indicate, as it may
24 save problems in the future, whether any of those five
25 whom he now represents in fact is comprised in the three
1 Official IRA members who were interviewed by this
2 witness?
3 LORD SAVILLE: Are you able to help on that, Mr Purvis?
4 MR PURVIS: That was partly the reason for the questions, to
5 ask for the detail on these interviews, to ascertain who
6 the three persons Mr Goddard spoke to were. We are
7 taking instructions on that. We would hope to have an
8 answer in a reasonably short time.
9 LORD SAVILLE: If you do have an answer, it would be helpful
10 if you can communicate it to the rest of us.
11 MR PURVIS: As soon as it is available, sir.
12 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH
13 MR ROXBURGH: Sir, third time lucky, I hope, one final
14 question, if I may, about page O17A.3. Mr Goddard, do
15 you see in the penultimate paragraph of this note the
16 words:
17 "Glenfada gunmen, not have angle."
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Can you explain what that meant?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Thank you very much. I have no further questions.
22 LORD SAVILLE: Once again, Mr Goddard, the Chairman, to
23 thank you for coming here to assist us. As I said
24 yesterday, it may be we will have to revisit this
25 question of sources, but were that to turn out to be the
1 case we will of course give you due notice and you would
2 be entitled to appear with your lawyers.
3 A. Thank you, sir.
4 (The witness withdrew)
5 MR SHERBOURNE: Mr Roxburgh may be about to say exactly what
6 I am going to say. It is in relation to Mr Stark, who
7 is the next witness. He is here sitting beside me. It
8 was originally envisaged he was only to be here today to
9 answer questions. I know Mr Roxburgh gave a rather
10 pessimistic estimate at the end of yesterday. Mr Stark
11 is in difficulties tomorrow, and I wonder whether we
12 might be able to get an indication at this stage as to
13 how long he is likely to be.
14 I know it is only an estimate, but it certainly
15 would assist Mr Stark and those representing him.
16 MR ROXBURGH: Sir, I think Mr Stark will be a bit shorter
17 than Mr Goddard, but realistically, I think that I will
18 take until 3 o'clock or thereabouts, so unless the
19 Tribunal is able to sit late today, I do not believe we
20 will be able to complete Mr Stark's evidence today.
21 If the Tribunal is prepared to sit late today,
22 whether or not we complete his evidence depends upon how
23 long other people will take.
24 LORD SAVILLE: I suppose as far as other people are
25 concerned it is very difficult to offer any view until
1 we have heard the questioning by the Inquiry team.
2 MR GLASGOW: I shall be very short, sir, and shorter still
3 in view of what was said; I shall work over lunch.
4 LORD SAVILLE: We certainly shall sit on this evening in an
5 attempt to finish with Mr Stark, but there does come
6 a moment, when, for example, with our LiveNote lady it
7 simply becomes inhumane to require her to continue to
8 transcribe every word that is said. We will do our
9 best.
10 I am wondering in the circumstances, since it is
11 11.50, if we stop now for lunch and started at 12.30 we
12 could then have a clear run at things.
13 MR SHERBOURNE: I was going to make that suggestion,
14 unpopular as it might seem. What I would say, by my
15 calculation after Mr Roxburgh finished this morning,
16 perhaps there was something in the region of two hours
17 or less than that of questioning by other people. If
18 Mr Roxburgh can try and confine himself to 3 o'clock, it
19 may well be, because Mr Stark will be shorter than
20 Mr Goddard, that we ought to finish in reasonable time
21 this evening, but it is only a hope.
22 LORD SAVILLE: We will bear in mind Mr Stark's position and
23 start again, please, at 12.30.
24 (11.50 am)
25 (The Short Adjournment)
1 (12.30 pm)
2 MR TONY STARK, affirmed
3 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH
4 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Stark, you have been sitting here, so you
5 know who I am. Just a reminder, please, to try and keep
6 close to that microphone so we can all hear what you
7 have to say.
8 MR ROXBURGH: Mr Stark, we have on the screen page M87.1; is
9 this the first page of your original statement to this
10 Inquiry that you made on 7th March 2000?
11 A. Yes, it is.
12 Q. If we go to M87.5, is that the first page of
13 a supplementary statement that you made on
14 29th March 2001?
15 A. This is dated 7th March 2000 at the top.
16 Q. What it actually says is that you make this statement
17 further to your statement dated 7th March 2000?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. If we go to page M87.13, we will find your signature at
20 the end of this statement and the date, 29th March 2001?
21 A. Fine.
22 Q. Do you have copies of those two statements with you?
23 A. I have a copy of one of them. Let me see if the other
24 one is attached to it. I seem to have them both here.
25 Q. Are the contents of those two statements, taken
1 together, true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
2 A. Yes, they are.
3 Q. The second statement, in the form in which you signed
4 it, contained the names of a number of people who are
5 entitled to anonymity in this Inquiry. Is the copy of
6 your second statement that you have with you one that
7 has the names of soldiers in it, or have the names of
8 soldiers been blanked out from the copy that you have
9 with you?
10 A. I am just checking. The one I have is blanked out.
11 Q. If it becomes necessary we will provide you, for your
12 own reference, with a copy of that statement with the
13 names in it. Can I please ask you to take great care
14 not to use the names in any answers that you give
15 orally?
16 A. Of course.
17 Q. If we go to your first statement at page M87.1, we can
18 see from the first paragraph that you worked for BBC
19 Television for 11 years and left in 1989 to pursue
20 a career as an independent film-maker; is that right?
21 A. Yes, that is correct.
22 Q. And since then, at any rate at the time when you wrote
23 this statement, you had produced and directed three
24 documentary series and 14 one-off programmes?
25 A. Yes, that is right.
1 Q. In paragraphs 2 to 4 you describe how, in or about 1991
2 Mr Goddard asked you to direct the proposed documentary
3 about Bloody Sunday. Did you already know Mr Goddard at
4 that stage?
5 A. No, I did not.
6 Q. What happened, did he just approach you out of the blue
7 and say that he wanted you to be involved in this
8 project, or --
9 A. I think what happens is that the commissioning editor at
10 Channel 4 will recommend a director to somebody who
11 comes to them with an idea and I am sure that is what
12 happened in this case.
13 Q. In the second sentence in paragraph 2, you say:
14 "I was told that he [Mr Goddard] had found a number
15 of soldiers who took part in 'Bloody Sunday' on Sunday,
16 30th January 1972 and who were willing to speak about
17 their role in shooting unarmed civilians in cold blood."
18 Is that something that Mr Goddard told you or that
19 somebody else told you?
20 A. It is a little difficult for me to, at this remove from
21 that conversation, to be absolutely precise. I believe
22 it was John Goddard. It is possible Neil Davies, his
23 researcher, also made those comments to me.
24 Q. Did you understand the statement that they were willing
25 to speak about their role "in shooting unarmed civilians
1 in cold blood," to be something that had come from the
2 soldiers as a description of what they were willing to
3 say, or was it a description of someone else, whether
4 Mr Goddard or Mr Davies or someone else again, of what
5 they were expecting the soldiers to say?
6 A. I think it was the latter, what they were expecting the
7 soldiers to say.
8 Q. Did it strike you at the time that it was rather
9 premature for anyone to be forming that opinion about
10 what the soldiers might be going to say when they had
11 not yet been interviewed?
12 A. I understood Neil Davies was himself in the
13 Paratroop Regiment many, many years ago and he knew some
14 of these soldiers and knew what they were going to say
15 because he had spoken to them.
16 Q. Mr Goddard told us yesterday that what he said to you
17 was simply that he had found a number of soldiers who
18 took part in Bloody Sunday and who were willing to speak
19 about their role, but not their role in shooting unarmed
20 civilians in cold blood. What do you say to that?
21 A. My understanding was that some of the soldiers that we
22 would be seeing would be talking about their role in
23 shooting people, using the phrase I have used in my
24 statement.
25 Q. You explain in paragraph 3 that you accepted the role of
1 director because Mr Goddard wanted to be the producer
2 and you wrote the script yourself; is that right?
3 A. Yes, that is right.
4 Q. In paragraph 4 you refer to the research that you
5 conducted and to the Widgery Report and, right at the
6 foot of the page and going on to the next page, you say:
7 "There were also journalistic accounts, news footage
8 and photographic material that formed a substantial
9 archive that we reviewed."
10 What were the sources from which you obtained
11 photographic material?
12 A. Are you talking about still photographs or video
13 material or film footage?
14 Q. Let us take them in turn. What about still photographs
15 first?
16 A. I cannot at this -- without having documentation in
17 front of me, I cannot tell you exactly where our stills
18 would have come from. We would, if I remember rightly,
19 have credited any stills we used in the film at the end
20 of the film and a reference to the programme as
21 broadcast should identify which stills we did use. I am
22 sorry, my memory does not let me tell you which stills
23 and where they originated from.
24 Some I do remember came from, I think, local people
25 in this city; others would have come from professional
1 sources.
2 Q. And do you have any clearer recollection of your sources
3 of video or film footage?
4 A. Well, it would have been BBC, ITN, RTE, they would have
5 been our major sources.
6 Q. You then go on in paragraph 5 to say that you did
7 a number of research trips with Mr Davies and you
8 explain how the original premise of the programme, about
9 having access to paratroopers who would admit to
10 shooting civilians in cold blood, could not be supported
11 and you ended up presenting a more balanced version of
12 events.
13 If we go on to paragraph 6, you say:
14 "As I recall, we met nine soldiers altogether who
15 were on duty in Derry on the day ... The most valuable
16 meeting was, I believe, with a group of about 5 soldiers
17 whom we met and talked to in Belfast during a trip to
18 Northern Ireland. We also met a further 4 soldiers
19 individually elsewhere on the mainland. I was present
20 with John Goddard at the Belfast meeting. I believe
21 that Neil Davies had completed his research by then and
22 was not with us -- although he did accompany me on the
23 other research trips to meet soldiers."
24 Is that figure of 9 soldiers altogether a precise
25 figure or just a rough figure?
1 A. It is a rough figure.
2 Q. So it may have been a few more or a few less?
3 A. Yes, that is right.
4 Q. Is it your belief that the 9 soldiers consisted of the 5
5 you met in Belfast plus the 4 you saw in Great Britain?
6 A. Yes, that is right.
7 Q. Was the position that all the soldiers you met in
8 Belfast were soldiers who told you that they had been
9 present on Bloody Sunday, or not?
10 A. I find that one a difficult question. I would say most
11 if not all. Some of them had -- some of them were --
12 one or two of them, I believe, were more central to
13 events, that is they were in amongst the lead soldiers
14 who were taking part in the events. Others were not so
15 central, I think they had a more supportive role, if
16 I remember rightly.
17 Q. Do you remember in particular what role on the day any
18 of these five soldiers had, or is your memory not as
19 precise as that?
20 A. I remember one of them talking about his actions in
21 putting arrested people into an Armoured Personnel
22 Carrier. I think he also talked about using a gun on
23 the day.
24 Q. By "using a gun", was he speaking of a rubber bullet gun
25 or a rifle?
1 A. No, I understood him to be talking about a rifle.
2 Q. Why did you regard this meeting with the five soldiers
3 in Belfast as being the most valuable meeting that you
4 had?
5 A. Because they were forthcoming about the day and what
6 their role had been and seemed to be talking openly to
7 us.
8 Q. Is there anything of particular importance that sticks
9 in your mind that you were told at that meeting?
10 A. They gave us an impression that it is very, very
11 difficult for a soldier who is asked to act in
12 a policing role in an urban situation to actually know
13 what is a civilian and what is a gunman, if there is a
14 gunman. I think the psychology, if you like, of being
15 a soldier in that situation came across loud and clear.
16 Q. Can we go on to paragraph 9 at page M87.3. You say
17 here:
18 "The conversations we had with the soldiers were
19 taped on a non-broadcast cassette recorder. I did not
20 keep separate notes. Most of the soldiers were
21 interviewed individually -- with the exception of the
22 five soldiers we met in Belfast. Here, the taping of
23 the five soldiers was not interrupted to identify on
24 tape which soldier was speaking at any one time. After
25 the meetings, the conversations were transcribed and
1 I believe I personally transcribed the tape containing
2 the conversation with the five Belfast soldiers. I used
3 my memory and knowledge of their voices to ascertain
4 which soldier was speaking on the tape."
5 If we go to page O40.1, we will find a document
6 entitled "Belfast soldiers -- best quotes"; did you
7 prepare this document?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Does it consist of extracts from that group interview
10 drawn from the tape recordings that were made?
11 A. Yes, it does.
12 Q. Is this the only record that exists or ever existed of
13 that interview or was there also a more complete
14 transcript?
15 A. There was a complete transcript, yes.
16 Q. Do you know what has happened to the complete
17 transcript?
18 A. If you do not have it and if it was not in the records
19 that I supplied to the Inquiry, then I do not, no.
20 Q. Can we then go to your supplementary statement at page
21 M87.5, where in paragraph 6 you say that:
22 "For the soldiers interviewed on the mainland,
23 Neil Davies was our point of contact. As an ex-Para, he
24 made the initial contact with them but I think the
25 soldiers we interviewed in Belfast had been found by
1 a different route. I do not recall the details of how
2 this was done and I cannot remember if our researchers
3 only found civilians or if they also found some of the
4 soldiers. I think there was a journalist in
5 Northern Ireland who tracked down the five soldiers we
6 met in Belfast -- but it is possible that they were also
7 found by Neil Davies or one of his other contacts."
8 So far as that last sentence is concerned, did you
9 have a particular Northern Ireland journalist in mind
10 when you said that?
11 A. Well, I seem to remember we worked with
12 a Northern Ireland journalist and I cannot remember his
13 name, unfortunately.
14 Q. Do you remember what newspaper or broadcasting
15 organisation he worked for or whether he was a freelance
16 journalist, or what?
17 A. No, I do not, and one of the reasons was that I was not
18 involved in finding these five soldiers myself.
19 Q. Do you have any further recollection that might assist
20 about this?
21 A. I am sorry, I do not, no.
22 Q. Can we go back to your original statement at M87.4,
23 paragraph 13, where you say:
24 "Neil Davies was not, I believe, involved in the
25 production process after the original research period,
1 when I was editing the programme and writing the script.
2 John Goddard and I had an on-going debate about the
3 editorial content of the programme and, as I recall, it
4 was not an easy job even then (some 20 years after the
5 events we were examining) to be able to piece together
6 the story."
7 How would you describe the on-going debate that you
8 had with Mr Goddard with the editorial content of the
9 programme?
10 A. A difficult one, I think I would say. The main area of
11 focus was who fired first and whether -- I understood
12 there were Official IRA men in the area who had arms,
13 but the question was whether they had fired the first
14 shot or not.
15 Now, we did not ever resolve that in a factual way.
16 We had to make an inference, given the knowledge that we
17 had acquired during our research period.
18 Q. Were you inclined to take one view on that question and
19 Mr Goddard to take another?
20 A. I think our disagreement was about, yes, the issue of
21 who it was who had fired first and whether, in actual
22 fact, the Official IRA man had opened up after hearing
23 a warning shot fired by a soldier at the very start of
24 the events. It was a dispute because we did not have an
25 eyewitness, we did not have absolute factual proof of
1 what happened.
2 Q. What was the view that you were inclined to take?
3 A. That -- well, it was the view that we -- that you saw in
4 the film, which was that after a soldier had fired
5 a warning shot to ward off what he called a hostile
6 crowd, Official IRA men who were in the area fired back.
7 Q. The way in which Mr Goddard put it this morning was that
8 your point of view had been that it was highly unlikely
9 that the Army had done anything wrong and so the
10 paramilitaries must have sparked off events; whereas his
11 point of view was that the soldiers may have been
12 hyped-up and it may have been a matter of the wrong
13 regiment being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
14 Is that a fair characterisation of the views that
15 you respectively held?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Can I ask you this: do you recall any discussion with
18 Mr Davies about the line that the programme should take
19 in relation to the possibility that there had been
20 shooting from the city walls?
21 A. I do not remember that, no, I am sorry.
22 Q. Perhaps I can show you a part of the statement that
23 Mr Davies has made at M19.21. In paragraph 31, he says:
24 "For example, a number of soldiers and local
25 residents had told me that they believed that initially
1 firing had come from unknown persons on the Derry City
2 walls. There had then been a great deal of confusion,
3 residents and soldiers alike told me that they had felt
4 threatened by fire from the walls and that events then
5 escalated. In contrast, the Widgery Inquiry had not
6 referred to any suggestion of fire initially coming from
7 the City walls. Several soldiers told me that they felt
8 that paratroopers had been 'set up' by unknown people
9 firing from the City walls with the effect that the
10 paratroopers felt inaccurately that an IRA sniper had
11 opened fire on them.
12 "32. Originally, I understood that the programme
13 would address this issue using the words of the soldiers
14 I had interviewed. However, I was subsequently told
15 that Tony Stark, who had written and directed the
16 programme, had decided against this because he felt that
17 there was not enough evidence to back this up."
18 Does that bring back any memory of considering
19 evidence about firing from the walls by unknown people
20 and deciding that you would not, in the event, use it?
21 A. Well, I do remember that some claims were made to that
22 effect. I cannot now remember who made the claims or
23 whether they were rejected for inclusion in the
24 programme because of lack of evidence. At this remove
25 from the events and without the documents to see who had
1 said that, I cannot answer the question precisely, I am
2 afraid.
3 Q. When you say you cannot remember who made the claims,
4 does that mean you cannot even remember whether it was
5 civilians or soldiers who made the claims, or can you?
6 A. No, I cannot, no.
7 Q. Can we then move on to deal with some of the individual
8 interviews on which you comment in your supplementary
9 statement. Can we start with page M87.6, where in
10 paragraphs 10 and 11 you are dealing with a transcript
11 that we have at O18.
12 This is dealing with a note of an interview at which
13 you say you were not present, and I do not want to go
14 into the details of the interview itself, but in the
15 second sentence of paragraph 10, you say that you do not
16 know the identity of the soldier concerned and then
17 a number of names were put to you, which have been
18 blanked out, and you said that you had a confidentiality
19 agreement with the soldiers you met and were therefore
20 unwilling to comment on the identity of this soldier.
21 I would like you to look, please, at the original
22 version of this statement in order to see what the first
23 of those names was. (Handed) If you look at
24 paragraph 10, do you see that the first name that was
25 put to you is a name that consists of what sounds like
1 a nickname followed by a common surname?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Without asking you whether that man was one of your
4 sources, is that a name that became familiar to you in
5 the course of your work on the Bloody Sunday
6 documentary?
7 A. It is difficult for me to comment on names because of
8 the confidentiality agreement that I gave -- we gave --
9 to people that agreed to talk to us. So I am very
10 hesitant about giving information about names because of
11 that.
12 Q. Leaving aside the question of whether this man was one
13 of your sources, do you remember any other soldier
14 talking about a man with that name?
15 A. I do not, no.
16 Q. Let me move on to page M87.7 and can we put that on the
17 left-hand side of the screen and O19.1 on the right. In
18 paragraph 12 of the statement on the left-hand side, you
19 are commenting on the transcript that we have on the
20 right, and you say:
21 "I was shown the unredacted first page of this
22 statement. I am unwilling to comment on the identity of
23 this soldier because of our confidentiality agreement.
24 I do not think that this is the same interviewee as in
25 O18.1. I say this because they are separate transcripts
1 although there is a possibility that they are the same
2 person, interviewed on two separate occasions. For
3 example, O18.1 appears to be an initial research
4 interview conducted by Neil Davies on his own. While
5 O19.1 seems to have been typed up from the recording
6 made when I saw the soldier."
7 Then you say you cannot confirm whether or not
8 something is a nickname. In paragraph 13 you say:
9 "This interview was almost certainly conducted by
10 myself in the presence of Neil Davies on the mainland
11 but I cannot remember where and I do not know who the
12 interviewee was."
13 A name was put to you that does not mean anything to
14 you and in any event you are not willing to comment on
15 the identity.
16 Having read that, can we put O18.1 on the left-hand
17 side of the screen, please. These are the two
18 interviews that you were talking about in that part of
19 your statement, one of which you think you were present
20 and the other of which you think you were not.
21 You suggested that they relate to two different
22 interviewees, but is that really only because they are
23 two different transcripts, or is there some more
24 substantial reason for thinking that they relate to two
25 different people?
1 A. No, I think it is the former. I think to make a real
2 determination of that I would have to read both the
3 transcripts in more detail than I have. It seems clear
4 to me that the second one is a transcript of a sound
5 recording. The first one looks like notes compiled,
6 I guess, after the event, maybe from handwritten notes.
7 When I went to interview the soldiers, as far as I can
8 remember, I always used a dictation tape.
9 Q. We can see that the document on the right, O19, has
10 a date 25th May 1991. Do you have any diary that would
11 confirm where you were on that date?
12 A. I would have to check and I could not tell you at the
13 moment.
14 Q. Can we see, then, what Mr Goddard says about this in his
15 supplementary statement. Can we put on the left-hand
16 side of the screen M86.7, please. In relation to the
17 document on the right-hand side, Mr Goddard said:
18 "I think this was probably my note of my interview
19 with [a particular soldier]."
20 So that you understand what he is saying, I can tell
21 you that the name that has been blanked out of his
22 statement is the name that consists of the nickname and
23 the common surname:
24 "I remember interviewing him in Llannelli as I was
25 in the area at the time. The interview was in his house
1 with his wife present. It was a small terraced house
2 with a crackling log fire and as I remember he was very
3 Welsh, very friendly, they served tea and cakes and
4 I was there a good three hours. I do not remember if
5 anyone else was with me for this interview. Normally
6 there would have been but I recall an endless train
7 journey back on my own, so I think I did this interview
8 alone. This soldier was not included in the programme
9 because he was not at Bloody Sunday although by all
10 accounts he was a paratrooper."
11 That is what Mr Goddard said in his written
12 statement and he said very firmly yesterday in his oral
13 evidence that you did not take part in this interview,
14 although he thought on reflection that Mr Davies did.
15 What do you say to that?
16 A. I am sure John's recollection is quite likely to be
17 right, but if that is the case, then I would have
18 thought it unlikely that these two transcripts refer to
19 the same individual because it would seem to me that it
20 would have been unlikely for John to go and see an
21 interviewee if I had already seen him, and I see one
22 transcript -- the transcript on the right of the screen
23 is dated 25th May, I think the other one you showed me
24 was dated 28th May, in other words it took place after
25 the sound recording and I can see no reason why John
1 would go without a cassette recorder to re-interview
2 somebody I had already seen. So it is quite likely that
3 John is right about that and my initial thought that it
4 could have been Neil Davies on his own could be wrong.
5 Q. Did you in fact ever go to Llannelli to conduct an
6 interview?
7 A. I do not remember going to Llannelli, no.
8 Q. If we look back to paragraph 13 of Mr Goddard's
9 statement, he says in relation to this same man with the
10 nickname:
11 "He did not ask for a confidentiality undertaking
12 and as I remember he was willing to be interviewed on
13 camera."
14 Is that something within your knowledge?
15 A. For the best of my memory, none of the soldiers that
16 I met were willing to be interviewed on camera which, to
17 me, indicates more that this was a separate interviewee.
18 Q. Just to be clear, you are not suggesting that you were
19 present at the interview at O18, are you?
20 A. No, no, that is what I am saying, I was not present at
21 that.
22 Q. So the position may be that you were not present at
23 either interview?
24 A. No, I think that I was present, I think I was present at
25 O19.
1 Q. Mr Goddard has said that he does not think you were
2 because he is convinced that O19 reflects an interview
3 that he conducted with Mr Davies but not with you in
4 Llannelli?
5 A. Is it possible to see more of O19 because if I could see
6 some of the questions, I could get a better idea of
7 whether these are the kind of questions that I would
8 ask?
9 Q. Certainly. I am afraid it goes on for about 40 pages,
10 but by all means have a quick look and see. (Handed)
11 A. I think John Goddard is right, I do not think these are
12 the kind of questions I would have asked, mine would
13 have been a little different, so I think it is quite
14 likely that this was John's interview, my memory is
15 wrong.
16 Q. Can we have on the left-hand side of the screen page
17 M87.7 and on the right O20.1. On the left of the screen
18 we have your comments on the transcript on the right.
19 In paragraph 14 you say that a name was put to you and
20 again you feel unable to comment on that:
21 "The interview was on the mainland. I do not
22 actually remember the interview but I can say this
23 because this soldier was on his own."
24 The name that has been blanked out in that paragraph
25 is that of a soldier who is known to the Inquiry as
1 INQ1216 and he has confirmed to the Inquiry that this
2 transcript is a transcript of an interview with him.
3 I can again perhaps hand up to you the unredacted copy
4 of your statement so you can see what the name is, but
5 I am not going to ask you to comment on the name.
6 Although you do not remember this interview, are you in
7 a position to confirm whether or not you were present at
8 it?
9 A. Could I again see a little bit more of that transcript?
10 Q. It is in the file in front of you. (Handed)
11 A. This looks like an interview that I conducted.
12 Q. Is it still the position that you do not have any actual
13 recollection of it, or has looking at the document
14 brought back a memory of this interview?
15 A. Well, in as much as I recognise some of the questions,
16 it looked very much like the kind of questions I would
17 have asked.
18 Q. Do you remember, for example, whether Mr Goddard was
19 there with you when this interview took place?
20 A. I do not, I am afraid, no.
21 Q. Can we have on the left of the screen, please, page
22 C1216.3. This is part of the statement to this Inquiry
23 of the soldier who has told us that this is a transcript
24 of an interview with him, and what he says in
25 paragraph 12 is:
1 "I attach as Appendix 2 a copy of the transcript of
2 an interview I gave to Tony Stark. He was from the
3 Praxis team ... I can identify the information given as
4 mine because I remember the incident in Ballymurphy when
5 the youth was shot through the fence. Tony Stark
6 interviewed me and another lad who had been in Support
7 Company at my house. My wife was there as well."
8 Then it goes on about you asking him if he would go
9 on television. Then he speaks about how a friend of
10 his, who has been given a cipher, 1243:
11 "... would know who the other ex-member of Support
12 Company was who was there when I spoke to Tony Stark.
13 INQ1243 was in Support A Company and it was him that
14 suggested that Tony Stark came to see me after he had
15 met with him. The four of us just sat around in my
16 house talking."
17 Reading that, do you have any recollection of
18 sitting in this interviewee's house with his wife and
19 another member of Support Company being present?
20 A. I certainly do not remember another -- doing an
21 interview with two people and I do not know whether the
22 interview shows it, but -- whether this interview shows
23 two people talking, from what I can see this interview
24 shows one person talking.
25 I do not know whether, when he refers to this other
1 individual, whether he is in fact referring to our
2 researcher.
3 Q. Was your researcher someone from --
4 A. Sorry, I cannot tell you that, but I am talking about
5 Neil Davies, but I do not know whether he came from
6 Support Company. I say that only because I find it
7 surprising that another ex-member of the Support Company
8 who is there when I spoke to Tony Stark and it was him
9 that suggested we meet because I would not have known
10 anybody else who could have known me to make that
11 suggestion, you see.
12 Q. Yes, I follow. Do you remember any discussion with this
13 soldier about the Yellow Card?
14 A. Yes, I remember talking, I think, to more than one
15 soldier about the Yellow Card.
16 Q. Can we look at page O20.7, please. If we pick it up by
17 the first punched hole, there is a question, presumably
18 asked by you:
19 "I mean the Yellow Card will say that if you are
20 shot at you must only fire back if you can see an
21 identifiable target?
22 "Answer: Yes.
23 "Question: And then it is to stop you being killed?
24 "Answer: Yeah.
25 "Question: Or to have saved other lives. Now is
1 that -- did you stick by those rules?
2 "Answer: (Laughs) You were not expecting me to say
3 that on tape? (Laughter)
4 "Question: I will turn the tape off if you want."
5 Then he says:
6 "No, no, I mean not in every case," and the
7 recording is stopped.
8 Can you help us as to what was said while the
9 recording was stopped about the Yellow Card?
10 A. I remember that soldiers were saying that that was all
11 very well in theory, but in practice it was not always
12 followed.
13 Q. Was this just a general discussion, can you remember, or
14 did it have any particular bearing on Bloody Sunday?
15 A. At this stage it was a general discussion about the
16 Yellow Card.
17 Q. Can we move on to another transcript. Can we have M87.8
18 on the left of the screen, please and on the right
19 O23.1. In relation to this transcript, you say at
20 paragraph 21 of your statement, that two names were put
21 to you and you do not comment on them. Then you say:
22 "I do not remember anything about this interview.
23 From looking at this document these look like the sort
24 of questions I would have asked and therefore I think
25 I was involved in this interview. Because the soldier
1 was on his own I conclude it was an interview on the
2 mainland but beyond that I cannot say anything about
3 it."
4 Would you look, please, at the original version of
5 your statement just to refresh your memory as to the two
6 names that were put to you in paragraph 21?
7 A. I see them, yes.
8 Q. Those are the names of two soldiers whose Inquiry
9 ciphers are Corporal 162 and Private 019. Their Counsel
10 confirmed yesterday that those two individuals release
11 you and your Praxis colleagues from any obligation of
12 confidentiality towards them that you might otherwise
13 owe. In the light of that, are you able to tell us
14 whether those names mean anything to you and whether you
15 ever interviewed either of those individuals?
16 A. In the light of what you are telling me, yes, they do
17 mean something to me and, yes, I do remember we
18 interviewed them.
19 Q. And are you able to say whether the transcript that we
20 have on the right-hand side of the screen is
21 a transcript of an interview of either of those people?
22 A. Not just by looking at that page, no.
23 Q. Might you be able to say if you had a little longer to
24 look at the whole document?
25 A. Possibly if it is an unredacted document. I do not know
1 whether just looking at the questioning would enable me
2 to identify who this transcript was.
3 Q. I think, rather than asking you to spend time now
4 reading the whole document, I will leave it on the basis
5 that we will ask you if you would be kind enough to read
6 it after you have completed your evidence and to let the
7 Tribunal know if you feel able to assist any further;
8 would you be prepared to do that?
9 A. Of course.
10 Q. Mr Goddard told us that this document at O23 was the
11 transcript of an interview that took three or four hours
12 and that it took place in what he described as
13 a Beefeater-type restaurant somewhere in the Midlands or
14 the north of the country; do you have any recollection
15 of going to a place that fits that description?
16 A. Well, I am sorry that my memory is clearly not as good
17 as John's on this, but I cannot confirm that because
18 I do not have a distinct memory of where the interview
19 took place.
20 Q. We can see the transcript on the screen begins in
21 mid-sentence. Would everything that was recorded on the
22 tape have been transcribed?
23 A. It should have been, yes, of course.
24 Q. And should we take it, then, that the tape recorder was
25 turned on while the soldier was in the middle of
1 speaking?
2 A. Well, it is either that or this is a continuation, for
3 example, it could have been when the tape was turned
4 over and therefore you would pick up a mid-sentence
5 conversation and there should be a preceding bit, it is
6 one or the other.
7 Q. You have said that the soldiers would, in all cases,
8 have been aware that you were switching on the tape
9 recorder when you switched it on?
10 A. Of course, yes, we had to tell them and get their
11 permission to use a tape recorder.
12 Q. Can we go on on the left side of the screen to M87.9,
13 and on the right side to O25.1. In relation to this
14 transcript, once again you have said that you do not
15 know who the interviewee is, but you think that it was
16 an interview that you conducted.
17 If we look at what Mr Goddard has said at M86.10, he
18 says that he was present at the interview but you took
19 the lead. In paragraph 31 of his statement, he says:
20 "The interview took place in [this man's] home or in
21 a building which he owned, and also at an Indian
22 restaurant in Yorkshire."
23 Does that prompt any recollection of you conducting
24 an interview either at an Indian restaurant in
25 Yorkshire, or at someone's home, or a building that this
1 man owned in Yorkshire?
2 A. I am afraid once again I am not able to be more specific
3 than I have been. I genuinely cannot remember where
4 this interview was conducted.
5 Q. If we go on to the next page of Mr Goddard's statement,
6 he said in paragraph 33 that he thought that for some
7 reason you were a bit nervous about the reliability of
8 this interview and you and he only used the parts that
9 you could check.
10 Do you have any idea what the reason for you being
11 nervous, if you were nervous, about the reliability of
12 this interview was?
13 A. No, I do not at the moment.
14 Q. Can we have on the left-hand side of the screen, please,
15 page C1884.5. This is part of a statement by one of the
16 soldiers and he attaches to his statement this
17 transcript. He says in paragraph 30 that:
18 "During the 1980s I became prominently involved with
19 the Miners' strike and as a consequence I came into
20 contact with a number of political figures. At some
21 time I met the niece of either the Prime Minister of
22 Ireland or a Minister in Ireland. She was a bit of
23 a 'do-gooder' and put me in touch with a journalist she
24 knew. I attach to this statement a transcript ...
25 I confirm the contents of that document are correct.
1 I confirm that I did participate in that interview which
2 took the form of a very relaxed discussion in the local
3 pub. After that interview, I was contacted by Noraid
4 and they wanted me to go to America. However, after
5 receiving advice from the Ministry of Defence,
6 I declined to speak to them. The Praxis material is the
7 only interview I participated in in relation to the
8 events of 30th January 1972."
9 Were you aware that any of the soldiers you
10 interviewed was someone who had been prominently
11 involved in the miners' strike?
12 A. I certainly do not remember that, no.
13 Q. Do you have any memory of someone being put in touch
14 with you or your colleagues as a result of some contact
15 with a relative of a minister in the Irish Government?
16 A. No, as I said, the first port of call for all these
17 soldiers was not me and so I do not have any knowledge
18 of that.
19 Q. And do you have any idea how details of your interview
20 of this man might have come into the possession of
21 Noraid?
22 A. No, I do not.
23 Q. Part of what this soldier had to say related to the
24 alleged falsification of evidence that was obtained from
25 the soldiers by the Special Investigations Branch of the
1 Royal Military Police. Do you remember being told
2 things about that by soldiers you interviewed?
3 A. Yes, I have a memory of that.
4 Q. If we go to page O25.55, I will not read it all out, but
5 there is a section in this transcript in which he
6 suggests that he has a friend who knows something about
7 this question of alleged falsification of the evidence,
8 and the question he is asked, is:
9 "This, I mean, you obviously know who this guy is
10 who told you it, is he, will he talk to us, the guy who
11 witnessed this?
12 "Answer: I can phone him up and ask him."
13 Then he is asked:
14 "I mean he is crucial but if there is any, I mean
15 not decry what you have said, but anybody who would tell
16 the same stories about Army life and the extra
17 ammunition and so on?
18 "Answer: From the Paras?
19 "Question: Well from anybody?
20 "Answer: Can you knock that off ..."
21 Which looks like a reference to the tape recorder.
22 "Question: No, it is not, it is just on pause."
23 Can you recall whether this soldier was, in the
24 event, able to put you in touch with other members of
25 the Parachute Regiment or any other regiment who could
1 assist in relation to the allegations about
2 falsification of evidence?
3 A. He did not put me personally in touch with anybody.
4 I do not know whether he put anybody else on the Praxis
5 team in touch with that information. It certainly did
6 not come to my attention if he did.
7 Q. Mr Goddard said that this man was the man who put in
8 touch with Praxis another soldier who was the man who
9 claimed that he had been in the SAS. Do you know if
10 that is right?
11 A. I do not know that, no, I am sorry.
12 Q. If we then go to M87.9 on the left and O26.1 on the
13 right, the transcript on the right is attributed -- in
14 the original by name but in the version we have by
15 cipher -- to INQ1884, who is the same man as identified
16 himself as the interviewee in the transcript that we
17 have just been looking at.
18 Your comment in relation to this transcript is:
19 "When I look at this document these do not look like
20 my questions and I would say that this looks like an
21 interview I did not attend. I can see that my name is
22 at the top of it but that may be just because I was
23 given to me to read."
24 I think your name has been blanked out unnecessarily
25 from the document on the right, but if we put the two
1 transcripts side by side for a moment, O25.1 and O26.1,
2 they do appear to be two obviously different but quite
3 substantial transcripts of interviews of the same
4 soldier. Is it possible that there were two quite long
5 interviews of the same soldier, one of which you were
6 present at and the other of which you were not?
7 A. It is possible, but I would be surprised if we had the
8 time to double up on interviews like that.
9 Q. No other explanation occurs to you, does it?
10 A. No, I am sorry, it does not. Sorry, unless, of course,
11 the O25.1 is an initial research interview conducted by
12 Neil before I ever came on the screen. But if you are
13 saying that this is a long, apparent transcript of
14 a tape-recorded conversation, I think that is unlikely.
15 Are they dated?
16 Q. They are not dated and it is quite a long transcript, it
17 goes to 50 or so pages, so I do not know whether you
18 have any comment on that.
19 A. I am sorry, I do not, no. I mean, again if you want me
20 to I can look through both transcripts and see if
21 anything comes to mind.
22 Q. That would be most helpful, thank you. Can we go on to
23 M87.10 on the left and O29.1 on the right. In relation
24 to this you have said right at the top of the page:
25 "This was not an interview I attended and I am
1 unable to identify this soldier. I do not know where
2 this took place. This was one of Neil Davies's initial
3 research interviews."
4 In his evidence Mr Goddard suggested that this was
5 probably a note of one of your interviews. Are you
6 confident that he is wrong about this and that this is
7 in fact Mr Davies's note on the right?
8 A. Can I see some more of this in this transcript?
9 Q. Yes. It should be in the file that you have -- no, it
10 is not, it is in this file. (Handed) It is just
11 a two-page document.
12 A. This is definitely not an interview that I conducted.
13 It is also clearly not an interview that was
14 tape-recorded and transcribed, it looks like a note
15 typed up probably from handwritten notes. I said this
16 was Neil Davies, it is possible I am wrong, it might be
17 John Goddard, but if John says he did not do it, then I
18 cannot throw any more light. I think the interviews
19 were all down by John, myself or Neil or between us, so
20 I think by a process of deduction it has to be Neil,
21 I guess, if I have not done it and John has not done it.
22 Q. Can we go on to O30.1, and you may find it helpful just
23 to keep that file in front of you and look at the whole
24 document. Again, in relation to this, you have said in
25 paragraph 32 that this was not one of your interviews
1 and the questions do not look like yours, it looks like
2 the typed notes of a handwritten interview, and you say
3 you are unable to identify the interviewee and do not
4 know who the interviewer was, although you suspect it
5 was John Goddard.
6 Mr Goddard in his evidence said he thought it was
7 probably a note of one of your interviews. Can you help
8 any further about that?
9 A. I am just looking at the transcript, if you can bear
10 with me for a second. (Pause) I am convinced this is
11 not one of my interviews because there are phrases used
12 in the questioning that I would not use. So it just
13 does not feel like my questioning style.
14 Q. It may be Mr Davies's because that is the third
15 possibility?
16 A. It also looks like a transcript. I might have been
17 wrong in typed notes of a handwritten interview, it
18 might well have been a transcript of a sound recording
19 because it looks very detailed.
20 Q. Can we then move on to O31.1 on the right-hand side. If
21 we look at your statement on the left-hand side of the
22 screen, having said in paragraph 32 that O30 was not
23 your note, there are then two more paragraphs. At
24 paragraph 35 you come to O32, but if we look at the
25 intervening paragraphs, 33 and 34, I think what has
1 happened -- but please correct me if you think
2 otherwise -- is that a heading has been missed out?
3 A. It does look like that, yes.
4 Q. And that paragraphs 33 and 34 of your statement should
5 relate to transcript O31?
6 A. Yes, that does look the most likely thing that has
7 happened here.
8 Q. In that case your comment on this transcript in
9 paragraph 34 is that you think this was one of the
10 interviews you conducted?
11 A. That is what I said in my statement, I am sure that is
12 right, yes.
13 Q. Again, there is a slight conflict of recollection, which
14 is Mr Goddard told the Inquiry he thought he conducted
15 this interview on his own. How confident are you that
16 you conducted this interview?
17 A. Once again I will just look at the questions, if you can
18 bear with me. (Pause) I am confident this is my
19 interview, but it is possible that John was with me and
20 asked some of the questions.
21 Q. If we then look at part of his statement at M86.12, we
22 will find that in paragraph 41, he says that:
23 "This interview was in [the man's] family home while
24 his wife was out. I was there for about 2 or 3 hours
25 discussing all sorts of issues as much as the events on
1 Bloody Sunday because this was more of an exercise in
2 covering background information. I remember that he was
3 very friendly, very nice but I thought some of what he
4 said was a bit dubious in places. I think he had talked
5 to a couple of people before I arrived. I cannot
6 remember where this contact came from."
7 Do you have any recollection of thinking that some
8 of what this man said was a bit dubious?
9 A. Not at the moment, I will have to look at the transcript
10 of what he said to remind myself in detail.
11 Q. Let us go on then to M87.10 on the left and O32.1 on the
12 right. In relation to this, you have said this is not
13 an interview you conducted:
14 "I suspect that Neil Davies took this one. The
15 document looks like it was taken from notes rather than
16 tape."
17 In fact Mr Goddard and Mr Davies have both said that
18 these are their notes but we have seen a similar format
19 and typeface in a number of documents that were
20 undoubtedly written by Mr Goddard. Would you accept
21 these might be Mr Goddard's notes rather than
22 Mr Davies's?
23 A. Yes, I think that is possible.
24 Q. O33.1 on the right, please. In relation to this you
25 have said:
1 "I do not think this is an interview I conducted and
2 I am unable to make any comment on it although it is my
3 handwriting on page O33.2 in the left hand margin. I am
4 unable to identify this interviewee nor do I know who
5 conducted it."
6 The difficulty we have here is that in this case
7 Mr Goddard and Mr Davies have said they did not conduct
8 this interview either. Can all three of you be right?
9 A. Obviously not. Can I have another look at this
10 interview?
11 Q. Yes, please do. Again, if it is more convenient for you
12 to think about this and take a bit of time and then let
13 us know if anything occurs to you, please do?
14 A. It is probably better if I do that than sit here and
15 read an interview.
16 Q. Can we put on the screen O34.1, in relation to which
17 exactly the same problem arises, and perhaps invite you
18 to look at that one as well and let us know if you have
19 any further thoughts about it?
20 A. Okay.
21 Q. Coming on to an interview that you did conduct, can we
22 have on the left-hand side of the screen M87.11 and on
23 the right-hand side O35.1. You say in relation to this:
24 "I think this is one of my interviews although I am
25 unable to identify this soldier."
1 You decline to comment on a name that was put to you
2 and you say:
3 "I think that this was probably an interview on the
4 mainland conducted with Neil Davies."
5 I do not know whether you have the hard copy of this
6 interview in the file in front of you, but it might be
7 helpful if you were to turn to it?
8 A. I do have it.
9 Q. The name that has been blanked out in this paragraph is
10 the name of a soldier known to us as Corporal INQ1243.
11 Again I am not going to ask you to comment on the name,
12 but I would invite you to refresh your memory of what
13 name was put to you by looking at the hard copy of your
14 statement?
15 A. Yes, I have seen that.
16 Q. Do you have any recollection of whether this interview
17 took place in a private house or a hotel or a pub or
18 somewhere else?
19 A. I am afraid I do not, no.
20 Q. Without referring to any precise location, can you say
21 whether it took place somewhere in England or not?
22 A. Yes, it would have been somewhere in England.
23 Q. Mr Davies has said in his statement that he was not
24 involved in this interview. Is it possible that you
25 conducted the interview on your own rather than with
1 Mr Davies?
2 A. That is possible, yes.
3 Q. Could we put on the left-hand side of the screen,
4 please, page C1243.3. This is the statement of the
5 soldier whose cipher I gave a moment ago and he attaches
6 this transcript to his statement. What he says is:
7 "I have read the document attached ... I have never
8 seen this document before."
9 I think I had better read the previous paragraph,
10 actually. In paragraph 13 he says:
11 "About five or six years ago, I was approached by
12 two men from the BBC who said they were interested in
13 making a television programme exploring how soldiers
14 coped with postings in the Middle East and Ireland and
15 the changes that had occurred in those areas over the
16 years.
17 "14. I met with two different BBC directors on two
18 occasions. Both times, the directors were accompanied
19 by a researcher who I was told used to be in
20 Mortar Platoon. On the first occasion we met for about
21 one and a half hours and on the second occasion for
22 a bit longer. During the interviews the researcher just
23 wandered around and did not take notes. The director
24 did not take notes either. The first interview was
25 conducted in a hotel in Oldham. The director made sure
1 that the drinks kept coming. The director would suggest
2 something to make my account more interesting and then
3 get me to respond. I can only remember bits of the
4 second interview."
5 Of course you were not from the BBC at that stage;
6 is that right?
7 A. Yes, that is right.
8 Q. But if Mr Davies was with you then he would fit the
9 description of a researcher who used to be in
10 Mortar Platoon; is that right?
11 A. Yes, I assume that would be right.
12 Q. Do you have any recollection of going to a hotel in
13 Oldham to conduct an interview?
14 A. No, I mean, it is quite possible that I did, but I do
15 not specifically remember that.
16 Q. And would it be fair comment, on any of the interviews
17 that you conducted, to say that the director made sure
18 that the drinks kept coming?
19 A. I think it sounds an exaggeration. I mean, obviously
20 one tries to be hospitable towards interviewees, but you
21 do not sit there and try and get them drunk. No, if
22 that is the implication, it would be inaccurate.
23 Q. What about the comment that "the director would suggest
24 something to make my account more interesting and then
25 get me to respond"?
1 A. That is false.
2 Q. He then attaches the transcript that we have on the
3 right side of the screen and says in paragraph 15 that
4 he has never seen this document before.
5 That, I take it, might be right, might it?
6 A. I think it is very likely to be right because we would
7 not have supplied a transcript to the interviewee.
8 Q. He says:
9 "It looks like an elaborate version of what I said
10 during the interviews with the director. It does not
11 use my kind of language, it is too aggressive."
12 What is your response to that?
13 A. This looks very much like a tape-recorded conversation,
14 so what you see on the page is what was said at the
15 interview without any elaboration.
16 Q. In paragraph 16 he says:
17 "If this is a rough transcript of the interview, the
18 gist of most of what it says is probably right but I am
19 annoyed about a couple of incidents which are recorded.
20 Two incidents are completely fabricated. On page 59 an
21 incident is recounted in which two Roman Catholics were
22 dropped outside the Horseshoe Bar in Shankhill. This is
23 rubbish. The director put things in my mind and got me
24 waffling, trying to make it more interesting. The only
25 time I was involved in an arrest Lance Corporal F and
1 Private G were mentioned in despatches for their bravery
2 over the incident. On page 63 an incident is recounted
3 in which a 'hospital' was smashed up on the Falls Road.
4 This never happened."
5 If we look at page O35.58, we will find the first of
6 the two incidents that he is complaining about. I can
7 pick it up in the last paragraph on this page, where he
8 says:
9 "I know the stories you are talking of. Well the
10 type of stories you are talking about. Luckily I was
11 never in that same situation. The nearest I probably
12 got to that was, I took two Roman Catholics, what we
13 caught with weapons. I dropped them outside the
14 Horseshoe Bar up Shankhill, went inside and said 'I have
15 got two blokes out here' because then if you got caught
16 with a weapon you got five years, which I thought was
17 ridiculous, I mean these blokes were going out to kill
18 somebody. I went inside Horseshoe Bar ...
19 "Question: Is that the Horseshoe Bar?
20 "Answer: Horseshoe Bar up Shankhill,
21 Shankhill Road. I went inside the bar, I said I have
22 got two blokes outside the bar here for you and them two
23 blokes turned up about five days later.
24 "Question: Dead?
25 "Answer: Nowt to do with me.
1 "Question: So the Protestants got them?
2 "Answer: Nothing to do with me. You know what
3 I mean? That is the nearest I got to the sort of
4 situation you are asking about. I had never even
5 thought. I mean self-defence, but I have never even
6 thought."
7 Then it carries on. Do you remember being told that
8 story?
9 A. Yes, I remember, I remember that, yes.
10 Q. Is the transcript an accurate reflection of what the
11 soldier said to you?
12 A. Well, I was using a cassette recorder so it must be an
13 accurate reflection.
14 Q. Is it true that you put things into his mind and got him
15 waffling, trying to make it all the more interesting, as
16 he suggests?
17 A. No, I mean, I am a journalist, I ask questions, I do not
18 try and make people say things I want to hear.
19 Q. I do not think we need to go into the details of
20 a second incident in which a hospital on the Falls Road
21 was smashed up, but is it possible that this transcript
22 contains any material that has been invented or
23 exaggerated or falsely attributed to this soldier by you
24 or your colleagues?
25 A. No, the transcript is accurate, whether what the soldier
1 is saying is accurate, I really cannot say.
2 Q. And then in paragraph 17 of his statement, he says:
3 "Nothing else in the transcript sticks out as being
4 wrong, but the reported answers are not how I would
5 speak. The director was suggesting stuff to me as
6 a fictitious story line. I had had a few too many to
7 drink and the account was brewed up that way."
8 Do you have any comment on that paragraph?
9 A. I do not remember interviewing a drunken man.
10 Q. If it had been apparent to you that the man you were
11 interviewing had too much to drink, what would you have
12 done?
13 A. We would have stopped the interview and reconvened
14 another day.
15 Q. Can we then go on to M87.11 on the left side of the
16 screen and O36.1 on the right. This is the interview of
17 the man who said that he had been in the SAS. Do you
18 remember that interview?
19 A. Yes, I remember it, yes.
20 Q. Your comment in paragraph 40 is that this was one of
21 your interviews. You are unwilling to comment on the
22 man's identity and, in any event, unable to identify
23 him:
24 "Neil Davies introduced this person to us but I do
25 not know the details of how that introduction came
1 about. I could not substantiate what this soldier said
2 and none of this interview made it into the final film."
3 Mr Goddard has told us that he believes that this
4 man was living in Scotland at the time of the interview.
5 Do you know if that is right?
6 A. I am afraid I cannot throw any light on that.
7 Q. Do you remember whether the interview took place in
8 Scotland or not?
9 A. I do not remember our going up to Scotland.
10 Q. Did you interview the man at his home or somewhere else?
11 A. Once again I am sorry, but my memory is clearly not as
12 good as John's on the precise detail of where we
13 interviewed people.
14 Q. Are you sure that Neil Davies was responsible for
15 introducing this person to you?
16 A. I am not 100 per cent certain, but it was through Neil
17 that we met at least most of our soldiers, apart from
18 the ones we interviewed in Belfast. It is possible that
19 this soldier was found by another route, but again
20 I would not know about that because I was told, either
21 by John or by Neil, that there was a soldier for us to
22 interview.
23 Q. Mr Goddard has said that he does not believe that this
24 individual asked for his identity to be kept
25 confidential. May that be right?
1 A. My memory is that all the soldiers that we spoke to were
2 unwilling to have their identities publicised.
3 Q. Did you ever know what this man's real name was?
4 A. I probably did at one time, yes.
5 Q. Are you sure that you do not know it now?
6 A. I cannot tell you what his name is now, no, certainly
7 not just by looking at the transcript.
8 Q. When you say that you could not substantiate what this
9 soldier said, did you have in mind any particular effort
10 that you had made to try to substantiate it, or did you
11 just mean that you had not come across anything else
12 that fitted in with it?
13 A. I think the most likely thing is that what he was saying
14 was not of sufficient relevance to the story we were
15 pursuing to warrant being included in the film and
16 therefore it was not worth pursuing what he was saying
17 any further.
18 Q. Do you now remember the gist of what he was saying?
19 A. Not without having my memory refreshed.
20 Q. Let me briefly try and refresh your memory for you.
21 What he said was that he was part of a group of SAS men
22 who were present on Bloody Sunday, dressed up as members
23 of the Parachute Regiment and that they were involved in
24 an exchange of fire, in the course of which an IRA man
25 was killed and taken away by the Army; do you remember
1 that?
2 A. Yes, I remember that.
3 Q. Surely that is not something you would have discounted
4 as not being of sufficient relevance to the programme
5 you were making, if it were true?
6 A. I think we found, given all the other information that
7 we had from the soldiers and given the brief of the
8 film, I think it was outside our scope to spend a lot of
9 time checking that information, and I suspect it would
10 have been very, very difficult, given the secrecy that
11 surrounds the SAS, to have come up with any confirming
12 information about that and he was the only soldier who,
13 if I remember rightly, mentioned anything about the SAS.
14 Q. It is a subjective matter, I know, but did you believe
15 this man was genuine?
16 A. I found the story quite hard to believe, but then again
17 the SAS works in mysterious ways and it is always
18 possible that something like that was happening.
19 Q. If we go to page O36.51 we find a portion of this
20 transcript in which there is a discussion about a map,
21 and then it says:
22 "[The following conversation appears to be between
23 soldier Y and a third person]."
24 A conversation continues about the map. Do you
25 remember a third person being present at this interview?
1 A. Well, if there was a third person, it would have either
2 have been John or Neil.
3 Q. If we go on to O36.60, the third person begins to play
4 a bit more of a part in the conversation. The question
5 is asked:
6 "Question: Before the Paras went in, there is no
7 doubt and that is the same shot you have told me about,
8 is it not, so that this shot, the one over your head?"
9 And then the third person apparently says:
10 "I was standing on the pub and I said the shot came
11 through here or up here, because it came over the top of
12 my head ..."
13 Does that make it sound as though the third person
14 was someone who had actually been present on
15 Bloody Sunday and involved in the events that were being
16 described?
17 A. Yes, it clearly does and it is possible that my memory
18 is at fault here. I am surprised that a third person at
19 this rather lengthy interview only makes an appearance
20 after 60 pages, if they have any significance. So I am
21 quite surprised to see a third person here and I would
22 have thought that if there was a significant person
23 here, it would have been "Interview with soldier Y" or
24 "soldier Z," whatever. I am surprised to see this. It
25 is possible my memory is faulty.
1 Q. Can we go on to O36.126. An answer is given at the top
2 of the page and then there is a bit in square brackets
3 which says:
4 "[This conversation is between the two soldiers and
5 very indistinct]."
6 And a piece of text is set out which we can all read
7 for ourselves.
8 Does that help you at all to remember what this
9 third person was?
10 A. Well, unless it was Neil Davies I cannot think who it
11 is, no, I am afraid.
12 Q. Can we have on the left side of the screen M87.11 and on
13 the right side O37.1. This is another long interview
14 which begins with a transcript of a message on an
15 answering machine.
16 If we go on to O37.3, we find the beginning of the
17 questions and answers which go on for 200 pages.
18 You say in relation to this, the usual stuff about
19 names and then:
20 "I can confirm that this is one of the interviews
21 I did and I am pretty certain it was done on the
22 mainland, but I do not remember anything about it."
23 Can we then go, please, to a portion of this
24 transcript at O37.31, which is part of a discussion
25 about relations between the Army in Northern Ireland and
1 the nationalist community. The question is asked:
2 "OK, first they were friendly, then attitudes
3 changed. Now tell me how they changed, give me some
4 examples of how they changed. What was happening to you
5 on the streets?
6 "Answer: You were getting abuse, called British
7 bastards, human shit thrown at you, dog shit thrown at
8 you, in fact one day in particular at the
9 Rossville Flats a good friend of mine says we have had
10 everything thrown at us apart from the kitchen sink and
11 a kitchen sink came from the top of the Rossville Flats,
12 and that is true. Then old people that used to cook for
13 you, started putting powdered glass in the cakes, oh
14 yes, cyanide or powdered glass.
15 "Question: Really. Was anybody injured by it?
16 "Answer: Not so much injured, one or two got cut
17 mouths and things like that and then we used take the
18 cakes, thank you very much ma'am and put them in the
19 bin.
20 "Question: So how did that affect you, not just you
21 but you and your mates?
22 "Answer: We started getting hard towards the
23 people, but then the Proddies were the same as well,
24 they got funny as well. One time they would buy you
25 a drink, after the Catholics changed, they used to be at
1 Phelp (?) Street, they would buy you a drink and
2 everything and then they started getting funny, you
3 know, so you had to watch. 99 per cent of the people in
4 Northern Ireland are nice people, 1 per cent of pure
5 agitators.
6 "Question: So you said you started to get hard
7 towards the Catholics and the Protestants?
8 "Answer: 'Hard' might not be the right word.
9 "Question: But did it put you under a lot of
10 pressure?
11 "Answer: I put it this way, how would you feel if
12 a guy, you had been for getting shit all day, abuse,
13 verbal abuse, shit thrown at you, spit upon, things
14 thrown at you, rocks thrown at you, seeing one or two of
15 your mates with a brick in his face and blood streaming
16 down, hard might not be the word. And then you have to
17 stand there and take it because you are under orders not
18 to retaliate. How would you feel? Frustration I would
19 say. That is the best way of putting it than hard,
20 frustrating."
21 "Question: What did you do about that? I do not
22 mean you personally necessarily but ...?
23 "Answer: Switch it off a minute."
24 In manuscript is written "knifing story here"; is
25 that your handwriting?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Then the question after this knifing story has been
3 told:
4 "Question: That was isolated, okay, that is fairly
5 extreme. Was he dead? Sorry, turn it off ... Was that
6 sort of behaviour commonplace or not?
7 "Answer: Later, yes."
8 Do you recall a story being told of a knifing in the
9 course of this interview that the soldier did not want
10 to have recorded on tape?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Can we have on the left side of the screen, please,
13 O37.35.1. This is part of a document entitled "Best
14 quotes from our soldiers"; is that a document that you
15 prepared?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Does it consist of quotations drawn from the transcripts
18 of the soldiers' interviews?
19 A. Yes, it does.
20 Q. Do we see that the first seven paragraphs, down to the
21 second punched hole, correspond pretty closely to the
22 transcript that I have just read out to you with the
23 references to the abuse and the powdered glass in the
24 cakes and one of his mates with a brick in his face and
25 so on?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And then we see, reading on:
3 "(He is fingering his Army knife throughout this
4 answer, partly turning it in his hands and partly
5 cleaning his nails with its tip. Its leather thong is
6 on his lap)."
7 The answer that is then recorded is:
8 "I was second in command of a section. My own boss
9 was [cipher has been put in] he would take guys out on
10 one patrol and I would do the next. That morning there
11 was some guy who had been calling us British bastards,
12 Limey bastards and throwing bricks at us. He had hit us
13 twice with them. My face was cut and a lot of the abuse
14 seemed to be directed at me. He would come up and said
15 to me: 'Who is your wife with then?' and 'I'll bet she
16 is with a black man.' I am not racist, you understand.
17 But that is what he said. Well, at 2 am I went out and
18 walked into the same guy again. And he is shouting, you
19 know, 'British bastards', so I took out me knife -- not
20 this one, but its brother and stuck it in his guts,
21 wiped it on his collar and put it back on my leg. Then
22 I called the RUC and told them there was a body lying in
23 the street et cetera, et cetera.
24 "Question: Was he dead?
25 "Answer: Oh, I think so. You normally are when you
1 have no heart left?
2 "(the tape was now switched back on)."
3 Then the question corresponding to what we see in
4 the transcript:
5 "Question: Was that sort of behaviour commonplace
6 or not?
7 "Answer: Later, yes."
8 And then it goes on. Does that accurately record
9 the information that man gave to you while the tape
10 recorder was switched off?
11 A. Yes, it does.
12 Q. In effect, is this right, he confessed to committing
13 a murder?
14 A. He appeared to, yes.
15 Q. Did you believe him?
16 A. I do not think I believed him enough to put that kind of
17 information in the film, no.
18 Q. But it was a striking story for you to be told?
19 A. Yes, it was.
20 Q. Did that not mean that the identity of the man who had
21 told you this striking story stuck in your mind?
22 A. His name did not stick in my mind, no.
23 Q. If we go on to page O37.66, we will find the beginning
24 of a passage about surplus rounds or unauthorised rounds
25 of ammunition, and that leads to another point at which
1 the tape recorder is switched off which we can see at
2 O37.68. Do you see the question:
3 "You want me to switch the tape off? Okay, I will
4 switch it off. I will take notes."
5 A. Yes, I can see that.
6 Q. On the right-hand side of the screen could we put
7 O37.68.1. Again, from "Best quotes from our soldiers",
8 by the second punched hole there is a note:
9 "He motioned me to turn off the tape."
10 Which leads on to a discussion of what he had done
11 with 20 rounds of tracer ammunition. Does that appear
12 to you to be a note of what was said by this soldier,
13 while the tape recorder was switched off, about tracer
14 bullets?
15 A. Yes, it does.
16 Q. To be clear about one point, if we look at M87.12, we
17 can see in paragraph 45 that you were asked to look at
18 this extract from the document headed "Best quotes from
19 our soldiers", and at the end of the paragraph you say:
20 "Obviously, the quotes have come from all the
21 different interviews and this particular extract may
22 have come from the Belfast interview."
23 In the light of what I have shown you from the
24 transcript at O37, does it now appear to you that that
25 was not the case and the extract on the right of the
1 screen relates to the individual interview at O37 rather
2 than to the Belfast interview of a group of soldiers?
3 A. I need to see the transcript to have a clearer idea of
4 how to answer that.
5 Q. Let us put O37.66 back on the screen, please, on the
6 left-hand side. Can we have the whole of O37.68.1 on
7 the right, please. If we look at O37.66, starting at
8 the foot of the page, the question is:
9 "Okay, that is one way of using it, but did it ever
10 come in handy for you to have it?"
11 Go on to O37.67:
12 "Answer: Yes.
13 "Question: In what way?
14 "Answer: Derry. Every time you fired you had to go
15 in front of an SIB, if you have buckshee rounds, you do
16 not have to go in front of SIB, do you, because you
17 never fired, did you?
18 "Question: So you did not have to account for what
19 you did, that is what you mean?
20 "Answer: Exactly."
21 If we look on the right-hand side of the screen, we
22 see that series of answers repeated about Derry and the
23 SIB. Does that appear to you to correspond?
24 A. Absolutely, yes.
25 Q. And this transcript on the left is not a transcript that
1 has anything to do with the Belfast soldiers, is it?
2 A. If it is an individual transcript of one man, no, it
3 does not, because that was a group interview.
4 Q. You say if it is an individual transcript of an
5 interview with one man. By all means look at the hard
6 copy of it, but is that what it appears to you to be?
7 A. Yes, this looks to me like an interview with one soldier
8 rather than with a group of soldiers.
9 Q. I would like to move on now to a few points in relation
10 to the interviews of civilians. Can we have on the left
11 of the screen, please, O1.1 and on the right O1.19. On
12 the left we have a document that says:
13 "Michael Bradley, 128, take 1."
14 Is that document the transcript of your filmed
15 interview of Michael Bradley?
16 A. Yes, it is.
17 Q. And the document on the right is an extract from
18 a document called "Derry interviews". The portion
19 relating to Michael Bradley has been extracted. Are
20 those notes that you compiled?
21 A. I am not certain whether I compiled those notes or not.
22 Q. Can I show you the complete document, entitled "Derry
23 interviews". (Handed) Mr Goddard told us that he
24 believed those to be probably all your notes. Do you
25 recall compiling that document?
1 A. Yes, these are my notes, now that I am looking at the
2 complete set.
3 Q. Can you explain what is the relationship between the
4 transcript that we see on the left and the notes that we
5 see on the right? In order, are they both based on the
6 same interview or on different interviews or --
7 A. No, the notes on the right are research interviews from
8 which one decides who to include in the film. So they
9 would have been taken, they would have been not recorded
10 on film but possibly recorded on a cassette recorder or
11 just notes being taken.
12 Q. Can we have on the left side of the screen, please,
13 M87.12 and on the right O8A.1. In paragraph 48 of your
14 supplementary statement, you say:
15 "I remember going to see Martin McGuinness with
16 John Goddard. I think this was in the Sinn Fein office
17 in Derry. It was a joint interview with us both asking
18 questions. Looking at the notes ... I would say it
19 looks like a transcript of an audio tape because I do
20 not think we could have taken such detailed notes. I am
21 sure it would be an accurate transcript."
22 Are the notes that you are referring to the ones
23 that begin with the page we have on the right?
24 A. Yes, I do not know whether that is the beginning of
25 interview or not, but that is what we are referring to
1 here.
2 Q. Can we have M86.15 on the screen, please. This is part
3 of Mr Goddard's statement. He refers to this interview
4 that you and he conducted of Mr McGuinness in
5 paragraph 56 and he says that Mr McGuinness:
6 "... was very open and we accepted what he said
7 because it fitted in with other information already
8 known to us.
9 "I would say that he was precise and careful."
10 Does that accord with your recollection of
11 Mr McGuinness?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. If we go on to the top of the next page, Mr Goddard
14 says:
15 "Martin McGuinness was adamant that there were no
16 Provisional IRA weapons there. We also questioned him
17 as to whether he was in charge of the Provisionals and
18 he denied it. I think that he made the point about not
19 being a member of the IRA before the tape was put on and
20 that is why this does not appear in the transcript."
21 What is your recollection of what, if anything,
22 Mr McGuinness told you about whether he was a member of
23 the IRA at the time of Bloody Sunday?
24 A. Well, if he did say that it was not said in my presence.
25 I do not have a recollection of Mr McGuinness saying
1 that. It is possible that he was talking with John at
2 one point and I was not in the room, but I certainly do
3 not have a recollection of that.
4 Q. Do you have any recollection of any discussion with him
5 about his involvement in the IRA or about whether he
6 occupied any particular position in the IRA?
7 A. No.
8 Q. If Mr Goddard had had a conversation with Mr McGuinness
9 on that topic, even if you were not there, would you not
10 have expected Mr Goddard to tell you after the interview
11 what Mr McGuinness had said?
12 A. Yes, it is possible he did tell me about that, but I do
13 not remember Mr McGuinness himself saying it when I was
14 in the room.
15 Q. Can you help us as to whether the document that we
16 have -- and by all means look at the whole document in
17 hard copy, it is 16 pages long -- but can you help us as
18 to whether that is a transcript of either the whole or,
19 at any rate, the greater part of the interview that you
20 had with Martin McGuinness or whether there is
21 a substantial part that was not included in the
22 transcript?
23 A. Could I have a look at the transcript?
24 Q. Yes, it will come up to you. (Handed)
25 A. Yes, this is an accurate transcript of our conversation
1 with Mr McGuinness.
2 Q. If we go to page O8A.16, which is the last page, at the
3 top of the page there is a discussion about whether he
4 saw Mrs Deery shot, and then there is a long paragraph
5 in which he describes ending up over towards the front
6 of the flats and walking aimlessly round the place,
7 lifting people who had been wounded and getting people
8 out of the road and so on, and he was asked whether
9 there were any shots overhead and he says he does not
10 remember shots overhead.
11 It seems to end rather abruptly. Do you know
12 whether that is the true end of the interview or whether
13 there is something missing at the end?
14 A. You would normally have thought there would have been
15 a courtesy at the end which transcription typers would
16 probably put on, "thank you very much," and, as it is
17 not there, it is possible that the interview went on.
18 I really cannot remember if there was any more
19 conversation after that, but it does look a little
20 abrupt to me as well.
21 Q. Can we have O12A.1 on the screen, please. This is an
22 interview of Father Terence O'Keefe. Do you remember
23 being involved in that interview?
24 A. I am just looking through the transcript at the moment
25 just to remind myself. I do not remember this interview
1 specifically, no.
2 Q. In that case I will move on. M87.12, please. In
3 paragraph 49 of your statement you say that you did not
4 meet any members of the IRA and the only other person
5 who might have done would have been John Goddard. Is it
6 right that you did not meet any members of the IRA?
7 A. I do not remember meeting members of the IRA.
8 Q. Apart from Mr McGuinness, have you ever interviewed
9 members or former members of the IRA in the course of
10 your journalistic work?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Can I show you part of Mr Goddard's statement at M86.16.
13 In paragraph 57, he says:
14 "Tony Stark and I had an interview with 2 senior
15 Official IRA men from the early 1970s and then I alone
16 had an interview with one more senior Official IRA man
17 who had been the head of the Officials at the time of
18 Bloody Sunday. The OIRA men knew we always stayed at
19 the Everglades Hotel and Tony and I always used the same
20 taxi driver and we let word out that we wanted to speak
21 to the Officials. They contacted us and I think that it
22 was probably our researcher who verified they were
23 Official IRA."
24 Is what Mr Goddard says there right or not?
25 A. I do not want to be dogmatic about it, it is possible
1 that my memory is at fault, but I do not remember being
2 present at an interview with two senior Official IRA
3 officials.
4 Q. If, as you tell us, you have never on any other occasion
5 interviewed IRA men, this is surely something that would
6 have struck in your mind, is it not?
7 A. I would have thought it would, yes.
8 Q. Really quite a memorable event if it was the only time
9 in your life you had been off to interview some
10 paramilitaries?
11 A. I would have thought it would have stuck in my mind,
12 yes. If there is a transcript of this interview I could
13 have a look at it --
14 Q. Can we have a look at O17A.1, please. What we have is
15 not exactly a transcript but what is described as
16 a reconstructed conversation with two Official IRA men
17 on 14th June 1991, and then it has questions and answers
18 set out. Can we have the whole of that page back on the
19 screen, please? We can see this comes from the "Derry
20 interviews" document that you told us consisted of your
21 notes.
22 Does that help you at all?
23 A. If you can just give me a moment.
24 Q. Yes, please take your time to read it. (Pause)
25 A. I am afraid I am not having any bells rung at the moment
1 by this interview. I do not remember it, and I know it
2 appears in this bundle of notes that I compiled. It is
3 possible that this was a compilation of some of what we
4 considered to be the best interviews from which we would
5 compile a shortlist of people to appear in the film, and
6 it may be that some of these people in here were not
7 seen by me personally, but were seen by John.
8 Q. Having looked at what Mr Goddard says and having looked
9 at this document, do you accept that it is possible that
10 you participated in this interview and have just
11 forgotten about it?
12 A. It is a possibility.
13 Q. But you have really no recollection at all?
14 A. I have no recollection of it. I would be surprised if
15 I did not remember it, but it is possible, it is
16 10 years ago.
17 Q. Can we go to M87.13, please. In paragraph 52 of this
18 statement, you say:
19 "We never got hold of the print and I think we got
20 the picture from an old BBC film. I remember that we
21 tried hard to get the print but did not manage to. I do
22 not know who took the photograph -- nor did I at the
23 time I was making the programme."
24 Is that a reference to the photograph of a gunman at
25 the back of Chamberlain Street?
1 A. Yes, it is.
2 Q. Mr Goddard told us in evidence that some individuals,
3 whose identity is unknown, showed him a set of still
4 photographs of the gunman. Were you present when
5 Mr Goddard saw those photographs?
6 A. No, I was not.
7 Q. Do you know anything about the identity of the people
8 who showed him those photographs?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Can we have on the left, please, KD4.30 and on the right
11 KD4.20. Do you remember interviewing Bernadette Devlin
12 or Bernadette McAliskey?
13 A. Yes, I do.
14 Q. Is the document on the left your note of your interview
15 with her?
16 A. Yes, it is.
17 Q. On the right-hand side of the screen we have part of her
18 statement to this Inquiry. If we look at paragraph 3 of
19 your note, it reads as follows:
20 "There was an understanding between the Provos and
21 the civil rights people that there would be no guns in
22 the city that day -- not just no guns on the march. The
23 reason for this was to avoid raids on homes in Derry in
24 which the police or Army found weapons and then used
25 them as propaganda tools to justify internment and the
1 ban on marches."
2 Mrs McAliskey commented on that, saying:
3 "Paragraph Number 3 of the note refers to an
4 undertaking between the Provos and the civil rights
5 people that there would be no guns in the city that day.
6 As explained earlier in my statement, I have no personal
7 knowledge of this."
8 Do you accept that what is written in paragraph 3 of
9 your note may be a matter on which Mrs McAliskey was not
10 claiming that she had any personal knowledge?
11 A. I have written down what she told me. Now, it is
12 possible that she was telling me second-hand information
13 but did not make that clear. So when she says she has
14 no personal knowledge, it may be that she found that out
15 through speaking to somebody else, but she certainly
16 told me that.
17 Q. In paragraph 4 of your note, you have written:
18 "If there had been a shot fired from a gunman in the
19 crowd -- that person would have been trampled by the
20 crowd because the main atmosphere at that time was
21 opposed to armed struggle. In fact, when the firing
22 began", and then a name has been blanked out, but it is
23 the name of a person, and in brackets it says, "(who had
24 negotiated the 'no arms' agreement with the Provos) was
25 surrounded by angry crowd, including 60 year old women,
1 who were demanding to know where the weapons were so
2 they could defend themselves. If the Official IRA man
3 had fired first, everyone in Derry would have known
4 about it by that evening and he would either have been
5 lynched or at best would never have been able to live in
6 the city again."
7 Mrs McAliskey's comment on that is:
8 "Paragraph 4 of the note refers to [this man] who
9 the note says, negotiated a 'no arms' agreement with the
10 Provos. Active with the Officials and was not involved
11 with the Provos. The same paragraph refers to him being
12 surrounded by an angry crowd who were demanding to know
13 where the weapons were so they could defend themselves.
14 I have a recollection of this man being surrounded and
15 being barracked because people wanted guns and could not
16 get any, but I am unsure as to whether this is a memory
17 which relates to 1969 or 1972."
18 Her suggestion, and it is one that she expanded upon
19 in her oral evidence, is that she would not have told
20 you that this individual negotiated a no arms agreement
21 with the Provos because she would have known nothing
22 about it.
23 Is it possible that the words "who had negotiated
24 the 'no arms' agreement with the Provos" were a comment
25 that you put into this note rather than something that
1 Mrs McAliskey told you?
2 A. That is a possibility, yes, for intelligibility.
3 Q. If that is a possibility, do you have any idea where you
4 obtained that piece of information about this individual
5 having negotiated a no arms agreement with the Provos?
6 A. I think it would help to know who this individual is.
7 Q. I thought you might say that. If you look at the
8 document that I handed you, which is the complete
9 version of the Derry interviews, you will find in it the
10 interview of Bernadette Devlin and you should see the
11 name?
12 A. Yes. That name does not immediately ring a bell with me
13 so it is likely that that information came from another
14 source, I mean another source on the Praxis team, who
15 had been researching in that area.
16 Q. Do you have any idea who that source may have been?
17 A. I can only assume it was John Goddard, but I cannot tell
18 you that for certain, but I cannot imagine anybody else
19 who would have told me that information.
20 Q. Can we have on the screen, please, AG34.18. Is this
21 document, AG34.18, your note of an interview of
22 Danny Gillespie, who received a head injury in
23 Glenfada Park on Bloody Sunday?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. If we look at paragraph 4, what is recorded there, is
1 this:
2 "His mate Paddy (who had a bad chest and heart)
3 decided to leave the scene and go home. Danny moved
4 past Glenfada Park into Abbey Park. There he met three
5 other men who were all throwing stones at the soldiers.
6 Out of curiosity they ran back down to Glenfada Park to
7 see what was happening. They ran in -- the three men he
8 was with were ready to throw stones -- he was just
9 running when a soldier at the other end of the Glenfada
10 courtyard shot him. He says the bullet hit a wall and
11 then hit him in the head. He was knocked down
12 unconscious and when he awoke another man was lying
13 across him. He was very giddy and disorientated but
14 raised himself and stood against a wall for support. He
15 noticed two people who had been shot, one lying to the
16 right of where he had been on the ground, the other some
17 distance away who was trying to get up. Then two men
18 came to him and helped him home. There was a lot of
19 blood on him but he was not badly injured and did not go
20 to hospital."
21 Do you have any memory of your interview with
22 Mr Gillespie today?
23 A. Not beyond what you have shown me on this document.
24 Q. Can we look at part of what he said when he gave oral
25 evidence to this Inquiry. The transcript of Day 159 and
1 can we go to page 164. The passage, or part of the
2 passage I read to you was read to him and then he was
3 asked:
4 "Question: On that account you appear to have been
5 understood to be saying that you met with three people
6 throwing stones in Abbey Park and went back with those
7 three ready to throw stones in Glenfada Park; is that
8 correct?
9 "Answer: No, I was not with three people.
10 "Question: You told us that you followed the body
11 of Michael Kelly being carried into Abbey Park, came
12 back into Glenfada Park and you saw in Glenfada Park,
13 five or six boys come through the alleyway from Abbey
14 Park carrying broken flagstones.
15 "Is it not the position that you had seen them in
16 Abbey Park and come back with them?
17 "Answer: No, sir.
18 "Question: What the note goes on to record is
19 this..."
20 Then there is a further quotation from your note.
21 "Question: Do you have any recollection of the
22 bullet that hit you, as you believed, hitting a wall and
23 then hitting you in the head?
24 "Answer: No, sir.
25 "Question: Do you know if you said this to the
1 documentary film-makers?
2 "Answer: I cannot recall, sir.
3 "Question: The note goes on as follows ..."
4 There is a further quotation.
5 "Question: Do you have any recollection of standing
6 and steadying yourself against a wall for support after
7 you had been shot?
8 "Answer: The only wall I stood against was over in
9 Frederick Street below the parish hall, that is where,
10 when I was approached ...
11 "Question: Not a wall in Glenfada Park?
12 "Answer: No, sir.
13 "Question: Or Abbey Park?
14 "Answer: No.
15 "Question: Then the note goes on to record ..."
16 And this is a further quotation.
17 "Question: Can you help us about that, about what
18 that might be a reference to, did you notice two people
19 who had been shot?
20 "Answer: No, sir.
21 "Question: Can you think how the journalist or
22 film-maker has got this understanding?
23 "Answer: No.
24 "Question: You have no recollection of seeing
25 people who had been shot either near to you or some
1 distance away?
2 "Answer: No, just the lad that was shot over the
3 top of me.
4 "Question: Just the one that you referred to?
5 "Answer: Yes, that is all ..."
6 In substance what Mr Gillespie seems to be saying is
7 that you got this all wrong. What do you say to that?
8 A. I wrote a note saying that Mr Gillespie was not a very
9 clear thinker, rather slow -- I mean, I know that what
10 he wrote down would have been what he told me. If he
11 says these things did not happen, I must accept that.
12 I would certainly have been told that at the time or
13 I would not have written that down.
14 Q. Next can we have AM77.1, please. Is this your note of
15 an interview of Eamon McCann?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. In paragraph 4 you have written:
18 "After the shooting, he saw a number of armed Provos
19 debating whether to return fire. They decided not to
20 because of the potential propaganda value to the
21 Republican cause of an unprovoked attack on the
22 nationalists by the Army."
23 Sitting here today, do you remember Eamon McCann
24 telling you about that or not?
25 A. I remember our interview, yes.
1 Q. But do you remember him telling you that after the
2 shooting he had seen a number of armed Provos debating
3 whether to return fire?
4 A. Because you are showing me the note I wrote, I am
5 remembering it as I read it. I would not have
6 remembered it if I had not seen the note.
7 Q. Can we look at a portion of Mr McCann's evidence at
8 Day 87, please. Can we go to page 182. If we scroll
9 down to line 21, there the passage that I read to you
10 was read to him. He was asked at line 25:
11 "It is the first sentence, really, that I am
12 concerned with:
13 "'After the shooting he saw a number of armed Provos
14 debating whether to return fire.'.
15 "Could you have said that?
16 "Answer: No, I could not possibly have said that.
17 I mean, I simply did not see any such thing. Had I seen
18 such a thing, it would not have left my mind. I believe
19 I would have remembered such a dramatic incident clearly
20 to this day; I saw no such thing.
21 "Question: So you say that the interviewers clearly
22 misunderstood something that you obviously discussed
23 with him?
24 "Answer: Quite possible.
25 "Question: He has got it wrong, although he has got
1 other bits right?
2 "Answer: Yes, indeed."
3 Do you have any comment on that?
4 A. If I am not using a cassette recorder I take
5 a handwritten note and then write up those notes as soon
6 as possible afterwards. What I have written down, to
7 the best of my knowledge, would be an accurate account
8 of what was said.
9 Q. H1.65, please. Is this your note of an interview of
10 Denis Bradley, former priest, now a film producer?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Do you remember meeting him?
13 A. Yes, I think I remember -- yes, I remember meeting him,
14 not the detail, but he is one of the people that I met
15 and interviewed in research.
16 Q. He thought, but was not at all sure, that this might
17 have been an interview that was conducted over the
18 telephone. Do you think that might be right or was it
19 definitely a face-to-face meeting?
20 A. No, it would have been face to face, I certainly do not
21 remember interviewing anybody on the telephone, it was
22 much better to meet people and discuss things with them.
23 Q. Did you try to persuade him to give you a filmed
24 interview, can you remember?
25 A. I think we asked all the potential interviewees that we
1 met whether they would be willing to be interviewed on
2 film, which does not mean to say of course we would
3 interview all of them. We wanted to know in theory
4 whether they would be willing to talk on camera.
5 Q. He told the Tribunal that he thought he had reasons for
6 not taking part in your programme. Do you know what
7 those reasons were?
8 A. No, I do not.
9 Q. Can we look at paragraph 1, where you have written:
10 "He was hanging out talking with people in the
11 Kells Walk area.
12 "He says he was told by two high ranking Provos that
13 there was a gunman in a flat (possibly Glenfada) and
14 that they were going to get rid of him because it was
15 far too dangerous to shoot at the Army with the number
16 of marchers in the area. The Provos said they thought
17 the gunman (an Official IRA man) wanted to get a shot at
18 the soldiers on rooftops near Stevenson's Bakery. At
19 this time the Provos saw themselves as the policemen of
20 the area and there was little love lost between them and
21 the Officials. Bradley says the Provos later said they
22 had got rid of the gunman -- and taken his gun away.
23 This was before the main shooting started. He was also
24 told by a colleague that there was another Official
25 gunman behind Block 3 of the Rossville Flats. This man
1 may have fired but he does not know. He says his friend
2 saw the gunman."
3 If we then look at Day 140, at page 88 we will find
4 part of Mr Bradley's evidence to this Inquiry. If we
5 start at page 89, at line of 6 he says:
6 "We think the researcher may have been Tony Stark,
7 does that ring a bell?
8 "Answer: It does not mean anything to me, no.
9 "Question: What he has written in his research
10 notes is that you were told what you were told by what
11 he describes as 'two high ranking Provos'. The people
12 in the group of four of whom you speak, did you think
13 them to be or understand them to be high ranking Provos?
14 "Answer: I know they were not high ranking Provos,
15 they were -- to me I was only 24 or 25, they would have
16 been older men and while I did not know them all,
17 I obviously knew Stephen McGonigal, who was a well-known
18 political figure and trade unionist at the time. I also
19 knew -- I think I knew this man Doherty, but I am so
20 vague on that I do not want to develop it. I did not
21 see any Provisional IRA on that day; I did not speak to
22 any Provisional IRA on that day, I just think that the
23 note is muffled.
24 "Question: Is what, sorry?
25 "Answer: Is a bit confused."
1 Could your note be confused when it says that
2 Mr Bradley told you that he had a conversation with two
3 high ranking Provos on Bloody Sunday?
4 A. I have no reason to think it would be confused. I mean,
5 my aim in meeting somebody is to take as accurate as
6 note as possible about their potential contribution
7 because if my notes are wrong, then when -- if that
8 person is going to be interviewed and they do not say it
9 on camera, it may be a wasted trip and wasted money, so
10 I do my best to be accurate in my note-taking.
11 Q. If we read on to the next page of the transcript:
12 "Question: The second point that arises out of the
13 note is that, as he has taken it down, he has recorded
14 you as saying that you were told that there was a gunman
15 in a flat whom the Provos were going to get rid of and
16 subsequently being told that they had got rid of him.
17 In other words, you were told what they were going to do
18 before it happened and later told what they had done
19 after they had done it?
20 "Answer: That is inaccurate.
21 "Question: That is inaccurate?
22 "Answer: What I was told was what had happened."
23 Again, do you accept that your note could be
24 inaccurate when it says that Mr Bradley told you that he
25 had spoken to two individuals who told him that they
1 were going to disarm or get rid of a gunman who was
2 going to shoot soldiers near the bakery?
3 A. No, I do not.
4 Q. Can we go on then to AD65.18. Is this your note of an
5 interview of Gerry Doherty?
6 A. Yes, it is.
7 Q. In the first line we see:
8 "No phone -- contact via Stephanie. He is very
9 articulate and believable."
10 Do you remember who Stephanie was?
11 A. Unfortunately I do not, clearly somebody who was
12 involved in finding interviewees for us.
13 Q. M54.16, please. Is this your note of an interview of
14 Nell McCafferty?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. If we go to paragraph 5, what has been written is:
17 "She says it was general knowledge then that
18 Paddy Doherty was in the IRA."
19 Do you remember Ms McCafferty saying anything to you
20 about Paddy Doherty?
21 A. Beyond what is written there, no.
22 Q. Can you say whether you understood that to be
23 a reference to the Paddy Doherty who was killed on
24 Bloody Sunday, or to some other Paddy Doherty?
25 A. I have to assume only that it was the Paddy Doherty who
1 was killed on Bloody Sunday, but I am afraid that there
2 could be another Paddy Doherty and it could have
3 referred to somebody else and I do not remember now at
4 this remove from that interview.
5 Q. Can we look at the transcript of Day 168, please. Can
6 we go to page 149. This is part of Ms McCafferty's
7 evidence. She was asked the question:
8 "Question: What I am asking about is whether you
9 may have told a television journalist in 1991 or 1992
10 that Paddy Doherty was in the IRA?
11 "Answer: It was only this morning that I discovered
12 that Paddy Doherty, there I referred to, was in fact
13 a Mr Doherty who was shot on Bloody Sunday. I thought
14 this referred to Paddy 'Bogside' Doherty and the thing
15 was off the wall and how could anybody say that.
16 "The Mr Doherty who died on Bloody Sunday I have
17 never heard referred to as 'Paddy Doherty'. So I can
18 only conclude that since a lot of people came to see me
19 on foot of the book I had written surrounding the events
20 of Bloody Sunday, a book about Peggy Deery, whose son
21 Paddy Deery subsequently joined the IRA, that I was
22 talking about Paddy Deery and she misheard me."
23 Is it possible that you wrote "Paddy Doherty" in
24 your note, having misheard or misunderstood a reference
25 to a man called Paddy Deery who had been in the IRA?
1 A. I have to admit that is obviously a possibility.
2 I would have taken a written note as she was speaking
3 and it is possible that maybe I mistranscribed that, but
4 I really cannot remember if that is the case or not.
5 Q. And then can we have on the screen, please, M59.1. Is
6 this your note of a joint interview of Nuala O'Domhnaill
7 and Patsy Murphy?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Do you remember that interview?
10 A. Not in detail, no.
11 Q. Do you know where it took place?
12 A. I am afraid not, no.
13 Q. Both of these witnesses have said in their evidence to
14 the Tribunal that in various respects they do not recall
15 some of the events described here or that they had not
16 in fact seen what they are recorded here as having seen.
17 What can you say about the accuracy of your note?
18 A. Well, while I think it is possible that a name can be
19 misspelt and therefore you can make an error in a name,
20 I do not think I would have made an error of a factual
21 nature such as that. I was doing my best to record as
22 accurately as possible what individual potential
23 witnesses were telling me.
24 MR ROXBURGH: Thank you very much, Mr Stark, those are my
25 questions.
1 LORD SAVILLE: I think, Mr Glasgow, we will take a break at
2 this point and so we will come back at 3.10.
3 (3.00 pm)
4 (A short break)
5 (3.15 pm)
6 Questioned by MR GLASGOW
7 MR GLASGOW: Mr Stark, you know my name is Glasgow and
8 I represent many of the soldiers.
9 There are only two areas I would ask you to help
10 a little more with, one is your best quotes and the
11 other is one of the interviews.
12 Could we look at the best quotes first, please, and
13 I will take you to one of them. These are the notes
14 that you made up from, I think, a fairly full transcript
15 of the Belfast five interviews, if I may put it like
16 that?
17 A. That is correct.
18 Q. One in particular, but before we come to it, best in the
19 sense that they were the summary of the most important
20 points or best from a journalistic point, or both?
21 A. Journalistic in terms of relevance to the film.
22 Q. Would you have tried to capture and record anything that
23 was of fundamental importance to Bloody Sunday?
24 A. I am sorry, could you just --
25 Q. Would you have tried to include a quotation for anything
1 that was of fundamental importance to Bloody Sunday?
2 A. Clearly that was the task, yes.
3 Q. I appreciate you could not be exact. One particular
4 area that we were asking you for help with this
5 morning: do you recall two of the soldiers giving
6 accounts that one soldier had shot four people in
7 Glenfada Park and that none of that evidence had been
8 given at Widgery?
9 A. I do not immediately recall that, no.
10 Q. I think I can tell you it does not appear in any of your
11 quotes, but it would not necessarily or would it have
12 done if it had been of that importance?
13 A. If it had been either credible or relevant, it almost
14 certainly would have appeared in that document.
15 Q. If you were, as with some of the examples you have told
16 us about, highly doubtful or doubtful about the truth of
17 the story you were being told, you might have simply
18 left it off the record completely on the grounds that it
19 sounded unreliable?
20 A. Yes, that is right.
21 Q. There is one quotation I would ask you if you could help
22 us with, it is at O40.8, it is the area that you told
23 the Tribunal about, of discussing with the soldiers the
24 difficulty of identifying gunmen. If we look at O40.8
25 at the bottom half of the page -- could we look at it in
1 context first, the whole thing, if we may. Looking at
2 it from my point of view --
3 A. I have nothing on my screen here.
4 Q. Has your screen gone blank?
5 A. Yes. It has just come up.
6 Q. I was going to look at the whole thing because I know it
7 is unfair to pick things out:
8 "Looking at it from my point of view, yes -- I could
9 see it happening because the blokes would be hyped up --
10 they are expecting a gunman to come. Suddenly four
11 people dash out: bang, bang, bang. I mean you are
12 talking about a split second. He could have thought:
13 oh, maybe the first one had his hand in his jacket or
14 his arm down somewhere and he thought: oh, he is going
15 to bring a rifle up or a pistol up or something and
16 bang, bang. I mean, you do not know ... you have got
17 your adrenaline up, right, and you are told, right,
18 there is a gunman in there so you have got to go in and
19 house-clear -- right. So, I mean, let us be honest, if
20 somebody came bursting in that door ..." et cetera.
21 The context in which that conversation took place,
22 was it the soldier illustrating the problems that could
23 arise with identifying gunmen in the sort of situation
24 of clearing houses where the soldier is told that a
25 gunman may be there?
1 A. I think it was slightly broader than that, it was the
2 problems facing soldiers asked to police in an urban
3 situation with a lot of people around.
4 Q. Generally?
5 A. Generally, yes.
6 Q. The specific example that he gave, and which you set out
7 very fully in your quotation, was of somebody being told
8 to clear a house in the belief that there was a gunman
9 there?
10 A. Yes, but I think, if I remember rightly, the question
11 was more general as that. He might have given that as
12 an illustration in his answer, but I seem to remember
13 the question was a more general question, the difficulty
14 of identifying -- what is the difficulty of identifying
15 a gunman in an urban situation.
16 Q. But if you cut out the particular example he was giving
17 and stitch the beginning and the end of the passage
18 together, it would appear to apply exclusively to
19 Bloody Sunday?
20 A. Could you be specific about which bits you are talking
21 about?
22 Q. What I had in mind, Mr Stark, was the way it was
23 broadcast by the actor who spoke the words. We will
24 look at it in just a second, but if you look at the
25 passage on the screen, the lines that he has given to
1 speak are the first six lines and the last five lines,
2 cutting out the house clearing search, so that it
3 appears as though it applies to Bloody Sunday; that was
4 what concerned me?
5 A. And the question you are asking me is what?
6 Q. Were you conscious of that?
7 A. I was aware we had taken out the central section, yes.
8 Q. If anybody wants the cross-reference to it, it is
9 X1.7.32, but I will not go there. Thank you.
10 The second matter which you may be able to help more
11 with is the interview at O23 which you were kind enough
12 to confirm which you thought was yours. Perhaps we
13 could remind you by looking at the first page, O23.1;
14 does that bring back a bell?
15 A. Yes, it does.
16 Q. It is just the build-up to the question of the Yellow
17 Card which you discussed, I think, with many soldiers?
18 A. I seem to remember discussing it with a number of
19 soldiers, yes.
20 Q. I hope without cutting anything relevant out, could we
21 go to O23.8, Mr Stark. The reason I start there is, if
22 we go through paragraphs down:
23 "The discrimination in an urban situation ..."
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. That is the beginning of a quotation that was read by
1 one of the actors which, as Mr Goddard very candidly
2 told us, in fact spread over many, many pages in this
3 interview?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Does that ring a bell?
6 A. It does ring a bell.
7 Q. He very candidly agreed that was the case and I leave it
8 there, I refresh your memory, that is where I am taking
9 it from.
10 I hope I can take it shortly -- if I take it too
11 shortly and I miss anything out that is important,
12 please stop me and I will go back to it -- but the way
13 the interview went was like this: when the soldier spoke
14 about the difficulty in fact of urban areas again, you
15 very fairly say, whereas in a war if it moves you shoot,
16 he goes on and explains that it is very different in
17 Northern Ireland; and in the last but one paragraph on
18 23.8, he says:
19 "You know, you could have a friend on one side and
20 an enemy next and you do not know which is which until
21 they strike at you and that is different. I do not
22 think blokes were under any illusions about that.
23 I think most people realise that that was the problem."
24 You then very fairly take him on to the other
25 problems that leads to and, if we go over the page to
1 23.9, the third paragraph after you have pointed out
2 that by thinking twice he may put himself in danger, the
3 soldier is recorded as saying:
4 "Well, as I said before, in a war situation you do
5 not think, you do it. In a situation in
6 Northern Ireland you may think and then do it. But
7 realistically because of the situation out there, and
8 being on own ground and subject to all the laws, you
9 think twice. That may well put you at risk. When you
10 think twice. If you think once and providing you are
11 thinking clearly and you are acting in good faith, and
12 you make a mistake, then you know I do not think anybody
13 should be criticised for that. That is? If you are not
14 so sure and think twice, and you finish up dead because
15 of it."
16 And that is the way the conversation continues. We
17 pick up then in the next paragraph, the phrase "nobody
18 wants to die", and that was the context in which he used
19 it which goes into the quotation. But the last four
20 lines on the page, you summarise that exchange by
21 saying:
22 "So would you say there is great potential for
23 errors to be made because of that tension between
24 wanting to save your life and wanting to respect the law
25 and make sure you are shooting at the right target."
1 Did you feel that he was actually trying to say that
2 there was great potential for errors, or it just was one
3 of the problems that they faced?
4 A. No, I got the impression that it was a big problem for
5 soldiers being asked to police an event like a civil
6 rights march when they believe there might be gunman in
7 the area, I got a feeling that they are very worried
8 about that and they have a big problem with that.
9 Q. Did it appear to you, as an experienced journalist, that
10 this appeared to be a sincere expression of concern by
11 the soldier or just putting on a show for you?
12 A. No, I felt this was very credible.
13 Q. I hope I leave nothing out, certainly out of fairness to
14 you, over the next two pages. If we go on to O23.12, he
15 has been talking about, in answer to your question, the
16 Parachute Regiment and whether they are the right people
17 to use, if I may summarise it as shortly as that.
18 The last two paragraphs:
19 "Would it be fair [you ask] to say that the
20 reputation was not only of professionalism, by they were
21 also, the Paras were also regarded as the toughest, or
22 the most aggressive of the units within the Army?
23 "Answer: No, no, I do not. You see, I think yes
24 aggression was used by the Paras and some people might
25 have seen it in that light, but aggression should never
1 be unleashed without control."
2 Do you recall that being a line that he then
3 developed?
4 A. You would have to show me the rest of what he said to
5 remind me.
6 Q. Over the page, O23.13, I do not know whether, in your
7 own time, you can glance down. Do you recall that that
8 was what he was trying to say to you?
9 A. Yes, yes.
10 Q. And the next question at the foot of the page, you then
11 ask:
12 "Do you think it is easy given the pressure, given
13 the situation you were in, to keep the natural
14 aggression of training under that sort of control?"
15 His answer, do you recall, at O23.14:
16 "Answer: Yeah, discipline in the Army is rife and
17 I do not expect you to understand it but the discipline
18 will control the man and there is nothing to stop an
19 individual out of 5 or 600 men doing something that is
20 completely against the general principles of his
21 training."
22 Did you also think that that was a sincere
23 expression of the way he saw it?
24 A. I am a little confused about discipline in the Army
25 being rife, I assume he means that there is a lot of
1 discipline in the Army, I assume that is his comment.
2 Q. I think that is the sense in which he is trying to
3 explain it, "you may not understand this, but there is
4 a lot more discipline than you would give us credit
5 for"; would that be fair?
6 A. In a general sense, yes, but my own feeling was that in
7 a situation like this regiment was facing on that day,
8 on the day of Bloody Sunday, it would be very easy for
9 discipline to break down.
10 Q. And he was trying, however inarticulately, to explain
11 the opposite view?
12 A. He was trying to make the best of Army discipline.
13 Q. There are only two more passages, O23.18, the top half
14 of the page, where -- because it leads to the Yellow
15 Card discussions to start with. I think it starts up,
16 is it your handwriting in the left hand margin?
17 A. It is, yes.
18 Q. It is where you start the note on it:
19 "You go out and be a soldier and they say to you
20 well you cannot do this and you cannot do that, well you
21 cannot do it. Simple as that, even though you are at
22 risk. I think if I were ever in that situation where it
23 were me or them, and I did not know whether he were
24 a good or bad, I would do my best to make sure that
25 I were alive at the end of it and if it meant that I got
1 a face some court on some criminal charge at the end of
2 the day, well, so be it, so long as I were alive I would
3 not care."
4 That is where the second half of the quotation is
5 from, for completeness, that was broadcast?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. "Self-preservation?
8 "Answer: Oh yeah.
9 "Question: Well you would not read the Yellow Card,
10 would you, when you are in danger?"
11 That is the way you introduce the Yellow Card
12 debate?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. He then continues the discussion as to what colour it is
15 now and, over the page, might we take it from the middle
16 of the page:
17 "These are rules you have got to obey in
18 Northern Ireland. So it is not different, it is just.
19 Of course the soldiers that are being given that
20 particular card may change. As the years go by ..."
21 et cetera, and your response to that is:
22 "What rules applied in Northern Ireland at that
23 time? What practical rules?"
24 Mr Stark, would it be fair to say that although he
25 is doing his best to explain, as he sees it, the law and
1 the rules that apply to him, you are edging him towards
2 saying, "yes, but they do not and they cannot really
3 apply in practice, can they"; that is coming from you,
4 not from him?
5 A. No, I think he has already said in his answer that if it
6 was a toss-up between firing at somebody -- staying
7 alive and being dead, he would fire and he would take
8 the consequences afterwards. Now, I did not put those
9 words into his mouth, that is what he told me, and I was
10 trying to get him to build on the thought that he had
11 offered to me, I was not trying to put words into his
12 mouth.
13 Q. I hope I did not put that phrase to you, but the concept
14 of: in practice it is different. You do not feel that
15 was coming from you?
16 A. Not at all, no.
17 Q. Again, I hope I am not being unfair to you or to him in
18 taking it very shortly, if I skip over the next pages.
19 Could we perhaps go to O23.21, which I think is the next
20 direct point which is taken up. I missed out O23.20 in
21 my interest to speed:
22 "In a practical situation [you say], I mean there is
23 lots of rules in our game, I know we dip under them
24 a lot, but I mean I have never been a soldier, but if
25 you were in that situation and the rules say, I do not
1 know what they say, but if you are shot at you must see
2 the man with the gun before you shoot back. Surely
3 I mean the human thing would not ..."
4 Do you not there feel you are continuing the
5 suggestion from you even that you break rules; are you
6 not trying to encourage him to suggest that is what had
7 happened?
8 A. He had already told me that in some situations of
9 real -- where you feel you are really in danger, you
10 would shoot first and take the consequences. He has
11 already told me that and it did not seem to me to be
12 unreasonable to ask him to build the thought that he had
13 already offered me.
14 Q. Even if it means -- well, I accept your answer.
15 A. It was a leading question, of course, but it was led by
16 the interviewee who had already indicated that that was
17 the situation. So I was trying to get him to expand on
18 something he had already told me.
19 Q. I have asked the occasional leading question, Mr Stark,
20 myself, I accept that. His answer:
21 "There is no point in shooting if you cannot see
22 him."
23 It was a pretty blunt answer?
24 A. Yes, it is, yes.
25 Q. And your response, even to that blunt answer:
1 "But surely you would whack off 2 or 3 bullets."
2 Had he really said anything that justified that from
3 you?
4 A. That is probably slightly exaggerated, I would accept
5 that, that question.
6 Q. His response "no, no, no"?
7 A. If I can -- my feeling was that this particular
8 individual was in a slight quandary because effectively
9 I was asking him -- he was telling me that he was
10 breaking the rules. Now, a soldier telling a journalist
11 he is breaking the rules is placed in a difficult
12 situation. I would expect somebody in that situation to
13 waver between emphasising that they hold the rules and
14 also telling you what is perhaps more like the truth,
15 which is sometimes you do break the rules.
16 Q. You felt he was telling you that he broke the rules, did
17 you?
18 A. That is what I felt when he told me the initial comments
19 that you pointed out, yes.
20 Q. O23.21, and then I promise you there is only one more
21 page, the second half of the page, please, again where
22 he is responding to the suggestion of how easy it is,
23 I think, to break the rules or not:
24 "Not easy, certainly not easy and like I say you
25 might make a mistake but I think generally speaking the
1 majority of soldiers that are put in that position, and
2 it is a very personal thing for a soldier, I think in
3 Northern Ireland because it is emphasised so much, he
4 will do his best to comply with that. But obviously
5 mistakes will happen and that is because
6 self-preservation, the soldier is going to err on his
7 own side, ain't he, you know and he is going to act in
8 the most favourable way to him."
9 That is the way he tried to sum up his dilemma?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. If you will take it from me, the debate continues --
12 I do not know whether you recall -- over some 40 pages
13 on other matters and then you came back to it when he
14 told you about the shooting which he had seen the
15 officer do, Lieutenant N; do you remember that?
16 A. You can refresh my memory here, please.
17 Q. If we go right to the end of the debate, it is at
18 O23.60, it is where you pick it up again at "Yellow
19 Card" in the bottom left-hand corner; do you see?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. It is following, in the middle of the page:
22 "But technically it is a breach of the yellow
23 rules"; you are here asking him to confirm that what his
24 officer did was a breach; is that right?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. Over the page he has explained what he thinks the
2 dilemma that faced them was and you say "no"; he says:
3 "Well then I would say it is justified."
4 He is trying to justify what his officer did, is he
5 not; do you remember that?
6 A. I think it would help me if we could go over this
7 a touch more slowly.
8 Q. Go back over the page, O23.60, the bottom where your own
9 handwriting "Yellow Card":
10 "Well that is always open to interpretation but then
11 again you have got to come down to the soldier or the
12 individual's interpretation of it and whether he felt at
13 risk or not."
14 Over the page to 61:
15 "I am afraid if I felt at risk and I thought that
16 was the best way to lessen or relieve it entirely, then,
17 yes, no doubt I would do it in that situation. I do not
18 know because I have not been in that situation but
19 I would not say I would not do it. You know if I felt
20 that it were necessary I might do it. I might at the
21 end of day breach the Yellow Card rules and somebody
22 might have me up for breaching the Yellow Card rules but
23 so long as I have not killed anybody irresponsibly then
24 I would not be too worried about that. You know I mean
25 that is, it is something I would have to weigh up at the
1 time probably a split second decision and you make that
2 decision, you do it, rightly or wrongly you do it and
3 did he kill anybody?
4 "Question: No.
5 "Answer: Well, then I would say it is justified."
6 It is just your conclusion to all that, all you have
7 seen, Mr Stark, a lot that we have not:
8 "Not then anyway as far as I know. But you are
9 saying therefore under pressure the Yellow Card rules
10 are open to on the ground interpretation? In fact do
11 not count for a lot?"
12 Did you really think that, in the light of the care
13 that this soldier had taken in trying to explain to you
14 his view of the Yellow Card, it was really fair to sum
15 up the debate by saying that you thought that he had
16 been telling you that they did not count for a lot; was
17 that fair?
18 A. I think the first sentence that I asked, the first
19 question, "but you are saying therefore under pressure
20 that the Yellow Card rules are open to on the ground
21 interpretation" is fair. "In fact do not count for
22 a lot" perhaps would have been better not asked.
23 Q. Did you think, on reflection, that the majority of the
24 soldiers that you spoke to were trying to tell you that
25 they did do their best to observe the Yellow Card, or is
1 this a complete exception?
2 A. I think the soldiers that I spoke to were trying to
3 explain the situation in which Yellow Card rules were
4 very difficult for them and there are some situations in
5 which a soldier has to take his own initiative on
6 whether to fire and he might get it wrong, and that
7 situation is amplified when a soldier is asked to police
8 something like the civil rights march in Derry, in the
9 atmosphere that was present at the time in the city.
10 Questioned by MR ELIAS
11 MR ELIAS: Mr Stark, you interviewed Mr Martin McGuinness in
12 1991. He has now told the Inquiry that on Bloody Sunday
13 he was the adjutant or second in command of the
14 Provisional IRA, I suppose you are aware of that?
15 A. Yes, I am.
16 Q. At the time of your interview, as is recorded on the
17 transcript, he said that he was not speaking on behalf
18 of the IRA; you may remember that?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. The interview took place, as you say in your statement,
21 at the Sinn Fein offices here in Derry. Presumably in
22 order to speak with Martin McGuinness at that time you
23 had to put out feelers, did you, to the Provisional IRA?
24 A. John Goddard did, yes.
25 Q. On behalf of the programme. You had --
1 A. Forgive me, John Goddard put out feelers to Sinn Fein.
2 I do not know whether he put out feelers to the Provos
3 or not.
4 Q. I was just about to say, you had, as Mr Goddard has told
5 this Tribunal, interviews -- you do not remember them,
6 but he has told us about them -- with members of the
7 Official IRA, including the Officer Commanding. For
8 Praxis purposes you would certainly have wished to speak
9 with someone who could put forward the Provisional view,
10 would you not?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. As we now know, Mr McGuinness was the Provisional, and
13 a senior Provisional at that. He was, of course, the
14 only person, if I can put it this way -- I mean it not
15 disrespectfully at all -- but he was the only
16 Provisional put up for you to interview; was he not?
17 A. He did not admit to me that he was a member of the
18 Provisional IRA. I knew him as somebody from Sinn Fein.
19 Q. I follow that. Knowing now what you know, the fact is
20 that for Praxis purposes he was in fact the only
21 Provisional put up to speak with you?
22 A. He certainly was a Provisional man. I can see now that
23 he was, yes.
24 Q. I do not want to interrupt you, simply to take it
25 shortly: did you, Praxis, interview any other senior
1 Provisional member active in Derry on the day?
2 A. I did not personally, no.
3 Q. Are you aware of any of the team who did it?
4 A. I am not aware that John Goddard did, or anybody else.
5 Q. If we go to O8A.5, the first three lines of that major
6 paragraph at the top, this is where Mr McGuinness says:
7 "I mean I am not speaking on behalf of the IRA,
8 I must make that clear."
9 It was a little tongue-in-cheek, was it not, and
10 I suggest you would have known it, because if you go now
11 to O8A.7, the top half of this page:
12 "Do you think if the Provisionals and the Officials,
13 strong order had gone out and that fingers had been
14 wagged that there was to be no military activity on this
15 day?
16 "Answer: Well, I mean I do not know what the
17 Officials done on the day.
18 "Question: No, no, sorry."
19 A little further down the page:
20 "The discipline was under control at that time?
21 "Answer: In my opinion there was absolutely no
22 possibility whatsoever of a maverick IRA volunteer
23 Provisional, for want of a better term, to distinguish
24 between the two groups at that time, going off on his
25 own."
1 You did not need to read between the lines, did you,
2 to see that he was in fact speaking for the
3 Provisionals, as one would now expect?
4 A. I think Mr McGuinness's role was common knowledge at
5 that time amongst journalists, even though it was not
6 admitted publicly.
7 Q. When you went to see him, did you interview him alone?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. That is to say just the two of you and Mr McGuinness?
10 A. Yes, we were in a room on our own.
11 Q. And he was with no other member of the organisation?
12 A. To the best of my recollection, he was not.
13 Q. Mr McGuinness tells the Tribunal that he has no memory
14 of the interview. You have no doubt that you
15 interviewed him, do you?
16 A. Well, I would recognise Mr McGuinness, yes, and I have
17 absolutely no doubt that we interviewed him.
18 Q. I do not want to labour the point. Could we look,
19 please, at O8A.16. Leaving the page in its full form
20 there, we can see that the bottom line, "No, I do not
21 remember shots over my head, no", is at the same
22 level -- if we go back and look at the earlier pages in
23 this transcript -- it is exactly the same level at the
24 bottom of each preceding page.
25 What the Tribunal now knows, but you may not, that
1 at this point in his recitation of what he was doing on
2 the day in this interview, do you follow, having seen
3 Mrs Deery shot and then getting down to the flats, in
4 a statement that he has subsequently made for the
5 Tribunal, Mr McGuinness goes on to give further detail
6 of what he did on the day. It seemed to give force to
7 the suggestion that this is not the end of the interview
8 that you had with him; do you follow?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Quite apart from its abrupt ending and so on that you
11 have already been asked questions about. What I wanted
12 to ask you was this: this would have been the interview,
13 as you have told us, on tape. Do you know what happened
14 to the tape?
15 A. The tapes were sent off for transcription by
16 Praxis Films transcriber. You have to remember I am not
17 a part of Praxis Films, I am from London, Praxis Films
18 was not in London. So what happened to them after
19 transcription, I cannot tell you, I am afraid.
20 Q. Do you know what has happened to the remaining part of
21 this interview in its hard copy form?
22 A. If there is a remaining part, I have no idea what has
23 happened to it.
24 Q. Would you have seen the whole of the interview at any
25 stage?
1 A. I would have seen the whole of the interview and if
2 there was more to this interview, I would have seen it,
3 yes.
4 Q. Do you have any recollection of Mr McGuinness telling
5 you any more than is set out in this transcript?
6 A. No, I do not.
7 Q. You have no independent recollection, do you, of the
8 interview beyond this?
9 A. Could you be more specific, I mean?
10 Q. You have no independent recollection of anything that
11 Mr McGuinness said, save that which is in these
12 16 pages?
13 A. No, I do not.
14 Q. If I suggest to you that he may have told you of
15 a meeting that was held with Provisionals, senior
16 Provisional IRA people, later on that afternoon or early
17 evening, would that ring any bell at all with you?
18 A. No, it would not.
19 MR TOOHEY: Mr Purvis, before you ask any questions, could
20 you clarify your position, and particularly that of your
21 clients, in relation to the line of questioning you may
22 be going to adopt? It arose this morning, I think, and
23 you told the Chairman that you would seek instructions.
24 In particular, I had assumed from your line of
25 questioning this morning that the persons whom you
1 represent, or some of them at any rate, were those who
2 were interviewed by Mr Goddard.
3 MR PURVIS: That is what is anticipated, sir, at least.
4 MR TOOHEY: If that is not the position we should know about
5 it so that there is no uncertainty on the part of anyone
6 here present.
7 MR PURVIS: The only difficulty, sir, is we have not had
8 further instructions since I last spoke this morning
9 from any of the five, I have not been able to contact
10 them as yet. As I made clear, as soon as we have, we
11 will pass the information on.
12 MR TOOHEY: That is a little curious, is it not, Mr Purvis,
13 because the statement of Mr Goddard has been available
14 for some considerable time, presumably it has been
15 referred to your clients for instructions.
16 MR PURVIS: Unfortunately it was only made available to my
17 solicitor last week, late last week, so we have been
18 trying since that time to seek instructions.
19 MR TOOHEY: Are you proceeding on the basis that, at least
20 for the time being, we are not clear as to whether any
21 of your clients were present at either of the meetings
22 that Mr Goddard had?
23 MR PURVIS: Yes, but the questions I propose to ask Mr Stark
24 do not relate to that anyway, it is just to the general
25 premise he refers to in relation to the activity of the
1 Officials on the day.
2 MR TOOHEY: That is part of the problem, is it not, because,
3 as I understand from what you were saying this morning,
4 you are appearing on behalf of certain persons, not the
5 IRA as an organisation or the general membership of the
6 IRA. If that is the position, that puts some sort of
7 limits on the area of questioning.
8 Now, it is something you will no doubt have to watch
9 as you ask the questions, but it seems to me important
10 that you bear in mind that you are appearing for
11 particular individuals, as least as you have explained
12 it to us, and not for an organisation.
13 MR PURVIS: Certainly, sir, I am well aware of that and the
14 questions I would have proposed to ask would have been
15 of a very limited, defined nature.
16 Questioned by MR PURVIS
17 MR PURVIS: Mr Stark, if you could look at M87.2,
18 particularly paragraph 5. If you put up beside that
19 M87.13, dealing firstly with paragraph 5. In the middle
20 of that paragraph, you say:
21 "... the final broadcast version of the film
22 presents a more balanced account of the events: we came
23 to the conclusion that an IRA gunman probably had fired
24 first -- after hearing one soldier fire warning shots to
25 ward off a hostile crowd. The soldiers then overreacted
1 and shot unarmed civilians."
2 Paragraph 51 on the right-hand side of the screen,
3 you then say:
4 "I have been asked to clarify ..."
5 Paragraph 5; do you see that?
6 A. Yes, I can.
7 Q. You go on to provide further detail on what you were
8 referring to in paragraph 5?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. The person referred to in paragraph 5, I presume, from
11 the ordinary reading of paragraph 51, is the gunman
12 known as Father Daly's gunman?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. That is the incident that happened at Chamberlain
15 Street, by the gable wall?
16 A. Yes, I think that is right, yes.
17 Q. So when you set out the sequence of events in
18 paragraph 5, you are really placing that in the
19 timescale of the events at Chamberlain Street?
20 A. I have to refresh my memory on this because my
21 understanding was that there were up to three Official
22 IRA gunmen in the area with arms. I want to just
23 correct what I have said. It might not have been that
24 individual who we have seen in the film photographed by
25 the wall. I am not entirely certain which gunman we are
1 talking about. I am not sure that we can say which
2 gunman.
3 Q. But the person you refer to in paragraph 5, you then go
4 on to state and give detail about in paragraph 51, they
5 are one and the same, I presume?
6 A. You are talking about "we came to the conclusion that an
7 IRA gunman probably had fired first"; is that what you
8 are talking about?
9 Q. Could you repeat that?
10 A. In paragraph 5, the phrase "we came to the conclusion
11 that an IRA gunman probably had fired first"; is that
12 what you are referring to?
13 Q. Yes?
14 A. I am sorry, the second part of your question is?
15 Q. The further detail you provide in paragraph 51, namely
16 Father Daly's gunman?
17 LORD SAVILLE: I think I am with Mr Stark in not quite being
18 sure what the question is; is that right, Mr Stark?
19 A. Yes, I think if I can throw a bit of light on this:
20 "Father Edward Daly told us that he had seen an
21 Official IRA man firing back at the soldiers, but he did
22 not know who fired first", and exactly when that man
23 fired is not clear and I cannot answer that.
24 The hypothesis that we posited in the film was that
25 after a soldier fired over the heads of what he called
1 "a hostile crowd" an unknown Official IRA gunman, one of
2 up to three in the immediate area, fired back thinking
3 that they were under attack by the Army. Who that
4 gunman was and whether it was the gunman photographed by
5 the wall, I cannot tell you.
6 MR PURVIS: It would be fair to say the only positive
7 information or evidence that you gleaned or you received
8 was in relation to Father Daly's statement?
9 A. No, I believe that we had information also from another
10 source, that there were up to three Official IRA gunmen
11 in the area with arms. That was not information I had
12 first-hand, but it was information that Praxis obtained.
13 Q. You and Mr Goddard had a difference of view on the
14 Rossville Flats incident as to whether there was a
15 gunman or not; would that be fair to say?
16 A. Could you be more specific, please? When you say "the
17 Rossville Flats incident", there was a lot of incidents.
18 Q. That is how it was termed by Mr Goddard. He believed
19 there was not an incident or a gunman at that point; you
20 took a different view?
21 A. I cannot tell you what John believed, what he said to
22 this Tribunal, but my view was -- and I emphasise again,
23 and it was emphasised in the film, it was a hypothesis
24 because we could not prove it -- was that the most
25 likely course of events was that an Official IRA gunman
1 responded to the sound of shots fired by a soldier who
2 was warding off a hostile crowd.
3 Q. Were the shots you refer to in paragraph 51 related to
4 the Rossville Flats area; is that what you were
5 inferring in that paragraph?
6 A. If I remember, the shots were fired in Chamberlain
7 Street and the end of Chamberlain Street was where the
8 Rossville Flats were, so yes.
9 Q. So it is one and the same?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Finally, Mr Stark, you stated earlier that you would
12 have remembered if you had actually interviewed and
13 questioned Official IRA men, I think the phrase you used
14 was "it would have stuck in my head"?
15 A. I would have thought it would, yes.
16 Q. And it has not?
17 A. And it has not, no.
18 MR ROXBURGH: Sir, I have no further questions, but there
19 were a few points that cropped up this afternoon on
20 which Mr Stark felt that he might be able to assist if
21 he had a little more time to look at the documents.
22 DJ Freeman have a set of the interview transcripts
23 and they will be able to obtain, either from the website
24 or from the Inquiry, a transcript of today's proceedings
25 and so I would suggest that the way forward would be for
1 Mr Stark, if he is kind enough to do this, to look at
2 those documents in conjunction with his solicitors and
3 for them to write a letter to the Inquiry, when that has
4 been done, containing any further information that
5 Mr Stark is able to provide.
6 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Stark, we are grateful for what you said
7 this afternoon about doing this further exercise for us
8 and all we can ask is, among your other commitments,
9 could you give us a certain amount of priority.
10 A. I will do it as quickly as I can.
11 LORD SAVILLE: I would like to thank you on behalf of the
12 Tribunal generally for coming here to assist us, thank
13 you very much.
14 MR ROXBURGH: Sir, that does leave the question of the
15 documents that would tend to identify sources. Since,
16 if anybody is to be ordered to produce that material it
17 will be Channel 4 Television Corporation rather than
18 Mr Goddard or Mr Stark, I think the appropriate way
19 forward there will be for the Inquiry to consider the
20 position in the light of the evidence that has been
21 given over the past two days.
22 I understand that DJ Freeman are kindly preparing
23 a further redacted and annotated version of the
24 documents in question which will take account of the
25 fact that three of the soldiers have waived the
1 obligations of confidentiality that would otherwise
2 apply.
3 When we have those documents we will be able to
4 reach a view on how to take the matters forward. It may
5 be that before any question arises of asking Channel 4
6 to disclose those documents in their unredacted form, we
7 will wish at least to hear the evidence of
8 Mr Neil Davies to see whether, and if so in what
9 respects, that advances matters. But I think nothing
10 further needs to be decided today in relation to those
11 documents.
12 LORD SAVILLE: Thank you for that, Mr Roxburgh. I am sure
13 it is understood by Channel 4 that we may well have to
14 revisit this topic with them and, if we did and any
15 question of relying on confidences et cetera was
16 concerned, they would be fully entitled to be
17 represented at the Inquiry while that subject was
18 debated.
19 We are starting tomorrow, as I understand it, with
20 Mr Mills. We will follow that with Mr Wallace, although
21 Mr Wallace's evidence will be interrupted so we can deal
22 with this venue application tomorrow. We will then
23 continue with Mr Wallace on Thursday and, depending on
24 how we get on, we may or may not be able to complete or
25 at least start Mr Mooney.
1 (4.00 pm)
2 (Proceedings adjourned until 9.30 am on Wednesday, 18th
3 September 2002)
4
5
6 MR JOHN GODDARD, (continued) ................. 1
7 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH (continued) ........ 1
8 Questioned by LORD GIFFORD ................... 12
9 Questioned by MR GLASGOW ..................... 17
10 Questioned by MR ELIAS ....................... 63
11 Questioned by MR PURVIS ...................... 72
12 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH .................... 82
13 MR TONY STARK, affirmed ...................... 85
14 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH .................... 85
15 Questioned by MR GLASGOW ..................... 165
16 Questioned by MR ELIAS ....................... 182
17 Questioned by MR PURVIS ...................... 189
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