1 Thursday, 27th March 2003
2 (9.30 a.m)
3 COLONEL WILFORD (continued)
4 Questioned by MR CLARKE (continued)
5 MR CLARKE: Could we have on the screen B1110.035, please,
6 could we highlight paragraphs 107 and 108. Colonel
7 Wilford, we reached, at close of play yesterday, the
8 point in time at which you had met up with Major Loden,
9 somewhere to the north of Block 1. You describe in
10 paragraph 107 how you told him that:
11 "We were not going further forward and that we would
12 stay and tighten up in the area we occupied."
13 You go on to say that the next stage was to
14 withdraw:
15 "... as we had completed the arrest operation and
16 the order to tighten up was preparatory to that."
17 You then describe going over to C Company to tell
18 them to prepare to withdraw, and meeting General Ford,
19 and him asking you what was going on and what you were
20 doing. You gave him a brief report. Then you record,
21 in paragraph 108, that you had already moved A Company:
22 " ... on our right flank to give it some
23 protection."
24 Can we take it that, to the best of your
25 recollection, the moment when A Company was moved up --
1 that is to say moved through barrier 11, behind which it
2 was -- was after you had made contact with Major Loden
3 to the north of Block 1?
4 A. I cannot swear to the actual moment, but it would have
5 been at that sort of time.
6 Q. I am not trying to be specific. It is that sort of time
7 rather than any earlier time?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. That is certainly consistent. Could we have on the
10 screen B951, your most contemporaneous statement to
11 Lord Widgery, because you describe in this page asking
12 where the Company Commander Major Loden was, and where
13 he was being pointed out to you; running over to have
14 a word with him; seeing him. You then set out what he
15 told you. You then describe, at the very bottom of the
16 page, how you left him to find C Company. And then, at
17 the turn of the page, what you said was this:
18 "I went back to the Rossville/William Street
19 junction where I called A Company forward to protect my
20 right flank. They were to motor through barricade 11
21 and secure the Little Diamond/William Street area. This
22 they did."
23 That sets it in context, does it not? You then
24 record, both in this statement and in your statement to
25 this Inquiry, that you saw C Company and the Company
1 Commander, who told you his dispositions.
2 Do you recall where it was that you saw C Company,
3 where they were?
4 A. No, I really do not.
5 Q. Your statement went on to say this:
6 "I ordered him to continue with the arresting
7 process, but to go firm as we were not to go any further
8 forward. By this time I had a picture of some 30
9 arrests and probably five dead persons from gunshot
10 wounds."
11 Just concentrating on the "five," should we take it
12 that the five dead persons, as you thought at that
13 stage, were probably: the two people on the barricade,
14 as you then believed the number to be; and the three
15 people in Glenfada Park, a message about whom had come
16 through, as we saw yesterday, to Major Loden when you
17 were with him?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. We know that you met General Ford and gave him a brief
20 report. Do you recall where that was that you met him?
21 A. No, I do not. I do not, but it would have been behind
22 C Company and behind Support Company, somewhere back in
23 the William Street area, I imagine.
24 Q. Thank you, that is entirely consistent with your
25 evidence to Lord Widgery. If we have a look at B987, if
1 we highlight from A to C, you were asked, just between A
2 and B:
3 "Question: By this time, Colonel Wilford, had you
4 got back somewhere around the junction of William Street
5 on Aggro Corner?
6 "Answer: Yes, I had.
7 "Question: Did you meet General Ford somewhere
8 around there?
9 "Answer: Yes, I did, not at that corner. I saw
10 a platoon of C Company and had a word with them and then
11 I walked back. It was after that that I walked back and
12 saw the arrest team and then walked back again to the
13 junction of Chamberlain Street and William Street, and
14 that is where I saw General Ford."
15 That fixes it for us with, I think, some degree of
16 confidence?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Is that right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You also told Lord Widgery -- I can show you the passage
21 if you would like me to -- that you said to General Ford
22 that the Army had been fired on on three occasions and,
23 in the hullabaloo, he misunderstood what you were saying
24 and thought that you said the Army had been fired on on
25 three times instead of "occasions". Do you remember
1 giving that evidence to Lord Widgery?
2 A. No, I do not, I do not recall that. I would have to
3 look at it.
4 Q. Could we have B1005, the bottom of the page, F, please.
5 The last question, you were asked this:
6 "Question: Now I want to ask you, Colonel, about
7 your conversation with General Ford. General Ford has
8 told my Lord about the details of that conversation, and
9 I do not want to go into it in great detail. He says
10 you told him there were three shots fired at the
11 paratroopers; is that correct?
12 "Answer: No, I did not say that. I think
13 General Ford misunderstood me in the general melee.
14 I said we had fired back on three occasions."
15 That is where I got the reference from. Do
16 I understand from your last answer to me that you are
17 not now in a position to recall what the three occasions
18 that you were talking about were?
19 A. Oh, no, I am not, I am not. In fact, I cannot really
20 recall the conversation with General Ford. The fact
21 that I had a conversation with him is evident from what
22 I said to Lord Widgery, but I do not recall it at all
23 now.
24 Q. May we come back to B952. This is your first statement
25 to Lord Widgery. The way in which you expressed matters
1 was as follows:
2 "It was in William Street that I first met
3 General Ford and gave him a hurried report, and told him
4 that I was getting ready to move back, first to
5 William Street and then probably to my forming-up place
6 area at Foyle car park. Support Company reported that
7 there was still some shooting at them, but soon after it
8 stopped. Brigade HQ were informed and my
9 second-in-command began to tidy up the arrest procedure.
10 I understand 50 persons were arrested. I got the
11 executive order to pull out and all companies pulled
12 back to the FUP area at 1750 and the debriefing began."
13 When you use the expression "I got the executive
14 order to pull out," should we take it that that is
15 a reference to an order from brigade or from any other
16 source?
17 A. No, it would have come from brigade.
18 Q. Could we have on the screen W91. This is the brigade
19 log. We can see that under serial 42 at 1715 -- these
20 times may not be as accurate as they appear -- there is
21 a message from you, as I understand it, to all units:
22 "B3 now, B5 10 minutes, B1 10 minutes move to
23 original forming-up position".
24 That marks the order you caused to be given in
25 consequence?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Could we have on the screen B1067. This is a portion of
3 the documentary "Remember Bloody Sunday", in which you
4 appear, saying this:
5 "I was approached by General Ford who then asked me
6 a remarkable question 'What was I going to do?', which
7 was remarkable since he was a two-star general and I was
8 a lieutenant colonel. But I took it that he was really
9 asking me what had MacLellan, the Brigadier -- the
10 Brigade Commander told me to do. Well, in fact I had
11 not been told by the Brigade Commander to do anything.
12 And so in fact on my -- entirely on my own initiative
13 I started withdrawing my troops, and told the brigade
14 that this is what I was doing. And I withdrew my
15 troops."
16 Can we go back to 1066, the preceding page. What
17 you had said before the reference to being approached by
18 General Ford was this, halfway down the page:
19 "Quite honestly I owned the Bogside in military
20 terms; I occupied it. And at that stage, of course,
21 there was no order. There was nothing in the operation
22 order as to if this situation arose what would we do
23 with it: would we exploit it or not. So I stood there
24 for a little while wondering how best to proceed now,
25 and in fact I had already started thinning my soldiers
1 out anyway, because that is a normal operation of war,
2 to create a reserve."
3 Over the page at 1067 you describe being approached
4 by General Ford and having the conversation that you
5 describe with him. In that passage on 1066 and 1067 you
6 appear to be complaining that you had no orders as to
7 what to do once you had entered the Bogside; and saying
8 that it was remarkable that General Ford asked what you
9 were going to do; and stating that, on your own
10 initiative, in default of orders, you started
11 withdrawing.
12 As I understand it -- correct me if I am wrong --
13 you now accept that any complaint that you had no orders
14 as to what to do is unfounded, in that you did not need
15 any further orders once the arrest operation was over;
16 is that right?
17 A. That is true.
18 Q. Did this exchange or something like it take place with
19 General Ford?
20 A. I really -- I really do not know. All I can say is this
21 was a reflection a long, long time after the event, and
22 I think perhaps that I was reflecting, most
23 inaccurately, on a situation which I perhaps thought had
24 happened. And when I think about it now I have simply
25 no recollection of it being like that at all.
1 Q. I think it is pretty clear that you and General Ford
2 met.
3 A. Oh, yes, we did.
4 Q. If he had asked you "What are you going to do?" that
5 would not in fact, would it, have been a remarkable
6 question for him to ask?
7 A. No, it would not have been.
8 Q. Can we go back to B1110.036, paragraph 114. You
9 describe in this paragraph how:
10 "We then moved back. Someone, I think it was
11 Colonel Tugwell, shortly thereafter informed me that
12 General Ford wanted me to appear on television. The
13 information that I gave in the interview came from
14 Major Loden earlier."
15 Do you recall where that interview took place? We
16 can see it on film, but it is a very dark film.
17 A. No. It was somewhere in that area.
18 Q. Somewhere in that area. Thank you very much.
19 Could we have on the screen B110.5. This is
20 a transcript taken from Video 3, which is the ITN
21 actuality film on the day, in which you are being
22 interviewed by Gerald Seymour. The clip begins with him
23 saying:
24 "Colonel, once the paratroopers went into the
25 Bogside, there seem to have been a very large number of
1 casualties.
2 "Answer: Well, I suppose large -- five is quite
3 large in these circumstances".
4 That is the same figure, five, as we were discussing
5 a moment earlier; would that be right?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. A little later Gerald Seymour says:
8 "Local people are saying that you used excessive
9 force when you went in there.
10 "DW. Well, what is force? If you are being fired
11 at, you return fire, and they know that perfectly well.
12 "GS. How many gunmen do you feel you have hit in
13 the Bogside?
14 "DW. Well, I am told from my quick sitrep -- you
15 must understand it is a very quick sitrep -- that three
16 gunmen were hit. We have not got the weapons, but this
17 is the usual thing. We saw people come forward. I am
18 not going to say that I saw weapons taken away because
19 I do not know yet, I have not spoken to the men on the
20 ground, although I was forward when the shooting was
21 going on."
22 That reference to three gunmen having been hit, is
23 that something that you had learnt from Major Loden or
24 from some other source? Or how did you come to refer to
25 three gunmen being hit?
1 A. I can only suppose that that is the information I got
2 from Major Loden, but I can only suppose that.
3 Q. Could we go back to B1110.036. In paragraph 113 of your
4 statement, you say:
5 "I have been asked specifically whether I recall
6 seeing two soldiers by the names of Soldier G or Soldier
7 F on 30th January 1972. I do not."
8 One of the reasons that I expect that you were asked
9 that question is because of some evidence given by
10 a soldier whose cipher is 027. He was a radio operator
11 in the Anti-Tank Platoon, and he has already given
12 evidence to this Tribunal. Part of his evidence appears
13 at B1565.046. He had described, in an earlier part of
14 his statement, having been at the wall where you were,
15 the wall at the south of Kells Walk, and then going into
16 Glenfada Park itself. In paragraph 123, he says this:
17 "My next memory is of being at the north of Block 1
18 of the Rossville Flats, standing near Major Loden with
19 his Saracen, which had moved [to a point that he
20 marks]."
21 He describes seeing Soldier G leaning over the
22 angled bonnet of the Saracen and firing a shot into
23 Block 1. He then says he became aware for the first
24 time:
25 " ... that Colonel Wilford and Sergeant Major 202,
1 the Company Sergeant Major, were nearby. We were
2 standing in the open then, and we were not being fired
3 on. As Soldier G fired, Sergeant Major 202 immediately
4 turned to him and, with a note of agitation, said 'That
5 is enough, that is enough'. That was the last shot
6 I remember being fired that day."
7 Pausing there, do you recollect a soldier leaning
8 over the bonnet of a Saracen firing a shot into Block 1
9 of the Rossville Flats, about four or five storeys up
10 into the block?
11 A. No, I do not.
12 Q. Were you present when the Company Sergeant Major told
13 a soldier that enough was enough?
14 A. I did not hear that.
15 Q. The next paragraph reads as follows:
16 "Because I was a radio operator, it was not unusual
17 for me to be around more senior ranks. I have a memory,
18 which although vague is still distinct, of Sergeant
19 Major 202 and Colonel Wilford talking about Lance
20 Corporal F and Soldier G."
21 I explain to you that those are two of the soldiers
22 who had gone into Glenfada Park. His evidence goes on
23 to say this:
24 "I remember Colonel Wilford saying that they had
25 better be packed off to the SAS. Even at that early
1 stage they were acknowledging that there was a problem
2 with those two soldiers."
3 A. I think that is a remarkable observation. Um,
4 I certainly do not recall it, and I am pretty certain
5 that I did not have that sort of conversation. And if
6 I had have thought those two soldiers were bad
7 soldiers -- which is being suggested -- having been an
8 ex-member of that organisation, I would certainly not
9 have said that is where they should go to.
10 Q. Do you have a recollection of two or any number of
11 soldiers being recognised as a problem as a result of
12 what they had done on 30th January 1972?
13 A. None at all.
14 Q. May we come, please, to W90. This is going back to the
15 brigade log and coming a little backwards in time,
16 because we were looking at the order to withdraw at 1715
17 a moment ago. What I would like your assistance on now
18 is the entry that appears as serial 40 at 1645. There
19 is a message from Bravo 5, that is to say Support
20 Company; it is not entirely clear to whom.
21 A. No.
22 Q. But the message is:
23 "Sniper flats, Kells Walk, no CAS."
24 Meaning no casualties.
25 Q. Do you recollect a message coming through about a sniper
1 at about this time, that is to say about half an hour
2 before you gave orders to withdraw?
3 A. No, I do not. I would like you to put that 1645, if you
4 can, into context.
5 Q. Can I show you your evidence before Lord Widgery. Could
6 we have on the screen B989, from the bottom half of the
7 page from E downwards, please. The entry I have just
8 drawn to your attention was referred to you then, the
9 question which begins:
10 "Question: Then at 1645 Bravo 5 reports 'Sniper in
11 flats, Kells Walk. No casualties'. Again, as regards
12 timing, is that about right?
13 "Answer: Yes, it would be about right. In fact,
14 that particular one I recall quite well, because I was
15 back at around about that time, having spoken to the
16 General and the press. And just after that Bravo 5 came
17 up on the air and said 'You are still under sniper fire
18 from Kells Walk'. I said 'Okay. Make sure you identify
19 the targets'. I can remember saying that, and I believe
20 in fact it appeared on television."
21 The questioner goes on to say:
22 "Question: I am not sure whether it was you or 236
23 who was on television ..."
24 If you do not mind me saying so, the answer you gave
25 at F is a little puzzling. You appear to have
1 interpreted the message to Lord Widgery as a message to
2 you to tell you that you were under sniper fire from
3 Kells Walk. I do not quite know whether that was what
4 you meant.
5 A. No, of course not. Um, yes it is confusing, I agree,
6 because "from Kells Walk" suggests in fact the fire was
7 coming from Kells Walk, which of course it could not
8 have been because we were in that position. So "at
9 Kells Walk".
10 Q. The actual message is "Sniper in flats", and then
11 "Kells Walk." I do not know whether that was intended
12 to signify that there was a sniper in the
13 Rossville Flats who was shooting at Kells Walk, or
14 a sniper in the Kells Walk flats who was shooting
15 somewhere else, or what exactly. Are you able to help
16 at all?
17 A. I cannot help.
18 Q. Before we leave this topic, if we go to B1011, the last
19 three questions from F downwards, you were later asked
20 this:
21 "Question: After 4.35 did you hear shooting?
22 "Answer: At about that time, I cannot recall the
23 time exactly, but I had just spoken to General Ford, and
24 I had just spoken to the television who had hounded me
25 to give a quick situation report of what was going on.
1 And just at that moment call sign 5 came up again and
2 said they were still under fire, that two shots had been
3 fired. At this stage I said 'Okay', because you
4 remember at this stage I had already told them to
5 reorganise and to sit tight, that they were to identify
6 their targets and to continue watching.
7 "Question: But you did not go back down yourself?
8 "Answer: No, I did not.
9 "Question: So you were the commanding officer and
10 it had been reported to you that some of your units were
11 under fire?
12 "Answer: Yes, right.
13 "Question: Did you hear that fire?
14 "Answer: Yes, I did."
15 It looks plain, does it not, that you had
16 interpreted what had occurred as a message coming to you
17 that somebody in Support Company was under fire, and you
18 appeared to have heard the fire yourself?
19 A. Yes, that is what it looks like.
20 Q. You have no recollection of that at all now?
21 A. (Witness shaking head).
22 Q. May we come then, please, to B1110.036, paragraphs 115
23 and 116 of your statement. You say:
24 "My next memory is of being in the Gin Palace.
25 I think the 2IC was there, and certainly the RSO was."
1 A. I am sorry, sir, can I interrupt?
2 Q. Yes.
3 A. Could you put this 115 into context? What comes before
4 it?
5 Q. Could we have paragraphs 114 to 116. In paragraph 114
6 you describe giving the interview on the television at
7 the prompting of perhaps Colonel Tugwell.
8 A. Yes, thank you. I have it now, sir.
9 Q. You have the sequence?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. You say your next memory is of being in the Gin Palace.
12 Do you recall where the Gin Palace was at that stage?
13 A. No, I do not, but I do not think it would have moved
14 from where I previously thought it might have been. You
15 recall that --
16 Q. You thought --
17 A. It had moved down, and so it was somewhere in the area
18 of the Presbyterian Church, I think. But I could not
19 swear to that.
20 Q. You say in the last sentence of paragraph 115:
21 "There was presumably some discussion about the
22 events of the day, but I cannot now remember any
23 detail."
24 Could we go back to your original statement to
25 Lord Widgery. We will find the relevant passage at
1 B953. We looked a little earlier at the passage in your
2 statement which refers to the executive order to pull
3 out. You then went on to say:
4 "And all companies pulled back to the FUP area at
5 1730, and the debriefing began."
6 Paragraph 16:
7 "The content of this debrief is all contained in the
8 statements made to the SIB investigators, but I should
9 record that the Company Commander had already collected
10 the basic data of time, place and type of action by the
11 time he was back in the forming-up place."
12 The "forming-up place" is either a reference to the
13 Foyle College car park, or to the Foyle College car park
14 and various little streets round about, which is where
15 1 Para first started off in the west side of the Foyle.
16 The Tribunal has heard evidence that the battalion,
17 when back at that forming-up place, that an exercise was
18 carried out by Major Loden of asking those soldiers who
19 were there, and who said that they had fired shots, of
20 details of the target they had fired at, where the
21 target was and where they were when they shot.
22 Were you aware of that process taking place?
23 A. No, I was not aware of it, but it is something that
24 I would have supposed would have gone on. That would be
25 an actual function of the Company Commander.
1 Q. You must have been aware or have been given to
2 understand that it had happened by the time you came to
3 write this statement, because you refer to the Company
4 Commander as having:
5 "... already collected the basic data of time, place
6 and type of action".
7 A. Yes, that sounds reasonable.
8 Q. It is not a process which you were responsible for or
9 took any part in?
10 A. No, no.
11 Q. Can we go back to B1110.036. Can we have paragraphs 114
12 to 117, just to show the context. You say in
13 paragraph 116:
14 "At some stage I recall seeing the RSM and the 2IC
15 with other soldiers who were identifying arrestees and
16 completing the necessary paperwork. I believe that
17 I saw this outside of the main arrest area, somewhere
18 out of the Bogside, but I cannot remember where. I have
19 a mental picture of a rubble wall with soldiers and
20 civilians standing around."
21 Could we have on the screen P496. Is that the sort
22 of picture that you have in mind?
23 A. No, I do not -- I do not see that in my mental picture.
24 Q. P501?
25 A. No, nor that.
1 Q. I would like your help on three other photographs.
2 Could we have on the screen EP4.43. This is
3 a photograph taken at some stage on the day. It has
4 been supposed that the person on the left-hand side,
5 running towards Block 1, is you. Is that a possibility?
6 A. It is a possibility, um, and particularly if that white
7 patch is -- is in fact a white patch on the back of my
8 smock. I do notice in fact, looking at this photograph
9 now, there are lots of white lines immediately above
10 there. But I will not discount the fact that that white
11 patch is on that smock, in which case that would be me.
12 Q. It is very difficult for us to time this photograph. We
13 can recognise certain features: Major Loden's vehicle is
14 somewhere immediately in front of Block 1, and we can
15 recognise it because, at the end of the yellow arrow
16 which I put on the screen, there is the perspex
17 tupelar(?). We can also see there is a Ferret scout car
18 here.
19 Slightly less clear are what are the two vehicles
20 closest to you, which do not appear to be Pigs. Are you
21 able to help us as to what those vehicles are and what
22 they are doing at that stage?
23 A. Well, they are certainly not Pigs; they are Land Rovers
24 of a kind. I cannot remember now; I do not think they
25 would be mine; RMP, perhaps.
1 Q. I wondered whether they might be RMP. That would fit,
2 would it? That is the sort of vehicle the RMP would
3 have?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. The other question is: there are at least one and
6 possibly two Pigs to the right of those Land Rovers.
7 And there is certainly one there (indicating). It is
8 not entirely clear which Pigs those are. Originally the
9 leading Pig went to the mouth of the car park of the
10 Rossville Flats, and the second Pig went off onto the
11 wasteground. Thereafter there was a fair amount of
12 movement, and vehicles did not stay in the same
13 position.
14 Do you happen to know what the Pig next to what may
15 be the two RMP vehicles is, or which platoon it comes
16 from?
17 A. No, sir. No.
18 Q. Could we have on the screen EP4.38. This is another
19 photograph, not as good quality, but which shows you
20 crouching behind the northern-most of the two walls at
21 the south of Kells Walk. It may be this is an
22 impossible question, and if so just tell me, but there
23 do seem to be, following behind you, at least three
24 people, two of whom look to be civilians. Were you
25 conscious of people accumulating behind you when you
1 were at that wall?
2 A. Oh, certainly not. I think, looking at this photograph,
3 you would have to have other photographs, because the
4 foreshortening effect here is obviously acute, and
5 between me and these, this one, the nearest one -- of
6 course he is obviously a soldier, because he has
7 a helmet on, and I think the one in front of him
8 probably too has a helmet on.
9 The other one I cannot account for, whether it is
10 a civilian or not. But -- but no. I mean, the straight
11 answer is that: no, there were no civilians that I was
12 aware of behind me or to my left.
13 Q. Lastly, in looking at photographs, can we have the next
14 one, EP4.39. This is a photograph, again with a severe
15 element of foreshortening, but we can see this is the
16 north of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. There are two
17 Pigs immediately in the foreground, and soldiers; it is
18 not entirely clear whether they are getting in or
19 getting out of them. Can you cast any light on what is
20 happening in this photograph, or who these soldiers are?
21 A. Soldiers getting out of vehicles. That is all I can
22 say.
23 Q. I want to come in a moment to some matters that occurred
24 in the days subsequent to 30th January 1972. Before
25 I do that I would like to come back to something that
1 arose in your evidence yesterday. Could we have on the
2 screen B1110.241. This, if you recall, was the
3 schematic diagram that we drew together, as it were,
4 showing the pincer movement that you told the Inquiry
5 was your original plan in relation to the arrest.
6 We know that the original plan had to be -- and
7 was -- changed, and that in the event soldiers of
8 Support Company drove down Little James Street through
9 barrier 12 and stopped in Rossville Street, with one Pig
10 going down to the car park of the Rossville Flats. Was
11 there any element of pincer in the amended plan? And,
12 if so, what were the elements which were to pince?
13 A. Yes, of course; there were always elements of pincer.
14 But because this -- this operation, when I was
15 eventually given orders to go, had been long delayed,
16 the -- the nature of the pincer movement was not going
17 to be as complete as one would have wished. But of
18 course soldiers themselves operated -- would attempt to
19 make their own pincer movements, and this of course is
20 what the vehicles tried to do, by cutting off people, by
21 getting beyond them.
22 LORD SAVILLE: I see that would be a sort of pincer
23 movement, but that would be a pincer movement using one
24 company, would it not?
25 A. No. It might be a pincer movement using one or two
1 soldiers making their own pincer movement. There would
2 be several pincer movements going on at any particular
3 time in this sort of operation.
4 LORD SAVILLE: Yes, I follow that. You were stressing
5 yesterday that your understanding was that brigade
6 realised you were going to have to use two companies to
7 form the two arms of the pincer. That is what you were
8 telling us yesterday.
9 A. Yes.
10 LORD SAVILLE: What Mr Clarke is now asking is: one can
11 understand that from, indeed, the drawing we have on the
12 screen at the moment, with one company coming down from
13 the west and the other one coming up from the east.
14 Mr Clarke's question was: when that plan changed,
15 was there any pincer movement contemplated by you with
16 one company forming the arm of one pincer and the other
17 company forming the arm of the other pincer?
18 A. Yes, there was. I was not thinking about it, of course,
19 in any particular detail at that stage. I had just in
20 fact ordered two companies to conduct the operation, and
21 I would have expected them, as indeed they did, to
22 conduct pincer movements in general.
23 LORD SAVILLE: It could be suggested, Colonel Wilford, that
24 in fact what happened was not a pincer movement at all,
25 but simply a frontal assault into the Bogside, going
1 down Rossville Street on the one side, Chamberlain
2 Street on the other, and up William Street to the north.
3 A. Yes, it could be suggested, but it would not be so. And
4 I think any of the soldiers questioned would say in fact
5 they were conducting a pincer movement.
6 LORD SAVILLE: Can you help us as to what that pincer
7 movement was expected to be?
8 A. Well, I cannot in Alexandrian terms, sir, because
9 individual groups of soldiers would be acting within
10 this general framework of an arrest operation. As
11 I say, they would be conducting a pincer movement: they
12 would be trying to catch a group of people who they
13 recognised to be rioters.
14 LORD SAVILLE: That means, does it not, that when you sent
15 these troops in, you did not know that one company would
16 act as one arm of the pincer and another company act as
17 the other arm of a pincer, which you were stressing to
18 us yesterday was so obvious that even brigade must have
19 known?
20 It is no answer to say: well the soldiers would have
21 acted individually; no doubt they would. But, in the
22 amended plan, was there any concept of one company being
23 used as one arm of the pincer and another company being
24 used as the other arm?
25 A. Yes, that concept was always there and was always valid,
1 because an arrest operation demanded that.
2 LORD SAVILLE: When you sent Support Company all the way
3 down to the Rossville Flats, is that one arm of the
4 pincer?
5 A. Yes.
6 LORD SAVILLE: Where is the other one going?
7 A. The people coming through barrier 14, which would be
8 C Company, they would be the other; they would be the
9 other arm.
10 LORD SAVILLE: That was envisaged, what, to go all the way
11 down to Chamberlain Street to form a proper end to the
12 pincer?
13 A. No, no, I did not give them any particular instruction
14 to go anywhere in that area. They in fact would go
15 according to the situation as it developed. And that of
16 course is what -- what they did.
17 LORD SAVILLE: Are you saying to us that when you changed
18 the plan and you put your troops into vehicles, you did
19 not know where they were going?
20 A. Well, I knew in the general area which they were going:
21 they were going to operate in a 200-yard area of
22 operations. That is all. I could not direct every
23 individual soldier. Indeed, I was not the Company
24 Commander anyway. The Company Commander would be in
25 fact developing that situation as he thought fit, as the
1 operation opened up.
2 LORD SAVILLE: On the adapted plan, if I understand your
3 evidence correctly, the place for arresting people would
4 be somewhere on this Rossville Street wasteground; is
5 that right?
6 A. No. In fact the place -- the place for arresting people
7 really, and ideally, of course, would have been within
8 a short distance of barrier 14 and barrier 12. But of
9 course that could not occur, and did not occur. So in
10 fact the main arrest area became, if you like, Eden
11 Place, Pilot Row, Chamberlain Street and William Street
12 itself. And perhaps some activity took place -- and
13 I cannot say now that it did -- on the wasteground
14 between Little James Street, Prince Arthur Street,
15 there.
16 LORD SAVILLE: Does that mean when these troops went in you
17 had no idea where they were going to go and try and
18 arrest people?
19 A. Not precisely, no. But I did know in fact they would be
20 operating within this area (indicating). Perhaps
21 I could indicate with this machine here. Um, there is
22 barrier 14. There is nothing happening. There, there,
23 and there. If you put a thing at the end of each of
24 those, that is the sort of area that I would expect, and
25 eventually did get, the arrest operation.
1 LORD SAVILLE: That area is, on any view, substantially
2 south of the area which you informed brigade was an area
3 where you thought you would be able to pick up some
4 yobbos, is it not?
5 A. I am sorry, sir, I do not understand that.
6 LORD SAVILLE: Perhaps, Mr Clarke, we could have the signal.
7 MR CLARKE: Yes. It is W127, serial 343.
8 LORD SAVILLE: We looked at this one yesterday,
9 Colonel Wilford:
10 "He [that is to say you] would like to deploy one of
11 your sub-units through barrier 14, round the back of
12 William Street/Little James Street."
13 That is why I suggested to you what in fact
14 happened, from what you just told us, that the idea
15 became one in which the pincers would come together
16 substantially south of that area.
17 A. Yes. You can always have, of course, a theory, and
18 perhaps this signal here suggests that at that
19 particular time I thought that that was the best area,
20 or was the likely area where in fact I would make the
21 majority of arrests.
22 But this was a changing situation. It was changing
23 every second, and that is why in fact the situation did
24 change, and the arrest operation became what it was.
25 LORD SAVILLE: If we take C Company coming through barrier
1 14 on the operation when you told them to go, how did
2 they know where to go?
3 A. Could I have the map again?
4 LORD SAVILLE: Yes, of course. Perhaps I am not making
5 myself clear: the original idea, as it seemed to me, was
6 that you were suggesting to brigade that you should --
7 leave aside whether it was just through barrier 14 or
8 barrier 12, but taking barrier 14. You would send
9 a company through barrier 14 to get round and up so as
10 to collect a lot of yobbos, as you put it, in the
11 Little James Street/William Street area.
12 Presumably somebody told C Company that that was the
13 idea at that stage; is that right?
14 A. No. I do not think anyone would have told C Company.
15 The Company Commander knew what his task was, and that
16 of course was to confront and arrest as many of the
17 rioters as possible in the area which was to his front.
18 He knew, of course, that in order to do that he would be
19 obliged to fan out.
20 I think I said yesterday, you could not regard this
21 as a phalanx just going down the street. It might, of
22 course, for the first 20 yards or so. But after that of
23 course it would immediately start splitting up.
24 LORD SAVILLE: I follow that entirely. But he would have to
25 know, would he not, that your idea was to pick up the
1 yobbos in the Little James Street/William Street area.
2 If he did not know that, he would not know whether to go
3 up William Street or down Chamberlain Street.
4 A. I think you are just assuming, sir, that this is exactly
5 what in fact the rioters would do. Of course they do
6 not do what you expect them to do or what you would like
7 them to do. They just go here, there and everywhere.
8 The Company Commander and his soldiers would therefore,
9 in order to make arrests, go where the people to be
10 arrested were.
11 LORD SAVILLE: Am I right --
12 A. I am sorry, sir, I was going to say: of course he knew
13 that in fact there was another company coming through
14 barrier 12, and they would be there, and that he would
15 then push people against them, and they, in their turn,
16 would push people back towards him.
17 I think A Company at some stage said in the evidence
18 which I was shown yesterday that he in fact, when he was
19 deployed on my right flank, that he persuaded a lot of
20 people in that area to go back and push them of course
21 towards Support Company. This is the same sort of
22 thing.
23 LORD SAVILLE: How would the commander of C Company know
24 that people were coming through barrier 12?
25 A. How would he know?
1 LORD SAVILLE: Yes.
2 A. Because that was my intention. He would be told of
3 that.
4 LORD SAVILLE: It is no doubt my fault, but I am a bit
5 puzzled, because you have the original plan that you
6 suggest to brigade, that if you send some troops up and
7 round William Street you can catch a lot of yobbos in
8 the William Street/Little James Street area. To
9 a degree at least the officer commanding C Company
10 surely would have to know that at that moment that
11 seemed to be a good idea, because otherwise, surely,
12 when he was told to go, he would not know where to go.
13 A. Well, he would know where to go because he would go
14 wherever the rioters were in his immediate area. He had
15 a very limited view, but his limited view, of course,
16 was conditioned by where the rioters were. And he would
17 follow the rioters, expecting, of course, to be
18 supported then by this other company coming through
19 barrier 12; or, if they had come in the original plan,
20 through the cover from view area, which I indicated here
21 on the blue line, which was my original appreciation.
22 LORD SAVILLE: Am I right in saying you left it to the
23 commander of C Company at barrier 14, depending on the
24 circumstances, either to have his part of the pincer as
25 depicted on the drawing in front of us, going in effect
1 up and spreading out round William Street, in order to
2 catch the yobbos at Little James Street/William Street
3 junction; or instead to turn his pincer sharply to the
4 south and go down Chamberlain Street so as to meet up
5 with the other leg of Support Company which had got down
6 as far as Block 1 of the flats?
7 It just strikes me as difficult to appreciate how
8 the Company Commander could know where the other leg of
9 the pincer was going to be if the pincer movement was
10 really an essential element of the plans you had made.
11 A. I am sorry, sir, I really do not get the point that you
12 are making. The Company Commander and the troops would
13 become almost instantly aware of where the other parts
14 of the pincer movement was. If you look at this map the
15 distances are extremely small. From barrier 14, for
16 example, to the junction of William Street/Little James
17 Street, that is barely 100 metres. In fact I would
18 suggest it is probably less.
19 Then if you took an angle between barrier 14 and
20 Eden Place, again we are still talking about the same
21 distance: 75 metres; 100 metres, perhaps. It would not
22 take very long for a soldier running or soldiers running
23 to actually see or even join up with soldiers from the
24 other company.
25 LORD SAVILLE: At what stage would those commanding
1 C Company appreciate that the plan had changed so that
2 the other arm of the pincer was going to come in in
3 vehicles rather than on foot?
4 A. Well, he would know it instantly. He was moving
5 virtually at the same time, in fact a little ahead
6 because of the small hold-up at barrier 12. He would
7 have become aware of it almost immediately. As I say,
8 the distances are so small.
9 LORD SAVILLE: If you are on foot you do not go a couple of
10 hundred yards down Rossville Street, do you? If it is
11 a foot operation, are you not operating what I think you
12 yourself described as a sort of -- or certainly we have
13 had some other evidence that you go in steps of about
14 25 metres so as not to get --
15 A. No, no, sir --
16 LORD SAVILLE: -- drawn out.
17 A. 25 yards in fact is what we all counted as the critical
18 distance. If a rioter was 25 yards in front of you and
19 you were able to get surprise by the speed with which
20 you went, then there was a possibility of catching the
21 people at 25 yards. If they started running, your
22 chances of catching them were very small.
23 That is nothing to do with operating in 25-yard
24 grabs; that is the crucial distance which you had to
25 consider. But of course we did not consider that; it
1 was just something that we did instinctively.
2 LORD SAVILLE: I am still bound to tell you, Colonel, at the
3 moment I am still puzzled; it is doubtless my fault.
4 Your first idea was to try and catch the yobbos in
5 the Little James Street/William Street area; leave aside
6 entirely whether it was just by the use of C Company or
7 by the use of Support Company as well.
8 That, in the event, changed; and changed, on the
9 face of it, significantly, because instead of
10 concentrating on that area it would appear that your
11 troops concentrated on an area substantially to the
12 south.
13 A. Yes, because that is where the rioters were followed.
14 LORD SAVILLE: Yes.
15 Mr Clarke.
16 MR CLARKE: Some of the answers you are giving bring us
17 back, I think, to a question I asked you yesterday,
18 which was as to the time at which -- I do not mean the
19 precise time; at what point in the day -- the decision
20 had been made to go through barrier 12.
21 You told me yesterday that you could not be sure
22 when that was, but I think the position we reached
23 yesterday was that that change had been decided upon as
24 a result of, and following, the recce that took place in
25 the middle of the day.
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, slightly later,
3 1 Para was at its forming-up place in Foyle College car
4 park and its environ. What is not clear to me, and I do
5 not know whether you are able to help us --
6 A. I am sorry, sir, I cannot hear you.
7 Q. What is not clear to me, and I wonder whether you can
8 help us, is whether, having decided on the change, that
9 was something that was notified to the company
10 commanders at their forming-up place or not. Do you
11 have any recollection?
12 A. No, I do not. I do not have a recollection of that
13 sequence. When I had spoken to the Company Commander,
14 and we had agreed that getting a number of troops over
15 in the original direction was not going to be on, it was
16 at that stage, of course, that I would have decided --
17 and he would have become instantly aware of that because
18 we would have discussed it -- that we would have to use
19 the barrier 12.
20 Q. I entirely follow that Major Loden would have been
21 instantly aware, because it was he who was going to have
22 to take Support Company somewhere. He would obviously
23 need to know where it was he would need to go.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. My question was more directed to the Company Commander
1 of C Company and, to a lesser extent, A Company, as to
2 whether they would have been informed at that stage that
3 that was what Support Company was going to do.
4 A. Yes. I cannot actually now recollect at which stage
5 that they would have been told.
6 Q. Were they told at any stage?
7 A. They would have been told, yes.
8 Q. I want to come, if I may, to certain statements of yours
9 in the immediate aftermath of 30th January. Could we
10 have a look, please, at B1107. I show you this simply
11 to show you what it is. What we are about to look at is
12 a transcript of what was broadcast by ITN in the period
13 shortly after Bloody Sunday.
14 If we turn to page 1108, one of the matters that was
15 broadcast was an interview with yourself. You were
16 dealing with the question as to whether or not the Army
17 had been fired on. The particular passage has you
18 saying:
19 "That is absolute nonsense. We were fired on by
20 Thompson machine-guns, by M1 Carbines and other weapons.
21 Pistols were seen particularly.
22 "Question: But what exactly was seen by you or your
23 Company Commander before your men opened up?
24 "Answer: A man with a Thompson sub-machine-gun was
25 seen from the area of the Rossville Flats. He came
1 round the corner and fired in indiscriminate bursts of
2 15 to 25 rounds -- hard to say from a burst, but
3 certainly a large number of rounds -- which hit the
4 ground in front of the Company Commander, and that fell
5 about 20 feet in front of them. They then dived for
6 cover -- for cover, and returned fire."
7 This is not something that you had witnessed
8 yourself, is it?
9 A. No, it is not.
10 Q. What is your source of information, if any, for what you
11 said here?
12 A. My source of information must have been the Company
13 Commander.
14 Q. May we come to B1109. What follows are passages from
15 transcripts of a series of Channel 4 News broadcasts
16 which, as you can see, were broadcast
17 between January 1997 and January 1998, and which
18 contributed, amongst a lot of other material, to the
19 impetus for the establishment of this Inquiry.
20 May we go, please, to B111.003. May we have the
21 second half of the page. This is a portion of an
22 interview with you by a gentleman who appears as "AT",
23 who is Alex Thompson, presently in the Gulf. What he
24 said was this:
25 "AT. To this day nobody has explained why the shock
1 troops of the Parachute Regiment were suddenly called in
2 from Belfast to arrest rioters in the Bogside. For
3 nearly two years the nationalist estate had been
4 controlled by the IRA; it was one of the no-go areas for
5 the British Army.
6 "DW. We were put into an arrest operation which
7 I do not think had been thought out fully, the
8 implications of which had not been thoroughly thought
9 out. Its implications of -- it smacked of 'It is time
10 we taught these people a lesson', and that is what it
11 smacked of."
12 Does it remain your view that this was an arrest
13 operation, the implications of which had not been
14 thoroughly thought out?
15 A. No, it does not. I think this is the rhetoric of
16 20/30 years of irritation and anger and frustration;
17 and, I think I previously said, have always been
18 described as 14 unarmed civilians being, in effect,
19 murdered, deliberately killed by my soldiers.
20 Q. Going over the page, if we may, to the first half of the
21 page, the reporter goes on to say:
22 "AT. And all these years Derek Wilford has wondered
23 if the secret plan that day was to take over the Bogside
24 and end the no-go area. If so, it never quite
25 happened."
1 Then there follows a passage which is very similar
2 to what you had said to Peter Taylor:
3 "DW. I really controlled the Bogside; we occupied
4 it. And I stood there wondering what to do next".
5 And then the conversation with General Ford. Can we
6 go a little further down, please. Then you were asking:
7 "What was I supposed to do? Just to sit around,
8 twiddle my thumbs".
9 You are saying:
10 "They were offered an opportunity to take over the
11 Bogside and regain proper control of it, and they
12 decided not to take that opportunity because there had
13 been the shooting. I think they lost their nerve,
14 frankly."
15 Is that a view that you still hold?
16 A. No. I think these were rather foolish and
17 ill-considered views. And if you could go back to the
18 previous page --
19 Q. May we have the previous page, the bottom of the page --
20 A. No, the next one. There is something that AT said.
21 Yes:
22 "And all these years Derek Wilford has wondered if
23 the secret plan that day was to take over the Bogside".
24 I am afraid these are his words, not mine. I never
25 wondered over all those years that there was a secret
1 plan; I was quite certain there was not.
2 Q. Was it ever envisaged on or before 30th January 1972
3 that the Army would, in any shape or form, take over the
4 Bogside?
5 A. Not at all.
6 Q. May we have X1.35.72. This is another passage of one of
7 the interviews with you in about 1997 or 1998. At the
8 bottom of the page you were asked this:
9 "Interviewer: Looking back, do you think it is fair
10 to say that it was a madness on that day to send the
11 Paras into the Bogside?
12 "Derek Wilford: I do not think it was madness, no,
13 but I think it was ill-conceived. As I think I tried to
14 indicate, I do not think Londonderry understood how
15 Belfast worked, and certainly they did not understand
16 how my battalion worked. And I do not think that they
17 fully understood the reputation of my battalion."
18 Why did you describe the sending in of 1 Para as
19 "ill-conceived"?
20 A. Well, I did not think so at the time. I said this at
21 this particular time, again many, many years later.
22 Perhaps that is when I gave this interview; perhaps that
23 is how I felt then. I do not think that way now; I did
24 not think that way at the time.
25 As I say, I think a lot of these things were things
1 I said with the result of frustration and irritation and
2 anger, et cetera.
3 Q. I now have a few miscellaneous questions I want to ask
4 to tie up some loose ends.
5 LORD SAVILLE: It may be a convenient moment to take
6 a ten-minute break.
7 (10.45 a.m)
8 (A short break)
9 (10.55 a.m)
10 MR CLARKE: Could we have on the screen B948. This is your
11 original statement to Lord Widgery. In paragraph 10 you
12 refer to your OP on the top floor of the building east
13 of the church. You say:
14 "... and I was now listening to brigade units
15 reporting the build-up of the march. I still have my
16 map marked up with the timings and the route taken."
17 Do you have that map now?
18 A. No, sir.
19 Q. Could we have B974. This is a supplemental statement,
20 signed by you on 1st March 1972. It relates to
21 a television team who, on Wednesday, 2nd February,
22 interviewed members of the battalion, including
23 yourself. And, as we now know, a number of the
24 interviews of sergeants appeared in a This Week
25 television programme. The interview with you did not
1 appear on our screens, but you were asked to deal with
2 something that you said in that programme. I can show
3 you the transcript of what you said if you like, but
4 I think the sense will be apparent from your
5 supplemental statement. You say in the supplemental
6 statement this:
7 "In my answer on page 23 I was not of course
8 implying that I had shot any of the killed in saying
9 'I am not claiming that I shot those 13'. I was saying
10 that I was not claiming that the battalion had shot
11 those 13. In saying that I was quite clear that the
12 battalion did not shoot those 13. I was basing what
13 I said on examination of the evidence available to me;
14 that is to say the information I had been able to get
15 from the battalion. This suggested that five men had
16 been killed by the battalion."
17 This is the sentence to which I directed your
18 attention:
19 "I was under the impression from information I had
20 obtained from 8 Brigade that other units were stating
21 that they had killed persons."
22 It is fairly clear, is it not, from that statement
23 that at some stage that was what you understood to be
24 the information that 8 Brigade had obtained?
25 A. It would seem so, yes.
1 Q. Did you ever learn whether that information had been
2 confirmed or refuted?
3 A. Not that I recall.
4 Q. The penultimate matter I want to ask you about is
5 this: Mr Porter, the man who made the tape-recording of
6 the communications on the Ulsternet, has given evidence
7 to this Inquiry in the course of which he said that he
8 had assumed, for various reasons, that the Army had had
9 either a listening post or an observation post in
10 William Street on Bloody Sunday. And he assumed or
11 believed, without knowing, that you had been there. And
12 the building which he identified -- could we have on the
13 screen P377 -- is the building which we can see in the
14 middle of the photograph; it is the tall building which
15 has a sign on it there, saying "Radio".
16 Were you ever in a building in William Street on
17 Sunday, 30th?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Were you aware of any part of the Army having either an
20 observation post or a listening post in a building in
21 William Street?
22 A. No, I was not.
23 Q. The last item I want to ask you about is this: we know
24 that C Company arrested a number of people in a house at
25 the bottom, that is to say at the south end of
1 Chamberlain Street, in which there were two wounded
2 people: a Mrs Deery who was shot in the back of the leg,
3 and Michael Bridge who was shot in the leg.
4 Subsequently a number of complaints were made by
5 people who had been arrested in that house about the
6 behaviour of the soldiers who had arrested them and what
7 they had said and done. We know that investigation was
8 carried out by the police into that complaint.
9 Was there ever, so far as you were aware, a
10 battalion investigation into the validity or otherwise
11 of such a complaint?
12 A. No, there was not.
13 Q. Were you aware of the existence of such a complaint?
14 A. No, I was not.
15 Q. Those are my questions.
16 Questioned by MR ELIAS
17 MR ELIAS: Colonel Wilford, I am over to your right.
18 I represent a number of former soldiers. My name is
19 Elias. Some of those soldiers are critical of the
20 events of the day from their various perspectives.
21 I wish to canvas with you with the planning and
22 execution of Operation Forecast; do you follow?
23 A. I do.
24 Q. I should say at the outset, so you understand the
25 position: I wish to explore with you the position before
1 the arrest squads, or any of them, came under fire.
2 I accept in asking you these questions, as you have
3 told the Tribunal -- and others have too -- that of
4 course it is not easy to plan for a riot situation,
5 especially where there is a march of the kind that in
6 fact took place here. Of course I accept, in putting my
7 questions to you, that any plan that is formulated has
8 to be and to remain flexible.
9 With that in mind, could I take you back for
10 a moment to what we are calling the original plan, the
11 pincer arrest operation. Could we have B1110.241 up on
12 the screen again, please. Plan 1, pincer arrest
13 operation, through the Presbyterian Church and through
14 barrier 14, men on foot.
15 The pincer that you spoke about yesterday and again
16 today, the essentials of that operation involved, did
17 they not, getting behind the rioters?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. An element of encircling, at least blocking off their
20 escape routes?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Some of the rioters almost inevitably, in an operation
23 of this kind, would escape, would they not?
24 A. Of course.
25 Q. But generally such an approach, a pincer operation,
1 would be more effective than what I might call a head-on
2 snatch operation?
3 A. Yes, it would.
4 Q. General Ford told Lord Widgery's Inquiry -- and he
5 affirmed it to this Inquiry -- that it was his view that
6 unless the Paras could get behind the rioters, there was
7 no point in launching the arrest operation. Do you
8 agree?
9 A. In general, yes, I think that would be reasonable.
10 Q. You, that is the Paras, relied upon speed; elements of
11 surprise that you could get into a position without
12 being seen, so far as possible; control of the areas
13 where the rioting was taking place by sealing off that
14 area. This is what was involved in the pincer movement,
15 was it not?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Followed, of course, by arrest. And, generally
18 speaking, to conduct such an operation required the
19 deployment of at least -- but for the moment just let us
20 say -- two units?
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. They would approach from different angles at least?
23 A. Yes. I think, sir, we have to be clear about "unit"
24 here, because a unit could mean a section, it could mean
25 a platoon. In this case it is a company.
1 Q. I understand that, but I am not, for the moment --
2 A. No, I understand.
3 Q. You understand the principle?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. I think in Belfast such an operation was sometimes
6 referred to as a hammer and anvil operation, the pincer
7 movement?
8 A. Yes. That is interesting because I never thought of it
9 in those days in those terms. It is only now that
10 I think of hammer and anvil.
11 Q. It may not matter. But, at least to arrest significant
12 numbers of people, that was the tactic --
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. -- that you sought to employ.
15 Would you have a look, please, with me at the
16 paragraph from a statement of Company Sergeant Major 202
17 Lewis, who is one of those who I represent. Could we
18 have on the screen, please, 2111.004, and highlight
19 paragraph 24 of that. I will read through paragraph 24
20 of Company Sergeant Major's statement to this Inquiry.
21 He refers to discussions taking place with senior
22 officers regarding containment tactics:
23 " ... which were used in built-up areas. My
24 perception of those tactics [he is speaking generally of
25 the operations that were carried out in Belfast; do you
1 follow?] was that, having assessed a situation, we would
2 try to contain a riot in an area long enough to seal off
3 side roads. Once the side roads were sealed we would go
4 in and arrest the main agitators, who, in theory, would
5 be unable to escape. This did not always work as the
6 rioters would nip into front doorways and out of the
7 back."
8 He refers to a soldier referring to it as an anvil
9 and hammer tactic:
10 "We came down pretty forcefully. I do not know if
11 it was put over as official policy, but it was certainly
12 a tactic that was invariably used."
13 The element of controlling the area, sealing off the
14 rioters, although it could not be foolproof, but that
15 was how 1 Para operated in arrest operations in Belfast;
16 would you agree?
17 A. Well, that is a very neat assessment, of course. But
18 the flaw in that is that it demands a situation where
19 you can in fact contain a riot.
20 Q. Well, it is not a flaw, is it? That in fact was the
21 aim, was it not?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. That was the aim?
24 A. The aim, yes.
25 Q. Of course it might not work; for all sorts of reasons it
1 might not work. But that was the general arrest plan
2 operated by what I will call the pincer method?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Of course, this was not Belfast, where 1 Para were more
5 and more familiar with the ground in which they were
6 operating; this was Londonderry, to which I think most
7 had not been before. If I could have it on the screen
8 at B966, in your operation orders at paragraph 3 and
9 under "execution (a)," the general outline you set out.
10 At the end of the fourth line down:
11 "At this stage I cannot give a detailed tactical
12 plan [this is your order to your men]. I will give the
13 company deployment in our forming-up positions and then
14 give my concept of how I think the battle plan can go.
15 "I cannot give a detailed tactical plan ... In the
16 form-up place I will give my position, I will give my
17 concept of how I think the battle can go."
18 What battle plan -- if I can use the phrase you
19 did -- or detailed tactical plan was necessary to be
20 given to the men on this day in relation to what I will
21 call the original plan?
22 A. I am sorry, I really do not get the point of your
23 question, sir.
24 Q. You had indicated, had you not, in that order, that once
25 at the forming-up positions -- presumably when you had
1 carried out the final recce ...
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. ... you would give a detailed tactical plan with the
4 concept of how you thought the battle would go?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. If you like, would it be fair to say the final orders to
7 the men?
8 A. No, not the final orders. Final orders were absolutely
9 impossible in this situation. First of all, you have to
10 go back to the fact that I could only mount this
11 operation -- any kind of operation -- on the direct
12 command of the Brigade Commander.
13 Q. Of course.
14 A. So that in fact was bound to have an effect on what
15 I could do. I certainly would not be able to do what
16 Sergeant Major Lewis had suggested, that is in fact to
17 seal off the side roads, because I could not go beyond
18 a certain point. So that was one of the difficulties in
19 making any kind of plan. But the basic plan remained,
20 and would always be the same: if you like the hammer and
21 anvil; that is a cutting-off operation.
22 Q. Do you recall on the day, in relation to the original
23 plan and before that is abandoned, what, if any,
24 detailed tactical plan or concept of battle was given by
25 you to the commanding officers, company commanders, or
1 any of the men?
2 A. I do not recall. I do not recall now what I said and
3 what I did, I really do not. But nevertheless, they
4 would understand, right from the beginning, that this
5 would be the basic concept of operations; that is
6 a cut-off operation: two companies or two units, if you
7 prefer it.
8 Q. Would there have been a need to have given them any
9 further detailed tactical plan?
10 A. At this stage, no.
11 Q. So it may well be, might it, that in relation to the
12 original plan, as we have been calling it, you would
13 have given no further instruction on the day?
14 A. No.
15 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Elias, when you talk in that question of
16 the "original plan", to which plan are you referring?
17 MR ELIAS: The first concept, the pincer movement.
18 A. My first appreciation, sir.
19 Q. Through the Presbyterian Church and through barrier 14
20 on foot.
21 What you are saying, as I understand it, is that,
22 had that plan gone forward, had it in fact been
23 employed, if it had been practicable, there would not
24 have been a need to give further, detailed tactical
25 planning?
1 A. No.
2 Q. You would have expected the company commanders and the
3 officers and men to adopt similar -- if not the same --
4 procedures to those which they had adopted in arrest
5 operations in Belfast?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Therefore, if we can go back to B1110.241, and
8 I appreciate that the blue marks are representative
9 only, but that is the line of soldiers who would have
10 come in through the Presbyterian Church, had this been
11 possible.
12 At the south end of the blue line, where we imagine
13 there were soldiers coming in that way, you would have
14 expected them, would you, without further order, to use
15 their initiative and, if necessary, to move east to
16 block off Macari's Lane and any other exits that there
17 may be through those buildings to the south of
18 William Street? If they had become aware of those
19 exits, you would have expected them to have just used
20 their initiative and blocked those off, would you?
21 A. Yes, I really cannot say that, because this would now
22 be -- at that stage, this would be in the hands of the
23 Company Commander, who would be reacting to the
24 situation as it developed on the ground.
25 Q. I understand that. But you would have expected, in the
1 theoretical situation, that if soldiers in the position
2 to the south of that blue line, having deployed that
3 far, were aware that there were escape routes for
4 rioters -- who, it had been thought, were at barrier 14
5 and/or at barrier 12 and/or in the wasteground somewhere
6 between those two, to the north of William Street -- you
7 would have expected soldiers at the foot of that blue
8 line to be using their initiative and blocking any
9 escape routes that became apparent. Is that what you
10 are saying?
11 A. No, I do not think it is. I think this is -- this is
12 a sort of a staff college situation. If I was
13 a directing member of staff in a staff college, these
14 are the sort of things I would be saying to my students,
15 as you are saying to me. And it all supposes that
16 certain things would be happening.
17 Q. Of course.
18 A. But I -- I cannot say that that is what I would expect
19 them to do, because I do not know what the tactical
20 situation would be developing at that time.
21 Q. If their training and experience was in Belfast, as we
22 saw with the Company Sergeant Major, to endeavour to
23 seal off an area by blocking exits, lanes, streets and
24 so on, would it not follow that your expectation would
25 have been -- following that same procedure -- that any
1 exits from William Street between those buildings -- if
2 they had been seen, and if the troops could do it in
3 time, of course -- would actually be sealed off?
4 A. It would not be my expectation, no. I would expect my
5 Company Commander to do what was necessary. And I am
6 afraid that sort of thing you would have to put to the
7 Company Commander.
8 Q. I understand it would be for him to do it. Would you
9 have expected your troops to do it in these
10 circumstances?
11 A. Again, you see, you are giving me a hypothetical
12 situation.
13 Q. I am?
14 A. Well, I cannot say. I can only respond as I have
15 responded: that they would react according to the
16 tactical situation.
17 Q. I understand. So your position remains quite clear,
18 does it: there was nothing more you could or indeed
19 would have said to your troops in relation to the
20 original plan, the pincer arrest operation; they were
21 there; they knew what they had to do; and there was
22 nothing more you could tell them. Is that what you say?
23 A. I think that is what I am saying, yes.
24 Q. One of the factors which was going to be important in
25 this plan, the blue and red line plan we have here, the
1 original concept, was of course the timing of the
2 introduction of troops from two directions; was it not?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. It was going to be very important, if I can put it
5 straightforwardly, that the blue line trap was set
6 obviously before the hooligans had been driven away by
7 the troops marked by the red line coming through barrier
8 14, and that timing was going to be perhaps of crucial
9 significance if you were to scoop up a significant
10 number of people?
11 A. Yes. Timing was always of the essence, yes.
12 Q. Would that also have been something which your Company
13 Commander --
14 A. But timing and speed.
15 Q. Of course. But that also would have been something that
16 your company commanders would have appreciated?
17 A. Oh, certainly.
18 Q. And the actual -- given that timing was important, the
19 blue line had to be there before the red -- if I can use
20 the diagram -- but not too much before. It had to be
21 quite cleverly, if one could do it, co-ordinated. Whose
22 responsibility was it to co-ordinate such an approach?
23 A. Well, the responsibility, I suppose, in the end would be
24 mine.
25 Q. If you were to scoop up large numbers. That undoubtedly
1 was the mission, was it not?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Large numbers of rioters. You have spoken of the need
4 to get behind them, but of course getting behind them
5 serves two essential purposes, does it not? First of
6 all, it contains the operation in an area of the Army's
7 choosing?
8 A. Right.
9 Q. The Paras' choosing. Secondly, of course, it stops the
10 rioters -- or most of them, at least -- from running
11 away?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. In that original plan, although it envisaged men going
14 in on foot from both directions, did it not also
15 envisage that Pigs would follow through the barriers in
16 order to support the operation, and provide cover if
17 necessary, and things of that kind?
18 A. Yes. I would -- certainly would have expected the
19 vehicles then to have followed through. But I cannot
20 recall now that that was actually discussed with me in
21 any detail, or was discussed at all with my Company
22 Commander.
23 Q. Major Loden suggests that is what he believed would
24 happen, that Pigs would follow through.
25 A. Of course.
1 Q. We know that at barrier 14 they did follow in on foot.
2 That would certainly be nothing out of the ordinary,
3 would it?
4 A. No, it would not.
5 Q. Did you have, do you recall now, any plan if this
6 original on-foot plan had been put into operation, as to
7 where the Pigs would enter this area? Would it have
8 been through barrier 12?
9 A. It would have been through barrier 12, yes.
10 Q. This plan was abandoned. I do not want to take time on
11 this, but this plan was abandoned, you say because the
12 route through the church turned out not to be
13 practicable, to move so many men through rapidly.
14 A. Speed was of the essence, and I reckoned in fact I was
15 not going to get that.
16 Q. Was there any other factor that you recall, Colonel,
17 which caused you to abandon that original plan?
18 A. Yes. The other factor of course was -- I think I have
19 indicated already -- is that I was dependent on the
20 brigade commander giving me the word to go. And that
21 word to go, and the movement of my troops, of course,
22 bringing them together, as you have described, would
23 have been extremely difficult.
24 Q. I am not quite following that.
25 A. Well, speed was of the essence.
1 Q. Yes.
2 A. And this, of course, was again conditioned by the fact
3 that I had to wait for the brigade commander to give me
4 the word to go.
5 Q. Yes.
6 A. Therefore the conjunction of that particular group of
7 troops coming through, with the passing through of the
8 other company through the other barrier, would have
9 been -- would have caused problems. Indeed, the reason
10 I abandoned that -- that was the other factor -- is
11 because I did not see in fact how I was actually going
12 to achieve that.
13 I was always, always aware of the fact that I was
14 dependent on the word to go. And that is why, I think
15 you will see from the evidence and from the transcript,
16 that I did actually apply, if you like, to the brigadier
17 for -- on several occasions to go.
18 Q. I want to come back to that a little later.
19 The plan was abandoned; that is plan A, if you like,
20 was abandoned. You have told the Tribunal today in
21 answer to Mr Clarke, reaffirming what you said
22 yesterday, that that was abandoned, in your mind, at
23 a relatively early stage?
24 A. Indeed it was.
25 Q. Can we look for a moment at what the alternative
1 fall-back plan was. It was, was it, an arrest
2 operation, still through barrier 14 on foot?
3 A. And barrier 12.
4 Q. And barrier 12, taking men through in Pigs?
5 A. Originally, of course, I thought that it might be
6 possible to -- to get the soldiers through on foot. But
7 again, of course, I was dependent on this agreement, if
8 you like, or order -- sorry, not agreement, but order to
9 go.
10 Q. So you mean by that, do you, that you did have in mind,
11 after the first plan had been abandoned, for a period of
12 time putting men through barrier 12 on foot?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Then that changed, as time went on, to putting men
15 through in Pigs?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Of course, that operation, putting men through
18 barrier 12, either on foot or, as it turned out --
19 LORD SAVILLE: Sorry to interrupt, Mr Elias.
20 What was the reason for changing the idea to send
21 the men through barrier 12 on foot to sending them
22 through on vehicles? Was it because the position of the
23 rioters had changed, or some other -- and, if so,
24 what -- reason.
25 A. Yes. Because I saw that, in order to get behind the
1 troops, that the speed -- and I refer to that again in
2 my Op order, this was absolutely of the essence -- that
3 in fact I was not going to be able to achieve any
4 success without getting those troops through quickly,
5 more quickly than they could if they went on foot.
6 MR ELIAS: Putting it shortly: on foot they would be
7 unlikely to get behind the rioters?
8 A. Not unlikely, but it would have meant that it would have
9 been a limited operation.
10 Q. Less successful in terms of the numbers of arrests?
11 A. Less successful, yes.
12 Q. I want to come back to that a little later too.
13 Can you look at this operation as you now
14 contemplated it, whether on foot or in Pigs. Ultimately
15 it was using Pigs. Let us consider that: putting Pigs
16 through barrier 12, whilst retaining men coming through
17 barrier 14, that was a plan that was significantly
18 different from the Presbyterian Church and barrier 14
19 plan, was not?
20 Let me put to you why I say that: it was plainly
21 less favourable because, to some extent, perhaps to
22 a considerable extent, any element of surprise you might
23 have gained was lost, at least at barrier 12?
24 A. Not entirely true, of course, because the speed with
25 which the vehicles would move would actually retrieve
1 a little bit of the surprise that I required.
2 Q. But the probability was that rioters would become aware,
3 at barrier 12, of Pigs coming down the street before
4 they reached the barrier; leave aside delay and all
5 those other matters. The chances of rioters running
6 away from that position were that much higher, were they
7 not?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And the prospects of executing an axis of arrest at
10 Aggro Corner, William Street/Rossville Street junction,
11 was significantly diminished, if not entirely
12 extinguished. Would you agree?
13 A. Diminished, but only diminished.
14 Q. It was self-evidently a more frontal method of assault?
15 A. No, because I was coming in from two directions.
16 Q. I accept that the barrier 14 rioters could still be
17 trapped, if you like, but it was frontal to those
18 rioting at barrier 12, was it not?
19 A. I am sorry?
20 Q. It was frontal to those rioting at barrier 12.
21 A. Immediately -- well, it was frontal also to those
22 rioting at barrier 14, initially.
23 Q. You have told the Tribunal that the expectation that you
24 had with the original plan was that the deployment would
25 result in a pincer movement at or about the junction of
1 William Street and Rossville Street; thereabouts, the
2 blue line.
3 A. Yes. The blue line, of course, extends, as I have
4 actually done it there; it does extend south into
5 Rossville Street. It does not just stay at that
6 junction.
7 Q. I understand that.
8 When the Pigs were determined as being the method of
9 entry through barrier 12, was there then, did you
10 envisage, an actual deployment that would take those
11 Pigs beyond, let us say, the end of the blue line that
12 we have up on the screen, further south than that blue
13 line?
14 A. Yes. I did not envisage it, but I would expect that the
15 Company Commander would do what he had to do, and that
16 was to cut off the rioters. And so in fact if he -- and
17 of course he did, and we know now that he did. If he
18 then deployed his vehicles in the way that he did, he
19 did actually stand a good chance of cutting off the
20 rioters. It was a deployment.
21 Q. But it was almost inevitably -- I say "almost" -- it was
22 almost inevitably going to be further south. The
23 containment line if one could be achieved, was almost
24 inevitably going to be further south --
25 A. Oh, certainly.
1 Q. -- than that which you had envisaged in the original
2 plan.
3 A. Yes. Yes, I think I have to accept that.
4 Q. That, of course, amongst other things, was taking Paras
5 into a significant area of open ground?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. I think, as you yourself have said in the past, there
8 were dangers in deploying Paras in open ground in these
9 circumstances.
10 A. There were dangers in deploying any soldiers in open
11 ground.
12 Q. Of course. I come back to this: in relation to this
13 alternative plan, did you give your company commanders
14 any detailed tactical plan or battle concept?
15 A. No. There was -- there was no need to give a -- are you
16 speaking of this particular time?
17 Q. I am.
18 A. No, because they were well practised in this sort of
19 thing.
20 Q. So the fact that the original plan was determined and it
21 was then changed, in your view, did not require you to
22 give any additional detailed tactical plan to the
23 commanding officers, company commanders?
24 A. No.
25 Q. I want to look at the timing of the change of plan and
1 its communication, because this may be of some
2 importance in relation to what happened in the course of
3 that day.
4 You have told the Tribunal that the difficulties of
5 the Presbyterian Church were discovered at a fairly
6 early stage. That must have been at about 1 o'clock
7 when all reconnaissances had been carried out?
8 A. I cannot put my finger on that at a time.
9 Q. Can I take you to B2212, please, Major Loden's diary of
10 operation. If we look at the entry 1220 to 1245:
11 "I commenced a recce of the Army barriers; in
12 particular I examined the wall by the Presbyterian
13 Church. During this reconnaissance I was met by my
14 commanding officer, and it was decided that a platoon
15 should deploy forward, if required, to the disused
16 building".
17 Which I think we know as Abbey Taxis.
18 Your own contemporaneous statement -- I can take you
19 to it if we need to -- corroborates that you met with
20 Major Loden at about 1 o'clock. Do you follow?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. It seems, because you say it in that statement, that you
23 were told that at this early stage, at about 1 o'clock,
24 that the route forward over the wall was going to be
25 difficult.
1 A. Uh-huh.
2 Q. What I want to explore with you, in the light of that,
3 is what appears to be -- perhaps you can help us --
4 a conflict -- we would suggest it might be significant,
5 but a conflict between you and Major Loden in terms of
6 the evidence which you were giving in 1972 as to when
7 the abandonment of the Presbyterian Church route had
8 been agreed and when the decision to go through
9 barrier 12 was communicated to Major Loden.
10 It seems from the evidence that Major Loden gave in
11 1972 that the first positive indication that he received
12 that there was a change of plan, and that he was now to
13 go through barrier 12 in Pigs, was not until 1600 hours
14 that afternoon. Do you think that could be right?
15 A. It could be right, I think. But you use the word
16 "conflict". There was no argument about it. Why do you
17 use the word "conflict"?
18 Q. Because your 1972 evidence -- we will look at it in
19 a moment -- suggests you communicated to Major Loden
20 some time shortly after 1 o'clock that barrier 12 would
21 be used for the arrest operation. Do you follow?
22 A. Yes, yes.
23 Q. That is to say there is a difference in the evidence
24 that you gave.
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. He says he was not aware that barrier 12 was going to be
2 used until 1600 hours, that is just a few minutes before
3 actual deployment. You said in your evidence in 1972
4 that he would have been aware shortly after 1 o'clock.
5 A. Yes. I think -- I think that is correct. I cannot --
6 I cannot imagine why Major Loden thought that, and I do
7 not think he did.
8 Q. We will have a look at what he was ordering at the time
9 and examine what his state of mind must have been.
10 Your recollection is that you would have told
11 Major Loden what at about the time that you realised
12 that the Presbyterian Church was not a starter?
13 A. Yes. As I recall, we came together and he informed me
14 of his doubts about it. And I had agreed -- I agreed
15 because I had re-thought it. And so I would have then
16 said at that time -- I am sure I would have said at that
17 time "Right, we shall use barrier 12".
18 Q. You were still considering in your own mind whether the
19 men should go through barrier 12 on foot or in Pigs; you
20 still had not formulated that decision?
21 A. Yes, because I had to remain absolutely flexible.
22 Q. So when did you finally conclude that Pigs would be
23 used?
24 A. I cannot say.
25 Q. Can you say how long before deployment that would have
1 been? Are we talking of minutes --
2 A. No, I cannot.
3 Q. -- in order to deploy?
4 A. I simply cannot recall now, sir, I am afraid. I really
5 cannot.
6 Q. A convenient starting point to examine this is perhaps
7 Major Loden's diary again. Can we have that, please, at
8 B2212. We have looked at the entry of 1220; I do not
9 take you back to that: the reconnaissance and his
10 suggestion that a platoon should be deployed forward to
11 the Abbey taxi building. At 1540 there is a reference
12 to:
13 "In view of the difficulty in approaching the
14 disused building by a concealed route, which involved
15 climbing two 12-foot walls, I ordered Machine Gun
16 Platoon to move forward to this building in anticipation
17 of trouble at William Street, on which a NICRA march was
18 now moving. At the same time the Mortar Platoon cut the
19 wire on top of the wall and the Composite Platoon under
20 my command was given a warning order to deploy forward
21 to the open ground south of the Presbyterian Church to
22 arrest rioters."
23 At 1540, do you follow?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. 1540, the order that the Machine Gun Platoon go forward
1 to the derelict building, which we know they went to.
2 At the same time provision is being made for
3 Mortar Platoon to cut wire on top of the wall for
4 Composite Platoon, under his command, to go that way,
5 they being given the warning order to deploy forward to
6 the open ground south of the Presbyterian Church to
7 arrest rioters.
8 It seems, in Major Loden's mind at least, making
9 that provision and giving those orders, does it not,
10 that at 1540, approximately, he still believed that the
11 Presbyterian Church route was -- can I put it this
12 way -- a runner?
13 A. Well, it would appear from that, yes. But I do not
14 think that is correct. I am quite certain that I had
15 abandoned that idea some -- some time before.
16 Q. You may have abandoned it. The question arises --
17 A. And I did not reconsider it.
18 Q. It may be inadvertence or some breakdown. The question
19 arises whether your decision was communicated to
20 Major Loden.
21 A. Well, I am sure it was. But you will have to speak to
22 Major Loden about that.
23 Q. We will hear from him.
24 If we go on, over the page 2213, it is the first
25 reference:
1 "1600 hours. A warning order was received to be
2 prepared to assault the rioters in William Street
3 through the barrier in Little James Street
4 (barrier 12)."
5 According to that diary, that is the first
6 indication of a warning order that he is to deploy
7 troops that way by that method. Do you follow?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. If that is right, if he is correct about that and if it
10 is right that you had decided things differently some
11 time earlier, there has plainly been, at best, if you
12 like, a breakdown in communication?
13 A. No, no, no, not at all. The warning order was received
14 because I, at this time, was developing the idea, from
15 the information that I had available, that I would soon
16 be given the command to conduct the operation.
17 You cannot just come up on the air and say to your
18 troops "Go", because the troops may not be in a position
19 to go. So I had to give a warning order to the Company
20 Commander to say, "Right, be prepared to go". That is
21 what a warning order is about.
22 Q. I think, Colonel, you are missing the point, if I may
23 say so. If it were not until 4 o'clock that Major Loden
24 understood, for the first time, that he is not going
25 over the Presbyterian Church wall, but that he is going
1 to deploy by Pigs through barrier 12 with his men, if
2 you had formed a different view earlier, that would be,
3 at its best, a serious breakdown of communication, would
4 it not?
5 A. But there had not been a breakdown in communications.
6 Major Loden was aware that we were going through
7 barrier 12 from quite an early stage.
8 Q. Let us look at his statement to the Widgery Inquiry;
9 2217, please. I want to give you the full picture so
10 there is no issue about it. The final paragraph on that
11 page. This is what he said to Lord Widgery in the
12 written statement:
13 "At 1220 hours I started my reconnaissance of the
14 various barriers on the containment line. Meanwhile my
15 company was deployed to their assembly area in Clarence
16 Avenue. During this reconnaissance I paid particular
17 attention to a wall [and please note this] on the east
18 side of the Presbyterian Church, because I had been
19 warned by my commanding officer that my company might
20 have to climb over it in order to gain access to
21 William Street. This was the pre-arranged route for my
22 company, although I was also warned that I might have to
23 enter the area via any of the Army barriers.
24 "During this reconnaissance I was met by my
25 commanding officer, and it was decided that a platoon
1 should deploy forward, if required, to the disused
2 building [in fact in Abbey Taxis]. At 1245 hours my
3 platoon commanders joined me at the junction of
4 Queen's Street and Great James Street. I warned the
5 platoon commander of the Machine Gun Platoon he might be
6 required to deploy into this disused building. I had by
7 then decided that the disused building would provide
8 a second route into William Street, in addition to the
9 one over the wall on the east side of the church. From
10 my position of observation east of the church, I saw
11 that there were windows in the east wall of the disused
12 building which were partially boarded up with corrugated
13 iron. My plan was that Machine Gun Platoon should get
14 inside the disused building, from which it could then
15 gain access to William Street from these windows. In
16 this way I hoped to be able to surprise any rioters and
17 also provide myself [again please note the words] with
18 an additional route which would enable me to deploy two
19 additional platoons simultaneously. The route over the
20 wall by the east side of the church was narrow and
21 expressed and not suitable for deploying men quickly."
22 He talks about recceing all the barriers to check up
23 on the deployment of other troops, "then return to
24 Clarence Avenue to rejoin my company".
25 Go to the foot of the page, if you will:
1 "At 1540 hours, in view of the difficulty of
2 approaching the disused building by a concealed route
3 [this is the Abbey Taxis building], which involved
4 climbing two 12-foot obstacles and cutting through some
5 barbed wire, I ordered the Machine Gun Platoon to move
6 forward to this building in anticipation of trouble from
7 the marchers on William Street. By this time, from
8 where I was in my OP at the southwest corner of the
9 church, I could see rioting taking place in little James
10 Street. At the same time [that is the same time as
11 Machine Gun Platoon move forward to Abbey Taxis] the
12 Mortar Platoon started to cut the wire on top of the
13 wall on the east side of the church, and the
14 Composite Platoon were given a warning order to deploy
15 forward to the open ground south of the Presbyterian
16 Church to arrest rioters."
17 That is at about 1540 hours. In other words, at 20
18 minutes to 4.00 Major Loden was still proceeding, was he
19 not -- and indeed sending Mortar Platoon forward -- to
20 cut the wire on the wall at the top of the east side of
21 the church so that Composite Platoon could make entry
22 that way into William Street?
23 A. Yes, it would appear so, that this is what he was doing.
24 But this is what I would have been expecting my Company
25 Commander to be doing at that time, and that was
1 deploying all the possibilities of conducting the
2 operation which he knew that was likely to be asked of
3 him.
4 Q. I thought you were telling the Tribunal, forgive me,
5 that by 20 minutes to 4.00 -- indeed, some considerable
6 time earlier -- you had already decided, and
7 communicated to the Major, that that was not to be the
8 route?
9 A. Yes, this is so. But nevertheless he was still looking
10 at an alternative to his own deployment, which of course
11 he was correct in doing.
12 Q. That is your interpretation of it, is it?
13 A. That is not my interpretation, sir; it is what I would
14 have expected.
15 Q. Even though that route had been abandoned, he was to
16 expose men, up on a high wall, at which they may be --
17 and indeed were -- shot at, in order to cut wire for
18 a route which was not to be used because you had already
19 ordered the contrary. Is that what you are saying?
20 A. No, I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is:
21 the Company Commander was taking his own initiative and
22 exploring the possibility of supporting his own
23 operation which he expected to undertake. And I would
24 have -- I would have expected that. And certainly he
25 would not deliberately expose his troops.
1 LORD SAVILLE: I am sorry, I do not follow this either,
2 Colonel Wilford, because, if your recollection is
3 correct, surely what Major Loden would have been doing
4 was not continuing to prepare a plan to put people
5 through the Presbyterian Church, but making the
6 appropriate preparations to take his men through
7 barrier 12. I think that is what Mr Elias is putting to
8 you.
9 A. Yes, I agree with that. But he was not in fact
10 proposing -- there is nothing here which I think the
11 Company Commander is saying that suggests that he was
12 considering taking his whole company through there; he
13 was not.
14 MR ELIAS: If one goes on, let me take you to the final
15 passage of it, to be fair to you; and you can see the
16 whole picture of what Major Loden was saying in 1972.
17 Page 220, please, the first full paragraph and second
18 paragraph. Major Loden went on to say in his Widgery
19 statement:
20 "At 1600 hours I received a warning order from
21 battalion HQ to be prepared to carry out the arrest
22 operation from barrier 12. I ordered my company to
23 return to their vehicles in Queen's Street. The Machine
24 Gun Platoon commander told me that he was unable to
25 extricate his platoon."
1 They were in the Abbey Taxis derelict building, as
2 we know.
3 I do not need to trouble you further with that. The
4 next paragraph:
5 "At 1610 the CO ordered the company to deploy down
6 Little James Street to arrest rioters. Because of the
7 move back to our vehicles and the time taken to embus we
8 did not move until approximately 1613."
9 If the position had been that Major Loden had been
10 well aware of the fact that your plan was to put men
11 through barrier 12 in Pigs, he surely would have had
12 them in a position where I suggest a critical three
13 minutes or thereabouts would not have been lost by
14 having to send them back from the Presbyterian Church,
15 where he was fruitlessly putting men forward to cut
16 wire.
17 A. Well, I cannot answer for Major Loden in this.
18 Q. You can answer for yourself in this sense, can you
19 not: how confident are you that your decision to use
20 Pigs through barrier 12 was communicated to Major Loden
21 before 4 o'clock?
22 A. I am very confident.
23 Q. If it were not, that would be -- wherever the fault may
24 lie -- a major flaw in the planning and execution of
25 this operation, would it not?
1 A. But it was not so.
2 Q. If it were?
3 A. That is hypothesis.
4 Q. It may be, but you can answer it --
5 A. No, because I am saying there was not a flaw in this at
6 all. And I understand, in fact, that Major Loden said
7 that the difficulty was because there was some -- some
8 problem with the troops at barrier 12, getting the
9 barrier to one side. And I think in fact he will say
10 that, or should say that. I would expect him to say
11 that because that is what I have heard previously.
12 Q. We can go to Major Loden's evidence to the
13 Widgery Inquiry, in which he affirmed what he said in
14 his statement; do you follow?
15 A. Uh-huh.
16 Q. So from everything he was saying -- I will not take you
17 to the detail of it, but it is there for everyone to
18 read -- from all that Major Loden was saying in 1972,
19 although he had been warned of course to recce all
20 barriers, because at that stage no-one knew where the
21 rioting may take place --
22 A. Correct.
23 Q. -- he was not made aware, it seems, of any decision to
24 go through barrier 12 until the warning order at
25 4 o'clock. He is wrong about that, is he?
1 A. If that is what he has said, I accept that; but that is
2 what Major Loden says. I believe -- I believe that he
3 knew the decision to go through barrier 12; it was known
4 to him before that. Indeed, he had his vehicles there
5 waiting to go in that direction.
6 Q. They would have been going through barrier 12 --
7 I thought we agreed a little earlier -- as support, in
8 any event?
9 A. I see. Yes, I am with you. Yes, yes, I accept that.
10 Q. I do not quite follow your answer, perhaps two answers
11 ago, if Major Loden says that perhaps he is correct. If
12 he says it was not until 4 o'clock that he knew of the
13 plan to use Pigs through barrier 12, and if he is right
14 about that and you are mistaken in your recollection,
15 the failure to communicate that to Major Loden would be
16 a serious flaw in the planning and execution of this
17 operation; would it not?
18 A. (Pause). I am sorry, if we are thinking in staff
19 college terms --
20 Q. I am not; I am thinking on the ground.
21 A. Oh, right. Well, on the ground -- but there was no
22 question of -- of it being an error, because Major Loden
23 was aware that in fact he was going through barrier 12.
24 LORD SAVILLE: Perhaps if we put it this way round: it was
25 surely essential -- and you say it was done -- that
1 Major Loden was given a considerable amount of advance
2 notice of the plan to go through barrier 12?
3 A. Yes.
4 MR ELIAS: You have already told the Tribunal, have you not,
5 that the timing of this operation -- of any pincer
6 operation -- was going to be critical; who was coming in
7 from which side, and when. So that, if a pincer was to
8 be achieved, wherever it was to be achieved, timing was
9 going to be important. And in a riot situation, the
10 loss of two or three minutes, indeed the loss of half
11 a minute might be crucial in terms of how many rioters
12 one could scoop up.
13 A. Yes, but I do not think, you see, that you can actually
14 think of it in those terms, because this was not
15 something that you could plan to a precise moment.
16 Q. You could eliminate mistakes, could you not, so far as
17 possible?
18 A. Well, one always tried to.
19 Q. Of course. Can we, just for the sake of completeness,
20 look at what you said about the matter in 1972. Could
21 we go to your Widgery statement, B947, paragraph 8,
22 please. What you said about the matter in this
23 statement was this:
24 "Major Loden commanding Support Company met me at
25 the Presbyterian Church and informed me that he thought
1 it too difficult to pass a large number of troops
2 through the wire. I agreed with him and asked him to
3 recce a route forward over the wall to the west of the
4 church. This he did and found it was possible, with
5 difficulty, to get forward to the derelict house [Abbey
6 Taxis building]. I told him to be prepared to filter up
7 to one platoon this way, and made up my mind [I think
8 the word 'my' is obliterated, but it does not matter]
9 then that I would have to use the Little James Street
10 approach if I was to get any number through in time to
11 catch the rioters.
12 "9. All reconnaissance was now complete and we
13 settled down to wait."
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. So from that statement at least it looks as though you
16 had made up your mind that you would have to use the
17 Little James Street approach at about the time of this
18 meeting, which we know to have been at about 1 o'clock?
19 A. Yes, yes. But what I was doing, of course, I was
20 retaining my flexibility.
21 Q. As to that, can we look at a further statement you made
22 at B972. The paragraph numbers are very indistinct;
23 I think it is paragraph 8 or 9.
24 A. It must be 9.
25 Q. It is a reference to the paragraph in your earlier
1 statement. It does not matter what the number is. You
2 say this:
3 "The wire referred to [that is the wire referred to
4 in that statement] was a wire fence across the wall at
5 the side of the Presbyterian Church. This happened
6 about 1300 [which ties in with all other known
7 evidence]. I told the O/C Support Company [Major Loden]
8 that if we were ordered to move to effect arrests we
9 should probably have to use the Little James Street
10 route. After making our reconnaissance of the barriers
11 in the morning we had discussed the use of vehicles by
12 that route."
13 A. Correct.
14 Q. You were saying in 1972 that you had told him that at
15 about 1 o'clock?
16 A. It would seem so, yes.
17 Q. Could I finally -- on examination of what Major Loden
18 may or may not have been told, and may or may not have
19 appreciated -- ask you to go back again to a radio log
20 entry which Mr Clarke referred you to yesterday, W90,
21 serial 28, please. This is the rather curious entry.
22 You questioned the "2IC" yesterday, I think. But the
23 body of the entry is somewhat clearer. 1530, "S16, road
24 block", using terminology that does not appear to have
25 been used elsewhere.
1 We can take you through what may be another
2 interpretation of that log. Perhaps I can short circuit
3 it by asking you this: that is not, is it, on its face,
4 any message to Major Loden, or indeed to the other
5 Company Commander, Major 221A? That is not, on its
6 face, a message to either of them, is it?
7 A. Well, it is certainly not to Major Loden, but I cannot
8 understand why it is to the second-in-command.
9 Q. One possibility that we think may be a possibility --
10 but I will not develop it now with you -- is that
11 perhaps the log-keeper has the "to" and "from" round the
12 wrong way; it is from your second-in-command. Do you
13 follow?
14 A. Yes. I see no reason at all why the second-in-command
15 is involved at all.
16 Q. I follow. The important point is that that is not, is
17 it, on its face, any message to Major Loden?
18 A. Well, it does not look like it, but I had nothing to do
19 with that message.
20 Q. Now I want to come on, if I may, to the plan, the
21 alternative plan as it was executed, the barrier 12 and
22 barrier 14 plan as it was executed.
23 It is, is it not, as we now know, a fact of the
24 matter that by the time -- for whatever reasons -- that
25 the soldiers were deployed, to a great extent anyway the
1 rioters had run away from the barriers?
2 A. Well, you say that. Um, I am not sure that that is so.
3 Q. Can we look, please, at Major Loden's evidence, B2251,
4 letters C to D, please. Perhaps I can take the question
5 and answer from Lord Widgery at the top of the page:
6 "Would you forgive me. Your orders were to move
7 through barrier 12. Did your orders require you to go
8 down Rossville Street, or was the choice of going down
9 Rossville Street and turning into William Street your
10 own?
11 "Answer: My orders were to arrest as many rioters
12 as possible, and going down Rossville Street was not
13 mentioned to me. That is where the rioters went and
14 that is where I pursued them.
15 "Lord Widgery: That answers my question.
16 "Mr Gibbens: When you got to William Street were
17 there any rioters left on that junction for you to
18 arrest if you had stopped there?
19 "Answer: Very few, sir".
20 This is Major Loden's 1972 evidence.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. "Question: You had got with you the six Pigs that you
23 have mentioned?
24 "Answer: Yes, sir."
25 And so on. We have heli-tele film that you may or
1 may not have seen; we have photographs and film from
2 barrier 14. I simply put it to you: do you accept that
3 at the time of deployment, for whatever reason -- and we
4 will look at questions of delay and matters of that kind
5 shortly -- but the fact is that when these troops were
6 in fact deployed, to a great extent the rioters had run
7 away from the barriers and the area in which you had
8 originally envisaged that they would be apprehended?
9 A. Well, if I go back to one place on this screen here:
10 "Indeed, when you got to William Street were there
11 any rioters left on that junction for you to arrest if
12 you had stopped?
13 "Answer: Very few, sir".
14 Well, the reason there were very few, I imagine, is
15 because they were being pursued, and they were running
16 away.
17 Q. Absolutely.
18 A. And on barrier 14, I cannot speak for that now, but, um,
19 my recollection is that when -- when the troops went
20 through, there were still people; not of course
21 immediately at the barrier, but they had, of course,
22 retreated to some extent, and then they continued to
23 retreat under the pressure impact of the pursuit. Yes,
24 I accept that; but that is all.
25 Q. Self-evidently, Support Company going in in Pigs did not
1 stop in the vicinity of Aggro Corner, but went on down
2 Rossville Street. That we know.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Rioters ran south across the wasteground and, indeed,
5 maybe non-rioters too, but certainly a large number of
6 people ran across that wasteground. And in fact the
7 only element, if it can be called that, of pincer
8 movement was that pincer movement devised between Pigs
9 that drove into the area and men manoeuvring out of
10 those Pigs.
11 A. No, no, no, because C Company were coming from barrier
12 14.
13 Q. And what element of pincer did they provide?
14 A. Well, quite clearly they were coming this way and
15 Support Company were here and doing that (indicating).
16 Q. What element of pincer did they provide to the -- I will
17 not call them rioters; let us call them "people" who
18 were running south across the wasteground?
19 A. They were pursuing them. I simply do not get -- see
20 what you are getting at.
21 Q. Pursuing them is one thing; that might be a very
22 accurate description of what they were doing. But they
23 were not -- if I can use it as a verb -- pincering
24 anybody, were they, as a group, as a crowd, as an
25 element of the rioting crowd?
1 A. But you do not -- you do not pincer the whole lot; you
2 pincer sections. You cannot pincer the whole crowd,
3 except in general terms. And of course in general terms
4 there was a pincer movement. There was one company, if
5 you like, on the left; and there was another company on
6 the right; and that was a pincer movement.
7 Q. So the fact that the crowd were running between the two,
8 being pursued by one and outflanking the other --
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. -- still makes it a pincer movement in your view, does
11 it?
12 A. In soldier terms, yes.
13 Q. If I were to suggest to you that it was not a real
14 pincer movement at all, you would not accept it, would
15 you?
16 A. No, I would not.
17 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Elias, we have got to mid-day; is that
18 a convenient moment for you?
19 MR ELIAS: It is, sir.
20 LORD SAVILLE: Very well. Colonel Wilford, we will come
21 back to your evidence, if we may, please, at 9.30 on
22 Monday.
23 Can I, if I may, remind you of the need not to
24 discuss the evidence you are giving with anybody until
25 you have finished giving it?
1 A. Of course.
2 LORD SAVILLE: We will come back, please, at 12.50.
3 (12.00 pm)
4 (The Short Adjournment)
5 (12.50 pm)
6 INQ573, sworn
7 Questioned by MR RAWAT
8 LORD SAVILLE: If you look across to your left you can see
9 who is talking to you. I say this to all the
10 witnesses: I am the Chairman of the Tribunal. The
11 questions will come from the barristers, the people in
12 front of me. Could you draw that microphone a little
13 closer to you?
14 A. I will pull the chair a bit closer, is that okay?
15 LORD SAVILLE: You can move the microphone as well, we will
16 now all be able to hear what you have to say.
17 MR RAWAT: INQ573, you have made two statements to this
18 Inquiry, the second is undated, but the first is dated
19 7th April 2000. Do you have copies of both those
20 statements with you?
21 A. I have a copy of the first one. I do not have a copy of
22 the second one.
23 Q. I do not think that should trouble us, but we will
24 arrange for you to have a copy. The second one simply
25 takes us through a number of photographs that you have
1 produced to the Inquiry, it is your comments on each of
2 those photographs?
3 A. I have the photographs, I beg your pardon, I have a copy
4 of it here, I am very sorry.
5 Q. Can I first of all confirm that the contents of both
6 statements are true to the best of your knowledge and
7 belief?
8 A. They are.
9 Q. Before I go on further, can I ask you to observe one
10 matter, that is that as you will be aware, a majority of
11 the soldiers who have given evidence, or the former
12 soldiers who have given evidence to this Inquiry have
13 anonymity and, like you, are only known by way of
14 a cipher.
15 Please do not mention anyone by name. Where
16 appropriate we will give you the cipher to use and
17 I hope you have been provided with a cipher list?
18 A. I have.
19 Q. For purposes of your evidence, I think there are three
20 exceptions to that warning, that is your commanding
21 officer at the time, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Welsh,
22 Colonel Wilford and General Ford.
23 Additionally, everyone here has had the chance to
24 read your statement, so today I want to ask you
25 questions about some parts of it. Indeed, the Tribunal
1 has directed that you should only be asked questions
2 about the events at Magilligan, Strand, which occurred
3 on the Saturday prior to Bloody Sunday.
4 We have the first page of your statement on the
5 screen in front of us. In January 1972 you held the
6 rank of captain in the 2nd Battalion Royal Green
7 Jackets. You were the adjutant of the battalion.
8 If we expand, please, paragraph 4 down, in these
9 paragraphs you begin to deal with events that had
10 occurred at Magilligan, Strand, where, as you say, one
11 company from 1 Para had been attached to the Royal Green
12 Jackets for the operation.
13 As you explain in paragraph 4, the task allocated to
14 the Green Jackets was to stop a civil rights march from
15 reaching the internment camp at Magilligan via the
16 beach. In your statement you have described 1 Para as
17 the Province reserve. In fact we know the Province
18 reserve was actually the 1st Battalion the King's Own
19 Borderers and 1 Para was in fact the reserve battalion
20 for Brigadier Kitson's 39th Brigade which was based in
21 Belfast.
22 Do you have any knowledge as to why 1 Para were
23 chosen for the Magilligan operation?
24 A. No, I am afraid not. As it says in the statement,
25 I believed that they were the Province reserve battalion
1 and that is why they were deployed.
2 Q. In paragraph 5 you refer to the barbed wire stretched
3 across the beach from:
4 " ... what we thought was the low water mark to the
5 road which ran parallel with the seashore."
6 And that troops were deployed at that wire. When
7 you refer to troops there, are you referring to the
8 Royal Green Jackets?
9 A. Yes, I am.
10 Q. The company that was attached to you on that day we know
11 as C, which was under the command of Major 221A, who you
12 mention at a later stage in your statement. Do we take
13 it, then, that initially at least that company was held
14 in reserve?
15 A. As far as I can recall that is exactly it. There is
16 a photograph which comes -- you may look at later --
17 which shows one of the Green Jacket companies on the
18 beach, just to see how they were deployed, if that is of
19 any value.
20 Q. Can you help us with which photograph --
21 A. It is photograph 11.
22 Q. Could we have C573.24 on the screen, please. Do we take
23 it the initial deployment was a line of Royal Green
24 Jackets, armed with shields and batons, and behind them
25 would have been the C Company of 1 Para?
1 A. As far as I can recollect. I mean, I would not describe
2 it as a line. "A line," implies it was a continuous
3 deployment of troops across the front. The platoons
4 would have been deployed much as you see in that
5 photograph. Some of the soldiers would have had
6 shields, though not very many, because there were not
7 many stones on the beach, it is a sand beach. Others
8 would have been armed with baton guns, you can see one
9 in the middle of the photograph, two from the right of
10 the man with the macron shield. Others would have been
11 deployed with SLRs and others perhaps just with batons,
12 to act as snatch squads if required.
13 Q. Could we go to the next photograph in the sequence,
14 which is photograph 25. In your statement you say you
15 yourself were positioned some way back to the sand dunes
16 at the battalion HQ. If you want we will keep this
17 photograph on the screen. If you want to refer to your
18 own statement, it is paragraph 6 of the first statement.
19 Your recollection is that you were with the
20 second-in-command. You have given us two names for
21 that, and also someone who we can see on the photograph
22 here and who is identified as Captain UNK166. Can I say
23 for the transcript that UNK166 is also INQ1502.
24 You will see on your cipher list the name for
25 Soldier 128; is that name familiar to you?
1 A. Yes, yes.
2 Q. Do you recall Soldier 128 being present at Magilligan?
3 A. I do not, no, but I would not be surprised if he had
4 been there.
5 Q. The reason I ask is because 128 has already given oral
6 evidence to the Tribunal. His evidence was that, to the
7 best of his recollection, that he was the Ops Officer
8 for the Royal Green Jackets.
9 There is some evidence that UNK166 was actually the
10 officer commanding C Company of the Royal Green Jackets.
11 Do you think that your recollection could be wrong and
12 that it could be 128 who was the Ops Officer?
13 A. Yes, quite possibly. I know UNK166 was the Ops Officer
14 initially. At some stage I know that Soldier 128 took
15 over as Ops Officer; I cannot remember exactly when. It
16 is quite likely that if it was -- if it is C Company we
17 are talking about, then it is quite possible that he was
18 the company commander of C Company, because I think that
19 the previous company commander was Robin Alers-Hankey
20 who died of gunshot wounds received in Londonderry on
21 30th January 1972.
22 Q. In your statement you have made reference to battalion
23 HQ. Do you mean by that the tac HQ?
24 A. That is correct.
25 Q. If we go back to the first page and paragraph 6 of your
1 statement, you describe the arrival of the marchers at
2 the wire and your commanding officer going down to the
3 wire and speaking to John Hume, who was one of the
4 leaders of the march. You go on to say that there was
5 a bit of stone throwing.
6 As these events unfolded, were you watching them
7 from battalion HQ?
8 A. To the best of my recollection, yes, I was still up in
9 the dunes. Colonel Welsh went forward and we were
10 watching what was going on, more or less sort of
11 looking, looking down on it and obliquely from,
12 I suppose, left-hand side.
13 Q. Could we have P625 on screen, please. The evidence
14 shows Mr Hume initially spoke to RUC officers -- we can
15 see them on the right-hand side of the screen -- and
16 then later spoke also to Lieutenant Colonel Welsh.
17 There are two Green Jackets' officers there in the
18 photograph. Without mentioning any names, can you
19 assist us at all with who they were? I say "officers,"
20 I should say Green Jacket soldiers; can you identify
21 either of them?
22 A. If you could enlarge it a bit. (Pause). No, I -- I can
23 vaguely remember the face. I do not think either of
24 them are officers. I do not think -- the one on the
25 left, I do not think, is an officer, I think he is not
1 an officer, I would not go further than that. The one
2 with glasses on, I do not think he is a Green Jacket,
3 um, and the one on the right looks like an officer
4 I know, but I, I would not swear it was him, it might
5 have been him. I can give you a name, if you like.
6 Q. I think if you are not sure we will leave it.
7 A. Okay.
8 Q. If we go back to your statement and if we look at
9 paragraph 7, you describe there that as the tide receded
10 it resulted in a gap in the wire and if we could go to
11 the next page, please, and have the top, and some of the
12 marchers then began to try to move around the end of the
13 wire. The obvious result of that was that the soldiers
14 at the wire were going to be outflanked and an order was
15 given to 1 Para to fill that gap.
16 That order would have come from the tac HQ; would it
17 not?
18 A. Yes, it would have done.
19 Q. You tell us that you cannot remember who gave the order,
20 but you were still at the battalion HQ, let us use your
21 wording, at the time. Were you aware of where the
22 officer commanding C Company of the Paras was at this
23 point?
24 A. I, I assumed he was with his, with his company; I assume
25 he was with his company; I do not remember him being at
1 the tac HQ, but he might have been, I honestly cannot
2 remember.
3 Q. If he was not at the tac HQ, the order for his men to
4 deploy would have had to be given over the radio; would
5 it not?
6 A. Yes, it would.
7 Q. You told us that at tac HQ you were looking down on
8 events. Does it follow that you had a clear view of
9 what was going on at the wire from that location?
10 A. Yes, there was a clear view.
11 Q. Can you tell us --
12 LORD SAVILLE: You might have already said so, in which case
13 forgive me; about how far away were you?
14 A. Um, I honestly could not give you an accurate, an
15 accurate assessment, but it is a matter of hundreds of
16 yards, not more than that.
17 MR RAWAT: Were you viewing the events with the naked eye or
18 through binoculars?
19 A. With the naked eye.
20 Q. You mention in the preceding paragraph, we have look at
21 it, that there was some stone throwing. Do you recall
22 any baton rounds being fired at the crowd by the Green
23 Jackets before the Paras were deployed?
24 A. I do not recall that.
25 Q. Is it right that when the Paras were deployed they
1 engaged in a baton charge of the marchers?
2 A. When the Paras were deployed my recollection is that
3 they went forward, if you can imagine that the end of
4 the wire -- to be honest, the marchers if they wanted
5 to, if they had been really aggressive, could have
6 pulled the wire out of the way and come, come through it
7 or over it; it was not a particularly strong or
8 deterrent-value barrier, it was really there just to
9 sort of mark the point beyond which the marchers were
10 not to proceed.
11 But they came around the end of it and my
12 recollection of it is that there were some groups of
13 civilians coming round, um, various ages, but most of
14 the people on the march seemed to me to be -- I would
15 not say senior citizens, but, you know, they certainly
16 were not what we had come to know as the yobbos on -- in
17 Derry, they were people who were a bit more mature than
18 that.
19 They came round the end of the barrier, and my
20 recollection is the Paras were ordered to deploy forward
21 just to close that gap and they ran forward to do so and
22 what I recollect is what is in the statement, that I saw
23 several of them going forward with batons and batons
24 were being used.
25 Q. You have said in the statement, "an awful lot of
1 unnecessary violence," and you have made specific
2 mention of batons being used. Can you help us at all
3 with what else you were seeing?
4 A. I think I have said about everything that I can say: the
5 Paras moved forward; batons were being swung;
6 I recollect the people were being hit, um, some people
7 were actually on the ground and one or two were struck
8 when they were on the ground. That is what I took to be
9 an unnecessary amount of violence.
10 Q. Struck, you mean specifically struck with batons?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. You say in your statement that you pointed this out to
13 UNK166, who ordered you to go down and calm the
14 situation down. I have raised the point about whether
15 UNQ166 was the battalion Ops Officer at the time. To be
16 clear, is it your recollection that it was UNK166 you
17 spoke to at this time?
18 A. I honestly could not say -- I thought UNK166 was the Ops
19 Officer. I am pretty sure it was he that I was speaking
20 to, um, so it may well have been him in his role as
21 C Company commander. As far as I can remember the, the
22 people in that photograph we looked at earlier on, of
23 Green Jackets deployed, were from C Company, as far as
24 I can recollect.
25 So it would make sense that it was UNK166 who
1 ordered me to go down -- "ordered me," I think I said,
2 "That does not look right," or something like that, or,
3 "What the hell is going on, shall I go down there?" and
4 he said "Yes," as far as I can recollect.
5 Q. Did he make any comment about the conduct of the Paras?
6 A. I do not recollect that.
7 Q. We know that at that wire -- we have seen it in the
8 photographs and it is in your statement -- there were
9 also members of the Royal Green Jackets and the RUC. At
10 this point, can you recall how they were dealing with
11 the marchers who were trying to get through the gap?
12 A. I think they were still standing on the wire. I guess
13 there was -- I cannot say "I guess," I would think or
14 I cannot remember them deploying. My recollection is
15 there was a few people came round the end of the wire,
16 so the Green Jackets would have been still on that
17 strand of barbed wire, um, they did not move down to the
18 right. I think if they had moved down to the right,
19 then you would have had people coming over the wire in
20 front of you.
21 Q. You were ordered to run down and calm it down. Were any
22 orders communicated over the radio to 221A?
23 A. I cannot remember that.
24 Q. Can you recall, when you left tac HQ, whether you were
25 carrying any kind of weapon with you?
1 A. My recollection is that I was carrying a baton. I think
2 there was a photograph in the Londonderry post which
3 shows me carrying a baton and I remember later on, when
4 we come on to the inquiry that the Paras held into it,
5 the questions were asked of me as to why I had struck
6 a Parachute Regiment NCO, so, yes, I was carrying
7 a baton.
8 Q. In paragraphs 8 to 9 you deal with a particular incident
9 in which you became involved which occurred before you
10 found Major 221A, that is that you came across two Paras
11 striking a middle-aged man and woman lying on the ground
12 and you physically intervened and told them to report to
13 their company commander.
14 As you mention in paragraph 10, a photograph of that
15 incident appeared in the Londonderry Times on the
16 following Sunday. By the following Sunday, do you mean
17 the Sunday immediately after Magilligan, which would be
18 the 23rd January?
19 A. As far as I can remember, yes.
20 Q. We do not have any newspaper cuttings from Sunday,
21 23rd January, but we do have an extract from the Derry
22 Journal which was published on Tuesday, 25th January.
23 If we could have L10.2 on the screen, please. The
24 photographs that form part of this cutting are very hard
25 to see. I will show you better copies in a moment,
1 I just want to focus on this part of it. For the moment
2 we do not need to look in detail at the photographs.
3 In the first photograph I have marked with a blue
4 arrow, we have what looks like two soldiers, one with
5 a beret, over someone who is on the ground. The caption
6 says:
7 "British soldiers drag one of the demonstrators,
8 Mr Christopher McNicholl of Glenn Mullan, through the
9 water, after he had been knocked down and injured in
10 a baton charge."
11 If we look at the photograph below that, the caption
12 there reads:
13 "With blood flowing from a wound in his head,
14 Mr McNicholl is assisted by an RUC man and his cousin,
15 Ms Sinead McNicholl of Dungiven."
16 Could we have, please, OS1.294 on the screen. That
17 is the photograph that appears on the bottom of that
18 page from the Derry journal. A hard copy is going to be
19 handed to you. (Handed)
20 If we could have OS1.297, this is a photograph which
21 the Inquiry has but does not appear in the Derry
22 Journal. It shows Mr McNicholl being assisted away by
23 his cousin. Could we go to OS1.285, please.
24 This is, I hope, a slightly better copy of the same
25 photograph which is the first one that I drew your
1 attention to, that appeared in the Derry Journal. What
2 we see is a man on the ground, said to be Mr McNicholl.
3 Here is a soldier with a visor and there is another
4 soldier here with a baton. Could this be the photograph
5 that you are referring to? (Indicating)
6 A. It is not the photograph I am referring to, but that is
7 a photograph of me.
8 Q. It is you with the baton there?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. This is the incident in which you were involved and
11 intervened?
12 A. It is, but it is not the photograph that I referred to.
13 Q. Thank you for that. Can I ask for your assistance in
14 relation to one other photograph, if we could have
15 OS1.291, please. It is not entirely clear whether the
16 person on the ground is Mr McNicholl, it could be
17 somebody else, but the soldier assisting the injured
18 person is a Green Jacket. That is not you by any
19 chance, is it?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Do you know who it is? Again, do not mention any names.
22 A. It is a face I recognise, as is the -- it is another
23 Green Jacket. If you go -- shall I mark it on the
24 screen?
25 Q. I can do it?
1 A. Yes, that is again a face I recognise, they are both
2 members of the battalion, but I cannot remember their
3 names now.
4 Q. Could we have, please, if we could play Video 32 from
5 2 hours 5 minutes. Pause it for one moment: INQ573,
6 this is footage shot at Magilligan, I think it was shot
7 by Mr William McKinney, who was killed on 30th January.
8 I doubt whether you would have seen it. If we could
9 play a very short part of it to you now, please.
10 (Video 32 played)
11 Could we pause there for a minute. Could we wind it
12 back a little bit.
13 LORD SAVILLE: Do you have the film on your screen, because
14 we do not have it on ours?
15 A. Yes.
16 MR RAWAT: I do not know whether we should rewind it back
17 a little bit, please.
18 (Video 32 played)
19 Can we pause for one moment. Just rewind a little
20 bit. INQ573, you can see in the middle, it is
21 indistinct with the pause button, there is a tall
22 soldier with his hand on another soldier's shoulder; can
23 you see that?
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. If we play on from there.
1 (Video 32 played)
2 We may not need to rewind. You can see, just on the
3 right-hand side, it is the same tall soldier with his
4 baton.
5 LORD SAVILLE: Go back one frame, could you?
6 MR RAWAT: The reason I wanted to draw your attention to
7 that is in relation to a later point I want to ask you
8 about, but if we could play on, please.
9 (Video 32 played)
10 If we could now play Video 11 from 3 hours 12
11 minutes, if that is possible.
12 (Video 11 played)
13 Stop it there, please. Those two pieces of footage,
14 are they reflective of the kinds of scenes you saw at
15 Magilligan, or that you recall seeing?
16 A. I have never seen those bits of video before, but, yes,
17 yes, that was the sort of thing that was happening;
18 there was a degree of mayhem, um, as I say, people came
19 round the end of the wire and then what I have described
20 is what I saw.
21 Q. Can we go back to page 2 of your statement, please. The
22 black and white footage we have just seen shows
23 a civilian being kicked when on the ground; did you see
24 anything like that?
25 A. I cannot remember if I saw anybody being kicked, but
1 I certainly saw people being struck and I saw, as I have
2 said, what I believed was unnecessary aggression.
3 Q. Do you recall seeing members of the Parachute Regiment
4 shooting baton rounds at the marchers at point blank
5 range?
6 A. I do not, no.
7 Q. In paragraph 9 of your statement you say:
8 "I do not remember whether I ever found the company
9 commander. I wanted to tell him to get a grip of his
10 men. To me it looked like the Paras had got out of
11 control."
12 Although you could not find Major 221A, when you
13 went down to the wire, were you aware of any other Para
14 officers or NCOs in the area?
15 A. It was a Parachute Regiment NCO who was -- the Paras
16 that I went to, one of them was a Parachute Regiment
17 NCO. I do not recall seeing any other officers there or
18 any other NCOs.
19 Q. AM397.68 on the screen, please. This is a better
20 photograph of the tall soldier that I pointed out to you
21 on the colour footage; do you have a recollection of
22 seeing that person down at the wire?
23 A. No, I do not.
24 Q. Obviously a member of the Parachute Regiment?
25 A. And an officer, too.
1 Q. In fact it is INQ7, who is the Intelligence Officer of
2 1 Para at the time.
3 If we go back, therefore, to C573.2, paragraph 11,
4 you discuss the subsequent regimental inquiry in which
5 you were involved which happened on the Monday or
6 Tuesday after Magilligan and which you say turned into
7 an inquiry into why you had hit an NCO with a baton.
8 Before you arrived at Holywood Barracks for that
9 inquiry, what did you think its purpose was going to be?
10 A. I thought the purpose of the regimental inquiry was that
11 Commander Land Forces, having seen what was on the
12 television, had ordered an inquiry into why that had
13 happened; in other words, why there had been that amount
14 of violence.
15 Q. Had you by then made any formal complaint about the
16 conduct of the Paras?
17 A. I think I had spoken to my commanding officer about it
18 and I think it had been a matter of comment and
19 discussion in the officers' mess, but I had made no
20 formal complaint.
21 Q. Was General Ford present at the regimental Inquiry?
22 A. No, I am sure -- I do not remember him being there and
23 I am sure he would not have been there. It was a
24 regimental inquiry and he would not have been involved.
25 The findings of the inquiry -- if he had ordered it --
1 would have gone up the chain of command to him.
2 Q. Can you recall who conducted the inquiry?
3 A. I cannot now, but I think there were three, three
4 officers on the board, as it were.
5 Q. All officers from the Paratroop Regiment?
6 A. Yes, indeed.
7 Q. To the best of your recollection, whilst this regiment
8 inquiry was taking place, were any other matters
9 investigated, apart from the incident in which you had
10 been involved?
11 A. No, as far as I recollect I came down; I was asked to
12 come in to give evidence; I described -- actually,
13 I cannot really remember. All I can remember is that an
14 NCO was put into the witness stand, um, and he gave some
15 evidence. I was then asked why I had struck him and,
16 um, I was allowed to ask him some questions about
17 whether I had actually struck him and I think eventually
18 we decided that I had not struck him per se, I had
19 actually stopped him with a baton and prodded him in the
20 chest a couple of times with my baton; I was quite angry
21 at the time of the incident, and I prodded him and told
22 him that he ought to get a grip of himself and he should
23 report to his company commander.
24 Q. You were never informed of the outcome of that Inquiry?
25 A. No, I was -- I was amazed that the inquiry went along
1 the lines that it did go along, um, but, yes, I know no
2 more about it. I heard no more about it and I was not
3 asked about anything again.
4 Q. Why were you amazed?
5 A. Well, I was amazed that it turned from what I thought it
6 was going to be, which was an inquiry into what I had
7 believed was unnecessary use of force, into an inquiry
8 as to why I had struck, as an officer, why I had struck
9 an NCO.
10 Q. Were you ever made aware at any time that 1 Para had
11 conducted an internal investigation into an allegation
12 of a soldier kicking a man on the ground?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Can we go to the next page, please, and look at
15 paragraphs 13 to 14. You have already told us that you
16 had spoken to your commanding officer. I want to focus
17 now on the aftermath of Magilligan and relate it to what
18 was then the upcoming march on 30th January.
19 In paragraph 13, you say:
20 "I remember there was a feeling within our battalion
21 that there was likely to be trouble. What had happened
22 in Magilligan had reinforced our view that the situation
23 in Belfast was quite different to that in Londonderry.
24 It also confirmed the way the Parachute Regiment, in
25 particular, was prepared to wade in and restore order by
1 dubious means.
2 "We reckon that if the Paras went in and if the week
3 before was anything to go by, there was going to be
4 a certain amount of violence."
5 Was Magilligan the first time you had seen elements
6 of 1 Para in action in Northern Ireland?
7 A. Certainly the first time that I had seen them in action
8 anywhere around Londonderry. I had been in Belfast on
9 a couple of occasions before that, but I cannot clearly
10 recollect having seen the Parachute Regiment operating
11 elsewhere, or before.
12 Q. Can you tell us what you knew of 1 Para's reputation in
13 the Army in Northern Ireland prior to Magilligan --
14 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Rawat, this is really getting a little
15 beyond the limitation I have imposed, for reasons I have
16 explained a number of times.
17 MR RAWAT: The Tribunal may disagree with me, but it relates
18 to the impact Magilligan had in terms of brigade circles
19 in relation to concerns expressed over the conduct of
20 1 Para.
21 LORD SAVILLE: Indeed it does, and the limitation we imposed
22 was the recollection of events at Magilligan.
23 MR RAWAT: There is only one matter, then, I need to deal
24 with.
25 Can we have KR2.1 on the screen, please. This is
1 a statement to this Inquiry of Sir David Ramsbotham, who
2 in 1972 was military assistant to the Chief of the
3 General Staff, General Carver, and was a lieutenant
4 colonel in the Royal Green Jackets.
5 If we go to paragraphs 19 and 20, please, he
6 describes in these paragraphs that Peter Welsh had
7 contacted him after Magilligan to describe what had
8 happened, where some soldiers from the Parachute
9 Regiment had to be told by his adjutant that soldiers
10 had to behave differently in Londonderry to Belfast.
11 When Sir David gave his evidence on Day 254, it is
12 at page 122, he said that his recollection was that in
13 the debrief in the aftermath of Magilligan, you had
14 warned 1 Para that the approach in Londonderry was
15 different. Do you recall there being a debrief after
16 Magilligan where the Royal Green Jackets and 1 Para were
17 present?
18 A. I do not recall that at all, no.
19 Q. You do not recall issuing any warnings to officers from
20 1 Para at a debrief?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Do you recall Lieutenant Colonel Welsh contacting
23 Sir David?
24 A. No.
25 Q. One final thing: you mentioned a moment ago, and you say
1 in your statement that there was discussion within the
2 battalion about how 1 Para had behaved at Magilligan.
3 Do you know whether that discussion moved beyond the
4 Royal Green Jackets to include other units in 8 Brigade?
5 A. I do not know, but I, I would not be surprised. I mean,
6 the Parachute Regiment had a reputation for being
7 extremely effective but, as I have said, um, Londonderry
8 was a bit different to Belfast. I think that we, in
9 Londonderry, um -- soldiers perhaps, by force of
10 circumstances as much as anything else, were not able to
11 operate in quite the same aggressive way.
12 Q. Thank you. Those are my questions.
13 Questioned by MR GLASGOW
14 MR GLASGOW: My name is Glasgow. I represent a large number
15 of the soldiers. A very few matters for you.
16 In view of some of the matters that have been put to
17 you and in view of some of the things that were written
18 about you, I think it perhaps is only fair to put to you
19 the evidence that the Tribunal has had of the results of
20 the Inquiry, insofar as it is important, although it is
21 a small matter.
22 Were you aware of the fact that at least an
23 inquiry -- I think it must be the one that you
24 attended -- concluded that at least one soldier in the
25 Parachute Regiment had, in the words used in evidence,
1 "lost his temper," and had clearly misbehaved; were you
2 ever told that?
3 A. No, I was not told any findings of the inquiry
4 whatsoever.
5 Q. Perhaps in fairness to you also, sir, if in the course
6 of that inquiry, while that matter was being
7 investigated, you felt that suggestions were being made
8 about your own conduct; do you think it is possible that
9 really all that was being done was that those looking
10 after or attempting to look after that soldier were
11 perhaps, perfectly properly, investigating the evidence
12 that was being given against him; did you feel that at
13 the time?
14 A. Sorry, can you repeat that, I do not quite understand
15 what you are getting at?
16 Q. You came away from the inquiry feeling that you had been
17 criticised?
18 A. I felt -- I came away from the inquiry, as I have said,
19 amazed, because I thought it was going to be an inquiry
20 and it turned out to be an inquiry into why I had struck
21 an NCO.
22 Q. I am not criticising you at all and I have conceded this
23 by accepting, or telling you, as I thought you should be
24 told, publicly, that the commanding officer of 1st
25 Battalion Parachute Regiment gave evidence to the effect
1 that he knew that a soldier in his regiment had, in his
2 words, "lost his temper." You must read from that, had
3 therefore behaved physically in a way he should not have
4 done and had been sent for by him and spoken to, which
5 I think must mean reprimanded; apparently you were not
6 told that?
7 A. No, or I do not remember being told that. As I said,
8 all I can remember is coming away with a sense of
9 amazement and slight resentment at how what I thought
10 had been one inquiry had turned into something
11 different.
12 Q. Perhaps I could best illustrate it, I hope not sounding
13 too much like a lawyer -- perhaps you would not be the
14 first man, sir, to appear as a prosecution witness who
15 in effect felt that he had had allegations made against
16 him.
17 I really only asked you in that spirit: do you think
18 it is possible that that was what happened and why you,
19 perhaps like many prosecution witnesses, felt aggrieved
20 about it and felt resentment at the way in which you had
21 been treated; is that a possibility?
22 A. (Pause). I am trying to think now. I mean, I very much
23 felt, because I was not expecting it, that the inquiry
24 was not -- it started off on the lines about the
25 violence that had occurred. It then switched.
1 I mean -- I suppose it is a possibility, but I would not
2 say I, I do not think I really resented it. I was
3 amazed because I felt that -- I rather got the feeling
4 that in the inquiry it was not so much an inquiry as to
5 what had happened and why it had happened as more sort
6 of justification, trying to justify what had happened
7 rather than an inquiry into something that should not
8 have happened perhaps did.
9 Q. I hope I made plain I do not doubt the sincerity of
10 those feelings or perhaps their reasonableness at the
11 time.
12 If you look at your statement, everything turns on
13 the one page we have at C573.2. Paragraph 10 in the
14 middle. You yourself even volunteered that, perhaps
15 ironically, the photograph that was being used made it
16 look as if you were somebody who had been doing the
17 attacking and that that was simply not fair; that is
18 really the point, is it not?
19 A. The photograph makes it look as though I was striking
20 the civilian, yes, but the regimental inquiry in the
21 Parachute Regiment knew full well that was not the case.
22 Q. Even at the time it did not surprise you that the
23 officers conducting the inquiry wanted to ask some
24 questions about why a photograph appeared in which the
25 man making the allegation appeared to have been the
1 aggressor?
2 A. I do not recollect them asking me any questions about
3 the photographs at all.
4 Q. I will leave it there. Again, I thought it right you
5 should know the outcome.
6 While we are on the page, could you help the
7 Tribunal a little more about the deployment of the
8 reserve unit. Of course I accept it does not matter
9 where the reserve had come from, and you accept they
10 were in fact the Belfast reserve unit?
11 A. If that is what they were, that is what they were.
12 Q. That I think is plain beyond argument. But they came to
13 the Royal Green Jackets to be the reserve unit for the
14 day in case they were needed to help out?
15 A. As I said, I think we were a company short for what we
16 believed was going to be necessary and they were the
17 company that were attached under command --
18 Q. Is it a normal thing for the company to be attached to
19 be held in reserve and only used if they are needed;
20 would that be the ordinary way it is arranged?
21 A. It depends entirely on the circumstances. That is the
22 way it was in that particular case.
23 Q. On that particular day, it being a Green Jacket
24 operation and under the command of the commanding
25 officer of the Green Jackets on the day, the companies
1 of Green Jackets were deployed and the Parachute company
2 was held in reserve in case it was needed?
3 A. That would be the orders that the commanding officer had
4 given. I mean, it is not a template, as you would
5 understand.
6 Q. That is what happened?
7 A. That is what happened on that day.
8 Q. In the events which occurred something happened which
9 persuaded the commanding officer of the Green Jackets
10 that it was necessary to use his reserve?
11 A. I do not recall the commanding officer giving the order
12 for that to be -- for them to be deployed, but something
13 happened and I believe the order was given for them to
14 move forward.
15 Q. We have it at the top of the page, you say at some stage
16 the order was given and you cannot remember who, but it
17 must have been the order given by the Green Jackets that
18 the reserve was to be used?
19 A. To close the gap at the end of the line, yes.
20 Q. And if looks as if, does it not, from recollection and
21 from the best we know, what happened was: the tide went
22 out rather further than those who had put the wire down
23 anticipated, a gap appeared and the Parachute
24 Regiment --
25 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Glasgow, with respect, that is precisely
1 what this witness has said in his statement.
2 MR GLASGOW: I will not take it further, if it is not
3 helpful.
4 The last matter, is this, 573: you had
5 a conversation with your own commanding officer after
6 this incident, Peter Welsh?
7 A. I am sure I would have done, but I cannot remember
8 actually going to him and speaking to him about it, but
9 I am sure I would have done.
10 Q. His own evidence to this Tribunal was that he too
11 thought, in his words, that the Parachute soldiers had
12 gone over the top a bit, but on the other hand if they
13 had not gone round the wire and filled the gap, then the
14 march would have got out of control. That was the only
15 reason why I asked you about the bit at the top of the
16 page.
17 Do you regard that as a fair reflection of the
18 circumstances or not?
19 A. Yes, I am sure he would not have deployed them if he did
20 not need them. He deployed them and when they were
21 deployed what occurred is what I have described.
22 Q. Very well. The last matter on that, is this: were you
23 aware that at least one independent journalist was
24 present on the day; did you know that?
25 A. No, but there were lots of journalists there, so I am
1 not surprised.
2 Q. Did you read any of the reports afterwards?
3 A. I may have done, but the only thing that I can recollect
4 clearly was, as I have described, a front-page
5 photograph. I thought it was on the Sunday, in
6 a newspaper from Derry which shows -- it is a photograph
7 of me running in with a raised baton in full stride and
8 it looks just as though I am about to thump somebody.
9 Q. The journalist whose account I had in mind who did give
10 evidence to the Inquiry and I thought again, in
11 fairness, I should put it to you, was a man called Simon
12 Winchester, who wrote a book, including a chapter on
13 this. His description was, what he described as,
14 "bitter hand-to-hand fighting"; do you think on
15 reflection that might be a more fair way of putting it,
16 notwithstanding the fact that I entirely accept that at
17 least one Parachute soldier obviously misbehaved?
18 A. I mean, I think, "bitter hand-to-hand fighting," is
19 a bit -- it is stretching journalistic licence somewhat.
20 Yes, there would have been -- yes, there were people
21 coming round, there was a problem, there was chaos, but
22 "bitter hand-to-hand fighting," no.
23 Q. Not the way you would have put it?
24 A. Thank you.
25 Questioned by MR A HARVEY
1 MR HARVEY: In relation to the inquiry that you attended and
2 the questions that you were asked by Mr Glasgow, do
3 I take it that it was not simply the fact that
4 allegations were being put to you, it was that the very
5 direction the inquiry took seemed to change.
6 A. I do not know whether the direction of the inquiry
7 changed because my understanding of it was that I was
8 going down, as I have said, to give evidence as to what
9 had occurred. In other words, having seen something on
10 the television, why that degree of, you know, aggression
11 was necessary; that was my perception of what the
12 inquiry was about.
13 So I cannot say whether it changed direction or not.
14 I mean, from what I am hearing it seems to me that the
15 inquiry was probably all about why I had acted the way
16 I had, rather than, you know, why the Parachute Regiment
17 soldiers had acted the way they had.
18 Q. In fact what you said to Mr Glasgow was, it appeared to
19 be an inquiry which was seeking to justify the actions
20 that had occurred; is that right?
21 A. That, that seemed to me to be the way it was going, but
22 from the questions that were asked earlier, yes, I can
23 understand that if there was an NCO who was being
24 inquired into that, you know, the questions to me might
25 have seemed to be an attempt to justify why he had acted
1 in that way; I can understand that.
2 Q. The only evidence on the papers that relates to the
3 finding of the inquiry is to be found in the
4 cross-examination of Colonel Wilford before the
5 Lord Chief Justice Widgery. It is at B1110.83, at
6 letter C. It says:
7 "Question: Was any action taken against the
8 soldiers concerned in that particular incident?
9 "Answer: I conducted an inquiry into the affair.
10 "Question: You did yourself?
11 "Answer: Yes, I did.
12 "Question: Just by yourself?
13 "Answer: My officers conducted the inquiry.
14 "Question: Who conducted the inquiry -- you or your
15 officers?
16 "Answer: My second-in-command and two other
17 officers conducted it on my direction.
18 "Question: Were there any findings resulting from
19 that inquiry?
20 "Answer: Yes.
21 "Question: What were they?
22 "Answer: That in that situation a soldier had in
23 fact kicked (because there was no argument about it)
24 a man on the ground but the circumstances were such that
25 he might easily and justifiably have lost his temper."
1 Did you see anything that justified easily the
2 assault upon the individual that you yourself stopped?
3 A. I think that is an extremely difficult question to
4 answer, because I was looking at it from a distance and
5 then I was moving down, you know, I saw what was
6 happening; I was moving down.
7 In my view, as I have said, I do not believe that
8 what was happening, when they came round the end of the
9 wire, justified the amount of aggressive action that was
10 taken. I think it could have been contained or stopped
11 without that degree of aggressive action, but when
12 people get going, if somebody is told to move down there
13 and they go down at the trot, you know, it is quite easy
14 for somebody to lose his temper, though personally, as
15 I have said, I do not believe, in the circumstances that
16 pertained, it was justified.
17 Q. Thank you very much.
18 LORD SAVILLE: Do we have any other questions?
19 Questioned by MR RAWAT
20 MR RAWAT: The incident in which you intervened, to your
21 recollection, did you see either of the two Paras
22 kicking somebody on the ground?
23 A. I cannot remember clearly, but I can remember that, as
24 I have said, the fellow was struck with a baton; he may
25 well have been kicked, but I cannot recollect it
1 precisely.
2 Q. You say, "the fellow was struck with a baton," C573.2;
3 looking at paragraph 8 of your statement, just to be
4 clear: did you see both Paras striking people on the
5 ground with their batons?
6 A. I, I could not, I could not swear to it. No, I honestly
7 cannot remember.
8 Q. Thank you very much.
9 LORD SAVILLE: INQ573, the Chairman again. Thank you very
10 much indeed for coming here to assist the Inquiry, thank
11 you.
12 (The witness withdrew)
13 INQ1799, sworn
14 Questioned by MR RAWAT
15 LORD SAVILLE: You can see who is talking to you. I say
16 this to all the witnesses. I am the Chairman. The
17 questions come from the barristers. Can I ask you to
18 pull your chair towards the desk and pull the microphone
19 towards you so we can all hear what you have to say.
20 MR RAWAT: INQ1799, do you have with you a copy of the
21 statement that you have made to this Inquiry?
22 A. I do.
23 Q. Are the contents of that statement true to the best of
24 your knowledge and belief?
25 A. I am content with the contents of this statement in
1 relation to what happened in Londonderry on so-called
2 Bloody Sunday, but I would like to qualify some
3 introductory remarks in relation to an event that
4 happened prior to that day.
5 Q. Can you take us to the paragraph?
6 A. Yes, paragraph 2.
7 Q. If we could expand paragraph 2. What would you like to
8 clarify?
9 A. I have two distinct memories, one of being in
10 a helicopter looking down on a riot below and being
11 extraordinarily keen to be on the ground and to be
12 playing my part in that.
13 I have another memory of being in the middle of such
14 a riot and making a difficult arrest. Simple logic
15 leads me to believe that those two events could not have
16 coincided and psychologically they are not in continuity
17 in my mind, which leads me to believe that one of them
18 at least has probably been misattributed to Magilligan
19 beach.
20 Q. Subject to that clarification, are the contents of your
21 statement true?
22 A. Absolutely.
23 Q. As you will know, many soldiers who have made statements
24 to this Inquiry have anonymity and, like you, they are
25 known by a cipher alone.
1 Can I ask you, please, during the course of your
2 evidence not to mention any soldier or any former
3 soldier by name. Where appropriate we will give you the
4 cipher to use, and I hope you have been provided with
5 two lists which give a list of ciphers of soldiers who
6 were in your platoon, in C Company and an additional
7 list of soldiers who were in 8 Platoon?
8 A. That is correct, yes, I have that in front of me.
9 Q. Can I also tell you, we have had the chance to read your
10 statement, so today I would really like to ask you
11 questions about some parts of it.
12 In January 1972 you were a lance corporal in
13 7 Platoon of C Company of 1 Para. You were in fact
14 promoted to full corporal on 1st February 1972, but the
15 important point perhaps to make is that on 30th January,
16 whilst holding the rank of lance corporal, you were
17 a section commander; is that all right?
18 A. That is correct, yes.
19 Q. Looking at the cipher list -- please do not mention
20 names -- can you from that list identify any individuals
21 who were in your section in 7 Platoon?
22 A. I really cannot, because the nature of the way we were
23 grouped at that time was far more ad hoc, it depended on
24 who was travelling with whom when we went out on an
25 operation. So I would not be able to group any of those
1 individuals in the context of a section on that day.
2 Q. What you have said in your statement is that your
3 platoon commander was INQ1267, whose name does appear on
4 the list. You will also see -- it is the second one
5 down -- the name of Soldier 110; can you see that?
6 A. I can.
7 Q. He has made a statement to the Inquiry confirming,
8 saying he was the platoon commander of 7 Platoon. We
9 have statements made, both by 110 and other members of
10 1 Para, to the Royal Military Police in 1972, which
11 confirm that.
12 What would follow, then, is that you may be mistaken
13 in thinking INQ1267 was your platoon commander on
14 30th January; would you accept that?
15 A. My recollection was that the commands had changed by
16 that date, but I may be mistaken in that recollection.
17 Q. If we can expand paragraph 5 down. In relation to the
18 operation on 30th January in Londonderry you describe
19 a formal briefing. You use the description of it as
20 a "heavyweight briefing," given by the company
21 commander, Major 221A. You say that was at Long Kesh
22 military camp.
23 In fact we know that 1 Para spent the night before
24 deploying in Londonderry on that day at a factory in
25 Drumahoe, which is just outside Londonderry, but which
1 was the base at the time for battalion 22 Light Air
2 Defence Regiment. On that basis it does appear, again,
3 that your recollection of being at Long Kesh would also
4 be wrong; would you accept that?
5 A. I would. What I know is that we were outside
6 Londonderry.
7 Q. If we look at paragraph 6, can you tell us why you use
8 the word "heavyweight" to describe the briefing you were
9 given?
10 A. For two reasons: objectively because it was a company
11 briefing and subjectively because whilst I had commanded
12 patrols before, it was the first time I was going to be
13 in command of a unit in a major operation.
14 Q. Was it unusual to have a full company briefing taken by
15 the company commander with what appears to be all the
16 company present or ...?
17 A. It had happened before I am sure, but it was not the
18 usual way we operated.
19 Q. Taking into account the clarification you made to
20 paragraph 2, it is still right, is it not, that you had
21 never operated in the city of Londonderry itself before
22 30th January?
23 A. That is correct.
24 Q. If we could have the next page, please. Expand the top
25 down to and including paragraph 8. At the top of the
1 page, it is the second half of your paragraph 7 where
2 you discuss the no-go areas, you say:
3 "My understanding was that the military intelligence
4 in those areas was very limited. My knowledge of
5 Londonderry was through press reports, hearsay,
6 intelligence briefings and from the RUC."
7 When you refer to "intelligence briefings," what
8 precisely are you referring to there?
9 A. We had been briefed in relationship to Londonderry on
10 a previous occasion and, um, that is what I was probably
11 referring to, but also probably more broadly to military
12 intelligence briefings that we had had prior to this
13 operation.
14 Q. Do you recall there being an intelligence element to the
15 heavyweight briefing you received?
16 A. No, I do not, not specifically.
17 Q. Do you recall any RUC officers being present at the
18 heavyweight briefing?
19 A. No, again, not specifically.
20 Q. Following that briefing, what, in general terms, did you
21 understand the role of your company or your platoon was
22 going to be in the operation?
23 A. In the first event a reserve role; in the second event
24 a deployment role in relationship to a large march that
25 could deteriorate into a riot.
1 Q. Were you told that, if you were going to be deployed
2 from your reserve role, you would be deployed on foot or
3 in vehicles?
4 A. I cannot recall specifically, but that would depend upon
5 the tactical situation that confronted us.
6 Q. Obviously that would be the situation as you found it at
7 the time?
8 A. Absolutely, and the decisions of the commanders on the
9 ground.
10 Q. In paragraph 10, your concluding sentence is:
11 "I remember knowing that the Rossville Flats and
12 Free Derry Corner were possibly dangerous areas."
13 Can you recall whether at your heavyweight briefing
14 you were warned against or warned specifically about
15 dangers from the Rossville Flats or Free Derry Corner?
16 A. I can recall having an impression that we were to avoid
17 being sucked into that area because of potential dangers
18 of being isolated and, um, being exposed. So certainly
19 the dangers of trouble spots were referred to in some
20 sort of general terms, but I cannot be more particular
21 than that.
22 Q. We are looking at paragraphs 11 and 12 of your statement
23 on the screen, INQ1799. In later paragraphs you discuss
24 the role of your platoon as snatch squad and your
25 involvement in an arrest operation. In paragraph 12 you
1 say:
2 "In a situation where there are civilian gunmen in
3 the area, the aim of the operation is to clear as much
4 ground as possible. We would generally work closely in
5 pairs with one man covering with their weapon while the
6 other manoeuvres."
7 Would that be a sort of buddy-buddy system?
8 A. Yes, it would.
9 Q. Would that still be the way you would work if you were
10 being used as a snatch squad to arrest rioters?
11 A. Yes, it would.
12 Q. We have heard evidence from another former member of the
13 Parachute Regiment that a snatch squad would typically
14 be a four-man team; three men perhaps armed simply with
15 batons and a fourth with an SLR to provide cover. How
16 would that arrangement fit in with the buddy-buddy
17 system?
18 A. The description you have been given is quite correct and
19 it would fit in because two people would have the
20 responsibility for making the arrest and two would be
21 providing general cover. Sometimes when we were low on
22 men it would be just one person. So could be
23 a three-man team or a four-man team. Both eventualities
24 are experiences I have personally had on numerous
25 occasions.
1 Q. I want to move forward to the next page, please, and to
2 begin to deal with the events of the day and starting
3 with your arrival at barrier 14. I want to focus on
4 paragraph 19 down.
5 You have a recollection, and you set out here in
6 paragraph 19 and the succeeding paragraphs, of being at
7 barrier 14 and seeing a large crowd of rioters. You do
8 say in your statement at an earlier point in time you
9 had manned your company commander's radio. Can I take
10 it, as a section commander, you would also have had
11 a radio operator with you?
12 A. We would have had two radio operators, one in each
13 vehicle, and we might have had a third in case of
14 deployment, and that would be a mobile radio operator.
15 That would be the normal sort of arrangement, yes.
16 Q. The reason I asked, there was some evidence which
17 indicates that each section would have its own radio
18 operator carrying a man-packable radio; would that
19 accord with your recollection?
20 A. No, it would not. I can certainly remember an occasion
21 during internment week when that most specifically was
22 not the case and we had just one radio in the platoon.
23 The failure of that radio caused us considerable
24 problems.
25 Q. The one person we do know on your cipher list
1 identifying himself as a radio operator is INQ5. Do you
2 recall whether he worked as your radio operator, or was
3 your radio operator on that day?
4 A. He worked as a radio operator. I have no recollection
5 whether he was my radio operator on that day.
6 Q. I would like now to show you some video footage. Could
7 we have Video 1 from 3 minutes 25, please.
8 (Video 1 played)
9 These are members of C Company. This is actuality
10 footage from the day; they are members of C Company
11 there, behind barrier 14 before they deployed on foot.
12 Looking at that -- and again please do not mention any
13 names -- can you identify anyone or see yourself in that
14 image?
15 A. I can identify two people and I can confirm the account
16 you gave of who would have been the commander on that
17 occasion.
18 Q. Are those two people 003 and Lieutenant 110?
19 A. That is correct.
20 Q. If we could have B1366.11 on the screen. 003 has
21 already given his evidence and he identified himself and
22 marked it with a blue arrow; is that the person you
23 recognised as 003?
24 A. Yes, I can confirm that.
25 Q. We see on the far left of the picture a soldier who is
1 standing next to a soldier carrying a baton gun. The
2 soldier's helmet does not have a visor, is that
3 Lieutenant 110?
4 A. That is correct as well.
5 Q. We do not need to save the image.
6 You do not see yourself at all in that?
7 A. No, I do not.
8 Q. As I told you, this footage was shot before C Company
9 deployed but whilst they were obviously getting ready to
10 do so, since they were forming-up behind barrier 14.
11 Can you recall at that time -- and we do not need to
12 keep the image on the screen, we can go back to your
13 statement at C1799.3 -- can you recall at that time
14 specifically being given orders that you were to go over
15 the barrier and make arrests?
16 A. I cannot remember the specifics of the order, apart from
17 the, "Go, go, go," but that might well have been the
18 second part, the executive part of an order that was
19 more measured and staged whilst the barricades were
20 being removed. But what I do recall is what got me
21 going down the street.
22 Q. I do not know whether your recollection can assist.
23 What do you recall you were going to go and do when you
24 went over that barrier?
25 A. Make arrests.
1 Q. You describe in paragraph 21 that there was a fairly
2 aggressive riot going on. You were watching that riot
3 before you went over the barrier. Had you, to the best
4 of your recollection, while standing behind the barrier,
5 been able to identify a rioter who you could arrest?
6 A. I cannot recall having done so, but that would be
7 standard procedure, to try and pick out the person that
8 you and your team were going to try and take down, but
9 to be frank, it happened on so many occasions, that to
10 have a mental image of an individual in that context is
11 difficult to recall.
12 Q. Let us move on and look at paragraph 25 on the next
13 page. Paragraph 26 deals with that recollection of
14 hearing the order of, "Go, go, go." If we focus on
15 paragraph 25, you have a recollection of seeing
16 Colonel Wilford, your commanding officer, in the
17 vicinity of barrier 14 and him being on the radio and
18 asking for permission to deploy his units to deal with
19 the riot and to push the riot back and make arrests:
20 "He asked for the order on several occasions but he
21 seemed to be being kept on hold."
22 There is a great deal of evidence, including
23 Colonel Wilford himself, that he was not actually at
24 barrier 14, that he moved in the wake of Support
25 Company, through barrier 12, which I can show you on
1 a map if you wish it. How certain are you of
2 a recollection of seeing Colonel Wilford?
3 A. What I am absolutely certain of are the radio exchanges
4 and what I am absolutely certain of is that I saw
5 a commander in that position. My assumption would be
6 that if I did so, I saw the Colonel. It would certainly
7 have been someone other than my platoon commander, or
8 for that matter the company commander. But if you are
9 asking me do I have a clear impression of Wilford in
10 that position, the answer is: probably not. What I am
11 clear about is -- are those radio exchanges and the
12 importunity of the moment.
13 Q. If we could move on and look at paragraph 27 onwards.
14 Could we carry on playing Video 1, please, if we could
15 take it from where we stopped and play onwards.
16 (Video 1 played)
17 MR TOOHEY: Mr Rawat, is the purpose of this possible
18 further identification or --
19 MR RAWAT: No.
20 MR TOOHEY: It has another purpose, does it?
21 MR RAWAT: Yes.
22 If we stop it there. What you see from this video
23 sequence is elements of C Company going over the
24 barrier. We are not sure, although we know this footage
25 was shot on Bloody Sunday, we are not certain of the
1 order in which it was shot, so it may not all be in
2 sequence. But this and other evidence indicates that
3 initially when the Paras deployed over barrier 14 they
4 had to either going round the barriers we saw or climb
5 over it.
6 You say in your statement that you were one of the
7 first who went over barrier 14; do you have
8 a recollection of having to climb over the barrier?
9 A. No, I do not.
10 Q. Do you recollect what happened to the crowd and the
11 rioters who had been in front of barrier 14 when you
12 were given the order to, "Go, go, go"?
13 A. Yes, they had moved back about 40 to 50 feet.
14 Q. You could still see them as you went over?
15 A. Yes, I could.
16 Q. In paragraph 29 -- we do not need to play the video any
17 further at the moment -- you say that in terms of
18 individuals you were with, the names that come back to
19 you are INQ444 and INQ1783.
20 444 has made a statement to the Inquiry. He has yet
21 to give evidence, but his evidence is that in 1972 he
22 held the rank of corporal and was also himself a section
23 commander on the day. Would it follow, then, that if
24 you were operating by sections, that 444 would not have
25 been sort of deploying with you as part of a group?
1 A. No, that would not follow and, indeed, my recollection
2 is different to 444's statement.
3 Q. Is your recollection that he was under your command?
4 A. The other way round, but that he had specifically put me
5 in a position to have an opportunity to command on that
6 day. So that was his general role and that would be the
7 position he would normally have played, but on that
8 particular occasion I had been, for a particular,
9 special reason, elevated to take that role.
10 Q. To be fair, I should also say that 444's recollection is
11 that he had two sections under his command, so that
12 might tally with you being given the opportunity to
13 command.
14 If we pick it up at paragraph 30, you describe
15 running through the barrier and then in paragraph 31 you
16 say you believe you turned left into Chamberlain Street.
17 You describe -- it is at a position you have marked as
18 A -- seeing a civilian gunman directly in front of you.
19 You say in this paragraph:
20 "When you carry out an arrest operation, the aim is
21 not to allow any space for anyone to take any shots at
22 you and you therefore close the ground very quickly.
23 I closed on the crowd to within about five feet of them.
24 The people were not in distinct rows, but the gunman
25 I saw was about two or three people deep into the crowd.
1 I cannot position the gunman on the map, but he was
2 further south than my position and to my front in
3 Chamberlain Street."
4 You go on in paragraph 32 to provide a description
5 of the gunman, of someone wearing a long Parka dyed
6 black, black gloves and holding an automatic pistol with
7 both hands, which he pointed in your general direction,
8 and you have a specific recollection of seeing the ball
9 shape of his clasped hands around the automatic pistol.
10 As you explain in paragraphs 33 and 34, the option
11 was to decide whether to engage or take cover. You
12 decided because of the Yellow Card to take cover; is
13 that correct, as a summary?
14 A. That is correct, though I do not think it was quite as
15 conscious a decision like that, it was a rather
16 inelegant decision, forced on by circumstances.
17 Q. The gunman was amongst a crowd of people. Were you
18 aware of others in the crowd having any weapons of any
19 kind?
20 A. (Witness shaking head). No, I was not, not at that
21 point.
22 Q. Would it be right to say that you in effect only caught
23 a glimpse of this gunman before you took cover in that
24 doorway?
25 A. It would be right, with the qualification that most
1 sightings of armed people are momentary glimpses, but
2 enough to establish what action one needs to take. So
3 on that basis, yes, I mean, it certainly was not
4 a prolonged exposure, it was a short, fast exposure in
5 which I viewed the person concerned.
6 Q. Is it possible that you were mistaken as to what this
7 person had in his hand?
8 A. No, I am afraid not. The impression is quite
9 ineradicable and the context in which I responded,
10 I think, was appropriate at the time.
11 Q. I do not need to put up your map at this moment. You
12 placed yourself at point A in Chamberlain Street. Can
13 we play Video 1 on, please.
14 (Video 1 played)
15 We can stop it there. This is footage you may have
16 seen before, INQ1799?
17 A. Yes, I have.
18 Q. It shows a group of men, led by Father Daly, as he then
19 was, carrying the body of Jackie Duddy, who had been
20 shot a few moments before.
21 It may be difficult because you might have seen this
22 video subsequent to the day, but do you have any
23 recollection yourself of seeing an event like that?
24 A. No, I do not, I am afraid.
25 Q. List 2 that you were given, of ciphers, is a list of
1 soldiers who were not in your platoon but were in
2 8 Platoon. Do you have any recollection of seeing any
3 of those soldiers in Chamberlain Street?
4 A. No, I am afraid I do not. I mean, they may have been
5 there, but it is just not in my memory.
6 Q. Could we have on the screen, please, B1726.007. Before
7 I explain what this map is, can I ask, for the benefit
8 of the technical staff, could we move Video 1 forward to
9 6 minutes. I will return to it in a moment.
10 INQ1799, this is a map that is attached to the
11 statement of Lieutenant 110, your platoon commander. He
12 has marked with arrows the route taken by the platoon
13 and his recollection is that he ordered the platoon to
14 move along William Street to the top end where it meets
15 Rossville Street and then, as the arrows show, they came
16 round the corner and deployed across this wasteground to
17 take up positions along this line of houses, along the
18 back of the houses of Chamberlain Street.
19 The evidence from 110 is that 7 Platoon did not
20 deploy on going over barrier 14, did not deploy down
21 Chamberlain Street.
22 There is similar evidence to that effect from
23 Soldier 003 who, when he gave oral evidence, recalls
24 crossing open ground and running towards a burnt-out
25 vehicle that was on its side. INQ444's evidence is
1 also, in terms of the initial deployment of the platoon,
2 it was to go up William Street.
3 Having explained that, can I show you, please, P254.
4 This is a group of Paras on the corner of William Street
5 and Rossville Street; the wasteground is just beyond
6 here, you can see a burnt-out vehicle on its side. The
7 reason I show it is because 003 suggested that he might
8 have been one of that group and indicated that it might
9 have included Lieutenant 110. Are you able to identify
10 anyone from that group?
11 A. Yes, I am, but neither of the parties that you have
12 mentioned.
13 Q. They are not Paras from C Company?
14 A. Yes, they are, but not either of the individuals you
15 have mentioned.
16 Q. Does the cipher list help you to give us a cipher?
17 A. Yes, it does.
18 Q. Can I ask you, if you are given control of the screen,
19 to draw an arrow on the screen to indicate the person
20 you can identify, please. Do you want us to remove the
21 lower red arrow?
22 A. Yes, because I am not aiming to point out a boot.
23 (Marked with arrow - C1799.11)
24 Q. Using just the cipher, who is the person you have marked
25 with the red arrow?
1 A. INQ96. (Image saved - C1799.11)
2 Q. Could we save that image, please, as C1799.11. I want
3 to go back to the video, please. You have already in
4 your statement mentioned that you appear at least at one
5 point in that video. I want to show you a sequence and
6 ask you whether you can identify yourself on the video.
7 Can we play Video 1, please, from 6 minutes.
8 (Video 1 played)
9 Can we pause there, please. Let it play so we can
10 freeze the soldier at the point he faces the camera.
11 I wonder if we can get a snapshot of that. Is that
12 person you? (Image saved - C1799.12)
13 A. I think it is, but I would have to say that there were
14 rather a few of us who looked similar at the time.
15 Q. I would like to save that in any event as C1799.12, and
16 it shows an image of a soldier in a doorway in Eden
17 Place and you think that could be you.
18 If we could play the video on, please.
19 (Video 1 played)
20 Pause there. Could this person be you?
21 A. I have always taken it that that person is myself.
22 (Image saved - C1799.13)
23 Q. If we could save that image as C1799.13. If we could
24 play on, please.
25 (Video 1 played)
1 Is this you?
2 A. I think so, yes. (Image saved - C1799.14)
3 Q. Could we save that as C1799.14.
4 The three images we have saved, INQ1799, if I could
5 help you orientate where you were at the time that
6 footage was shot, if we could have P203 on the screen,
7 please, you can see the three blocks of the
8 Rossville Flats and Chamberlain Street is just here, the
9 line of terraced houses I have marked with the blue
10 arrow. One can see the open wasteground. Just here is
11 an alleyway called Eden Place which allows access into
12 Chamberlain Street and the doorway where you were filmed
13 in 1972, is approximately just here. (Indicating)
14 If we look at P274 and P277 side by side. Both
15 these images show, from different angles, the burnt-out
16 vehicle at the end of Eden Place, just on the
17 wasteground. These photographs are taken on
18 Bloody Sunday and these two men are in Eden Place. That
19 seems to be the burnt-out vehicle where you were
20 positioned and are filmed in one of the images we have
21 saved.
22 I have shown you video footage which shows you in
23 the area of the wasteground at Eden Place. I have
24 explained to you the evidence of Lieutenant 110. It
25 raises the question that you may be mistaken when you
1 say that you initially deployed down Chamberlain Street?
2 A. I have to say I do not think I am mistaken. It was put
3 to me that I deployed down Chamberlain Street. I am
4 afraid I did not read the signposts of where I was
5 deploying at the time. What I can confirm is that the
6 rioters we saw when we first deployed were in fact
7 facing barrier 14, therefore on William Street; that
8 left turn may or may not have been taken, but it is not
9 a conscious memory on my part.
10 Q. You do not have a recollection of turning down
11 Chamberlain Street?
12 A. No, I do not.
13 Q. Can we have your map on the screen, please, 1799.10.
14 The point where you saw the civilian gunman when you
15 first went over the barrier has been marked with the
16 letter "A" in the statement that you have signed.
17 Given that you now say you have no recollection of
18 even going down Chamberlain Street, how can you be
19 certain that you saw a civilian gunman?
20 A. I am absolutely certain of the civilian gunman, I am
21 absolutely certain of the context of the street and the
22 doorway. What I am absolutely not certain of is whether
23 it was Chamberlain Street. Where I would have been at
24 that time would have been at the front of the platoon
25 moving forward and that is -- could be Chamberlain
1 Street if the crowd turned down Chamberlain Street; it
2 could be William Street if the crowd ran up
3 William Street, um, but given that I have neither been
4 to Londonderry since nor looked at a map for 30 years,
5 I cannot be clear exactly which street.
6 Q. Does your evidence, in terms of the civilian gunman --
7 if I could try and summarise it, please correct me: very
8 shortly after going over barrier 14 and moving towards
9 the crowd of rioters, you saw someone in that crowd that
10 you thought was a gunman?
11 A. The memory goes precisely like this: running very fast,
12 getting to the front of my platoon, catching up with the
13 crowd; seeing the civilian gunman and going into
14 a doorway for shelter, um, but the, the exact street
15 does not feature in that same sharpness.
16 Q. After you went into that doorway, you did not see the
17 gunman again?
18 A. No, I did not.
19 Q. When the gunman produced the automatic pistol and
20 pointed it in your general direction, what was the
21 reaction of the crowd?
22 A. I do not think I observed the reaction of the crowd,
23 probably just my, my own thought was, "What do I do in
24 this situation," but I certainly did not see any
25 particular reaction from the crowd, but probably I had
1 a better view of what the individual was doing than the
2 crowd would have done.
3 Q. If we go back, please, to page 5 of your statement, from
4 paragraph 35 down, please. You say that as you were
5 taking cover in the doorway you heard the first gunfire
6 that you heard on that day and which you describe in
7 paragraph 36 as:
8 "Two distinct bursts of automatic fire from
9 a Thompson sub-machine-gun."
10 You say:
11 "I was very familiar with the weapon as it has
12 a very distinct slow 'boom, boom' noise."
13 In what circumstances had you previously heard
14 a Thompson sub-machine-gun fired?
15 A. On three occasions: twice in Belfast and once in Brecon.
16 Q. On the occasions when you heard the weapon fired in
17 Belfast, can you tell us at all about the circumstances
18 of those occasions?
19 A. One was in close proximity and one was some distance
20 away.
21 Q. Was it being fired in a built-up area?
22 A. Yes, on both occasions.
23 Q. You may not remember the context of the operations, but
24 was it in the course of a riot or an arrest operation?
25 A. The first occasion was after a riot, um, and in the
1 follow-up. And the second occasion was part of a,
2 a sweeping operation, but I cannot remember whether it
3 was in pursuit of rioters or whether indeed it was in
4 pursuit of gunmen.
5 Q. Are you clear in your mind that those occasions were
6 prior to 30th January 1972?
7 A. Yes, there was one other occasion after that, that same
8 year, when I had a similar experience and -- but the
9 other two were before.
10 Q. At the time that you heard the Thompson sub-machine-gun
11 fire, were you conscious of the sound of rubber bullets
12 being fired?
13 A. (Pause). Not at the precise time, no, but certainly
14 around that time, yes.
15 Q. Is it possible to mistake the sound of a salvo of rubber
16 bullets being fired for the sound of a Thompson
17 sub-machine-gun?
18 A. Not in my view, no.
19 Q. Were you familiar and able to identify SLR fire when
20 fired in a built-up area?
21 A. Yes, I was.
22 Q. Could we have P235 on the screen. This is a photograph
23 which was not taken on Bloody Sunday and so the marchers
24 that you see in the top half of the photograph are from
25 a different occasion, but it shows us William Street,
1 Chamberlain Street and Rossville Street.
2 We know that in this building here were positioned
3 two members of the Parachute Regiment that were known to
4 us as Soldiers A and B, and they both fired on that day.
5 I think it is a matter of little dispute that prior
6 to C Company going through barrier 14, Soldiers A and B
7 between them fired five SLR shots across William Street
8 approximately in the direction of the yellow arrow and
9 that also before C Company went over barrier 14 a member
10 of the Official IRA also fired a shot from a .303 rifle
11 in the opposite direction.
12 Do you have any recollection of hearing any high
13 velocity gunfire before you deployed over barrier 14?
14 A. What I have a recollection of is hearing fire, but not
15 being conscious that that fire was, um, resulting in
16 exchanges of lead bullets rather than rubber bullets.
17 My first conscious awareness of fire was that Thompson
18 burst.
19 Q. How certain are you that it was a Thompson
20 sub-machine-gun that that you heard?
21 A. I am absolutely certain.
22 Q. At that time were you aware of any other gunfire when
23 you heard those two bursts of a Thompson
24 sub-machine-gun?
25 A. No, I was not, and I did not hear immediate return fire.
1 What I did do, was to change my weapon.
2 Q. This is the recollection of returning to the Pig and
3 depositing your rubber bullet gun?
4 A. It is a recollection of, um, in particular, realising
5 that I was inappropriately equipped, given the
6 circumstances, the changes as I perceived them to have
7 done.
8 Q. Could we go to page 6 of your statement and have
9 paragraph 40 down.
10 In paragraph 40 you deal with the change of weapon,
11 but if we look at paragraph 41, you say your next
12 recollection is of suddenly being aware of being in an
13 area of wasteground. Given I have shown you the
14 photographs and the video and the evidence of other
15 members of your platoon, and particularly the photograph
16 of the burnt-out van, has that triggered any
17 recollection of being near that van?
18 A. No, it has not. That is not the recollection I have of
19 the particular open ground I was in, in what I am
20 describing here.
21 Q. It was open ground from which you were able to see the
22 Rossville Flats?
23 A. It was open ground in which I was able to see a set of
24 flats in front of me with a wall running in front of
25 those flats.
1 Q. Can we have P203 on the screen, please. We can see, on
2 the right of the photograph, a large expanse of
3 wasteground and in front of that three blocks of flats.
4 There is a low wall that runs in front of the middle
5 block, Block 2. I will show you that in a better
6 photograph in due course.
7 Could this be the wasteground that you recall being
8 on?
9 A. Yes, it could.
10 Q. When you were on the wasteground that you mention in
11 your statement, do you have any recollections of seeing
12 the vehicles of Support Company in the area?
13 A. No, I do not.
14 Q. Do you have a recollection of seeing any members of
15 Support Company attempting to make arrests?
16 A. Later on I do, not a large element, but a small element.
17 Q. Can I show you, please, P275. Can we show P273 first of
18 all. As you may know, INQ1799, along with C Company
19 Support Company, also deployed into the Bogside in
20 vehicles and drove down Rossville Street. They then
21 de-bussed and at least some of them began to make
22 arrests.
23 One of the first arrests is shown in this photograph
24 that we can see here. There is the burnt-out van to
25 which I drew your attention and this is Eden Place,
1 which leads you to Chamberlain Street. In the middle
2 you can see a member of 1 Para, I think it is INQ1918,
3 arresting a civilian called Duncan Clark; do you have
4 any recollection of seeing an incident like that?
5 A. No, I do not, except on footage.
6 Q. If we please have your map back on screen, if you could
7 cross-refer, INQ1799, to paragraph 42, you say:
8 "Although I cannot say exactly where I was located,
9 I do remember seeing some high rise flats in front of
10 me."
11 I have marked on the map position B at the south of
12 Chamberlain Street:
13 "To the best of my recollection from looking at the
14 map and photographs being used for the purpose of the
15 Inquiry, this is where I believe I was located."
16 That is at the southern end of Chamberlain Street.
17 We can see it on the map. Given that there is evidence
18 that suggests that 7 Platoon did not deploy at all down
19 Chamberlain Street, is it possible that you were not at
20 position B at all, but that if anywhere you may have
21 been on the other side of the Chamberlain Street houses,
22 perhaps on the edge of the car park in the area of the
23 map which would be L14 to M14, approximately this area;
24 is that a possibility?
25 A. It would be possible if the line of sight still allowed
1 me to see flats and with a small wall in the front of
2 them. That is my memory; it is the wasteground, it is
3 a not-too-good piece of cover, the flats and a vertical
4 wall going across the front of them.
5 Q. Could we have, please, P204 on the screen. This would
6 be point B where you, to the best of your recollection,
7 tried to place yourself.
8 You have told us you have no recollection yourself
9 of going down Chamberlain Street. Given I have
10 suggested that 7 Platoon did not, at least initially,
11 appear to deploy down Chamberlain Street, I am
12 suggesting the possibility that you may have been
13 somewhere in this area, or that you may have been at
14 least a bit further down, even, but on the other side,
15 at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses.
16 There is Block 2 and I will show you another
17 photograph in a moment. There is a low wall that runs
18 in front of Block 2. If we could have P205 on the
19 screen, you can see there is a low wall that does run
20 across the front of Block 2 flats.
21 Having seen those photographs, is it possible that
22 you were not at position B on your map, but somewhere
23 positioned at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses?
24 A. I really do not have a memory of being at the back of
25 those houses; I have in fact a memory of being on the
1 right-hand side of an open space, rather than on the
2 left, and not having cover to my immediate left. So
3 that is not something I can readily identify with, I am
4 afraid.
5 Q. You do recall -- tell me if this is still
6 a recollection -- you say in your statement from your
7 position you were able to scan the windows of the blocks
8 of the flats; is that right?
9 A. That is correct, yes.
10 Q. If we go back to page 6, a recollection you have, if we
11 have paragraph 43 down, is that at your position, from
12 where you were able to see the flats, that you were
13 joined by Major 221A; is that still a recollection with
14 you?
15 A. Yes, it is.
16 Q. Could we have, please, B2168.003. This is part of the
17 written evidence of Major 221A, your company commander.
18 I do not want to read it all out, I will try and
19 summarise it. What he says, if we pick it up at
20 paragraph 20, was:
21 "One of my jobs as the company commander was to make
22 sure that C Company was working effectively with Support
23 Company."
24 He describes moving west from Chamberlain Street
25 down Eden Place and on to the wasteground, that is the
1 open wasteground I have shown you on the photographs.
2 He goes on, in paragraph 21, to say that he became
3 aware, when he got on to the wasteground, of Support
4 Company taking up defensive positions.
5 If we go over to the next page, realising that
6 Support Company were taking up defensive positions, he
7 says that he moved towards Chamberlain Street and
8 contained his company in the area of Chamberlain Street,
9 Harvey Street and High Street.
10 "... rather than let them proceed to the open ground
11 where Support Company were under fire."
12 Can we have your map on the screen, please. Just to
13 allow you to orientate yourself, you have William Street
14 here and the area that 221A is referring to; you have
15 Harvey Street, High Street, Eden Place. So it is
16 approximately the area, the area around the position
17 marked A.
18 When you were in the position where you were when
19 you recall 221A joining you, whilst in that position you
20 could hear gunfire; is that right?
21 A. Yes, that is correct.
22 Q. You refer in your statement to single rounds being
23 fired. Is that a reference to SLR rounds being fired?
24 A. Not necessarily exclusively SLR rounds, just single
25 round being fired, some of which were certainly, in my
1 view, incoming but by no means necessarily all.
2 Q. You have told us you could identify SLR fire in
3 a built-up area. Were you able to identify the weapons
4 that were firing the single rounds or the other weapons
5 involved?
6 A. No, I would not -- I was not.
7 Q. You describe in your statement, from your position,
8 being able to see a gunman with an M1 carbine sheltering
9 behind that low wall?
10 A. Yes, that is right.
11 Q. When you saw that gunman, were you still in the same
12 position and with Major 221A?
13 A. When I -- when I saw the gunman I was conscious of my
14 own position and my consciousness is also of being -- of
15 sharing that position with others who I believed to be
16 the person -- the major concerned and his radio
17 operator.
18 Whether they joined me when I was in that position
19 or whether we went into that position together and it is
20 from there I observed the gunman, I cannot be
21 100 per cent sure, but I am quite sure of their presence
22 with me at some point during that particular episode.
23 MR TOOHEY: INQ1799, the point at which you are being asked
24 by Mr Rawat, were you conscious of a Pig in close
25 proximity?
1 A. No, I was not.
2 MR TOOHEY: Do we understand from that that there was not
3 one, or you just have no recollection of one?
4 A. I imagine if there had been one, that is where I would
5 have gone for cover.
6 MR RAWAT: Linked to that, can I show you, please, P514.
7 This is a photograph taken on the day. It shows the
8 back of the Chamberlain Street houses and members of
9 Support Company on the ground. You can see, just here,
10 Eden Place, which leads into Chamberlain Street. Just
11 here is the burnt-out vehicle where, on the footage, you
12 appear to have taken up position at some point.
13 (Indicating)
14 One can see a Pig -- and this was a Pig from Support
15 Company -- and was in fact the first Pig to move into or
16 down Rossville Street. You do not have a recollection
17 of being able to see a Pig when you were on the
18 wasteground?
19 A. Not if you are asking me at the same time as I observed
20 the gunman, no. I had a clear field of vision to my
21 front and no-one was moving across my front at that
22 time.
23 Q. We will come back to the gunman, if I may. When you
24 first deployed on to that wasteground, do you have
25 a recollection of taking up a position -- by
1 "a position," I mean the position at which you found
2 yourself and Major 221A -- do you have a recollection of
3 a Pig being nearby?
4 A. No, I do not.
5 Q. Can I take you back, please, to P203. INQ1799, I want
6 to suggest something to you, and please feel free to
7 reject the suggestion. What I want to suggest to you is
8 that you, as a member of 7 Platoon, moved up
9 William Street, which we can see here?
10 A. Uh-huh.
11 Q. And then, under the orders of Lieutenant 110, moved
12 across to the back of the Chamberlain Street houses and
13 the members of your platoon then took up positions along
14 the back of the houses. We saw on the video footage,
15 you side-on, next to a vehicle, and it is suggested this
16 was the vehicle that I have shown you photographs of,
17 which was at the corner of Eden Place.
18 My first suggestion is that you moved no further
19 forward towards the Rossville Flats than that burnt-out
20 vehicle; does that trigger a recollection or is that
21 a suggestion you can accept at all?
22 A. I would like to make some modification to that
23 suggestion, if I may, from the picture in front of me
24 now.
25 Q. Go ahead.
1 A. That I moved, as you indicated --
2 Q. Can we give 1799 control and remove my red arrow?
3 A. That I moved as you indicated to this point, here, which
4 is my notion and recollection of the rough ground; that
5 the gunman I observed was here and was pointing his
6 weapon laterally in this direction. That would be
7 entirely consistent with my memory of the occasion.
8 (Indicating)
9 Q. Is that as far as your memory goes?
10 A. Up to that particular moment, thereafter, that I might
11 have moved forward to this position is entirely
12 possible.
13 Q. Your recollection now of seeing the gunman is that you
14 were on the far right side of the wasteground as we look
15 at the photograph and it was from that point that you
16 observed the gunman?
17 A. From the photograph I have in front of me now and from
18 the memories I have, that is certainly not only
19 consistent, but a plausible reading.
20 LORD SAVILLE: You talk in your statement of him being
21 behind a low wall. Can you help us on this, do you have
22 any recollection where that low wall was?
23 A. I believe it is this position here, forward of the
24 flats, but where a weapon protruding from where I was
25 observing would be an obvious breaking of the horizon.
1 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Rawat, it is 3 o'clock, I think we will
2 take a short break now.
3 (3.00 pm)
4 (A short break)
5 (3.10 pm)
6 MR RAWAT: INQ1799, we are returning back to the question of
7 firstly, your location and secondly, the second gunman
8 that you describe, in your statement, seeing. What
9 I would like to do and what I hope I am trying to do in
10 asking you questions is to try and elicit your
11 recollection of events.
12 Before we go back to the photograph you marked
13 before the short break, I am very grateful to my learned
14 friend Mr Glasgow, who has pointed out that in fairness
15 to you I should put the oral evidence of Major 221A.
16 If we could have, please, Day 294, page 164 on one
17 side of the screen. On one side is your map and you
18 have marked on there position B, which was, at the time
19 you made your statement, your best recollection of where
20 you were positioned at the time you saw this gunman?
21 A. Yes, it was.
22 Q. If we look on the left-hand side of the screen, this is
23 the oral evidence of Major 221A. When he came to give
24 his evidence your statement was put to him. If we go
25 down, please, Counsel was asking him questions. I think
1 it is the next page -- can we scroll up, please. What
2 Counsel, and it was Counsel to the Tribunal,
3 Mr Roxburgh, who was asking questions of Major 221A at
4 this point -- your map, we see on the right-hand side of
5 the screen, was shown to Major 221A, and your position B
6 was outlined to him. What 221A was asked was whether --
7 we see it at line 11:
8 "Question: Do you remember whether you went down
9 there ..."
10 By "down there," it is the position where
11 Chamberlain Street opens into the car park area between
12 the Rossville Flats. The answer given by 221A was:
13 "Answer: I cannot remember, but I do remember
14 appearing suddenly in front of the flats. It could well
15 be the case."
16 I put to you the written evidence of 221A, that he
17 had been on the wasteground, in the area of Eden Place
18 and that he had then, having seen what was happening to
19 Support Company, moved to deal with C Company, in the
20 area of Harvey Street, High Street, Chamberlain Street
21 and Eden Place. What emerges from the answer that he
22 gave in oral evidence was that, whilst he cannot
23 remember being at position B, he does remember suddenly
24 appearing in front of the flats, and you will have seen
25 from the photographs that Chamberlain Street is a narrow
1 terrace of flats -- narrow street of houses.
2 With that, can we go back to your statement, please,
3 at C1799.6. If we keep your statement and expand from
4 paragraph 42 down. I will come back to the photograph
5 that you marked, because we may want to save that, but
6 looking again at your written evidence and picking it up
7 at paragraph 42, what you were able to say was that you
8 saw some high rise flats in front of you. It could have
9 been Block 1, although you had always assumed you were
10 facing Block 2, and you then mark position B. You say
11 in paragraph 43 you took cover behind a large boulder at
12 the south end of Chamberlain Street.
13 You say it was behind that boulder that the company
14 commander, 221A, and his radio operator joined you and
15 you have a recollection of thinking that there was
16 insufficient cover for the three of you.
17 Can I show you, please, P280. This is a photograph
18 which is not taken on the day. If we could lighten it
19 a little. It shows that bottom end of Chamberlain
20 Street which opens into the car park of the
21 Rossville Flats. You can see across the span of
22 Chamberlain Street are four bollards and beyond is the
23 low wall in front of block 2. Those bollards were there
24 on 30th January 1972.
25 Does that assist your recollection in terms of where
1 you were located?
2 A. My recollection really is not of a bollard but of
3 a lower piece of cover that is more horizontally placed.
4 Q. If I show you, please, EP2.4. Can I have EP24.1. This
5 is a photograph which was again taken on the day, but it
6 shows -- the building in front of you in the photograph
7 is Block 2 of the flats, and you can see there are
8 civilians running away towards the car park.
9 You have, across here, what would be the open mouth
10 of the car park that would allow access for vehicles.
11 There is a low fence which you can just about see, which
12 spans across part of the wasteground that lies between
13 William Street and the car park of the Rossville Flats.
14 (Indicating)
15 There does not appear on that photograph to be a low
16 wall at the mouth or near the mouth of the car park.
17 I wanted to show you that so we could go back to that
18 photograph that you annotated just before we broke. We
19 have looked at quite a bit of evidence, INQ1799. When
20 you made your statement you placed yourself here and
21 your gunman behind a low wall, there. (Indicating)
22 Can we remove the two yellow arrows. We can change
23 anything on this photograph that you want, but can you
24 help us at all with, firstly, your deployment. Is your
25 recollection now that you must have moved down
1 William Street and then round the corner into that
2 wasteground?
3 A. That would be certainly consistent with my memory, but
4 the problem I have is not being able to get the time
5 sequence between seeing the first gunman, exchanging my
6 weapon and then remembering being in the open ground,
7 but it is consistent with, with the sort of diagrams
8 that are here and what you have been putting to me, yes.
9 MR TOOHEY: Mr Rawat, I am not sure how far we are getting
10 with this, but by using the video -- and I am not
11 wanting you to go to it at the moment -- but the various
12 shots that INQ1799 identifies as himself, does that take
13 us anywhere with any certainty as to where he was, at
14 least at some time on the day? In other words, do any
15 of those shots show him in Chamberlain Street or --
16 MR RAWAT: The difficulty, and Lord Saville has pointed this
17 out before, with that footage, is of course we do not
18 know the sequence of it.
19 MR TOOHEY: In a sense the sequence may not -- it may matter
20 in the end perhaps, but at least to establish that at
21 some point he was in some place might be perhaps
22 a useful starting point.
23 MR RAWAT: I have put that to INQ1799. I do not want to put
24 words in his mouth and I would welcome the assistance of
25 Mr Glasgow at this point, if he thinks it necessary.
1 INQ1799, we looked at the footage and that appears
2 to place you at some point taking cover by a burnt-out
3 vehicle at the point I have marked with this red arrow
4 and at another point, it may be earlier or afterwards,
5 in a doorway just on the corner of Eden Place and
6 Chamberlain Street. (Marked with arrows - C1799.15)
7 Now, there are two bits of footage that put you in
8 that doorway. The first, you appear to bring a gun up
9 to your shoulder. The second, which you were not sure
10 whether it was you, was when there were ambulances in
11 the area. That we can sensibly place at the tail end of
12 events of that day.
13 What we want is your best recollection of where you
14 were and what you saw and if we could remove the arrows,
15 I do not know, can you assist us further now as to
16 firstly your recollection of where you were when you saw
17 this gunman?
18 A. If you want my best estimate, um, from having seen
19 vertical photographs for the first time of the ground as
20 it looked on the day, it is where the, um, blue line
21 terminates on the loop that you have put in and that
22 that was fairly early on in the engagement and that the
23 photographs you have shown of me, which I acknowledge,
24 um, are at a much later time and that I was covering,
25 um, someone quite senior moving across open ground after
1 the exchanges had begun to die down. I do not believe
2 that individual would have run across open ground in the
3 middle of the exchanges.
4 So I think there are two sequentials here. I am
5 pointing to an early sequence at the very beginning of
6 the engagement and the photographs are of me very much
7 towards the end of that engagement and I think I have
8 moved over since -- over that time.
9 Q. Do you recall in your own recollection a point at which
10 you were at the bottom of Chamberlain Street, the car
11 park open in front of you?
12 A. The problem is that the open ground is not something
13 that I can consciously classify as being a car park or
14 as wasteground one way or the other. What I am
15 conscious of is the openness of that ground and that it
16 was quite expansive. But subsequently on my left the
17 arrest operation began, and I think I moved towards it.
18 Q. We have looked at your map at the end of that narrow
19 terrace that is Chamberlain Street. Do you have today
20 a recollection of being at that point?
21 A. In terms of those bollards, no, I do not.
22 Q. Let us go back to your statement. I suppose we should
23 save that. Can we remove the yellow arrow. If we save
24 that, please, as C1799.15; the red arrow marks where
25 INQ1799 believes his initial deployment onto the
1 wasteground may have been; would that be a fair way of
2 putting it, INQ1799?
3 A. Yes, it would.
4 Q. Let us go back to your statement, please, at page 6,
5 from paragraph 42 down, please. Taking you back to the
6 position you were in when you were with Major 221A, that
7 is picking it up at paragraph 44. You describe and you
8 have given evidence about the single round you heard,
9 which was not just SLR fire. You say you heard distinct
10 slow automatic fire:
11 "... which I would say came from a Bren gun or an
12 LMG, possibly the .303 version. Both these weapons were
13 in the possession of the IRA at that time."
14 Were you familiar with the sound of automatic
15 gunfire?
16 A. Yes, I was.
17 Q. Were you able to say from where that gunfire was coming
18 from?
19 A. I could not say that, but I am aware that it was not
20 coming directly over me, um, I was not conscious of
21 that.
22 Q. 221A had his radio operator with him. Do you have any
23 recollection of any radio messages at this point, or
24 221A conveying a radio message?
25 A. No, I am afraid I do not.
1 Q. In paragraph 46 you describe seeing the gunman and on
2 your map you have marked it at position C, behind a low
3 wall in front of Block 2. Was the gunfire still going
4 on at this time?
5 A. Yes, it was.
6 Q. In terms of the gunfire, this mix of single shots and
7 automatic fire; what did you conclude you were hearing?
8 A. I concluded I was hearing an exchange off to my flank,
9 but with the possibility that those rounds were going
10 across in front of me in a lateral direction. In other
11 words, I was not conscious of fire directly to my front
12 nor behind me, but off to the side.
13 Q. When you say not conscious of gunfire to your front or
14 behind you, is that a comment that applies both to the
15 automatic fire you describe and SLR fire?
16 A. Yes, that is right. I mean, let me put this in the
17 clearest terms I can: I was not conscious of someone
18 firing over the top of me, from behind, or firing over
19 the top of me or indeed towards me from the front.
20 Q. When you saw this gunman, were there other civilians in
21 the area?
22 A. There may have been, but I was focused on that barrel
23 and stock that I could see coming out and, indeed, the
24 fact that it was -- there was movement.
25 Q. Were you aware of any military vehicles in the area?
1 A. No, I was not.
2 Q. At the time you saw the gunman, were you aware of anyone
3 on the ground nearby who appeared to be injured?
4 A. No, I do not think so. I mean, neither beside me nor in
5 the vicinity of the gunman.
6 Q. You have corrected your recollection in that you now
7 accept that Lieutenant 110 was your platoon commander at
8 the time. Were you aware of where 110 was at this time?
9 A. No, but knowing him he would have been upfront.
10 Q. What about other members of your section or platoon,
11 were you conscious of them?
12 A. No, the two people I was conscious of in particular were
13 those who were in my vicinity, sharing or attempting to
14 share the cover available.
15 Q. To the best of your recollection, did you come into
16 contact when you deployed with any members of Support
17 Company?
18 A. Not initially, but subsequently.
19 Q. Let me revise the question, then: at around that time,
20 so when events were taking place, was there any contact
21 that you can recall, with members of Support Company?
22 A. No, I cannot recall that contact.
23 Q. Do you recall seeing 221A talking to any members of
24 Support Company?
25 A. No, I do not. Certainly not at that time, but, but
1 subsequently, yes, I do recall the meeting.
2 Q. How certain are you that this man you describe as a
3 gunman was armed with an M1 carbine?
4 A. Absolutely certain.
5 Q. Is there any possibility that you may have been
6 mistaken?
7 A. No. Once you have handled that particular weapon and
8 once you have seen it, it is so distinctive, from all
9 the other weaponry around at the time, that -- I mean,
10 part of our training was to be able to recognise and
11 distinguish weapons, but that is one that rather helps
12 you in the process.
13 Q. You had deployed for the first time in a built-up area
14 in Londonderry; that is right, is it not?
15 A. That is correct.
16 Q. We know that within a matter of about 15 minutes members
17 of Support Company had fired about 103 SLR shots. You
18 describe the firing as fairly intense in paragraph 45.
19 Were you conscious of that level of gunfire, of SLR
20 gunfire?
21 A. I was conscious of the intensity of the fire, that it
22 was not just sporadic, occasional shots, but sustained
23 fire.
24 Q. In addition, Support Company also fired a significant
25 number of baton rounds. Were you conscious, when you
1 deployed, of hearing baton rounds in the background?
2 A. Yes, I think I was.
3 Q. We have seen photographs -- the Inquiry has others --
4 which show that, certainly as 1 Para deployed into the
5 Bogside, a large crowd made its way south away from the
6 Army. All of the events you described happened against
7 that background, of fast movement, gunfire, a crowd
8 running away.
9 In those circumstances, are you still certain that
10 you saw a gunman with an M1 carbine?
11 A. Yes, I affirm the fluidity of the situation, but the
12 visual encounters that I had are quite distinctive and
13 absolutely clear in my mind.
14 Q. Could we have side by side C1799.10 and C1799.15, the
15 photograph that we saved that you annotated.
16 There is a discrepancy we need to resolve between
17 your map and the account you were giving before the
18 break of where you saw this gunman. Looking again at
19 the photograph, and if we give you control if you need
20 it, where was this gunman when you saw him?
21 A. In terms of the images and memory I have, the place
22 I think I can most appropriately put that person is here
23 and I do have a memory of the person eventually pulling
24 back into the flats, but it is nowhere near as clear as
25 the memory of the initial sighting of the individual.
1 (Indicating)
2 Q. If I could have control, please. I would like to
3 re-save this image as C1799.15. The green arrow now
4 marks the initial point where INQ1799 recalls seeing the
5 gunman; would that be an appropriate way of putting it,
6 INQ1799?
7 A. Yes, it would, but ideally if the green arrow could be
8 moved back a bit to the other side of what I now
9 perceive to be the likely obstacle behind which I think
10 that individual was.
11 LORD SAVILLE: The red blob in that position which you
12 yourself put on a few moments ago was intended to
13 represent, on the various hypotheses on which you have
14 been working, where you think the gunman was, so I am
15 not sure there is a need for a green arrow, is there?
16 MR RAWAT: We can remove it and the transcript will record
17 the position of the red blob.
18 LORD SAVILLE: That is already on the recorded document, so
19 we need not record it again.
20 MR RAWAT: Sir, those are my questions.
21 Questioned by MR A HARVEY
22 MR HARVEY: My name is Arthur Harvey and I appear on behalf
23 of a number of the families of the deceased and injured.
24 I wonder if we could have the last image up again,
25 that is C1799.15. The situation is that you went
1 forward from barrier 14?
2 A. That is correct.
3 Q. And the first corner you turned, as you were in pursuit
4 of rioters who were approximately some 30 to 40 feet in
5 front of you?
6 A. That is correct as well, yes.
7 Q. Some 15 yards?
8 A. 15 to 20 yards, yes.
9 Q. When you were initially asked you indicated, that is the
10 Eversheds statement, that you went into Chamberlain
11 Street?
12 A. That is correct, yes.
13 Q. What you said when you were asked by Mr Rawat was that
14 you were not mistaken about Chamberlain Street, it was
15 suggested to you that you had gone into Chamberlain
16 Street; who suggested it?
17 A. I think Eversheds, in the map that was up in front of
18 us. There certainly was not a photograph like this.
19 Q. Why did you agree with it?
20 A. Because I did not have a distinct memory as to which way
21 the pursuit had gone and that was a plausible
22 explanation. We could have gone straight forward or to
23 the left.
24 Q. It was not because you had a distinct memory?
25 A. No, it was not.
1 Q. When you told them you were aware, were you, that you
2 could be completely wrong?
3 A. Not "completely wrong," no.
4 Q. Why did you not just say to them, "I cannot be certain"?
5 A. Because I was certain that I was pursuing a group of
6 people to my front, um, and the exact direction of that
7 pursuit could have been a straightforward frontal move
8 or it could have been off to the left. I was not in
9 a position to be clear about the difference of those
10 streets, having not really seen a map before.
11 Q. You then went on to tell them that in fact you had
12 closed to within three to five feet of the crowd that
13 you were pursuing when you saw the gunman?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And you marked, did you not, on the map where you say
16 you saw the gunman?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You now accept that that at least is probably wrong?
19 A. The distance from --
20 Q. No, not the distance you were from the crowd, where you
21 marked on the map as having seen the gunman?
22 A. If I was asked to map a doorway, yes, and I accept that
23 that might not be the exact place where I saw the
24 gunman.
25 Q. This map marks where you saw the second gunman?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Where did you see the first gunman?
3 A. It would have been, if it was not on Chamberlain Street,
4 on William Street, in the crowd that was moving back in
5 front of us.
6 Q. If we could look at this particular photograph that you
7 have marked, what I want to suggest to you is: there was
8 not anyone on William Street running in the direction of
9 Chamberlain Street to the junction of
10 William Street/Rossville Street, that the crowd
11 disappeared up Chamberlain Street; do you understand
12 that?
13 A. I do understand it, but I am afraid I cannot agree with
14 it.
15 Q. You can see on this map, you can see the junction of
16 William Street and Rossville Street, can you?
17 A. Yes, I can.
18 Q. Just to the north but to the bottom of the picture there
19 is Little James Street; do you see that?
20 A. Yes, I can.
21 Q. Did you know that Support Company came through, in
22 vehicles, that particular junction before you had come
23 down William Street?
24 A. No, I was not aware of that.
25 Q. When you reached the end of William Street and the
1 junction with Rossville Street, did you stop after you
2 saw this first gunman, from whom you were only three to
3 four feet away from?
4 A. If I had stopped, it would have been for the tactical
5 reason that one always stops when confronted by open
6 ground to take stock of the situation, but I have no
7 conscious memory of stopping.
8 Q. You say in fact what you did was you dived into
9 a doorway?
10 A. That is correct.
11 Q. I take it that the persons who were with you ought to
12 have been able to see that?
13 A. If they were, um, looking at me, yes, they would.
14 Q. You were the very fast sprinter, I take it you were the
15 person who was out in front?
16 A. I was out in front, but in the distance to be covered
17 I would not have been that far out in front, and I am
18 not talking about being out in front isolated, that
19 would be a ridiculous position to be in.
20 Q. I appreciate that. In fact those people would have been
21 so close to you, they ought to have been able to notice
22 and see this dramatic action of you flinging yourself
23 into a doorway?
24 A. Hypothetically, yes, absolutely.
25 Q. Did you call out -- why "hypothetically"?
1 A. Because when you are in pursuit of people, you tend to
2 be fixed on the people and not on yourselves.
3 Q. Did you call out to the people that were with you that
4 you had just seen a gunman?
5 A. I cannot remember doing so, but I may have done so.
6 Q. If you had seen someone with a gun sufficient to make
7 you fling yourself into a doorway and your fellow
8 soldiers were following behind you who may not have
9 noticed it, is it not inevitable that you would have
10 called out to them?
11 A. No, it certainly is not.
12 Q. It is not. Did they carry on, so far as you were aware?
13 A. As far as --
14 Q. Pursuing this crowd?
15 A. As far as I am aware, yes.
16 Q. They were not very far from you and you were only three
17 to four feet from the crowd; did they arrest anyone?
18 A. They certainly did, but I am not aware whether they did
19 at that point in time, in fact I very much doubt if
20 they, if they did, um, but I cannot be sure.
21 Q. Did they arrest the gunman?
22 A. Not to my knowledge, no.
23 Q. How far would you have been from the junction of
24 William Street/Rossville Street when you first saw this
25 gunman?
1 A. My memory tells me I probably would have been about
2 halfway or slightly more down William Street, enough
3 anyway to have got a good speed up.
4 Q. Do you mean you have an actual memory now of arresting
5 someone in Rossville Street, or because something that
6 has been put to you in a logical sequence compels you to
7 provide an answer when your real answer should
8 be, "I have not an idea"?
9 LORD SAVILLE: Wait a moment, you have said (I do not think
10 you meant): "Do you mean you have an actual memory now
11 of arresting someone"?
12 MR HARVEY: No, of seeing the gunman -- being halfway down
13 when you saw this gunman.
14 A. What I have a clear memory is I had got up considerable
15 speed, of being at the front of my unit, though not
16 isolated at the front; of seeing the gunman close into
17 the crowd and of taking evasive action to my left into
18 a doorway.
19 Q. And you really cannot say where it was?
20 A. No, I am afraid I cannot.
21 Q. After that did you go back to your Pig?
22 A. My memory is, yes, that I went back to the vehicle to
23 get rid of something that was an encumbrance and then
24 rejoined my platoon.
25 Q. Where were your platoon?
1 A. As I have said, my next conscious memory is of being in
2 the open ground, so I assume I rejoined them there, but
3 I may have rejoined them at the bottom of
4 William Street. It depends how long it took to carry
5 out that action of going back to the vehicle and, and
6 getting rid of the, um, the other item.
7 Q. Do you recall where the vehicle was?
8 A. No, I do not, not exactly.
9 Q. This particular photograph that you have marked, is it
10 a memory of seeing a gunman here at all or, again, are
11 you simply, with the material that is available to you,
12 seeking to oblige by putting marks on a photograph?
13 A. No, I am not doing the latter. I am quite clear about
14 my memory of the gunman; I am quite clear about the
15 direction in which I saw that individual; I am quite
16 clear about the open space and the cover I was trying to
17 seek and I am quite clear about which end of the wall
18 they were breaking cover.
19 What you have asked me to do is to locate myself to
20 the best of my ability with the photograph in front of
21 me, and that is exactly what I have done.
22 Q. I wonder would you look at EP2.4. This is a photograph
23 that you have been shown before. The person on the
24 extreme left of that photograph with the rifle and in
25 the Army uniform is Lieutenant N, we have been told, and
1 that he fired three shots from that position up Eden
2 Place, across Chamberlain Street and struck the gable
3 window of a house, and this happens in fact before any
4 member of C Company has come into Chamberlain Street,
5 let alone William Street.
6 On this photograph we can clearly see the van that
7 you can be demonstrated to be at in the video. You had
8 no recollection, when it came to making the statement,
9 of being at the van?
10 A. That is right.
11 Q. At this stage Support Company in fact have driven into
12 the wasteground and, as you can see on the photograph,
13 and could I have control, this vehicle is the vehicle
14 which has been driven on to the wasteground by
15 Sergeant O's platoon.
16 You can just see, over the roof of the van, that is
17 Lieutenant N's Pig.
18 If we could look at photograph 412, this is
19 a position very shortly after those photographs. There
20 is a crowd which can be seen behind a rubble barricade;
21 the vehicles on the wasteground cannot be seen, but you
22 can now see that there are vehicles on Rossville Street.
23 From the moment those vehicles entered Rossville Street,
24 the only thing that happened was that there were ten
25 vehicles in all, quite a number of them moved up to
1 behind the gable end of Block 1.
2 Perhaps if we could go back to your photograph,
3 C1799.15, in other words, it is just, do you see the X
4 that is marked, just to the southwest of the position
5 where you have marked the gunman?
6 A. Yes, I can see that X.
7 Q. I wonder if we could look at photograph 524. That is
8 eventually how these vehicles ended up, it is the end of
9 the day. There is clear video footage, showing that
10 after Support Company go into the wasteground there is
11 Sergeant O's Pig. What happens very shortly thereafter
12 is that Major Loden's Pig and a Ferret car drive into
13 that position; down Rossville Street there are two large
14 soft-topped lorries; behind those there are two Pigs;
15 you saw none of that?
16 A. I have never said I saw none of that. I have said that
17 I do not have an operational memory of that. Similar
18 images I would have seen on more than 100 occasions.
19 Q. Let us put it this way: where you have now marked seeing
20 the second gunman on C1799.15, if there was a gunman
21 there he was standing in the midst of quite a number of
22 soldiers; is that your recollection?
23 A. No, it certainly is not.
24 Q. If a gunman was there with an M1 carbine and there were
25 a considerable number of soldiers right beside him,
1 would you expect them to take action against him?
2 A. No, I do not think so.
3 Q. You would not?
4 A. Would I expect the soldiers to take action?
5 Q. Take action against him?
6 A. I thought you were asking me the other way round. Yes,
7 I would.
8 Q. If this is the second time -- you have gone back to your
9 Pig to unencumber yourself, as you put it, of your baton
10 gun, and you have come back, at least at that time, with
11 Sergeant O, Lieutenant N, Major Loden, who had actually
12 de-bussed from his vehicle, the Ferret car and a number
13 of other soldiers on the wasteground; is that where you
14 saw a man with an M1 carbine?
15 A. I saw the man with the M1 carbine. I did not see the
16 other vehicles or individuals you are referring to.
17 Q. I ask you again: are you certain that that is where you
18 saw a man with an M1 carbine?
19 A. I am as certain as I can be with the visual images
20 I have in front of me. I am absolutely certain about
21 the visual sight of the M1 carbine, and this would be
22 the place that I would, um, I think, now want to locate
23 that individual, based upon memory, visual image and the
24 kind of distances I recall.
25 Q. I wonder if we could look at photograph 518. 518 is
1 a photograph which is taken from the car park. There is
2 a gentleman who can be seen to the left, just off this
3 photograph, and behind him is the body of a young man
4 called Jackie Duddy, being attended to by a priest and
5 several other civilians.
6 You can see there, quite literally in the centre of
7 the photograph, is Sergeant O's Pig and you can see
8 a soldier standing to the rear of it and to the right as
9 you look at the photograph. Do you have any
10 recollection of that?
11 A. No, I do not have a recollection of that.
12 Q. Just as you look at the Block 1, the corner that is
13 barely visible, you can see just behind it the shadowy
14 figure of a man who appears to be holding a rifle?
15 A. Yes, I can see that.
16 Q. Do you have any recollection of that?
17 A. No, I do not have a recollection of that.
18 Q. You see, very shortly after this photograph was taken,
19 the car park was completely cleared; the body of
20 Jackie Duddy was carried away, and he was carried away
21 down Chamberlain Street; you definitely did not see
22 that?
23 A. I have no memory of seeing a body being taken out in
24 front of me on that day.
25 Q. Can we take it you definitely were not in Chamberlain
1 Street?
2 A. You are attempting to do a reconstruction here and the
3 word "definitely" I am afraid just does not resonate
4 with such a reconstruction. I now feel it is much more
5 likely that I was not in Chamberlain Street, but
6 I cannot do better than that.
7 Q. What I want to suggest to you, firstly, the first memory
8 of seeing the gunman in the circumstances that you have
9 described is quite literally contrary to a substantial
10 body of evidence as to what happened to the crowd before
11 C Company went through?
12 A. Well, nevertheless, that is exactly what I saw and what
13 happened.
14 Q. Is it what you saw or is it what you remember seeing?
15 A. Well, it is obviously what I remember seeing, but that
16 is past tense.
17 Q. You have had difficulties with your memory in confusing
18 things that you were told with things in fact that you
19 actually recalled.
20 A. That is correct.
21 Q. That is quite specifically, because we can look at
22 C1799.4, paragraph 25:
23 "As I was located behind barrier 14, I remember
24 seeing Colonel Wilford being in the vicinity.
25 I remember him being on the radio and asking for
1 permission to deploy his units to deal with the riot and
2 to push the riot back and make arrests. He asked for
3 the order on several occasions but he seemed to be being
4 kept on hold. I assumed at the time he was speaking to
5 the brigade operations officer, but I do not know who he
6 was speaking to and I just presumed he was speaking to
7 someone up the chain of command who could give him
8 permission to deploy his units."
9 Colonel Wilford simply was not there, but you
10 remember it. How do you account for that?
11 A. Um, what I account for is three associations: first of
12 all, the set of radio exchanges which I listened in on
13 and which I have a very clear memory of. Secondly, of,
14 at the point that we deployed from barrier 14, um,
15 a commander with a radio -- maybe not him with the
16 radio, but with some people with a radio talking into
17 that and the final order being given, um, my assumption
18 was that that commander was Colonel Wilford, because he
19 would have been the, um, the most likely person to be
20 there, but I am not denying that it may have been
21 another commander.
22 But what I am absolutely clear about is that it was
23 not my platoon commander and I am pretty clear it was
24 not my company commander.
25 Q. That accounts for the assumption that it was
1 Colonel Wilford who gave the order. How does it account
2 for the fact that you remember seeing Colonel Wilford
3 being in the vicinity and remember him being on the
4 radio?
5 A. I do remember him being on the radio, but I am not
6 equally clear that the person would have been
7 Colonel Wilford, I think that is what I would, um --
8 that would be my natural assumption: that he would have
9 been the commander there.
10 But I have already said, I think, and please correct
11 me if I am wrong, that I do not have a visual image of
12 the Colonel being there.
13 Q. No, that you pointed out, with the greatest of respect,
14 1799, after it was pointed out to you by Mr Rawat that
15 Colonel Wilford said that he was not there. What I am
16 asking is: how do you have a memory of him being there
17 when he was not?
18 A. I think I have answered that question, if I may
19 respectfully just say.
20 Q. You also have a recollection of landing on Magilligan
21 beach in a helicopter?
22 A. No, I have a recollection of being in a helicopter over
23 Magilligan beach, it is the landing that is rather more
24 problematic.
25 Q. When you say "problematic," what you said in your
1 statement was:
2 "I was in a helicopter with 15 other men and we were
3 dropped on to the beach to assist as a reinforcement
4 A Company. I remember that a riot turned into a nasty
5 exchange. I particularly remember one civilian coming
6 at me with a large piece of driftwood."
7 Were you in a helicopter or were you on the beach
8 being attacked by someone with a large piece of
9 driftwood?
10 A. With all due respect, I think I have made it fairly
11 clear that I am not sure I remember which of those two
12 precisely happened, but I do agree that the two could
13 not have happened simultaneously. I have clear memories
14 of both; both looking down from a helicopter, which
15 would imply that I was in a reserve position, but also
16 very clear memories of being involved in a struggle with
17 two others to arrest someone with a large piece of wood.
18 Q. Were you in a helicopter overlooking the beach at
19 Magilligan?
20 A. I, I really cannot answer that question with more
21 shortness than I already have.
22 Q. What I want to suggest to you is that you are a very
23 suggestible person; are you?
24 A. I do not regard myself as being so.
25 Q. Tell me, when you made reports to your senior officers
1 of what you had seen, did they ask you to make any
2 statement?
3 A. I do not recall making any, any formal statement beyond
4 making a report.
5 Q. Who did you make a report to?
6 A. I would assume I would make that report to my platoon
7 commander or the platoon sergeant. In fact, the latter
8 would probably be more likely.
9 Q. You did not, and were not asked to give evidence at
10 Widgery?
11 A. No, I was not.
12 Q. You were not asked to make a formal statement to the
13 RMP?
14 A. No, I was not.
15 Q. Did you make any report to any superior officer or is it
16 that you have a recollection of making a report?
17 A. I made a report to a superior officer about my sighting
18 of a gunman; that superior officer may have been my
19 platoon sergeant, it may have been my platoon commander,
20 but I really cannot say which.
21 Q. Did they express any doubts as to the facts disclosed in
22 the report that you made?
23 A. No, none whatsoever.
24 Q. They took absolutely no action on it, if that is right?
25 A. Um, at the time I do not think there was any doubt in
1 anyone's mind, certainly not in 7 Platoon, that there
2 had been gunmen in the vicinity. I imagined that my
3 sighting was one of many.
4 Q. Thank you.
5 Questioned by LORD GIFFORD
6 LORD GIFFORD: 1799, I am Anthony Gifford, and I represent
7 the family of James Wray. I want to ask you about the
8 briefing which you have described as a "heavyweight"
9 briefing.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. It was given by Major 221A. You believe that the
12 adjutant, Captain Jackson, was there?
13 A. I believe the adjutant may have been there.
14 Q. And the intelligence officer, who we know as Captain
15 007; you know who I am referring to?
16 A. No, I do not, unless it is on my list.
17 MR RAWAT: It is not on the cipher list. In fact the
18 correct cipher is not Captain 007, it is INQ7.
19 LORD GIFFORD: Can that be passed to you. Is that the
20 person you were referring to?
21 A. Yes, I do recognise that name.
22 Q. That is the intelligence officer?
23 A. I recall him as an adjutant later on, but I assume he
24 may well have been the intelligence officer at that
25 time.
1 Q. He is the person you think may also have been at the
2 briefing?
3 A. Correct, yes.
4 Q. And it was a heavyweight briefing also in terms of the
5 message that was being conveyed?
6 A. Could you unpack that a little bit --
7 Q. Could we go to your statement at paragraph 8? You say
8 in the third line:
9 "My first impression was that this was a heavyweight
10 briefing and that meant serious business. My second
11 impression was that we were not simply there to act as
12 reinforcements, but that we would be called upon as it
13 was expected that the march would eventuate in a serious
14 riot which might require 1 Para to go into the no-go
15 areas."
16 You were being told that it was likely that you
17 would be deployed into the Derry no-go areas?
18 A. Assuming certain other things happened on the way, that
19 that was a possibility, yes.
20 Q. Your understanding was that these were areas where you
21 might be fired upon?
22 A. That was my understanding.
23 Q. From gunmen who might be in concealed defensive
24 positions?
25 A. That was my assumption, based upon the fact that it was
1 a no-go area.
2 Q. If we go to paragraph 11, your own thinking was that you
3 would want to make sure, if fire were opened:
4 "That my men and innocent civilians were okay and
5 secondly to resolve the situation decisively and to our
6 advantage if possible. Taking decisive action would be
7 to either put the gunmen out of action or alternatively
8 to close on them and make their position untenable."
9 Is that also the message that was being conveyed to
10 you by those who were briefing you?
11 A. No, it certainly was not, it was rather me thinking
12 through possible contingencies that could happen if
13 things were to unpack in a particular way.
14 Q. Certainly what you planned, as you put it in that
15 paragraph, was consistent, first, with the training that
16 you had received?
17 A. It would be consistent with the training, yes.
18 Q. With your experience of dealing with matters in Belfast?
19 A. Yes, I think so.
20 Q. And there was nothing in the briefing to say that you
21 should behave any differently or with any greater
22 restraint in Derry?
23 A. Not if we came under fire, no.
24 Q. Taking decisive action to put the gunmen out of action,
25 was it your thinking at the time that to do that and
1 protect yourself and your men would be very difficult if
2 you were also going to have to observe the Yellow Card?
3 A. No, because we, we had done it before. It is difficult,
4 in that one has to separate out those who are a threat
5 to one from others who are not, and that is not always
6 absolutely transparent, but it was something that we had
7 worked with long and hard and we had a set of procedures
8 and processes for going through.
9 Q. INQ1799, this Tribunal is trying to reach conclusions as
10 to the truth of this operation. Is not the truth, in
11 situations like that, where you are sent into enemy
12 territory where firing may happen and firing starts, the
13 reality is you shoot at anything which might be
14 a threat, without waiting to see precisely what it is?
15 A. No, that most certainly is not the situation.
16 Q. Thank you, sir.
17 Questioned by MR GLASGOW
18 MR GLASGOW: One matter for you: when you went through
19 barrier 14, are you quite sure that you were holding
20 your rubber bullet gun with your SLR over your shoulder.
21 A. Yes, I am quite sure that I was armed with a rubber
22 bullet gun, because the embarrassment was quite acute
23 when I had the --
24 Q. You have told the Tribunal about seeing the man who you
25 believe had the pistol, wherever he was, and the diving
1 into a doorway?
2 A. That is correct.
3 Q. And of changing what was in your hand from what was on
4 your shoulder, that is what it boils down to, is it?
5 A. That is right.
6 Q. The only question I would like to ask you, is: after you
7 had done that and heard what you believed was the
8 automatic fire, did you continue along whatever street
9 you had gone down or did you go back somewhere else and
10 go on on a different street? I think that is the one
11 matter maybe has not been asked of you; can you recall?
12 A. I think that question goes to the heart of the matter.
13 What I can recall is going back to get rid of this thing
14 that was no earthly use to me. My assumption is that
15 I then continued down the same street that I was
16 pursuing when I first had a visual contact, but it is
17 possible that I got ciphered off with another group and
18 that is how I ended up with the company commander.
19 I honestly cannot be clearer than that.
20 Q. The only reason I ask you, you said to Eversheds you
21 have no recollection of actually coming out of the
22 doorway and retracing your steps, but in view of the
23 photographs that have helpfully been shown to you and
24 the questions, equally helpfully asked, do you now have
25 any recollection of whether, wherever you went to
1 deposit your rubber bullet gun in the Pig, whether you
2 then carried on in the direction in which the crowd had
3 run or went down some other street?
4 A. No, I do not have that recollection.
5 Q. Thank you, sir.
6 Questioned by MR RAWAT
7 MR RAWAT: So we can be clear, the heavyweight briefing, was
8 it the entire company or was it section commanders up?
9 A. My impression was it was the entire company; that we
10 were all gathered together.
11 Q. Thank you very much, I have no further questions.
12 LORD SAVILLE: INQ1799, it is the Chairman again. Thank you
13 very much indeed for coming here to give evidence to the
14 Inquiry.
15 We will start again at 9.30, Monday morning.
16 Perhaps that message can be passed to those legal
17 representatives who left before the end of the hearing.
18 MR RAWAT: Sir, the lists have been distributed for next
19 week.
20 (4.10 pm)
21 (Proceedings adjourned until 9.30 a.m on Monday,
22 31st March 2003)
23
24
25
1
2 COLONEL WILFORD (continued) .................. 2
3 Questioned by MR CLARKE (continued) .......... 2
4 Questioned by MR ELIAS ....................... 45
5 INQ573, sworn ................................ 87
6 Questioned by MR RAWAT ....................... 87
7 Questioned by MR GLASGOW ..................... 110
8 Questioned by MR A HARVEY .................... 117
9 Questioned by MR RAWAT ....................... 120
10 INQ1799, sworn ............................... 121
11 Questioned by MR RAWAT ....................... 121
12 Questioned by MR A HARVEY .................... 169
13 Questioned by LORD GIFFORD ................... 186
14 Questioned by MR GLASGOW ..................... 189
15 Questioned by MR RAWAT ....................... 191
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