1 Wednesday, 29th October 2003
2 (9.50 am)
3 MR CLARKE: Sir, I think it might be helpful if before
4 Messrs Johnston and Clarke give evidence, I explain what
5 has come forward to the Inquiry fairly recently and
6 identify what exactly that is. Perhaps when I have done
7 that, it might be convenient to rise.
8 What has come forward are firstly two further
9 statements from Ms Johnston and Mr Clarke which I hope
10 are on the system. Could we have M111.92. What is on
11 the screen is the first page of the fourth statement of
12 Ms Johnston which the Tribunal received at its London
13 offices yesterday. The statement itself is relatively
14 short, it goes from M111.92 to M111.95 and it deals with
15 a number of issues that were the subject of some of the
16 evidence of the PIRA witnesses who came forward the week
17 before last, for example: the nature of Fianna; whether
18 the Provisionals used nail bombs in cans; whether they
19 had a Sten gun and the like.
20 It came also with some exhibits extending to some
21 90 pages in all. Those are presently being copied and
22 entered into the system following any redaction that may
23 be necessary and should be available within a couple of
24 hours.
25 I should say that the material which is in this
1 statement largely consists of an exhibit which
2 constitutes a research note or is described as
3 a research note and that note itself is almost entirely
4 composed of a reference to other published material
5 primarily pages of "Tirghra", pages from the book "Lost
6 Lives," and pages of the book "From Civil Rights to
7 Armalites".
8 So although this comes forward in statement form, it
9 is largely a medium for the attachment of material that
10 is derived principally, but not exclusively, from the
11 sources I have mentioned.
12 Could we have on the screen M112.81. The Tribunal
13 also received a two-page statement of Liam Clarke which
14 deals with the circumstances in which he came to meet
15 and to deal with Paddy Ward, and I do not think I need
16 to say any more about that for the moment. There has
17 also been circulated -- may we see whether it is on the
18 system -- AO82.1. This is the redacted copy of
19 a summary of an interview with Liam O'Comain of
20 22nd February 2001 and it is apparent from reading it
21 that it forms the source of a substantial proportion of
22 what is attributed to him in the book "From Guns to
23 Government".
24 Unfortunately, if one looks at the statement, it
25 begins:
1 "I can be quoted on this, I will stand over anything
2 that I say. I have no problem with that.
3 "In relation to the split ..." et cetera.
4 If one goes to the next page, AO82.2, by some quirk
5 of the word processing system, at the very end of the
6 second paragraph, after the words:
7 "Within the movement itself," and then the letter
8 "T" the first paragraphs of the statement, including the
9 heading, repeat themselves, so one gets the words:
10 "I can be quoted on this ...
11 "In relation to the split ..." et cetera.
12 If one continues over the page, AO82.3, that
13 continues until a little further on. It continues until
14 the passage that I am pointing out in the last paragraph
15 but two:
16 "Within the movement itself and [blank] on the
17 street."
18 What has happened is that instead of what must
19 originally have been there in the summary, there has, on
20 pages AO82.3 and AO82.3 been inserted a repetition of
21 the opening pages. We are given to understand that is
22 a fault of the system which cannot now be restored so
23 that a typescript of what in fact should be in the
24 intervening pages is no longer available.
25 Could we have on the screen X2.41.1. There has also
1 been circulated a transcript of the telephone interview
2 of Willy Breslin by Liam Clarke and that forms the basis
3 of what is attributed to him, or some of what is
4 attributed to him, in the book "From Guns to
5 Government".
6 Next and last but one, could we have on the screen
7 M113.1, the Inquiry was also provided, I think
8 yesterday -- but I may be wrong on that -- with the
9 statement of 24th October of Mr Bill Campbell who is the
10 Managing Director of the publishers of "From Guns to
11 Government," which deals with the circumstances in which
12 that book came to be published, broadly speaking, his
13 evidence is that he asked Liam Clarke if he would be
14 interested in writing a book and they settled on the
15 subject of a biography of Martin McGuinness.
16 Last, may we have on the screen KI2.45. The Inquiry
17 has received a statement, signed on 27th October 2003,
18 of Martin Ingram, the gist of which -- though I somewhat
19 over-summarise -- is to say that Mr Clarke was not a
20 stooge for British intelligence or anything of that
21 kind.
22 That, I think, is the totality of the material
23 bearing on Messrs Clarke and Johnston that has come to
24 hand. As I say, we would endeavour to circulate as soon
25 as we can the attachments to the fourth statement of
1 Ms Johnston.
2 LORD SAVILLE: I think the best way to proceed is to start
3 the evidence of Ms Johnston and, indeed, Mr Clarke and
4 if we run into difficulties because we are still
5 awaiting documents, we will have to deal with them as
6 and when we get to them.
7 MR CLARKE: There are, in relation to Ms Johnston and
8 Mr Clarke, or there may be, questions of identification
9 of sources; again, subject to any view of the Tribunal,
10 perhaps it might be appropriate to go as far as we can
11 before addressing any such question as we have with
12 previous witnesses.
13 LORD SAVILLE: Thank you, Mr Clarke. We will rise now and
14 then come back in when we have the witnesses ready.
15 (10.00 am)
16 (A short break)
17 (10.15 am)
18 MS KATHRYN JOHNSTON, affirmed
19 Questioned by MR CLARKE
20 LORD SAVILLE: Ms Johnston, I see you looking at me already,
21 I say this to all the witnesses: I am the Chairman. The
22 questions will come in the main from the barristers, the
23 people in front of me. Could you remember to keep close
24 to that microphone in front of you so we can all hear
25 what you have to say.
1 MR CLARKE: Could we have on the screen, please, M111.1.
2 Ms Johnston, you have made four statements to this
3 Tribunal. This is the first page of your statement of
4 30th May of this year. Are the contents of that
5 statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
6 A. They are.
7 Q. Could we have M111.56. You made a second statement in
8 connection with the subpoena that was issued and that
9 you made on 6th October. Are the contents of that
10 statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
11 A. They are.
12 Q. Could we have M111.91. You made, on 13th October,
13 a very short statement, agreeing with the contents of
14 Liam Clarke's statement of the same date and is that
15 true?
16 A. Yes, it is.
17 Q. Lastly, you made a recent statement -- may we have
18 M111.92 -- dated 27th October, dealing with some aspects
19 of the recent statements of Sean Keenan and others.
20 Could we have M111.92. It must be there somewhere, we
21 had it earlier this morning. Let us try and find it
22 later, I am sure you are familiar with your statement
23 which you signed on 27th October, your most recent one;
24 are the contents of that statement true to the best of
25 your knowledge and belief?
1 A. Yes, they are.
2 Q. As you will appreciate, everybody has had the
3 opportunity of reading your statements and I am,
4 therefore, going to pick out the matters that arise from
5 them. As I am sure you also understand, there are
6 individuals who either were or are said to have been
7 members of the IRA in either of its wings who the
8 Tribunal is treating, for the present, as anonymous.
9 Can you, therefore, please take care not to mention the
10 name of anybody who you understand to be or whom you
11 were told was a member of the IRA unless either I use
12 the name or the name appears on the screen; do you
13 follow?
14 A. Yes, I understand.
15 Q. If you are in difficulty, please say so. Could we have
16 M111.1 back on the screen. May we highlight
17 paragraph 1. You tell us that you are indeed the
18 co-author with your husband, Liam Clarke, of the book
19 "Martin McGuinness -- From Guns to Government," the
20 preparation for which began in late 2000 and the
21 relevant interviews took place in 2001 and you say that
22 you have seen Liam's statement and agree with what he
23 says.
24 In that statement he says that you wrote most of the
25 first part of the book; is that right?
1 A. That is correct.
2 Q. What induced the two of you to write this book at this
3 time?
4 A. Liam Clarke had been approached by Mainstream Publishing
5 some time I think around September 2000 to write a book
6 for them and we discussed this among ourselves and we
7 decided that we would like to do a biography and since
8 biographies have already been done, or were in
9 preparation, of most of the senior politicians in
10 Northern Ireland, we decided to propose to Mainstream
11 that we did a biography of Martin McGuinness.
12 Q. Could we have on the screen KM3.81. This is one of the
13 statements to this Inquiry of Martin McGuinness. Could
14 we highlight, please, paragraph 2. He refers to your
15 book which he says that he had never read at the time of
16 this statement and he expresses the view in the fourth
17 line:
18 "... that the whole thing was politically motivated
19 and intended to be malicious."
20 Is there a political agenda behind the publication
21 or content of the book?
22 A. There certainly is not, and in fact we did attempt to
23 contact Martin McGuinness on three or four occasions to
24 seek his co-operation for the book.
25 Q. He goes on to say:
1 "In fact, many people believe that both Clarke and
2 Johnston are members or former members of the Official
3 Republican Movement."
4 Are either you or Liam members or former members of
5 the Official Republican Movement?
6 A. Could I point out that Martin McGuinness himself was
7 a former member of the Official Republican Movement and
8 I certainly was a member of the Workers' Party which
9 I joined around 1976/1977 and which I left in the mid
10 1980s at some stage. I have had no connection with the
11 Workers' Party since that time.
12 Q. What about Liam Clarke?
13 A. Well, he can give evidence about himself, but ...
14 Q. Certainly. May we then, please, go back to M111.1,
15 paragraphs 2 to 5. You describe, in paragraph 3, how
16 you quote in some parts of the book which attributed
17 "author interview" to previously unpublished interviews
18 which Martin McGuinness gave you in late 1991 and early
19 1992 when you were a mature student at Coleraine
20 University doing a degree in media studies, as part of
21 which you had to prepare a video case study of six
22 minutes in length and you decided to base your
23 case-study on Bloody Sunday.
24 Just to make sure that we have identified the right
25 document, could we have on the screen M112.73. This is
1 something that is attached to Liam Clarke's statement,
2 headed:
3 "Script: Stones and bullets on a Sunday," is that
4 a transcript of the video that you made?
5 A. That is right.
6 Q. May we go back, please, to M111.1, paragraph 6 at the
7 bottom of the page. You say:
8 "In response to questions about his membership of
9 the IRA he [Martin McGuinness] always answered that he
10 had never said that he was a member of the IRA, but was
11 active in the defence of the people of Derry or that the
12 people of this city were well aware of the role he had
13 played, which are the typical responses he made when
14 questioned about membership of the IRA until he admitted
15 membership of the IRA for the first time in his
16 statement," to this Inquiry.
17 I would like in the light of that paragraph to have
18 on the screen M111.40. This is part of your note or
19 summary of the interview that you had with
20 Martin McGuinness in 1991 or 1992 and would I be right
21 to understand that this note puts into summary and
22 straight sentence form the contents of a tape-recording?
23 A. Of a tape-recording and of a video-recording.
24 Q. Right. What has happened to the tape-recording and the
25 video-recording?
1 A. After we made the video they were lodged in the media
2 studies department of University of Ulster, at
3 Coleraine.
4 Q. That is that very short, six-minute video?
5 A. Yes, and all the material relating to it.
6 Q. Which you provided a copy of?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. The tape-recording, do you know what happened to that?
9 A. Yes, the tape-recording was lodged in the University of
10 Ulster as well.
11 Q. What you record in the summary at the bottom of the page
12 is him saying:
13 "On Bloody Sunday, I mean, I was just a member of
14 the Republican movement. I remember a lot of discussion
15 in the town in the days leading up to the protest ..."
16 On the next page, if we could have M111.41, you
17 record at the bottom of the page:
18 "I have never said that I was in the IRA. I am not
19 a member of the IRA. I was a Republican activist in
20 Free Derry."
21 I do not want you to speculate if you do not know
22 what the answer is, but when you recorded that
23 paragraph, did you understand him to be saying that he
24 was not a member of the IRA on Bloody Sunday or did you
25 alternatively understand him to be saying "I am not
1 a member now," that is at the time when you were
2 speaking to him, and "I have never said that I was in
3 the IRA," leaving ambiguous whether he was or was not in
4 the IRA on Bloody Sunday; do you understand the
5 distinction?
6 A. I understand the distinction. I understood him to be
7 making the stock response that many Republicans have
8 made publicly.
9 Q. The stock response, being?
10 A. That: while I was not in the IRA, I was, however,
11 a Republican activist.
12 Q. Should we understand from that that he was describing
13 himself, as at Bloody Sunday, as not being in the IRA,
14 but being a Republican activist?
15 A. Well, you will have to ask Martin McGuinness about his
16 membership of the IRA, but what I understood --
17 I understood this simply in terms of the stock response
18 that IRA members, including Mr McGuinness, have made
19 when questioned publicly about membership.
20 Q. Did you understand the stock response to apply to
21 Bloody Sunday -- to the time of Bloody Sunday?
22 A. Yes, I did.
23 Q. A very small point on which nothing may turn, can you
24 help us on this: if you go back to M111.38, we can see
25 the first page of your summary of Mr McGuinness's
1 statement in December 1991. Could we have that on the
2 left-hand side. On the right-hand side, could we have
3 M111.22. This is a similar summary of a statement made
4 by Paddy Ward on 8th April 2001, approximately nine
5 years later. They look, to the untutored eye, to be
6 typed on the same typewriter. Do you know whether they
7 were, and why that is?
8 A. The interviews -- the transcript which I originally
9 prepared at 1991 or 1992, I had a printout of them and
10 when we were preparing for this book, for the ease of
11 using them for the book, I re-typed them.
12 Q. Can we come, please, to M111.3, paragraph 13. You are
13 dealing in this portion of your statement with a number
14 of your sources. The first one you deal with is Des
15 Clinton and you say that you had one very lengthy
16 interview with him which followed an initial brief
17 interview by telephone.
18 Could we have on the screen M112.20. This is, is it
19 not, your typed-up summary of that interview; is that
20 right?
21 A. That is right.
22 Q. Was this conversation taped or not?
23 A. No, it was not.
24 Q. As I understand it, you no longer have your shorthand
25 notes of that interview?
1 A. That is right.
2 Q. Why is that?
3 A. I have simply no idea, I mean, I, um -- we amassed
4 a great deal of material at that time and I am sure it
5 was thrown out shortly after it was transcribed.
6 Q. The blankings out are blankings out that you have done,
7 or the Inquiry?
8 A. That is right.
9 Q. Could we have on the screen M112.13. Could we highlight
10 paragraph 18.1 onward. This is part of Liam Clarke's
11 statement. It may be simply a matter of terminology,
12 but I would like your help on that. He describes in
13 sub-paragraph (b) how the only material which you hold
14 in relation to Des Clinton is a printout of the typed
15 version of shorthand notes which you took during your
16 interview with him. That is what we were looking at
17 a minute ago; is that right?
18 A. That is right.
19 Q. "(c). We have assessed whether any of the notes which
20 we found as a result of the above search are relevant,
21 directly or indirectly, to Bloody Sunday."
22 Then:
23 "(d). We believe that some of the notes are
24 relevant."
25 It may be being too literal, but there appears to be
1 a distinction between a printout of the typed version of
2 the shorthand notes which is being referred to in (b)
3 and the notes themselves which are being referred to in
4 (d); is that just --
5 A. I believe we are referring to the same thing.
6 Q. It is the same thing, is it?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. There are not some notes other than the printout that we
9 looked at a moment ago?
10 A. No, there are not.
11 Q. Can we go back to M111.3, paragraph 13. So far as
12 Des Clinton is concerned, did he approach you or did you
13 approach him?
14 A. We approached him.
15 Q. Was there any particular reason why you approached him?
16 A. Um, I would rather not answer that for the moment.
17 Q. Are you able to say what position or what link to the
18 IRA he had when you approached him?
19 A. Sorry, did you say to the IRA?
20 Q. Yes?
21 A. I do not believe he has any connection with the IRA.
22 Q. Could we have on the screen T488. This contains page 59
23 of your book. In that book it is right that you say:
24 "One of the youths who helped McGuinness [that is at
25 Duffy's bookmaker's] was Des Clinton, an IRA
1 sympathiser, although never a member."
2 Is that what you understood him to be?
3 A. We understood him to be broadly sympathetic to the IRA
4 at that time, as a lot of people were.
5 Q. The reason I ask is: could we have on the screen
6 AM111.66. This is in your second statement, where you
7 are dealing with Des Clinton and you say in
8 paragraph 13:
9 "His life would certainly be in danger if his
10 identity was disclosed, because he is a Republican or
11 former Republican still living in a Republican area and
12 he has given away information which is damaging to the
13 Republican leadership."
14 That use of the expression "a Republican or former
15 Republican," was that intended as a euphemism for
16 membership of the IRA?
17 A. No, it was not, it was intended to refer to the fact
18 that he was a former Republican sympathiser.
19 Q. Did you understand, after you had approached him, as
20 a result of talking to him, why it was that he was
21 prepared to give you the account that he did?
22 A. I am sorry, could you repeat that?
23 Q. Yes. You approached, you tell us, Des Clinton. We know
24 that he gave you an account which included an account of
25 some events that had taken place on Bloody Sunday. My
1 question to you is: did you understand from him why he
2 was coming forward prepared to tell you -- give you this
3 account?
4 A. He was initially reluctant to discuss Bloody Sunday, but
5 after we explained to him that we keep our sources
6 confidential and we would not reveal his identity, he
7 agreed to tell us what he knew about Bloody Sunday.
8 Q. Was there any particular reason, leaving aside
9 specifically Bloody Sunday for the moment, why he was
10 prepared to talk to you at all; did he give any?
11 A. No, he did not.
12 Q. Could we have on the screen M111.73. This is an article
13 in the Derry News of 23rd August 2001 dealing with your
14 book just before it was about to come out. It contains
15 a paragraph in the first column which reads:
16 "The Derry News has established that a number of
17 dissident republicans, and others who were active in the
18 early seventies, have been interviewed by Clarke about
19 their experiences of McGuinness during the 'Troubles'.
20 "In all, the Derry News knows of four long-standing
21 republicans, who would be perceived as being in the
22 anti-agreement camp, who were approached by Clarke."
23 Did you become aware that Des Clinton fell into the
24 anti-agreement, which presumably means anti-Good Friday
25 Agreement, camp?
1 A. No.
2 Q. What about any of your other sources, did you become
3 aware that any of them were in the anti-agreement camp?
4 A. Can I make it clear, we spoke to a wide variety of
5 people, politicians, clergymen, policemen, former
6 Republicans and the people who would still describe
7 themselves as Republicans, but we do not wish to give
8 away any information about those sources, except what
9 was publicly stated in the book. Some of these people
10 still live in Republican areas and are fearful for their
11 lives should their identities be disclosed.
12 Q. Is what you are saying, that to answer my question you
13 think might have that tendency?
14 A. I beg your pardon?
15 Q. Are you declining to answer my question because an
16 answer might, you think, serve to identify the source?
17 A. I think by a process of elimination people could
18 possibly be helped.
19 Q. Can I take it Des Clinton is not somebody who has given
20 evidence to this Inquiry?
21 A. I do not believe he has.
22 Q. Could we have on the screen, please, M112.20. This is
23 your summary of what he told you. He deals in this
24 passage with the events at the bookies in
25 High Street/William Street, described the two entrances
1 to it, one from the back and one from the front, and
2 says:
3 "The minute we came out of the back of the bookies,
4 Paddy Doherty was shot."
5 It says:
6 "We were coming out of the back part, because Martin
7 got word, he must have had a walkie-talkie, because he
8 said the Army's going to come in. We came out the back
9 part of the bookies. Paddy Doherty was shot dead,"
10 Et cetera.
11 Before I ask you a few more questions about that,
12 can you help me on this: when you wrote this book in
13 2001, how familiar were either of you with the geography
14 of this city?
15 A. We have a broad idea of the geography of the city.
16 Q. Were you familiar at all with the evidence that by then
17 had been given, over a fairly extended period, to this
18 Inquiry?
19 A. Well, we were aware of some of the evidence.
20 Q. Could we have the full page back, please. What he
21 appears to be saying in what you have recorded is that
22 the minute he and others came out of the back of the
23 bookies, Paddy Doherty was shot. Did you understand
24 from Des Clinton where he said that Paddy Doherty was
25 when he was shot?
1 A. I do not believe he referred to that.
2 Q. Did you understand from him where the shot that had
3 killed Paddy Doherty had come from?
4 A. I cannot remember. All I can tell you is that all the
5 material Des Clinton told us about Bloody Sunday is
6 contained in what you see before you.
7 Q. If that is right, it was not clear from what he was
8 telling you where exactly Paddy Doherty was or, indeed,
9 who was with him; is that right?
10 A. I believe that must have been the case.
11 Q. Did you understand Des Clinton was with him when he was
12 shot?
13 A. Was with who, Paddy Doherty?
14 Q. With Paddy Doherty.
15 A. I cannot remember, I mean, all I can say is that those
16 were my shorthand notes which were typed up and
17 re-reading them now, um, it does not seem to me that he
18 was saying he was with Paddy Doherty, it seems to me
19 that he is saying -- he is recalling what happened on
20 Bloody Sunday and he is saying: now, the minute we came
21 out of the back of the bookies, Paddy Doherty was shot
22 dead.
23 Q. Let us look at the next paragraph, what you have
24 recorded is:
25 "We were coming out of the back part, because Martin
1 got word, he must have had a walkie-talkie, because he
2 said the Army's going to come in. We came out the back
3 part of the bookies. Paddy Doherty was shot dead. He
4 said to me [blank] watch yourself because you were
5 nearly shot in [somewhere or other] the other night.
6 His last words to me were you watch yourself [name] and
7 then he was one of the first people shot."
8 It is not 100 per cent clear, but did you get the
9 impression from that that he was saying that he
10 witnessed Paddy Doherty being shot?
11 A. No, I got the impression from him that he had bumped
12 into Paddy Doherty at an earlier stage during the march.
13 Q. Could we go to the next page, please, M112.21. There is
14 some more detail a little later on in this summary. If
15 one goes to the bottom of the page, the summary records:
16 "The Army barrier was across the road, just where
17 the old picture house used to be, the thingummy there
18 across the road and the crowd was not that many yards
19 away from there. I went round the back of the bookies
20 and I put the back door in, me and another fellow. Then
21 [something blanked out] and McGuinness went in to the
22 bookies."
23 Do you know from the context whether the name that
24 has been blanked out is the name of the "other fellow"
25 that is referred to in the immediately preceding
1 sentence?
2 A. I do not believe so.
3 Q. It continues:
4 "What was going to happen was that they were going
5 to put a bomb in the bookies, because it would have
6 fucking blew every one of those soldiers up."
7 Did you discover what sort of a bomb he was talking
8 about?
9 A. No, I do not believe he had any direct knowledge of
10 that.
11 Q. When you say you do not believe he had any direct
12 knowledge of that, was, did you understand it,
13 Des Clinton present at the bookies?
14 A. At the same time as Martin McGuinness?
15 Q. Yes?
16 A. Yes, he was.
17 Q. Why do you say you do not think he had any direct
18 knowledge?
19 A. Because he told us he was not in the IRA. A lot of -- I
20 believe a lot of people took shelter in the bookies.
21 Q. How did he know what was going to happen, then?
22 A. Um, I cannot tell you that. I can only tell you that
23 Des Clinton was in the bookies on that day and that is
24 what he told us.
25 Q. When he told you that what was going to happen was that
1 they were going to put a bomb in the bookies, was the
2 sense of that that they were going to blow up the
3 bookies shop or throw a bomb from the bookies at
4 soldiers who were outside the bookies shop?
5 A. I got the sense from him that the bomb was to have been
6 planted in the bookies.
7 Q. So that what would happen?
8 A. So that it would blow the soldiers up.
9 Q. What, because the bookies -- what was the
10 suggestion: the bookies would be destroyed and the
11 effect of that would be to destroy some soldiers with
12 it?
13 A. That was my understanding of what he said at the time.
14 Q. He then went on to say:
15 "You could actually see them from the bookies. It
16 was only from here to that fence. It was an ideal place
17 for a bomb. The window upstairs looked on to
18 William Street and we were actually looking down on the
19 soldiers, they were only a few yards from us. You could
20 [presumably the word 'do' has been omitted] of damage to
21 the troops but the crowd would have been safe because
22 there was a gap between them and the soldiers. You
23 could have blown every one of them up and still got
24 away."
25 He appears there to be saying that you could get at
1 the soldiers whilst keeping the crowd safe. Did you
2 understand how that was to be achieved if what was to
3 happen was that the bookies itself was to be blown up?
4 A. He had nothing further to add to what he had said, to
5 what he had told us.
6 Q. There is his description of McGuinness getting word that
7 the Army was coming in, having a walkie-talkie. Then
8 there is a reference to Paddy Doherty being shot:
9 "We all ran out the back. We ran over to the
10 [blank] started to run over to Rossville Street, to the
11 back of the flats and then young Duddy was shot beside
12 me. I jumped behind the wall and then they shot
13 Michael Bridge. That all happened within minutes.
14 Where Martin McGuinness went, I do not know."
15 Presumably he must there have been saying that he
16 was a witness to all of that, seeing Duddy shot beside
17 him and seeing Michael Bridge shot, having jumped over
18 a wall; is that right?
19 A. I took him at the time to be saying that young Duddy was
20 shot beside him and then he gives the sequence he jumped
21 behind the wall. I could not be sure that he saw
22 Michael Bridge being shot.
23 Q. Can we scroll a little further down, please. You have
24 omitted some intervening material and then he recorded:
25 "The bookies was locked up."
1 May we come, please, to M111.16. You say in
2 paragraph 130 of your statement that after the
3 publication of the book you were told about the key,
4 that is to say McGuinness having a key; is that right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Without asking you at the moment to identify who told
7 you that, did the person who told you say that he was at
8 the bookies?
9 A. Um, I am trying to recall. We spoke to several people
10 about this incident and, yes, we were told by people who
11 were in the vicinity and I do not want to comment any
12 further on their identity.
13 Q. When you say "in the vicinity," were they people who
14 were actually in the bookies?
15 A. I am very conscious that I have promised to keep these
16 people's identities confidential and I am reluctant to
17 say anything that might identify anyone else, that might
18 enable anyone else to identify them.
19 Q. You go on in the same paragraph to say:
20 "There are a number of people who have said to me
21 that Martin McGuinness had taken military action on the
22 day, but I cannot comment further on that."
23 Did any of these people identify what sort of
24 military action they said that Martin McGuinness had
25 taken on the day?
1 A. Well, one of them was Paddy Ward, who has given evidence
2 to this Inquiry.
3 Q. Are there any others who identified what sort of
4 military action Martin McGuinness had taken?
5 A. Several anonymous sources who I have just referred to.
6 Q. Were you told what sort of military action it was that
7 he was supposed to have taken?
8 A. The action that they alleged that Mr McGuinness had been
9 taking was the attempt to take weapons from a car.
10 Q. That is what is recounted in your book?
11 A. That is right.
12 Q. It is that action?
13 A. It is, yes.
14 Q. Were these people who were supposed to have witnessed
15 that or to have heard about it?
16 A. They were -- they are a combination of both.
17 Q. Could we go back to M111.15. Could we have
18 paragraph 129. You say in paragraph 129 that
19 Des Clinton is one of the sources for the information
20 that people began to kick in the door of Duffy's
21 bookmaker's and you say that there are others "but
22 I will not comment on those".
23 Can you give the Tribunal some idea of the sort of
24 number of people who gave you information about what had
25 happened at the bookmaker's?
1 A. No, I am not willing to comment further.
2 Q. How can the number of people compromise anybody?
3 A. Well, I could say there were less than ten.
4 Q. Are you able to say approximately how many of them
5 claimed to have been there, as opposed to have heard
6 something from somebody else?
7 A. No, I am not willing to comment any further at the
8 moment.
9 Q. Could we have on the screen T488. This is page 59 of
10 your book which is on the right-hand side. You set out
11 the account of what happened at the bookmaker's, we pick
12 it up from the previous page, you say:
13 "As the firing intensified they began to kick in the
14 door."
15 Then you refer to Des Clinton and you quote
16 a passage from the summary we have just been looking at
17 and you say a little further on:
18 "Clinton had been on the civil rights march since
19 the start, where he had met up with another friend who
20 was in the IRA, who told him that weapons were on their
21 way down to the city centre."
22 That was information that you got from Clinton, was
23 it?
24 A. That is right.
25 Q. Did he tell you who the friend was?
1 A. I do not believe he did, but if he did, it will be in
2 those redacted notes. We only redacted what did not
3 refer directly -- what did not refer directly to
4 Bloody Sunday, save for some information which would
5 have identified his name.
6 Q. You think the name might be in the redacted part?
7 A. No, I do not think the name is in the redacted part.
8 Q. Sorry, the transcript has recorded you as saying, in
9 answer to my question: .
10 "Question: Did he tell you who the friend was?
11 "Answer: I do not believe he did, but if he did, it
12 will be in those redacted notes."
13 A. Sorry, I meant it will be in the unredacted part.
14 Q. Quite. Then you quote from your summary of his
15 evidence, the passage which begins:
16 "It was an ideal place for a bomb ..." et cetera.
17 At the end you say:
18 "Just before McGuinness and the others escaped from
19 the back of the bookies, a shot was heard. One person
20 who was there alleges that, just before McGuinness left,
21 and as he heard that the soldiers were coming,
22 McGuinness had fired a shot from the Thompson at the
23 door."
24 Should we understand that you are referring to two
25 different sources in these sentences? The first
1 sentence says that just before he escaped a shot was
2 heard and then the second sentence goes on to allege
3 that McGuinness fired a shot from the Thompson at the
4 door; should we understand that these are two different
5 sources?
6 A. That is correct.
7 Q. It is quite clear from the last sentence that the person
8 who alleges that McGuinness had fired a shot from the
9 Thompson was there; is that also the case in relation to
10 the man who is referred to in the previous sentence?
11 A. I believe the previous sentence may have been taken from
12 newspaper cuttings at the time and published books about
13 Bloody Sunday.
14 Q. That may not be a source of yours at all?
15 A. I believe that is the case.
16 Q. In relation to the second sentence, the person who
17 alleges that McGuinness had fired a shot from the
18 Thompson at the door, is the sense of that that he was
19 firing from a position at the door in the direction of
20 something else or that he was firing a round into the
21 door itself?
22 A. If I could explain, sir, we were -- we have been
23 subsequently told that, um, after McGuinness and the
24 others entered the bookies, the door was locked and, in
25 the general panic that ensued, one person was trying to
1 kick in the door of the bookies and we have also been
2 told that Martin McGuinness believed that it was the
3 soldiers who were attempting to enter the bookies and
4 fired a shot from a Thompson into, into the door, which
5 was a steel door. We have just recently been told that.
6 Q. Is that firing in order to get out; is that what you
7 understand?
8 A. I understood that it was firing because he feared the
9 soldiers were coming in.
10 Q. Right. But he was firing into a steel door?
11 A. Yes, that is what we have been told.
12 Q. Could we have on the screen M112.19, this is the summary
13 of the documents that have been provided by you and
14 Liam Clarke. Item 2 is maps and diagrams made by Peter
15 Doherty and yourself.
16 Could we have M112.23. Is that your handwriting?
17 A. That is my handwriting.
18 Q. Is that a map taken down from information supplied by
19 Des Clinton or Peter Doherty, or who?
20 A. It is a map drawn by Peter Doherty.
21 Q. You say "drawn" by him, I had understood this to be your
22 handwriting; did he draw a map and you --
23 A. He drew a map and inserted the names of the streets and
24 so on. When I asked his permission to release these
25 notes to the Inquiry, he asked me to replace his
1 handwriting with my own.
2 Q. Could we have a look at M112.24. Who is the source of
3 the information put on this map?
4 A. Again, I believe that to be Peter Doherty.
5 Q. Is that your handwriting?
6 A. It is.
7 Q. Is that replacing what was originally his or was this
8 document originally always in your handwriting?
9 A. No, that is his -- my handwriting replacing his.
10 Q. M112.25. What is this chart derived from, or this
11 summary derived from?
12 A. Those are notes I prepared.
13 Q. Of information supplied by?
14 A. Yes, I believe it is in relation to the previous map
15 where he has, um, given letters and numbers.
16 Q. M112.27, is this your handwriting or somebody else's?
17 A. That is my handwriting.
18 Q. What does it represent?
19 A. I cannot now recall. It was with the other maps.
20 Q. It appears to be somebody coming out of the alleyway
21 between Block 1 of the Rossville Flats which is parallel
22 to Rossville Street and the middle block, at least that
23 is one reading of it. Does that help at all?
24 A. I am afraid it does not.
25 Q. Do you know whose information is put down in this form
1 by you?
2 A. I am not sure, it was notes I found in a Filofax.
3 Q. May we come, please, to M112.37, these as I understand
4 it, are notes that you compiled before writing the
5 preface to the second edition of the book; is that
6 right?
7 A. Can I just re-read them to make sure, because there were
8 some notes prepared prior to publication as well. Yes,
9 those are subsequent to publication.
10 Q. You have very helpfully made a typescript copy of them.
11 Could we have, please, M112.48. Could we highlight down
12 to the end of paragraph 7. What appears at the top of
13 M112.48 is a typescript version of what is on M112.37
14 and it has an account of how the night before, that must
15 be Bloody Sunday:
16 "McGuinness went to the bookies, placed a bomb
17 there, had a key."
18 On Sunday, the door was kicked in. It does not say
19 by who. Do you understand who was said to have kicked
20 in the door on the Sunday, accompanied by auxiliaries,
21 two IRA volunteers and a third, Colm Keenan?
22 A. McGuinness and the other people referred to at point 2.
23 Q. There is a description of leaving the bookies in panic
24 when the soldiers were coming in, the four IRA men going
25 to a safe house in High Street, where they were joined
1 by another IRA man who had a Spanish Star pistol, which
2 he had bought himself:
3 "He dropped it on the road, and when he ran back to
4 get it, a shot fired by soldiers hit the heel of his
5 shoe."
6 The men were then driven back to the Bogside,
7 McGuinness changed his clothes, probably in his own
8 house, and they then all met up in Stanley's Walk, where
9 the O/C was waiting.
10 Is this all the account of one source or more than
11 one source?
12 A. I believe it is more than one.
13 Q. If we go to T476, could we have a look at that. That
14 appears to fit in with what appears in the preface to
15 the second edition, which is now on the page. You
16 wrote, the last paragraph on page 11:
17 "Confirming the accounts which they had already
18 given us and which appear in chapter 4 in full, they are
19 adamant that McGuinness not only approached the drivers
20 of the two cars in the Creggan and Brandywell estates to
21 demand that they give up their weapons to him, he had
22 also planted a bomb in a bookies shop. In a new account
23 we have been given, it is alleged that McGuinness left
24 explosives in the bookies the night before
25 Bloody Sunday. The sources of this information go on to
1 say that McGuinness actually had a key to the bookies
2 and that the door was only kicked down on the afternoon
3 of Bloody Sunday to disguise this fact.
4 "Another account says that, after fleeing from the
5 bookies, McGuinness was briefly trapped in a house in
6 High Street, until a car arrived to take him back to the
7 Bogside Inn where he changed his clothes before meeting
8 with other IRA volunteers in the safe house."
9 Am I right in thinking those two paragraphs on
10 page 12 which refer to two different sources are, in
11 essence, derived from the summary, the seven-point
12 summary we were looking up a moment ago?
13 A. Yes, I would have had other notes at the time, but
14 I have not have preserved them.
15 Q. Can we go back, please, to M112.38. This is another
16 note, again in your handwriting; is that right?
17 A. That is right.
18 Q. Again, it is after the publication of the first edition
19 of the book; is that right?
20 A. Yes, I believe so.
21 Q. If we look at the typed version, M112.48, could we
22 highlight from the second entry, "Kathryn Johnston,
23 typed up notes ..."
24 This is the typescript of those manuscript notes
25 which read:
1 "Guns on the day.
2 "1. Man who joined McGuinness in High Street had
3 a Spanish star pistol.
4 "2. McGuinness took guns from the car:
5 "3. A Volunteer arrested by the Paras in
6 Glenfada Park had a shortarm. When he saw the Paras
7 coming, he stuck it in the hedge. When he went back to
8 get it a few days later, it was still there."
9 Should we understand that that is an account of one
10 source or more than one source?
11 A. I cannot be sure.
12 Q. You have obviously asked yourself some questions:
13 "1. What about the cars?
14 "2. Was Keenan going to prime the bombs? No long
15 delay timers in those days.
16 "3. Did McGuinness fire a shot from Thompson before
17 leaving bookies?"
18 Should we understand that you made a note of what
19 you had understood from a source or sources and then
20 made a note to yourself about further questions to ask
21 that source or sources?
22 A. It looks to me as if the earlier notes, 1, 2 and 3 are
23 a summary of something I have previously been told.
24 I have put it there as an aide-memoire and then the
25 three questions are from preparation for a further
1 meeting.
2 Q. Do you know whether you got any answer to those
3 questions from the people to whom you intended to pose
4 them?
5 A. I am not sure. I have no date on my notes.
6 Q. Could we have the whole of the page on the screen.
7 Should we understand that the source or sources for
8 these notes, the ones which begin "Guns on the day"
9 et cetera, are different from the source or sources in
10 the seven-point notes that appear immediately above
11 these notes on the typed page?
12 A. I could not be sure, I would have to check back to my
13 original notes.
14 Q. Sorry, you say you would have to check your original
15 notes; does that mean you have got some fuller notes of
16 what these sources said?
17 A. No, it does not, sir, but what I was referring to is
18 because these were pages which are torn out from
19 a notebook which I subsequently found in a box, I could
20 possibly see by the sequence in which they came if
21 I could date them any better.
22 Q. Could we go to M112.39. These are some further notes
23 that you have found; is that right?
24 A. That is right.
25 Q. Again, they extend -- may we look at M112.40, 41, 42 and
1 43 -- are they all one of a piece?
2 A. I am not sure. I believe them to actually have been
3 taken at different times, although some of them may have
4 been at the same time. Again, I would need to look at
5 them in front of me and I could maybe be more helpful.
6 Q. Could we go to the typed-up version which is at M112.48,
7 starting from the bottom ringbinder divider. In these
8 notes the Inquiry itself has made some redactions.
9 Without revealing any names other than the name which
10 appears on the screen, are you able to tell us what this
11 passage in the notes reflects?
12 A. In relation to the name, I have no idea, it is possible
13 it was someone who was mentioned at the time who may
14 have been there.
15 The canisters and caps, um, and the reference to
16 "picked up canisters," I believe is a reference to CS
17 gas canisters.
18 Q. What is it a description of?
19 A. I believe it is a description of the CS gas canisters
20 which may have been thrown during the march.
21 Q. The line which has the words "gone to Canada -- runner,"
22 a name has been obliterated before "gone to Canada" and
23 then "shots up around Abbey Street;" can you tell us
24 what that is all about?
25 A. I cannot now remember. I presume runner refers to
1 somebody who is maybe acting as a messenger.
2 Q. Can we go to M112.49. You got a message "still active."
3 Am I right in thinking that may in fact be --
4 A. "Still alive", I believe.
5 Q. "Still alive"?
6 A. Yes, a typing error.
7 Q. Then there is a reference "ham radio," is that
8 a reference to Mr Porter?
9 A. It may have been, I simply cannot recall.
10 Q. On the next page what is written is:
11 "McGuinness Adj."
12 Can we go back to M112.49, when I was referring to
13 the next page, referring to what appears three lines
14 down, what you have written is:
15 "McGuinness Adj," it presumably means "adjutant"?
16 A. That is right.
17 Q. "20" is presumably his age at the time?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. A first name has been blanked out before the words "25
20 maybe;" should we understand that the words "25 maybe"
21 is a reference to somebody's age?
22 A. I think so, yes.
23 Q. Then there is a passage which reads:
24 "McGuinness plus three or four others.
25 "Undermined.
1 "Fuck him. We will take the guns down.
2 "McGuinness in charge of one car.
3 "Fellow in Brandywell in charge of other.
4 "Refused to hand over guns.
5 "That car stayed in Brandywell -- to defend it and
6 keep guns under control."
7 Can you explain to us what that is all about?
8 A. That passage relates to information that our sources
9 gave us in relation to what they believed had happened
10 on the day.
11 Q. Can you help us as to what it means? I interpret it as
12 meaning, but please tell me if I am misinterpreting it,
13 that Mr McGuinness, with three or four other people,
14 undermined the position of the O/C because they decided
15 they would take guns down to the Bogside, that
16 McGuinness was in charge of one car, somebody else was
17 in charge of the car in the Brandywell who refused to
18 hand over the guns, but McGuinness had control of one
19 car; is that the gist of it?
20 A. That is the gist of what they were told at that time.
21 Q. On the next sheet you have written:
22 "White Cortina(?)"
23 Do you know what car that was supposed to have?
24 A. I cannot now recall.
25 Q. A series of entries:
1 "Car round Bogside.
2 "2 shorts.
3 "Thompson sub-machine-gun.
4 "20 rounds holds.
5 "Out with full magazine came back empty.
6 "1 of shorts empty.
7 "6 shots fired out of it.
8 "Fired from bookies in Chamberlain Street."
9 What is that all about?
10 A. I think what that refers to, it may have been reference
11 to the white Cortina, I am not sure now. It is
12 referring to the fact that one of the cars was
13 patrolling around the Bogside. There were two short
14 arms and a Thompson sub-machine-gun. I must have asked
15 some questions about the guns and I believe the "20
16 rounds holds" would have been my note of being told,
17 probably, that a Thompson holds 20 rounds, it went out
18 with a full magazine, came back empty.
19 Q. That is the Thompson, is it?
20 A. I believe so.
21 Q. "1 of shorts empty," that is self-explanatory. "6 shots
22 fired out of it," that is out of the short, is it?
23 A. Yes, I believe so.
24 Q. "Fired from bookies in Chamberlain Street."
25 There is an entry:
1 "Before British fired."
2 What does that mean?
3 A. I am not sure. I mean, I have typed that out as it
4 appears in my notes, but I am not sure what it means, it
5 does not seem ...
6 Q. "Street went straight over to flats"?
7 A. I was including that in my earlier answer. I cannot now
8 understand what that means, it is simply my notes,
9 scribbled at the time.
10 Q. "Teresa Bradley saw car in Bogside," do you understand
11 what that means?
12 A. I believe I was being -- my attention was being directed
13 to the fact that a woman called Teresa Bradley had
14 recently given evidence to this Inquiry.
15 Q. Yes, she has. Do you know what "saw car in Bogside" is
16 referring to?
17 A. I think that may refer to part of her evidence. This
18 was an account I was being given by someone who drew my
19 attention to this.
20 Q. "Walked home, saw other car in Brandywell."
21 Do you know who is being referred to? Presumably it
22 is your informant, is it?
23 A. Yes, I believe so.
24 Q. "Knew straightaway what McGuinness had done."
25 Then there are some matters that have been redacted.
1 What about the material at the bottom:
2 "Brian Magee. Evidence yesterday. Saw McGuinness
3 at FDC"?
4 A. Again, the person concerned was drawing my attention to
5 the fact that Brian Magee had given evidence. I think
6 I could date those meets.
7 Q. I am so sorry?
8 A. I think the fact that Brian Magee evidence yesterday was
9 mentioned, I could date those notes, if that is of any
10 help to you.
11 Q. Over the page your notes says:
12 "McGuinness crying outside McFadden house.
13 "Stanley Walk seen crying."
14 Is that the same informant?
15 A. I cannot now be sure. Sorry, it is simply some notes
16 I made at the time.
17 Q. "Families," does that signify anything?
18 A. No, I cannot think what it signifies.
19 Q. What about "Knockalla Park behind Creggan Chapel," does
20 that signify anything?
21 A. Yes, it does. Um, there is a name blanked out there and
22 I was told the person whose name has been blanked out
23 could possibly have been some help to us.
24 Q. May we come, please, to M112.44. This is another note
25 headed "High Street full of people," which I think you
1 have been able to date as somewhere around
2 8th February 2002, because it is a note on the back of
3 a press release of that date?
4 A. That is right.
5 Q. Again, let us go, if we may, to the typed-up copy.
6 Could we have a look, please, at M112.50. Could we
7 highlight from "High Street full of people" down to the
8 end. This is an account that says:
9 "Gerard Donaghy had several nail bombs, S McCallion
10 wanted them.
11 "Throw nail bombs over roof.
12 "Knows nothing about bomb.
13 "Was fuse lit in bookies and not go off."
14 Pausing there, is this some particular informant,
15 this set of notes?
16 A. No, I think, I think those notes relate to several
17 people.
18 Q. What is the information that is being recorded; what
19 does "throw nail bombs over roof" signify?
20 A. The person I was speaking to was speculating that
21 perhaps the reason that, um, the person referred to
22 wanted the nail bombs was to throw them over the roof.
23 Q. "Knows nothing about bomb." Is that what the informant
24 was saying?
25 A. I think that must have been a response to a question
1 I had asked.
2 Q. "Was fuse lit in bookies and not go off," is that
3 a question or an answer?
4 A. I think that is a question, that I have simply noted at
5 the time.
6 Q. "Saw McGuinness and talked to him in bookies."
7 That is presumably what the informant was saying; is
8 that right?
9 A. That is right.
10 Q. "Saw McGuinness with short not Thompson in belt,
11 flashing it."
12 Then there is an entry:
13 "McGuinness left bet" for --
14 A. "Between".
15 Q. "Westland Street. Bog Inn. Then went over Moor" where
16 is that, is that the Lone Moor Road or is it somewhere
17 else?
18 A. The person who was talking to me at that stage said
19 "went over Moor" or "the Moor". I believed it at the
20 time to be a reference to the Lone Moor Road.
21 Q. "McGuinness there (?) saw him." "CU" is the Commercial
22 Union?
23 A. I took it to be the Credit Union.
24 Q. Of course, at Abbey Street. Then on the next page there
25 are the names of Colm Keenan and McGuinness and then
1 "auxies," is that short for "auxiliaries"?
2 A. It is.
3 Q. What is that reference to them signifying, do you know?
4 A. That they were the people who went into the bookies that
5 afternoon of the march.
6 Q. "Bomb put there night before. Had a key. Kicked it in
7 for the look of it."
8 Then a name is blanked out:
9 "... never in bookies.
10 "Running over street. Not injured. Talk at the
11 time he got shot in the heel."
12 Do you understand who "he" is in that note?
13 A. Yes, I do.
14 Q. Who is it?
15 A. Well, I think the name was originally in my notes,
16 I think the Inquiry has redacted that.
17 Q. I see, thank you. It is the name that appears in the
18 preceding and succeeding lines, is it?
19 A. I am not sure I follow you.
20 Q. There is a name before the word "never in bookies"?
21 A. "And had Spanish Star pistol."
22 Q. And there is a name, it is the same name before "had
23 Spanish Star pistol ..." when in the line that is in
24 between them you say:
25 "Talk at the time he got shot in heel"?
1 A. Yes, I believe that refers to the person whose name has
2 been redacted.
3 Q. It is the same person?
4 A. Yes, I believe so.
5 Q. "Dropped it and went back to get it. Not trapped in
6 bookies."
7 Is that a reference to the same person?
8 A. I believe so.
9 Q. "Trapped in house in High Street." There is a name
10 blanked out before "house", is that right?
11 A. That is right. I am not sure on re-reading this if it
12 refers to the person whose name has been redacted or to
13 Martin McGuinness.
14 Q. Do you know what location it is referring to, where it
15 was that somebody, whoever it was, was shot in the heel?
16 A. No, I do not.
17 Q. Could we go to 112.51. This is a note which reads:
18 "His daughter did time in jail.
19 "From Waterside.
20 "Policewoman shot. She did look out.
21 "74 or so.
22 "Died about a year ago."
23 What is all that about?
24 A. I think that is referring to the house in the previous
25 page, the owner of the house, to enable us to try to
1 identify the house.
2 Q. "McGuinness was in a bad way.
3 "Got car from High Street.
4 "McGuinness changed his clothes.
5 "Changed his clothes in his own house.
6 "Met up in Stanley's Walk.
7 "Volunteer arrested by Paras in Glenfada Park.
8 "Stuck a Star in the hedge."
9 "Star" is a type of gun; is that right?
10 A. I believe so.
11 Q. "Then went back and got gun."
12 That seems an echo of an account we had seen earlier
13 in one of your notes?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. There is a name blanked out:
16 "Pushed out by 75. [blank] pushed out at court's
17 martial."
18 Then on the fourth page your note reads:
19 "G Donaghy and McGuinness standing beside each other
20 and Eddie Daly standing against a wall when argument
21 with McCallion was going on."
22 Is that referring to the incident, if we go back to
23 M112.50, which begins this set of notes:
24 "Gerard Donaghy had several nail bombs, S McCallion
25 wanted them."
1 A. That is correct.
2 Q. As I understand it, just correct me I am wrong, you
3 think what is recorded at M112.50 and M112.51 comes from
4 more than one source?
5 A. Yes, I believe it does.
6 Q. Are you prepared to identify to the Tribunal any of the
7 people who are your sources for information about events
8 at the bookies?
9 A. No, I am not prepared to identify them.
10 Q. Could we go to M112.20. We have come back now to
11 Des Clinton's statement. Can we highlight from "The
12 Army had a place out the old city," the last three
13 paragraphs. Your note reads:
14 "The Army had a place out the old city Derry
15 [blank]. There was a lot of people there, things were
16 serious then, there were thousands there. At the finish
17 there were bombs thrown, we had been caught in a riot,
18 I was crawling along the middle of the road. The Army
19 were returning fire and I had this fear that I was going
20 to get shot in the soles of my feet."
21 To the first-time reader the first sentence does not
22 seem to bear any relationship to the next four lines.
23 Can you help us at all as to what was being referred to
24 by saying that the Army had a place out of the old city
25 Derry?
1 A. I took it to mean that it was an Army base of some kind.
2 Q. Do you understand what "army base" --
3 A. No, I do not.
4 Q. -- had been referring to?
5 A. No, I do not.
6 Q. The next four lines, about a lot of people being around,
7 bombs were being thrown, being caught in a riot and
8 crawling along the middle of the road, does that relate
9 to the events of Bloody Sunday?
10 A. No, it is my, it is my memory that that refers to
11 a period some months before Bloody Sunday.
12 Q. Could we have on the screen T490. Could we have a look
13 at this paragraph in light of what you have just said.
14 This is what appears in the book, where you wrote this:
15 "Des Clinton was devastated. He had gone on the
16 march with work mates ..."
17 There is a reference to meeting Big Pat Harkin.
18 Then you quote from Des Clinton, saying:
19 "'I had only seen him [Paddy Doherty] a few nights
20 before. His last words were, 'watch yourself, because
21 you were nearly shot the other night'. We had been
22 caught in a riot and I was crawling along the road --
23 I thought I was going to be shot in the sole of the
24 foot. Instead it was Paddy.'"
25 That reference to thinking that he was going to be
1 shot in the soles of his feet appears to be a reference
2 to the passage that we were looking at in your summary
3 of Des Clinton's statement and appears to be attributed
4 in your book to something that happened on
5 Bloody Sunday, although in the event it was not
6 Des Clinton that was shot, but Paddy Doherty; do you
7 follow?
8 A. No, I am not quite sure what you mean.
9 Q. Can we have this on one side of the screen and can we
10 have M112.20 on the other. Could we highlight the last
11 two paragraphs. In your summary of what Des Clinton was
12 telling you, there is a reference to bombs being thrown
13 and the exact words:
14 "We had been caught in a riot, I was crawling along
15 the middle of the road. The Army were returning fire
16 and I had this fear that I was going to get shot in the
17 soles of my feet."
18 You told me you thought that did not relate to the
19 events of Bloody Sunday. What I am pointing out, if
20 I could have control, is that in your book those words:
21 "... we had been caught in a riot and I was crawling
22 along the road. I thought I was going to be shot in the
23 sole of the foot," appeared to be attributed to the
24 events of Bloody Sunday; do you follow?
25 A. Yes, I follow and if I could explain. I said,
1 I believe, it was from my memory that the riot had taken
2 place some months before Bloody Sunday. But I see you
3 are right, from the book it was some nights before
4 Bloody Sunday. But I think when Des Clinton is speaking
5 there, he is reflecting on the turn of events.
6 "I thought I was going to be shot at the sole of the
7 foot," ie at the riot, instead it was Paddy, who of
8 course was shot on Bloody Sunday. He is simply
9 reflecting there on the turn of events.
10 Q. I see, he has been referring to a riot prior to
11 Bloody Sunday, where he thought he was going to be shot
12 in the sole of the foot. Instead, Paddy Doherty was
13 shot on Bloody Sunday?
14 A. That is correct.
15 Q. Could we come, please, to M112.22. This, again, is
16 Des Clinton as recorded by you. In the paragraphs at
17 the end of M112.22, you record him saying:
18 "I knew most of the people shot that day personally
19 and they were 100 per cent innocent. Nothing to do with
20 Sinn Fein and the IRA."
21 Then he goes on to say:
22 "I think there must have been other IRA activity
23 that day. I walked up from Creggan and I met another
24 friend of mine who was in the IRA. He said there was
25 a lot of stuff in another car coming down from Creggan
1 with the people drifting down to the ... this was well
2 before the shooting started."
3 Those words speak for themselves. Did you ever get
4 any more detail about what other IRA activity he was
5 talking about?
6 A. No, he would not be drawn on that and I would point out
7 he says:
8 "I would think there must have been other IRA
9 activity that day."
10 Just one point, there is not an omission there,
11 I have just put those dots, he paused at that point.
12 There is no omission.
13 Q. I see. May we come, please, to M111.3, paragraphs 15
14 and 16. I am now turning to the subject of Peter
15 Doherty, another pseudonym. You say that both you and
16 Liam interviewed Peter Doherty at length and frequently
17 and the main interview took place with him in early
18 spring 2001 and you say in paragraph 16 that certain
19 parts of the notes tend to identify him. Which notes
20 were you referring to when you said that?
21 A. To his handwritten notes on the map.
22 Q. Because there is not, as I understand it, a typed-up
23 summary of what he told you; is that right?
24 A. That is correct.
25 Q. Was there ever a typed-up summary?
1 A. There was at one stage, yes.
2 Q. What has happened to that?
3 A. Prior to publication of the book we had amassed a great
4 deal of material and quite simply got rid of it. We
5 were also aware that some of these people are fearful
6 for their lives if their identity were to be publicly
7 known.
8 Q. Could we have on the screen P492.10. Could we highlight
9 the last full paragraph on the second page, page 39 on
10 the right-hand side. You record there that:
11 "Shortly after the Derry Fianna started in 1963,
12 a group of left-wing republicans were beginning to
13 revive the IRA.
14 "Peter Doherty is a former member of the IRA who
15 became active at that time."
16 Then you refer to border training camps and the
17 like. Should we understand from that that what you were
18 told was that in 1972 Peter Doherty was a member of the
19 IRA?
20 A. Sir, I do not wish to answer any more questions about
21 Peter Doherty's, um, position in case that would enable
22 others to identify him.
23 Q. Let us take what is in your book: you record in your
24 book that he was a former member of the IRA who became
25 active at that time and that relates, does it not, to
1 1963, which is the time you are talking about in this
2 sentence?
3 A. Well, I have nothing to add to what appeared in the
4 book.
5 Q. I am just asking you to explain what the book means?
6 A. Well, since it says in the book that Peter Doherty is
7 a former member of the IRA, he became active at that
8 time, I would say that, but I cannot add to it.
9 Q. Can we take it also that he is not somebody who, so far
10 as you are aware, has given evidence to this Inquiry?
11 A. I do not wish to comment any further on any facts which
12 would enable anyone to identify Peter Doherty.
13 Q. Is there a particular reason you were quite prepared to
14 answer that question in relation to another of your
15 sources?
16 A. Well, if I said that, um, for example, if I were to say
17 my sources were B, C, D, E and F, but there were six of
18 them and you were to turn round to me and say then your
19 source must have been A -- do you understand what
20 I mean? I am reluctant to enter into a process of
21 elimination.
22 Q. I was not proposing to embark on a process of
23 elimination. Anyway, you do not want to tell us whether
24 he has given evidence or not?
25 A. That is correct.
1 Q. Was he somebody who was there on Bloody Sunday?
2 A. Can I perhaps answer that by explaining: the IRA at that
3 time, um, the membership was well-known to each other.
4 If I am to give information about Peter Doherty it will
5 enable other people to identify him.
6 Q. The information we already have in a sense, M112.2.
7 This is paragraph 11 of Liam Clarke's statement, which
8 says that both of you interviewed Peter Doherty at
9 length and frequently. In the last sentence he says:
10 "He was not present in Derry on Bloody Sunday."
11 Is that right?
12 A. Sir, I am reluctant to answer, because I do not wish to
13 give any information which will identify Peter Doherty
14 or enable anyone to make any identification.
15 LORD SAVILLE: It is the Chairman speaking, I do not quite
16 follow that, this is part of your statement.
17 MR CLARKE: That is part of Mr Clarke's statement.
18 LORD SAVILLE: I beg your pardon, Mr Clarke's statement,
19 which I think you read and say is correct; is that not
20 right?
21 A. Sir, I will stand by our statements.
22 LORD SAVILLE: I beg your pardon?
23 A. I will stand by what we have written in our statements,
24 but I am reluctant to give any further information, for
25 the reasons I have explained.
1 MR CLARKE: Can we come, please, to M111.4, paragraph 25.
2 I now turn to Liam O'Comain. That of course is his real
3 name and he was interviewed on the record; was he not.
4 A. He was.
5 Q. So there is no problem with identity there. You say he
6 told you that everything he told you was on the record
7 unless he specifically requested confidentiality at
8 certain points; there were some points, but they did not
9 relate to Bloody Sunday?
10 A. That is right, I believe there was one incident.
11 Q. Could we have on the screen AO82.5. Could we look at
12 the paragraph beginning:
13 "There is an interesting twist ..."
14 Could we have that on the left-hand side of the
15 screen, please. On the right-hand side of the screen
16 could we have T490. Could we highlight the first full
17 paragraph, beginning:
18 "The man who was captured on film ..."
19 This is page 62 of your book. In the summary of
20 what he told you, you wrote this:
21 "There is an interesting twist to Bloody Sunday.
22 There was an element within the Officials that
23 definitely made a decision to open up on Bloody Sunday,
24 and they did. It was nothing to do with Bishop Daly's
25 gunman. I was on the fringes then ..."
1 What is quoted in the book, is this:
2 "There is an interesting twist to Bloody Sunday.
3 For a while there was an element in the Officials who
4 disagreed with Goulding's thinking on the ceasefire and
5 they definitely made a decision to open up on
6 Bloody Sunday. I was on the fringes then ..."
7 So what has been omitted are the words "and they
8 did, it was nothing to do with Bishop Daly's gunman".
9 Do you know how that comes about?
10 A. When we -- the only reason I can give for it, and
11 I think it was the case, is that prior to publication we
12 had something like 13,000 words too much for the book
13 and we had to go through and edit out sections and
14 certainly some sections were cut.
15 Q. The three words that matter are the words "and they
16 did"; it cannot be right, can it, that you left those
17 out because you needed the space?
18 A. Well, I simply cannot explain, I would have to go back
19 and, and consider that.
20 Q. You record him saying that:
21 "... an element of the Officials definitely made
22 a decision to open up, and they did. It was nothing to
23 do with Bishop Daly's gunman."
24 Did you get any further information as to what
25 "opening up" on Bloody Sunday took place, other than
1 Bishop Daly's gunman?
2 A. The entire content of our interview with Liam O'Comain
3 is before the Inquiry.
4 Q. Is the answer to my question: no?
5 A. I believe so.
6 Q. Could we have, please, M111.5. I am coming now to Paddy
7 Ward. Could we highlight the two paragraphs at the top,
8 paragraphs 27 and 28. You describe Paddy Ward, you
9 describe him as being very critical of the IRA and you
10 say that Liam had many discussions, including one long
11 interview and various telephone calls and you refer to
12 your transcript that has been forwarded to the Inquiry.
13 Did you take part in the interview of Paddy Ward?
14 A. Not the interview in 2001.
15 Q. That is the long interview?
16 A. Yes, that is right.
17 Q. I want now, if I may, to come to the book itself. Could
18 we move down to paragraph 29. You describe there the
19 line on page 17 where you reproduce a quotation from
20 Willy Breslin about the McGuinness family and you say:
21 "I confirm that until the giving of this statement,
22 I have never spoken to any representative of Eversheds
23 or seen any draft statements relating to this Inquiry
24 from them relating to Willy Breslin or Martin McGuinness
25 (or anyone else)."
1 Can you help me on this: do you recall when,
2 approximately, Mr Breslin was interviewed?
3 A. I have a memory of it being in March 2001, but I believe
4 that would be on the working transcript that Liam Clarke
5 has provided you with, I think it will be dated.
6 Q. If it is somebody will be able to find it for me. Thank
7 you very much.
8 Can we come, please, to paragraph 30. You refer in
9 paragraph 30 to page 22 and a portion of your book which
10 says that Paddy Ward was a member of the Fianna and you
11 know that from several people in the Fianna and Mr Ward,
12 of course, has said it himself.
13 Can you give the Tribunal any idea of the sort of
14 number of people whom you have interviewed who claim to
15 have been in the Fianna at the time of Bloody Sunday?
16 A. I would have to go over my notes because some of them
17 were only in the Fianna and some subsequently went on to
18 join the IRA.
19 Q. Precise numbers are not terribly important. Are we
20 talking about five, 10, 15?
21 A. Well, I would have said under 10.
22 Q. As you are aware, the Inquiry has received contradictory
23 evidence about the Fianna, ranging from evidence that,
24 at any rate, in the very early 1970s, it was the
25 equivalent of the boy scouts and engaged in camps and
1 hikes and keeping watch to evidence that it was the
2 cadet branch of the IRA with access to guns and
3 explosives and you have set out at paragraph 4 of your
4 statement some references in your research to the
5 Fianna.
6 What I would like to ask you about is whether, as
7 a result of your conversations with people who claim to
8 have been members of the Fianna you got any clear
9 understanding, firstly, as to how many of them there
10 were in this city in 1972 and, secondly, what access to
11 or use of guns or explosives any of them might have; are
12 you able to help us on either of those questions?
13 A. I do not think I can help you in terms of the numbers.
14 Um, I will reflect on that. (Pause). Do you want me to
15 answer the second part of your question now about the
16 weapons?
17 Q. Yes?
18 A. Could I possibly have some time to reflect on that?
19 Q. Yes. We will come back to that in due course could we
20 come, please, to paragraph 75 of your statement which is
21 at M111.10. You say there:
22 "I have been asked how I know that [then there is
23 a quote from the book] 'the RUC had built up an
24 intelligence file on McGuinness ...'"
25 You say you are not prepared to reveal the source or
1 sources of the information on the intelligence file.
2 What I wanted to ask you was whether you have seen some
3 or all of what is or purports to be an intelligence file
4 on McGuinness?
5 A. I was briefed by a confidential source on some of the
6 information contained in -- some of the files I am sure
7 have been kept on Mr McGuinness over the years.
8 Q. When you say "briefed," do you mean shown a copy of
9 a document or documents or told about the contents?
10 A. Told about the contents.
11 Q. Could we go, please, to T480, please. This is a portion
12 of your book that deals with events before the day. On
13 page 43, which is what is on the right-hand side of the
14 screen at the moment, you give an account of the
15 circumstances surrounding the death of Eamon Lafferty.
16 You describe, in the first full paragraph how:
17 "On the morning of 18th August at about 6.30 am,
18 a large contingent of troops started to remove the
19 barricades in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to re-open
20 Free Derry. Soon the IRA and their supporters in the
21 Auxiliaries were on the streets, supported by local
22 people, who were rebuilding the barricades ..."
23 Then you give on account of Eamon Lafferty's death
24 derived from John Joe McCann. You use, in this passage,
25 the expression "Auxiliaries" with a capital A and we
1 have seen in your notes that you make a reference to
2 auxiliaries as well. Did you understand from your
3 inquiries who -- I do not mean the identity -- what
4 function the Auxiliaries fulfilled?
5 A. To support the IRA.
6 Q. Are we talking about boys or men or both?
7 A. It was always my understanding that the Auxiliaries
8 were, were composed of men.
9 Q. Who provided support as and when needed?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Could we come, please, to T485. At page 52, which is
12 what is on the left-hand side of 485, you say in the
13 last paragraph:
14 "As Frank Lagan already knew, both the Official and
15 Provisional IRA had held meetings where they discussed
16 their plans for the day."
17 Could you help us as to what that sentence means;
18 are you there saying that the Official and Provisional
19 IRA had held meetings with each other or that the
20 Officials had held meetings about their plans for the
21 day and separately the Provisionals had held meetings
22 about their plans for the day?
23 A. I think we intend the latter.
24 Q. Separate?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. That seems to me to be, if I may say so, the more
2 natural reading, but the reason that I ask -- could we
3 have on the screen M112.6 -- appears from paragraph 40
4 of Liam Clarke's statement, when he says:
5 "We also got information from Peter Doherty about
6 the Official and Provisional IRA having held meetings to
7 discuss their plans for the day."
8 That appeared to me on one reading to be suggesting
9 that they were meeting with each other; is that
10 a misreading of that paragraph?
11 A. I am not sure, because while I believe what we were
12 referring to in the last passage was separate meetings,
13 I do think that the Official and Provisional IRA also
14 had one meeting or possibly more, I do not know, to
15 discuss what, what actions they were going to take on
16 the day.
17 Q. And your basis for thinking that, is?
18 A. Information from sources.
19 Q. Sorry?
20 A. Sorry, sir, information from sources.
21 Q. Does that include Peter Doherty?
22 A. I cannot now be sure.
23 Q. Can we go back, please, to T485. You go on to say,
24 this:
25 "The Provo OC had given his word to march organisers
1 that none of his men would carry arms and issued orders
2 that all weapons should be kept underarmed guard until
3 further notice. However, he was exhausted after
4 a series of meetings to organise the removal of weapons
5 from the Bogside. In a fateful decision, he sent orders
6 to his young Adjutant that he would give the march
7 a miss to catch up on his sleep so that he would be
8 alert when the march was followed by the predictable
9 riots that night. McGuinness, he told the Brigade
10 Staff, is in command."
11 This information, by which I mean the fact that
12 because he was exhausted he said he would give the march
13 a miss and told the Brigade Staff that McGuinness is in
14 command, is this information that has been received from
15 a source or deduced from something, or what?
16 A. It is information we were told by sources. I beg your
17 pardon. It is information we were told by sources.
18 Q. Are these sources who purport to have personal knowledge
19 or who are simply passing on a story or what they have
20 heard?
21 A. Sir, I am reluctant to say how I heard that information
22 because I fear it would identify the source.
23 LORD SAVILLE: Is that a convenient moment, Mr Clarke?
24 MR CLARKE: Yes, it is.
25 LORD SAVILLE: It is nearly 10 past 12.00. We will come
1 back at 1 o'clock, please. Ms Johnston, as I say to all
2 witnesses whose evidence goes over an adjournment,
3 please do not discuss the evidence you are giving with
4 anybody until you have finished giving it.
5 A. Yes, sir.
6 (1.10 pm)
7 (The Short Adjournment)
8 (1.13 pm)
9 MR CLARKE: Could we have on the screen T490. Firstly,
10 Ms Johnston I think I have done you an injustice and if
11 I have I apologise. We were looking at what appeared in
12 the book of the quotation from what Liam O'Comain was
13 saying and I was asking you about the passage which
14 said:
15 " ... and they definitely made a decision to open up
16 on Bloody Sunday" and I pointed out the words that
17 followed "and they did" were omitted in the quote. That
18 is true, but if one looks at the immediately preceding
19 sentence and the way in which you put it, that is to
20 say:
21 "Liam O'Comain, who left the Official Republican
22 Movement soon afterwards, confirms that several
23 officials fired at the Army that day" and the quote
24 follows that, so it looks as though you transposed
25 a portion of the quote into the preceding sentence; do
1 you follow?
2 A. Yes, I do.
3 Q. So I apologise for what is a false point.
4 Secondly, for the transcript, the summary, not the
5 transcript, the summary of Mr Breslin's interview -- we
6 need not have it on the screen at M112.78 -- is, as
7 Mr Glasgow helpfully told me, dated March 2001, which is
8 the date you thought was the relevant one.
9 Thirdly, could we have on the screen M112.20, we
10 were looking at the last paragraph but one in the
11 redacted version and what is written are the words:
12 "The Army had a place out the Old City Derry."
13 I am wondering whether or not in the process of
14 transcription, possibly by a confusion of the relevant
15 shorthand, what was in fact the Old City Dairy has
16 become written as the Old City Derry?
17 A. That could be.
18 Q. Is that possible?
19 A. It is possible.
20 Q. Next, may we have on the screen M112.40. These are
21 notes that we were looking at earlier, this is the first
22 page in a sequence of notes in a Filofax. Could we have
23 on the screen M112.048, which is the typescript. You
24 indicate in the typescript in the last entry that the
25 notes which are there transcribed have no date but are
1 prior to publication in November 2001; is that right?
2 A. That is right.
3 Q. Could we then look at M112.49, it is the passage we were
4 looking at earlier which has on it the reference to car
5 round the Bogside, two shorts, et cetera.
6 Could we have that on one side of the screen,
7 please, and could we have on the other side of the
8 screen T487. Could we highlight the paragraph where the
9 cursor currently is which begins:
10 "Around the same time ..."
11 This is a reference to Peter Doherty recording that
12 Mr McGuinness had a secret plan to attack the Army after
13 the nail bomb attack led by Paddy Ward and there is some
14 direct quotes and one finds in a portion of them that
15 the quote ends with the words:
16 "But McGuinness got the gear in the Bogside car.
17 What went out of that car was two shorts and
18 a Thompson."
19 One sees in the notes on the left-hand side:
20 "Car round Bogside. Two x shorts. Thompson ..."
21 and then other material. Would it be legitimate to
22 infer from that that the notes that we see on the
23 left-hand side are notes of what you were being told by
24 Peter Doherty?
25 A. I believe, although my memory could be at fault here,
1 but I believe those were corroboration.
2 Q. You think they are notes of somebody else that
3 corroborated --
4 A. I believe so.
5 Q. Lastly in relation to matters that we were dealing with
6 before lunch, have you been able to consider whether you
7 can tell us anything about what, if anything, you learnt
8 about the access of members of the Fianna to either guns
9 or explosives?
10 A. Yes, I have considered that and I do not think I would
11 have anything very specific to offer the Inquiry.
12 Q. Could we go, please, to T486. If one looks at the
13 bottom right-hand corner, which is page 55 of the book,
14 the passage reads:
15 "Following the O/C's orders that all weapons were to
16 be taken out of the Bogside and Creggan, at 2.00am on
17 the Sunday morning several cars had taken weapons up to
18 the Creggan until after the march. The O/C had told one
19 former IRA man of his fears. 'Like everybody else the
20 O/C had relatives and friends going on the march, so
21 ordered that all the gear was to be put out of the area
22 and held in those cars. All McGuinness had to do was to
23 carry out orders and make sure everybody else did too.'"
24 Should we understand from the fact that that passage
25 is in quotation marks that it is a direct quote from
1 something that somebody said to you?
2 A. It is, yes.
3 Q. Should we understand that that is a source other than
4 Des Clinton or Peter Doherty?
5 A. That is correct.
6 Q. The next paragraph deals with the evidence of Paddy Ward
7 which I do not want to ask you any more questions about.
8 Can we go down the page and can we highlight the
9 paragraph that begins with the words:
10 "Around the same time ..."
11 This paragraph records:
12 "Around the same time, Martin McGuinness went to
13 check the weapons that had been placed for safekeeping
14 in the boots of the two cars, as the O/C had instructed
15 him the night before. But, according to Peter Doherty
16 [so you identify your source] McGuinness had secretly
17 planned to attack the Army after the nail bomb attack
18 led by Paddy Ward. To do this McGuinness needed to
19 convince other volunteers to disobey the O/C's orders."
20 Then there is a passage in quotation marks from
21 "McGuinness was adjutant" down to the last sentence of
22 the paragraph which refers to that which went out of the
23 car being two shorts and a Thompson.
24 Should we understand that that passage in quotation
25 marks is derived from what you were told directly by
1 Peter Doherty, who is the source referred to in the
2 third line?
3 A. I believe that passage refers to, um, a separate source,
4 but I would like some time to reflect on that further,
5 just so that I do not mislead the Tribunal
6 inadvertently.
7 Q. If you were right in what you said a moment ago, that
8 the notes which referred, amongst other things, to two
9 shorts and a Thompson going out of the car were a source
10 that was corroborative of Peter Doherty, then it would
11 be consistent with that for this quote to be derived
12 from somebody other than Peter Doherty himself?
13 A. That is right, but I would like to reflect further on it
14 to make sure I am telling the Inquiry the correct thing.
15 I just want to make absolutely sure I am telling the
16 Inquiry the correct thing.
17 Q. I will ask you about that a little later when you have
18 had time to think about it.
19 What the preceding sentence records is that,
20 according to Peter Doherty, McGuinness had secretly
21 planned to attack the Army after the nail bomb attack
22 led by Paddy Ward. Did you understand from him how he
23 had learnt that that was the plan if he was not present
24 on Bloody Sunday?
25 A. I am just trying to recall. (Pause). I am pondering
1 how much I can say about how he heard because, sir, I am
2 afraid I might identify him.
3 Q. Let us take it in stages: did you discover that he had
4 heard from somebody that that was the plan, rather than
5 having first-hand knowledge that that was so?
6 A. I think I cannot easily comment on how Peter Doherty had
7 heard this or become aware of it without revealing
8 any -- some information which may prejudice his
9 identity.
10 Q. Can we come, please, to T491. This is page 64 of the
11 book, on the left-hand side. After dealing with the man
12 who was seen at Free Derry Corner with a .303, the next
13 paragraph records that he was an Official. It then
14 records that by this time both wings of the IRA were
15 preparing to take authorised action against the Army:
16 "Anger and bitterness gripped them; in their
17 frustration they blamed each other for what had
18 happened."
19 You say, the reference is at paragraph 154 of your
20 statement, that you do not wish to comment on what is
21 meant by the word "authorised" but is there any
22 difficulty in explaining what you meant by the phrase,
23 "Both wings of the IRA were preparing to take authorised
24 action against the Army"?
25 A. We believed when we were preparing this chapter that by
1 this stage on Bloody Sunday both the Officials and the
2 Provisionals were preparing to retaliate against the
3 Army, yes.
4 Q. What appears to me to be the natural reading is that by
5 this stage, which is fairly late on, both wings of the
6 Army were about to undertake action which somebody in
7 authority had sanctioned. Is that how we should read
8 it?
9 A. I think that would be, um, a fair reading.
10 Q. Could we come, please, to paragraph 168 of your
11 statement to this Tribunal which is at M111.19. You
12 were being asked in this paragraph to deal with
13 something that appears on page 66 of the book and you
14 say in paragraph 168:
15 "I have been asked how I know that the O/C was
16 furious with McGuinness."
17 You say you are not prepared to make any comment
18 about that. You point out that some people who have
19 talked to you are in fear of their lives and you say:
20 "I have obtained this information from such people
21 who have said that if their identities are disclosed
22 their lives will be at risk and I am not prepared to
23 comment further."
24 Do you feel able to comment one way or the other as
25 to whether or not the information came from people who
1 said they had first-hand knowledge or people who were
2 passing on what they had been told?
3 A. I am not prepared to comment any further.
4 Q. A few further matters: in the book, I am afraid it has
5 not been photocopied nor is it on the system. I hope
6 you will take it from me that in Chapter 5 of the book,
7 which is the chapter after Bloody Sunday, it deals with
8 events after Bloody Sunday, there is a passage at
9 page 68 which begins with the words:
10 "His [that is to say McGuinness'] first priority was
11 to arm the new recruits and within a week he was handed
12 the opportunity he was waiting for."
13 There is a reference thereafter to making a move on
14 an arms dump of the officials at the back of some shops
15 in the Creggan Estate and then at the end of that
16 paragraph, which is the first full paragraph on page 68,
17 there is a sentence that reads:
18 "The next month [which would appear to make it March
19 or thereabouts of 1972] several crates of M1 carbines
20 arrived from America and were buried in a local football
21 pitch where the IRA had easy access to them."
22 The Tribunal has already had evidence from Mr Ward
23 confirming what he told you: that crates of weapons
24 arrived from America and were, or at least some of them,
25 were buried in a local football pitch, so that
1 information the Tribunal already has.
2 What I am seeking to ask you about is the
3 sequence: according to the passage in the book this
4 incident of arrival of M1 carbines from America and
5 their burying in the local football pitch takes place
6 after Bloody Sunday as opposed to before, which is
7 I think the impression that Mr Ward may have been giving
8 in his evidence to this Tribunal. Do you have any
9 recollection now of understanding the sequence of
10 events, that is to say whether this consignment of
11 Armalites which were buried in the football pitch
12 occurred before or after Bloody Sunday?
13 A. Well, it was actually Liam Clarke who carried out this
14 interview with Paddy Ward.
15 Q. So I will ask him. Thank you very much. Could we,
16 please, go to T492.15. This is page 261 of the notes to
17 the first edition and in the notes there is a paragraph
18 that reads:
19 "There are persistent rumours that other former
20 senior IRA figures, including the O/C, were 'visited' by
21 current senior IRA men after McGuinness' announcement,
22 in an attempt to prevent them giving their own version
23 of events."
24 I do not know whether you are the right person to
25 ask about this or whether Liam Clarke is concerned, but
1 the question that I am asking is whether any of your
2 informants, people who spoke to you, was someone who
3 claimed himself to have been visited by whomsoever?
4 A. Well, I am afraid I cannot answer that because the IRA
5 are well aware of the people that they have visited and
6 were I to either confirm or deny it, it would identify
7 them.
8 Q. Could we have on the screen T487. The information that
9 is contained in the paragraph that we are looking at,
10 that is to say information about the secret plan to
11 attack the Army after the nail bomb attack led by
12 Paddy Ward, I am asked by those who represent him to ask
13 you to confirm if you can that the information referred
14 to on this page did not derive from Mr Ward; is that
15 right or wrong?
16 A. That is correct.
17 Q. Thank you. Can we have T488. The information that
18 appears at the bottom of T488, the information about
19 what happened at Duffy's bookmaker's, which begins at
20 the bottom of the left-hand side of 488 and continues
21 over to the next page, I am also asked for you to
22 confirm if it is correct that that information did not
23 derive from Mr Ward?
24 A. No, it did not.
25 Q. The last matter I wanted to ask you then was,
1 this: could we go, please, to T477.12. This is from the
2 preface to the second edition. Could we highlight the
3 first three paragraphs. In the third paragraph on that
4 page there is a sentence which records another
5 eyewitness claiming to have seen Gerard Donaghy outside
6 the bookies where rioters wanted to throw nail bombs
7 over the roof on to the Army barricade, then there is
8 a sentence which reads:
9 "Because of the shortage of nail bombs after
10 McGuinness had issued orders for their recall, at least
11 one person at the scene argued with Donaghy, trying to
12 get the nail bombs off him to throw himself."
13 What you are stating in the third line of that
14 paragraph is that at some stage Mr McGuinness had issued
15 orders for their recall. We have seen a statement --
16 a summary of a statement to you by Paddy Ward talking
17 about 'Mad Dog' Doherty saying that the nail bombs
18 should be recalled and we have had an account from him
19 of him deciding that the nail bombs should be recalled,
20 but what is said here is something different, namely,
21 that Mr McGuinness had issued orders for their recall.
22 Is that something that one of your informants told
23 you, that Mr McGuinness had issued orders for their
24 recall or something that you had yourself deduced or
25 inferred?
1 A. I think the latter, we had deduced or inferred that.
2 MR CLARKE: Thank you, those are my questions.
3 Questioned by MR ELIAS
4 MR ELIAS: Ms Johnston, I am over to your left. My name is
5 Elias, I represent a number of former soldiers. My
6 questions are not designed to ask you to identify by
7 name or in any other way any individual, that is
8 a matter, as you have already been told, between you and
9 the Tribunal. I do propose to ask you a few questions,
10 if I may, asking you to expand a little with the
11 information that you can give without breaching the
12 confidences which you indicate you do not wish to
13 breach.
14 May I take you, please, first of all to
15 paragraph 103 in your statement to Eversheds which we
16 find at M111.13, paragraphs 103 to 105, please. You
17 were asked about the Provo O/C, facing a revolt. In
18 relation to each of those paragraphs you say:
19 "I am not prepared to comment."
20 You can confirm, can you, in the light of what you
21 say there, that the information in those paragraphs has
22 not come from or does not come exclusively from
23 Paddy Ward?
24 A. I am sorry you are asking me to confirm that it does not
25 come from Paddy Ward?
1 Q. Yes.
2 A. Yes, that is correct.
3 Q. Can we move on, please, to a passage you have looked at
4 a number of times, T487, one more question in relation
5 to that, please. It is the paragraph, the middle of the
6 left-hand page:
7 "Around the same time... "
8 It is that sentence that, according to
9 Peter Doherty:
10 "McGuinness had secretly planned to attack the Army
11 after the nail bomb attack led by Paddy Ward."
12 I want to ask you this: it is right, is it, it was
13 Peter Doherty who told you that there had been a nail
14 bomb attack?
15 A. No, I do not believe so. I believe the information
16 about the nail bomb attack came from, from Paddy Ward.
17 Q. So here you are saying, what?
18 A. Here we are saying that, according to the information
19 given us by Peter Doherty, and then working out the
20 timings ourselves, we have deduced that it was after the
21 nail bomb attack led by Paddy Ward.
22 Q. What Peter Doherty told you was that McGuinness secretly
23 planned to attack the Army?
24 A. That is correct.
25 Q. If we go to page M111.19, paragraph 168, again in
1 relation to that paragraph, that information did not
2 come solely, if it came at all, from Paddy Ward; is that
3 right?
4 A. That is correct.
5 Q. Paragraph 179, the last page of this statement, 111.21,
6 where you refer -- I do not read it through, we have
7 visited it I think, we have all read it -- references to
8 the grim reaper, to William McGuinness and so on. There
9 is more than one source for the information that you
10 have set out in that paragraph; is there?
11 A. There is.
12 Q. So more than one person has told you of the threats that
13 were being made in relation to persons who might
14 otherwise have been inclined to come forward?
15 A. That is correct.
16 Q. As to that then, may I take you back, please, to the
17 beginning of your statement, 111.2, paragraphs 10 and
18 11, where you say at the end of paragraph 10, having
19 referred to a number of people, a number you have given
20 pseudonyms and therefore presumably some to whom you
21 have not referred directly by pseudonym or otherwise,
22 you say at the end of paragraph 10:
23 "Almost without exception, all such sources have
24 made it plain to us their wish not to be identified and
25 their fears of what might happen should they be
1 identified."
2 Can you give this Tribunal any idea of how many
3 people you have approached who have given that
4 indication?
5 A. I am reluctant to put a number on it, but --
6 Q. Why is that?
7 A. Because I do not wish to identify -- to give any
8 information which may enable others to identify these
9 people.
10 Q. Why would putting a number on those you have approached,
11 simply a blanket number, a number on those you have
12 approached to indicate their fears of what might happen
13 if they came forward, how could that identify them?
14 A. I have no objection in principle, but I would wish some
15 time to sit down and consider it.
16 Q. No doubt the Tribunal will give you that time and allow
17 you -- there is no reason, is there, why you should not
18 answer that question?
19 A. There is no answer (sic) in principle why I should not
20 answer that question.
21 Q. You will answer it?
22 A. I will, if you give me time to do so.
23 Q. May I come on to two specific matters, please: could we
24 go to 112.48. This is again a document you looked at
25 with Mr Clarke this morning but just to take it on
1 a pace or two, if we are able to, at item 4 at the top
2 of that page, and we know it is repeated again in these
3 notes at page 50 in this bundle, but I will not take you
4 to that as well. There you see at 4:
5 "They were joined by another IRA man, who had
6 a Spanish Star pistol, which he had bought himself. He
7 dropped it on the road and when he ran back to get it
8 ... a shot fired by soldiers hit the heel of his shoe."
9 I think you have told the Tribunal already that that
10 information comes from more than one source?
11 A. That is correct.
12 Q. That information does not come, does it, from another
13 journalist?
14 A. No, it does not.
15 Q. So if we could put up on the screen for a moment,
16 please, KC12.68, this is said to be a note made by
17 Peter Pringle of the Sunday Times fairly
18 contemporaneously with Bloody Sunday, interview with
19 Ivan Cooper, you see the name at the top of the page.
20 If we could highlight the middle paragraph:
21 "IC then launched into a story: McEvoy, Martin
22 McGuinness and Joe McCallion were in a house in
23 William Street almost down by C Street. Their plan was
24 to fire through the doorway at the soldiers who Cooper
25 says were occupying some of the houses on the other side
1 of William Street. Troops moved in. IC [Ivan Cooper]
2 says that MM panicked and thought he was going to be
3 caught. McEvoy said to dismantle the Thompsons and put
4 them up their jerseys. They did and ran off with the
5 crowd. But, IC recounts, McE was also carrying a pistol
6 in a holster and as he ran over the barrier, he dropped
7 it. He bent to pick it up and was shot three times by
8 a Para -- the final shot going through the heel of his
9 shoe. He picked up the pistol and ran off."
10 Then there is the comment by Peter Pringle as to his
11 view of the account.
12 Your note in this document at our page 112.48 does
13 not derive from that source; does it?
14 A. No, it does not, but I had read the references to the
15 Ivan Cooper document on the Inquiry website.
16 Q. Can we look, please, at 112.23, a document Mr Clarke
17 referred you to this morning, now with your hand on it,
18 but it originally had the maker's hand?
19 A. It did.
20 Q. The reference in the centre to "scouts", do you see?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. You have copied that out and you have copied what would
23 seem to be two arrows to two points, one at the junction
24 of High Street and Chamberlain Street and one at the
25 junction of Chamberlain Street and William Street?
1 A. Yes, that is correct.
2 Q. Were you told that scouts were lookouts?
3 A. I honestly cannot remember. When I found these notes,
4 um, a month or so ago, I was a little puzzled by this
5 myself and I assumed it must have been, it must have
6 been people doing lookout. The other possibility
7 I thought was that they were some kind of messenger.
8 Q. A messenger or a lookout, but somebody acting on behalf
9 of the IRA?
10 A. Yes.
11 MR ELIAS: Thank you very much.
12 Questioned by MR GLASGOW
13 MR GLASGOW: My name is Glasgow, I act for a large number of
14 soldiers. There are a very few matters my friend has
15 not covered. Could I say, I am not seeking to ask you,
16 let alone persuade you, to name anybody, but I just
17 wanted your help with some of the names that you have
18 given and the redactions that you made -- I stress,
19 I accept wholly in good faith -- to your own manuscript
20 notes before you handed them over.
21 Could we just look at one example, M112.44, the
22 manuscript notes in which you deal with the accounts
23 that you were given of the handling of the nail bombs in
24 William Street/High Street; do you remember?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. If you look just at the top under the heading of the
2 people in the High Street:
3 "Gerard Donaghy had several nail bombs ..."
4 You blanked out the next name?
5 A. I think the Inquiry did.
6 Q. I am so sorry, that was not you?
7 A. No.
8 Q. In that case, my mistake. I think perhaps, too blanket,
9 we were told you had made the deletions in the
10 manuscript notes?
11 A. I do not believe so.
12 Q. There is no secret, because the name has already been
13 given, he has given evidence, and I stress of course
14 I am not asking you to name anybody who has not, but if
15 we go to the equivalent typed page, where you typed this
16 up at M112.50, we can see there that the same passage --
17 you can see the same passage there -- it is Mr McCallion
18 we are talking about. You can confirm, I think you did
19 this morning, that that is Sean McCallion; is it not?
20 A. I think so.
21 Q. Did you know at the time when you made the
22 transcription, when you typed this up, Ms Johnston, that
23 he had already given evidence to the Tribunal or were
24 you told that later?
25 A. No, I did not. I did not know that. Um, those notes
1 were only typed up to give some assistance to the
2 Tribunal in deciphering my handwriting and they were
3 typed up, um, about a month ago before these notes were
4 handed in.
5 Q. The information that they represent from your note, that
6 somebody was telling you that Gerard Donaghy had had
7 some nail bombs and that S McCallion wanted to do
8 something with them, that was one of your informants had
9 said that or a number of people?
10 A. I think it was one; it may have been more, but I cannot
11 be sure.
12 Q. One person to the best of your recollection, referring
13 to the specific incident, did the fact that there had
14 been nail bombs around, was that something that was
15 confirmed by a number of your sources?
16 A. It was confirmed by a number of our sources, yes.
17 Q. By a number?
18 A. Uh-huh.
19 Q. I do not trespass on what you have already been asked,
20 would you be prepared to tell the Tribunal after
21 consideration roughly how many people or perhaps --
22 A. Yes, I will consult my notes and I will consult the
23 other person who did the interviews with me.
24 Q. If you could put a rough figure on it, you would be
25 prepared to tell the Tribunal how many of your
1 informants had told you -- or your sources, I am sorry,
2 had told you --
3 A. In as far as I can recall.
4 Q. Can we go over the page, while we are on the topic,
5 please, Ms Johnston, M112.51, the very last entry, and
6 this is after you have dealt with a number of other
7 matters, you then add at the bottom:
8 "G Donaghy plus McGuinness [I think it must be]
9 standing beside each other, plus Eddie Daly... " is that
10 Bishop Daly?
11 A. It is, yes.
12 Q. "... standing against wall when argument [it must be]
13 with McCallion was going on."
14 Can you now recall whether it was the argument about
15 whether McCallion could throw the nail bombs or may it
16 have been the argument about the man who I think you now
17 know we have been calling Father Daly's gunman?
18 A. I have always taken it to be the argument over the nail
19 bombs.
20 Q. Over the nail bombs?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Your understanding?
23 A. That is my understanding of it.
24 Q. That a source had told you that those people were
25 present when that argument was going on?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. In fairness perhaps I ought to ask -- may it be that
3 that conversation was actually about the man with the
4 pistol whose identity we now know in Chamberlain Street?
5 A. The argument?
6 Q. Yes?
7 A. It may have been, I do not -- but that is not my
8 recollection.
9 Q. It was not your recollection?
10 A. No, it was not, it was not my understanding at the time.
11 Q. Can you tell from looking at these two pages, or going
12 back to the manuscript if it helps you, was this the
13 same batch of informants or sources that were telling
14 you these two accounts or are these two separate batches
15 of informants, if I may call them that, on the two
16 separate pages?
17 A. I think the fourth page is separate. I would have to
18 see the documents -- I do not have a copy of them, apart
19 from the typed-up version, so I would have to see that,
20 I could perhaps help the Tribunal more if I saw these.
21 Q. If you go back to the manuscript notes, it would be
22 M112.45, I think. It is actually -- this page is on
23 M112.47. I make no complaint, it is slightly difficult
24 to read because it has been rather badly photocopied.
25 It looks as if this was written at an angle across the
1 page; do you see?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Because the bits I just asked you which is why I had to
4 take you to the typed version is --
5 A. Yes, now I see these, I think this was -- notes from
6 a separate meeting.
7 Q. So somebody else is telling you -- one or more other
8 informants are telling you about this incident, to the
9 best of your recollection?
10 A. That is right.
11 Q. While we have that page, again if it is easier to look
12 in the manuscript it may be easier for you with your
13 notes to look at M112.45. Looking at the second half of
14 that, you remember this is the bit about somebody giving
15 you an account of kicking in the door of the bookies for
16 the look of it. I think that you understood was to
17 conceal the fact that somebody had actually got a key to
18 it; that was your understanding?
19 A. That is right.
20 Q. "[Somebody] never in bookies, running over the street.
21 Not injured."
22 Then we come to the passage that Mr Elias asked you
23 about.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. When my learned friend Mr Clarke first asked you
1 questions this morning about that, you thought the name
2 that had been taken out there might have been
3 a reference to Mr McGuinness, but I do not think that
4 can be right?
5 A. I do not think it was, I do not think I said that.
6 Q. That was my misunderstanding. Do you think it is the
7 same person, do you happen to know?
8 A. I beg your pardon, is who the same person?
9 Q. Is it the same person who has come out on both points,
10 is it Mr X who has never been in the bookies and.
11 Mr X --
12 A. Yes, it is, it is the same person.
13 Q. May I ask you one further question, please, about the
14 officer commanding, the O/C. You have said a number of
15 times that you have no comment to make about him and
16 I am not asking you to name him to us. What I do ask is
17 this, if I may, is your reluctance to name him because
18 he was an informant or simply because he was somebody
19 you felt you should not name -- sorry I say "informant",
20 I mean "source", I see you frowning. Was he a source
21 and therefore a man whom you feel --
22 A. I have already said a number of times I am not prepared
23 to comment on who the sources are for the book.
24 Q. Yes, I appreciate that. Ms Johnston, is the reason for
25 not even giving the Tribunal this man's name that he is
1 a source who you wish to protect or just somebody who
2 you wish to protect? May I ask bluntly, have you
3 actually spoken to him?
4 A. May I reply bluntly, I am not going to comment on who
5 I have or have not spoken to.
6 Q. You would not even tell the Tribunal that?
7 A. I might be prepared to tell the Tribunal, I would
8 consider it if it was in private form.
9 Q. Can I, on behalf of those whom I represent and perhaps
10 lots of people, ask whether you would consider, at least
11 writing down when you are in private that name so that
12 the Tribunal may at least, the Tribunal may know, may
13 have confirmed from you who it was who you were
14 referring to as the officer commanding?
15 A. Yes, I will consider that.
16 Q. You will consider that. Thank you very much.
17 Could I ask you, please, I think lastly, about
18 Mr Liam O'Comain, I am sorry my pronunciation is always
19 wrong. If we come across the name Liam Cummings in
20 other documents, that would be the Anglicised version of
21 that; would it not?
22 A. It would.
23 Q. Can we look quickly at his statement, please,
24 Ms Johnston. We find the first page of it at AO82
25 because it has been reproduced for us as a statement by
1 him. Can you recall now, did you take this or make
2 these notes in the form of a statement or was that done
3 by Liam Clarke?
4 A. It was done by both of us.
5 Q. If you cannot help with something that I ask, please
6 tell me and I will try with Mr Clarke, just two
7 passages, if I may: AO82.5, if we go to that page, you
8 were asked by Mr Clarke at the top of that page -- you
9 were asked about the passage in the third paragraph.
10 I do not go over that again. In the last major
11 paragraph, which is being highlighted for you now, in
12 the last few lines, Mr O'Comain was talking about
13 Martin McGuinness. The paragraph starts:
14 "I have had discussions with him and he knows where
15 I stand ..."
16 Was that all about Martin McGuinness or did it refer
17 to the man who has just been mentioned above,
18 Mr Costello?
19 A. No, I think that is in relation to Mr McGuinness.
20 Q. That is all about Mr McGuinness?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Taking it very shortly, the first half of that paragraph
23 deals with his current views?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And then he added at the bottom, the last three lines:
1 "Martin was not political, Martin was a gunman,"
2 plainly he is referring to Mr McGuinness at a much
3 earlier stage?
4 A. Yes, that is right.
5 Q. What he says is:
6 "He was a gunman, who believed, he said to me very
7 clearly about the soldiers, send them home in boxes that
8 is what Martin McGuinness said."
9 Was he talking about the time of Bloody Sunday or
10 just an earlier time in his career?
11 A. From memory he was talking about the early 1970s.
12 Q. The early 1970s?
13 A. Yes, but I should adhere that Liam O'Comain has also
14 published much the same quotation in his biographies on
15 the Internet so possibly there is a more specific date
16 there.
17 Q. In that case you will forgive me, I confess we simply
18 have not found those, they are available on the
19 Internet, are they?
20 A. Yes, they are.
21 Q. Is he still around; is he somebody who is still about to
22 help?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. He is. Over the page, I think the last point on the
25 statement, AO82.6, it is the last section where
1 "requests tape is switched off," I did not want to read
2 more into this than you might be able to confirm: is the
3 position that at the time when he was talking about what
4 Martin McGuinness did on Bloody Sunday, that was the
5 point in the conversation when he asked for the tape to
6 be switched off?
7 A. No, it was not, it was in relation to something which
8 happened in 1975.
9 Q. Nineteen --
10 A. I beg your pardon, 1975.
11 MR GLASGOW: Thank you very much.
12 Questioned by MR McGRORY
13 MR McGRORY: My name is McGrory and I would like to ask you
14 some questions on behalf of Martin McGuinness.
15 Ms Johnston, you seem to have some sort of magnetic
16 attraction for people who have bad things to say about
17 Martin McGuinness; they seem to keep ringing you up; is
18 that correct?
19 A. I would not say that was true at all, Mr McGrory.
20 Q. After the first edition of the book was published, you
21 say you received some telephone calls?
22 A. That is right.
23 Q. Giving you the additional information that Mr McGuinness
24 in fact had a key to the door of the property in
25 William Street that he is alleged to have been planting
1 a bomb in; is that right?
2 A. That is right.
3 Q. That was news to you?
4 A. What was news to me?
5 Q. That he had a key, because in the first edition of the
6 book, you say he broke the door down?
7 A. That is what we had believed, yes.
8 Q. Your explanation for him having a key, after you had
9 learnt that information is that maybe he had a key but
10 he did not want to use it?
11 A. That is not what we said in the book.
12 Q. That is what you have said subsequently?
13 A. Not quite.
14 Q. You made reference this morning to having received some
15 further information about this building, that there was
16 a steel door?
17 A. That is correct.
18 Q. And when did you get that information?
19 A. Within the last few weeks.
20 Q. Has someone else telephoned you with new information?
21 A. Do you find that so surprising?
22 Q. Would you answer the question: has someone else
23 telephoned you with new information?
24 A. That is correct.
25 Q. Is this someone you had not heard from before?
1 A. I have told this Inquiry I will not comment on my
2 sources, because I fear that they -- their lives are in
3 danger if their identity becomes known.
4 Q. There are reputations at danger, Ms Johnston, these are
5 very serious allegations that are being made. Is the
6 person who telephoned you in recent days or recent weeks
7 someone who has telephoned before? That does not
8 compromise their identity, it is a simple question.
9 A. No, it is not someone who had telephoned before.
10 Q. This is somebody new?
11 A. Yes, this is someone new.
12 Q. Did you ask them any questions about this steel door,
13 because you have given two previous accounts of the door
14 when nobody mentioned to you that it was a steel door?
15 A. Mr McGrory, this is material that we have not fully
16 tested. We did not use it in the book. I simply
17 mention it in order to try to help this Inquiry.
18 Q. I am trying to test it now. You say Mr McGuinness --
19 this is the steel door -- is this the same door that
20 Mr McGuinness is supposed to have broken down with his
21 friends; did you ask this person when they telephoned
22 you was it the same door?
23 A. I think if the Inquiry wishes to pursue the matter of
24 the bookies and the door, I am sure there are records of
25 the building at the time.
1 Q. Forgive me for being confused, but there seem to be so
2 many accounts about this door. In the first edition of
3 the book, Mr McGuinness and his friends apparently break
4 the door down. Then we learn you get a telephone call
5 subsequent to the publication of the first edition that
6 in fact he had a key, so he did not really need to break
7 it down. Now we learn from yet another new source that
8 in fact it was a steel door and what I want to know
9 is: did you ask this person what kind of a steel door;
10 did you ask yourself, is this a door that could be
11 kicked in, if it is a steel door?
12 A. I can only tell this Inquiry what we have been told and
13 we can only report truthfully and honestly in the book
14 what we have been told by people.
15 Q. That Mr McGuinness apparently shot at the steel door,
16 this is what this new person told you, is that right?
17 A. That is what I have been told, yes.
18 Q. Did it occur to you maybe if someone shot at a steel
19 door that the bullet might ricochet back?
20 A. I am not a weapons expert, Mr McGrory, but I have been
21 told that a Thompson is a low velocity gun.
22 Q. Do you not think it casts some doubts on your original
23 theory about kicking in the door that you have had now
24 so many subsequent accounts from the key and now we have
25 a steel door which was never mentioned before?
1 A. I think what it illustrates is that there is a great
2 deal of information which has not yet come forward to
3 this Inquiry about Bloody Sunday and the events of that
4 day and the surrounding events.
5 Q. You say, Ms Johnston, you have written most of the first
6 part of the book, right up to and including the chapter
7 on Bloody Sunday?
8 A. That is right.
9 Q. You did this from notes compiled by yourself and your
10 husband following a series of interviews with the
11 people?
12 A. Yes, that is right.
13 Q. You have already said your husband wrote up the note
14 concerning the interview with Paddy Ward?
15 A. He did.
16 Q. You re-typed it, that is why the typing, that is why the
17 typing is the same on the edition which has been
18 furnished as it is on the Des Clinton material?
19 A. No, that is not the case.
20 Q. I thought you said this morning when Mr Clarke, Counsel
21 to the Inquiry, put to you that the typeface on the
22 notes of the interview with Paddy Ward were the same as
23 the typeface on the notes from Des Clinton and were they
24 typed on the same typewriter?
25 A. I am sorry, I thought he asked me this morning about the
1 transcript of the interviews I did in 1991 and 1992 with
2 Martin McGuinness.
3 Q. It is also the same typescript, is it not, as on the
4 notes with Paddy Ward?
5 A. We are talking about an age when something is typed in
6 computer you can choose your typeface.
7 Q. There is not great mystery about this, Ms Johnston, do
8 not be worrying about it, I am simply trying to get to
9 the bottom of whether or not you used the original
10 source material or you worked from your husband's notes;
11 is it the case you worked from your husband's notes?
12 A. I did work from my husband's notes, that is right.
13 Q. That would be true for the Paddy Ward material?
14 A. Yes, but I did not re-type them.
15 Q. You worked from his notes?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. We have been furnished very recently with a tape from
18 Mr Willy Breslin, you are aware of that, you furnished
19 the tape and it has been handed out to us. We have no
20 note or transcript of that?
21 A. Well, that was provided to the Inquiry with the tape.
22 Q. I do not think we have that, unless it has come in
23 recent days.
24 A. In fact, I can help you further with that: the
25 transcript was handed to Eversheds at the time of our
1 original interview with them, which was around 2002.
2 Q. When you were writing up your passages in the books
3 where you were quoting Mr Willy Breslin, did you use the
4 notes you have just referred to or did you go to the
5 original tape?
6 A. I used my husband's transcripts, written transcript.
7 Q. Can I have, please, on the screen, X2.41.18, it is the
8 transcript of the tape of ... would it be possible to
9 have side by side pages 18 and 19. I will start at
10 letter C:
11 "Yes, that was it, once the shooting started that is
12 when you noticed him.
13 "Mr Breslin: Well, when the shooting ended
14 I noticed him.
15 "Mr Clarke: Yes?
16 "Mr Breslin: There was no way he could have got to
17 the place that he was. He was level with me.
18 "Mr Clarke: Yes.
19 "Mr Breslin: And I was not very far up the
20 platform. In order to get there, if he had been coming
21 from where the shooting was.
22 "Mr Clarke: Yes .
23 "Mr Breslin: He would have had to tramp over maybe
24 400 people and I dare say they might have noticed him.
25 The other thing that you would have to say, I dare say,
1 is that the Army might have noticed him.
2 "Mr Clarke: Mmm.
3 "Mr Breslin: A person like him, who is very
4 distinctive, and whose picture is in every bunker and
5 sangar and army base.
6 "Mr Clarke: Mmm.
7 "Mr Breslin: If you want to tell me he could make
8 anything like even 50 yards and that should not kill
9 him.
10 "Mr Breslin [at F] He was there. He was there when
11 the shooting began. With us in the middle of the crowd.
12 He was actually towards the front of the crowd. So he
13 was actually standing there. I do not know whether
14 there is any significance in that or not. All I know is
15 that he was there."
16 Mr Breslin is telling your husband that he saw
17 Martin McGuinness level with him when the shooting
18 actually began and that he was up at the front of the
19 meeting towards the platform. That does not sit very
20 well with Mr Clinton's theory that when the shooting
21 started he was in the bookies with him at around the
22 time Paddy Doherty was shot, yet you make no reference
23 to this passage from Willy Breslin in the book.
24 I have to suggest to you, Ms Johnston, that is just
25 because it did not suit your Des Clinton theory?
1 A. Mr McGrory, all we have tried to do in the chapter --
2 remember it only is one chapter of a book --
3 Q. It is a very important chapter, Ms Johnston?
4 A. -- is to put as many accounts as we could and as
5 truthfully and honestly as we could, commensurate with
6 space.
7 Q. Forgive me, but I do not see Mr Willy Breslin's account
8 of seeing Martin McGuinness at the head of the parade in
9 the front of the platform when the shooting broke out,
10 it is simply not there. What I have to suggest to you,
11 Ms Johnston, is that you cherry-pick the bits of
12 information you are given and you have used the bits of
13 information which are critical and damning of
14 Mr McGuinness.
15 We do not know who Mr Des Clinton is but we know who
16 Willy Breslin is, we know he was a teacher, we know he
17 was a Labour party activist; we know he is unlikely to
18 be making it up?
19 A. We do know that he misled this Inquiry about his
20 interview with my husband.
21 Q. We are sure he will have an explanation for that and we
22 will deal with it when the times comes.
23 A. Well, I look forward to it.
24 Q. But you did not know that when you were writing your
25 book?
1 A. No, that is true.
2 Q. When you were writing your book you quoted liberally
3 from Mr Breslin's interview, did you not? He is quoted
4 all over the book; is he not?
5 A. Can I answer now?
6 Q. The question is: he is quoted all over the book, is he
7 not?
8 A. Mr Breslin is quoted on a number of occasions. The
9 quotations were taken from a working transcript of
10 a telephone interview with him.
11 Q. You accept that this particular passage is not quoted in
12 the book; do you accept that?
13 A. I accept it if you tell me it is not.
14 Q. Can I have on the screen, please, T488, it is a passage
15 from the book. Perhaps the third paragraph could be
16 highlighted, please, the long paragraph towards the
17 bottom. About two-thirds of the way down:
18 "Father Daly recognised their distinctive 'thump' as
19 he spoke with passers-by. Most of the crowd at the Army
20 barrier had by this stage started to move away from
21 William Street towards Free Derry Corner where
22 Bernadette Devlin and Lord Brockway were waiting to
23 address them. Around 3.45 pm Daly warned Patrick
24 'Barman' Duffy, one of the civil rights stewards, that
25 he had seen some young people behaving suspiciously at
1 the back of some nearby shops. One of them was
2 Martin McGuinness."
3 I take it you wrote that passage?
4 A. I did.
5 Q. Do you agree with me, Ms Johnston, to the uninformed
6 reader, that looks very much like Father Daly saw
7 Martin McGuinness at the back of the shops, that he was
8 one of the youths?
9 A. No, I do not believe that does imply that.
10 Q. It is right at the end of the same paragraph where you
11 say that Father Daly warned 'Barman' Duffy there were
12 youths acting suspiciously and one of them was
13 Martin McGuinness?
14 A. You inserted the word "'and' one of them was
15 Martin McGuinness". The passage reads:
16 "One of them was Martin McGuinness."
17 Q. I suggest to you that that passage is written to look
18 like Father Daly saw Martin McGuinness at the back of
19 the shops, that is what it looks like to the uninformed
20 reader; do you agree or disagree?
21 A. I disagree.
22 Q. Do you agree this: Father Daly did not see
23 Martin McGuinness at the back of the shops?
24 A. We did not say he did see Martin McGuinness at the back
25 of the shops.
1 Q. Do you agree that he did not see him?
2 A. I cannot agree that he did not see him because I do not
3 know whether he saw him or not.
4 Q. You seem to have made fairly liberal use of the website
5 during the writing of this book, the Inquiry website,
6 did you not?
7 A. No, we did not.
8 Q. You have referred to having checked things on the
9 website, to things being on the website that you have
10 used, have you not?
11 A. Yes, we did check certain things on the website. As
12 I am sure you will appreciate, this Inquiry was opened
13 in 1998 and it would be impossible for us to have
14 checked everything on the website.
15 Q. Would it not have been good practice for any prudent
16 journalist wanting to write an objective and truthful
17 and accurate account of an event to have checked with
18 Father Daly that since he saw a number of people and
19 warned 'Barman' Duffy that -- whether or not one of them
20 was Martin McGuinness. Did you ask Father Daly?
21 A. At the time of writing that Father Daly was ill. We did
22 take the information from what Father Daly saw from his
23 autobiography.
24 Q. Would it not have been even just as simple, since you
25 could not get hold of Father Daly, if he was ill, when
1 you say one of them was Martin McGuinness, but
2 Father Daly did not see him?
3 A. Mr McGrory...
4 Q. Would that not have been easy to say...
5 A. Mr McGrory, could I just mention that the person who
6 would have been best placed to answer for his movements
7 on Bloody Sunday for our purposes in the book would have
8 been Martin McGuinness. As you are well aware, we tried
9 on numerous attempts to contact him, offering to even
10 run some of the allegations that had been put to us to
11 Martin McGuinness so he might rebut them. You are very
12 well aware -- Mr McGrory, may I finish -- of those three
13 letters to Mr McGuinness, because the letter refusing
14 any co-operation in any shape or form came from
15 yourself.
16 Q. Ms Johnston, you are very well aware that Mr McGuinness
17 regards you as a political opponent, which is why he was
18 never going to co-operate with you, because he never
19 believed you were going to write a truthful and accurate
20 account and he has said that in his statement to this
21 Inquiry.
22 Would you answer my question: would it not have been
23 a simple, when writing this particular piece, to have
24 said: one of them was Martin McGuinness, but Father Daly
25 did not see him. It would have been a simple thing to
1 do. It would have been good practice insofar as trying
2 to achieve accurate journalism is concerned; would you
3 answer the question, it is a yes or no answer?
4 A. I have answered your question.
5 Q. The question is: it would have been a simple thing to do
6 and you neglected to do it. What I am suggesting to
7 you, Ms Johnston, is that it was a deliberate omission,
8 that this passage, like many passages in your book, was
9 a distortion of the facts as you knew it, in order to
10 put Martin McGuinness in a bad light?
11 A. You are entitled to your opinion.
12 Q. Yes. You have already said you were a political
13 opponent of Mr McGuinness; were you not?
14 A. I was not a political opponent of Martin McGuinness.
15 Q. Would you accept the Workers' Party would have been
16 a party which was vehemently opposed to Provisional Sinn
17 Fein, and everything it stood for?
18 A. The Workers' Party was vehemently opposed to
19 sectarianism and paramilitarism.
20 Q. It opposed everything that Mr McGuinness stood for?
21 A. I do not think that would be true.
22 Q. Do you agree the Workers' Party would have been seen --
23 A. For example --
24 Q. I have not finished my question: do you agree the
25 Workers' Party would have been seen by the general
1 public to have been a party which was vehemently opposed
2 to the policies of Sinn Fein as we know it today; would
3 you agree that is how the party would have been
4 perceived?
5 A. I could not agree with that perception, because I think,
6 for example, the Workers' Party, when I was a member of
7 it, would certainly have been very much in favour of
8 comprehensive education and the abolition of the 11
9 plus, which are two things which Mr McGuinness has made
10 his own, as education minister.
11 Q. Are you disagreeing with me in what I suggest to you is
12 a matter of historical record, that the Workers' Party
13 and Sinn Fein were parties in great opposition to each
14 other?
15 A. At different times they have been, but so have other
16 parties.
17 Q. Would you not agree with that, a simple proposition?
18 The party to which you were affiliated?
19 A. The party of which I was a member in the late 1970s and
20 early 1980s.
21 Q. You are aware, of course, because you have written
22 extensively about them in the context of this book, of
23 the existence of the Official IRA?
24 A. I am.
25 Q. An organisation which was engaged in acts of extortion;
1 do you agree?
2 A. Are you asking me if I have been involved in extortion,
3 Mr McGrory?
4 Q. Did I ask that question? No.
5 A. I wonder what the point is.
6 Q. The question I am asking, Ms Johnston: are you aware the
7 Official IRA is an organisation which throughout its
8 history would have been engaged in, for example,
9 extortion?
10 A. I have no first-hand knowledge of that, but I am aware
11 of those allegations.
12 Q. Robbery?
13 A. Yes, I am aware of those allegations.
14 Q. Counterfeiting? Was there not one example of
15 counterfeiting found in the Gardener Place headquarters
16 of the Workers' Party in the 1980s?
17 A. There could have been, I know nothing about
18 Gardener Place.
19 Q. You know nothing about that?
20 A. I know nothing about Gardener Place, I lived in Belfast.
21 Q. Is that not the headquarters in of the Workers' Party?
22 A. Yes, in Dublin.
23 Q. And you knew nothing about the headquarters of your own
24 party in Dublin?
25 A. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, particularly the
1 early 1980s, I was a mother of two small children.
2 I had very little time to do anything other than look
3 after them and some part-time political activity.
4 Q. Not even read the newspapers. Are you seriously telling
5 this Inquiry you never heard about an incident of
6 counterfeit money being found in Gardener Place?
7 A. They may have done, Mr McGrory, but I have no first-hand
8 knowledge of that.
9 LORD SAVILLE: I am a little lost as to where all this is
10 going to.
11 MR McGRORY: I will move on, sir.
12 Of course the Official IRA was also involved in
13 murder, was it not?
14 A. It has been in the past, yes.
15 Q. May I have on the screen, please, OS12.7.
16 While that is coming up: you joined the Workers'
17 Party, you say, Republican Clubs it was described then,
18 was it not?
19 A. It was.
20 Q. Republican Clubs have been a prescribed organisation
21 until 1973; is that not right?
22 A. No, I was not a member then.
23 Q. That was only three years before you joined; is that
24 right?
25 A. If you say so.
1 Q. Were you aware that you were joining an organisation
2 which had been illegal only three years beforehand?
3 A. Which had once been prescribed, yes.
4 Q. Were you aware that the organisation that you were
5 joining was regarded as being inextricably linked with
6 the Official IRA?
7 A. At one stage I believe that to have been the case, yes.
8 Q. That was still the case, I put it to you, at the time
9 that you joined?
10 A. Not to my knowledge.
11 Q. The piece to which I refer does not appear to have come
12 on the screen, but it is an account of the death of
13 Trevor McNulty, who was killed in July 1977; did you
14 know Mr McNulty?
15 A. I had met him once.
16 Q. He was a member of the Republican Clubs, was he not?
17 A. He was.
18 Q. He was also a member of the Executive; you do not
19 remember that detail?
20 A. I had only just moved to Belfast at that stage. As
21 I say, I only met him once.
22 Q. He was the education officer for the Republican Clubs;
23 do you remember that?
24 A. He was, yes.
25 Q. He was one of four people who died in a period of less
1 than five hours when feuding broke out between the
2 Provisional and Official IRA. He was shot at 2.55 pm.
3 The next victim, James Foots, died at .430 --
4 LORD SAVILLE: Mr McGrory, I am going to interrupt you,
5 because I am not really following the purpose of this
6 detailed history or alleged history of one of the two
7 paramilitary movements -- perhaps you could help me?
8 MR McGRORY: Yes. Ms Johnston, you joined an organisation
9 in 1976 which was inextricably linked to a paramilitary
10 organisation, because Mr McNulty was both in the
11 Executive of the Republican Clubs and, according to
12 "Lost Lives", was also in the Official IRA at the same
13 time.
14 A. That is something of which I would have no first-hand
15 knowledge.
16 Q. Do you accept the historical fact that the Official IRA
17 and the Provisional IRA were vehement opponents of each
18 other, during that period?
19 A. At certain stages they were, yes.
20 Q. And that you had been, for much of your adult life and
21 your political activist life, a member of the party
22 which was affiliated to the Official IRA, which was in
23 deep conflict with Martin McGuinness's Sinn Fein, do you
24 not agree with that?
25 A. Can I point out that the Workers' Party and the
1 Republican Clubs were about a lot more than you are
2 simply suggesting here.
3 Q. I am not suggesting that they were not about a lot more.
4 What I am suggesting to you, Ms Johnston, is that you
5 are having difficulty accepting the fact that you have
6 been a long-time political opponent of
7 Martin McGuinness's; will you not accept that? It goes
8 deep into your own history, as a young girl in 1976 you
9 joined a party which was --
10 MR NICHOL: I hesitate to interrupt, but if Mr Barry McGrory
11 would like answers to his questions, it might help if he
12 made them one at a time for witness to respond to.
13 I am not sure, like you where the answers are going.
14 If he actually wants answers, it would be helpful if the
15 witness had an opportunity to respond to them
16 MR McGRORY: The difficulty is that Ms Johnston will not
17 answer the questions when I ask them singularly.
18 LORD SAVILLE: Let us get on, Mr McGrory. I am still a bit
19 lost as to why we are going into all this detail.
20 The suggestion you are presumably making to
21 Ms Johnston is that her political background predisposes
22 her to be prejudiced about Martin McGuinness.
23 MR McGRORY: That is the point indeed.
24 LORD SAVILLE: What is the answer to that question,
25 Ms Johnston?
1 A. Certainly we made every effort to contact Mr McGuinness.
2 We would have reported him fairly and in fact if we had
3 had the opportunity to put the allegations which were
4 put to us and which we report in our book to him, we
5 would in fairness have had to report his answers. We
6 clearly did not intend to set out to write a biased
7 book.
8 MR McGRORY: I will take that issue no further.
9 One matter, before I sit down, of detail you might
10 be able to help the Inquiry with. Could we have M112.48
11 on the screen, please. The bottom third of the page, if
12 that could be highlighted, it would help.
13 These, Ms Johnston, you have referred to earlier,
14 these are the notes of the telephone call that you
15 received after the first edition was published?
16 A. No, I did not say they were telephone calls.
17 Q. Sorry, was it at a meeting?
18 A. Some were meetings, some were telephone calls.
19 Q. This particular note, is this a note of a meeting or
20 a telephone call?
21 A. I cannot be sure.
22 Q. You cannot remember?
23 A. I cannot be sure.
24 Q. The notes are very -- I can go back to the original
25 version, but they are scribbled on a little notepad,
1 which would be indicative it might have been a telephone
2 call. I would have imagined if it had been a meeting
3 you might have been more organised about your
4 note-taking; does that help you jog your memory?
5 A. No, it does not, because at no stage would it have been
6 a formal meeting, in the sense that minutes would have
7 been taken or anything like that.
8 Q. Was this a person you had heard from before the first
9 edition of the book or was this new information, was
10 this a new source?
11 A. No, this was information we were given prior to
12 publication, as it says.
13 Q. This was information you were given prior to publication
14 but after the book had been written?
15 A. I believe so.
16 Q. But the source who gave you the information, was this
17 someone you had heard from before the book was written?
18 A. If you want me to be sure, could you go on to the next
19 page --
20 Q. Page M112.49, that might help, does that take us any
21 further?
22 A. I think these notes are from someone I had heard from
23 before.
24 Q. It is from someone you had heard from before?
25 A. I believe so.
1 Q. May I have on the screen -- perhaps side by side with
2 page 48 it would help -- M112.48. Sorry, my apologies
3 I am not making myself clear. Could we have AC84.9,
4 paragraph 37. In paragraph 37, in the fourth line:
5 "This was Tony Rush who fired a couple of shots from
6 a wall at the end of Chamberlain Street."
7 Do you see that line?
8 A. Yes, I do.
9 Q. That is the only reference, I believe, to Tony Rush,
10 which has been made in the papers to the Inquiry. The
11 only other place where that name has been mentioned is
12 in your notes at the bottom of page M112.48, just below
13 page 1, Tony Rush. Whoever telephoned you or whoever
14 you met on that occasion mentioned the name Tony Rush;
15 you accept that; you have written it down --
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. -- in somewhat unclear circumstances. The statement at
18 37 comes from a chap called Tony Coll. Is he
19 Des Clinton?
20 A. I have never heard of him and I have never seen this
21 statement before, if that helps you at all. I missed
22 the name you mentioned there.
23 Q. Tony Coll?
24 A. No, I never heard of that man before.
25 MR McGRORY: It is just a bizarre coincidence, that is all.
1 Questioned by MR A HARVEY
2 MR HARVEY: Ms Johnston, I am afraid I am over the other
3 side of the hall. I appear on behalf of a number of the
4 families of the deceased and injured and for the purpose
5 of asking you questions, the family of Gerard Donaghy.
6 In relation to the book that was written on
7 Mr McGuinness that contains the chapter on
8 Bloody Sunday, I am not quite certain as to what your
9 position is: were you, and your husband, Mr Liam Clarke,
10 simply reporting a hodgepodge of allegations that were
11 being made for the purpose of putting those into the
12 public arena or were you seeking to authenticate the
13 information that you were given?
14 A. We certainly, we certainly were not trying to put
15 together a hodgepodge of allegations.
16 Q. During some of the questioning when you were asked about
17 the content of that particular chapter, you had
18 indicated that you actually believed some of the
19 allegations; did you put in that chapter only
20 allegations that you believed to be true?
21 A. We reported as truthfully and consistently as we
22 could --
23 Q. Truthful and consistent reporting can consist of simply
24 relaying information with which you have been supplied;
25 do you understand that?
1 A. I do.
2 Q. The other category of reporting is where you are
3 offering to the reader information which you are
4 attesting to be true; do you understand that?
5 A. I do understand that.
6 Q. Which were you doing?
7 A. We were attempting to put forward as truthful -- as
8 I have said before, as truthful and honest an account as
9 we possibly could. We recognise we cannot compete with
10 something -- with the resources of, for example, this
11 Inquiry.
12 Q. Does that, therefore, mean that you only included in the
13 book allegations which you believed to be true?
14 A. If you will notice, we are not saying that this is what
15 we believed happened because we were there on the day.
16 We are saying that these are accounts from those who
17 were there on that day and we have tried not to give
18 undue weight to any of those, especially recognising the
19 importance of this Inquiry.
20 Q. You understand there is no ulterior motive behind my
21 questioning, I am just trying to find out what is the
22 editorial policy of your book. Would you, if you
23 disbelieved an allegation, have included it within the
24 text of the book?
25 A. I am not quite sure what you mean.
1 LORD SAVILLE: I think we are giving Ms Johnston too stark
2 a choice between simply writing down what you were told
3 and writing down stuff you had concluded was true.
4 There are a number of positions between those two
5 extremes. One of them, for example, would be that you
6 wrote your book putting in it material that you regarded
7 as credible although whether you believed it or not
8 yourself personally was another matter excluding
9 material that you simply found so incredible that you
10 did not want it to be in any book that you put your name
11 to. There may be a number of other positions,
12 Mr Harvey, but I think it is wrong simply to say there
13 is the one position of believing everything you put in
14 the book and the other position of putting in the book
15 everything you were told.
16 Perhaps you can help us, Ms Johnston, as to what
17 method you adopted?
18 A. Well, for example, if I could draw your attention to one
19 section in the chapter, we mention the Infliction claims
20 and we also quote from David Shayler's interviews where
21 he described Infliction as someone who had not been
22 reliable.
23 We have tried, we have tried to, um, we have tried
24 to include what we could substantiate where possible.
25 Where it was not, we have tried to write about it in
1 such a way as to make it clear that these are the
2 beliefs of those who have talked to us, if that is
3 clear.
4 MR HARVEY: I think it is tolerably clear.
5 If I just deal with, for example: there is only one
6 source that you have talked to of substance who has come
7 forward to give evidence to this Tribunal, and that is
8 Mr Ward; is that right?
9 A. As of this moment, that is all I am aware of, yes.
10 Q. You actually, when you were asked this morning by
11 Mr Clarke: did you take part in the interviews, you
12 said, not in the long interview in 2001?
13 A. That is correct.
14 Q. Did you take part in other interviews with him?
15 A. One previous interview in around November 2000; my
16 participation was brief.
17 Q. Were you present?
18 A. At the end of the interview, yes.
19 Q. What did that interview cover?
20 A. Well, I think you should ask Mr Clarke what that
21 interview covered since it was his interview with
22 Mr Ward.
23 Q. I am asking you about what it covered when you were
24 there.
25 A. Yes, I can speak to that. We discussed the book that we
1 were considering writing at that stage about
2 Martin McGuinness.
3 Q. Mr Ward made a statement to this Inquiry and you are
4 aware of that?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. You are also aware that for quite a substantial number
7 of paragraphs he certainly gave the impression that your
8 book attributed to him remarks that he did not make due
9 to either assumptions being made by yourself and your
10 husband or due to confusion or due to attributing other
11 sources of information to him; you are aware of that?
12 A. I am aware that he said that, yes.
13 Q. How did you feel whenever you read that statement in
14 terms of your own journalistic integrity?
15 A. Well, I was surprised that such a thing should have been
16 said, but you will be aware, and I am sure you have
17 a copy of the transcript which the Tribunal prepared.
18 Q. I am entirely aware of that. I am just asking you --
19 you see, you knew who your accuser was, Mr Ward; is that
20 not right?
21 A. Yes, that is right.
22 Q. You had material which could refute what your accuser
23 was saying to you; is that right?
24 A. That is right.
25 Q. The attack Mr Ward made on you was an attack, not
1 personally on you or your husband, but it was a direct
2 attack upon your journalistic integrity; was it not?
3 A. I accept what you say.
4 Q. It must have been profoundly upsetting for you and your
5 husband when you saw that?
6 A. Well, it was upsetting.
7 Q. Profoundly upsetting, because you make your living --
8 irrespect -- I have no interest in your politics,
9 everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but you make
10 your journalistic living out of regarding the facts as
11 sacred; is that not right?
12 A. That is right.
13 Q. So I ask you again: how did you actually feel when you
14 read the allegations that you had, to use the current
15 term, sexed up the account that Mr Ward had provided to
16 you?
17 A. Well, I was upset, as I have said before.
18 Q. Sorry?
19 A. I was upset, as I have said earlier.
20 Q. Profoundly wounded; would that be a fair and accurate
21 reflection of how yourself and your husband felt?
22 A. Well, I was upset, yes.
23 Q. Betrayed?
24 A. I do not know that I felt betrayed.
25 Q. Did you not feel betrayed by someone whom you had
1 formerly reposed trust and confidence in the information
2 that he had supplied to you?
3 A. Well, it was an interview with him, yes.
4 Q. Can you understand that when you and your husband report
5 unattributed comments against someone such as
6 Gerard Donaghy where the family do not know, cannot
7 identify their accuser and are not available or do not
8 have made available to them material upon which they can
9 challenge that accuser that they would be profoundly
10 upset and wounded?
11 A. I can understand that indeed and we have encouraged at
12 all stages both those we have named pseudonymously and
13 those who have remained completely anonymous in our
14 book, with nothing attributed to them at all, to go to
15 this Inquiry, but they fear for their lives.
16 Q. Did you believe Mr Ward in the account that he furnished
17 to you?
18 A. I did.
19 Q. Of what he had seen?
20 A. I did.
21 Q. And your husband did?
22 A. You will have to ask him.
23 Q. Surely when you developed what had to be included in the
24 book, one of the considerations would have been what
25 weight would be attributed to the evidence that you had
1 been supplied with from Mr Ward; was it not, was that
2 purely his decision?
3 A. The position we had on control of the book was that as
4 one person wrote a chapter, the other revised it so we
5 had joint responsibility for each chapter.
6 Q. Did you both discuss whether or not you both believed
7 Mr Ward and the account that he had given?
8 A. We did.
9 Q. And both of you, therefore, came to the same
10 conclusion: that he was providing a truthful and
11 accurate account of what occurred?
12 A. We did believe that.
13 Q. Truthful in the sense that you believed it to be true
14 and accurate in the sense that the facts he was
15 presenting to you were in fact true?
16 A. Yes, as I said before, we believed him.
17 Q. Did you revise your opinion of Mr Ward when you saw his
18 statement basically defaming you and your husband in
19 your exercise of your profession?
20 A. I believe that Mr Ward may have had his own reasons for
21 leaving some people's names out of the account that he
22 gave to this Inquiry.
23 Q. Did you ever consider that one of the reasons for
24 considering his account was that it was a tissue of lies
25 and a commensurable tissue of lies to those in
1 possession of facts?
2 A. Well, that is a possibility. As I say I was not there
3 on Bloody Sunday. I do and did take what Paddy Ward
4 told us, particularly in his interview with my husband,
5 to be accurate.
6 Q. That is not quite an answer to the question
7 I asked: whenever you learned that he defamed you and
8 your husband in the exercise of your profession, did you
9 consider that one of the explanations was that he had
10 supplied you with a tissue of lies?
11 A. I did not consider that he had supplied us with a tissue
12 of lies. I think possibly what has happened is that
13 when he went back and reflected prior to giving evidence
14 to this Inquiry, he has, um, perhaps understandably,
15 been -- has given us inaccurate accounts and has
16 supplied the Inquiry with a more detailed recollection.
17 Q. That is what you considered; that he was still an honest
18 witness, that an honest witness who perhaps due to lack
19 of opportunity for reflection had committed himself to
20 an account which was inaccurate, if not untrue; is that
21 your position?
22 A. Could you repeat that?
23 Q. Is your position that, having reflected upon this, that
24 you have considered that one of the reasons why Mr Ward
25 may have given you inaccurate information was simply
1 that he lacked the opportunity to look back and actually
2 recall the details of what occurred?
3 A. I think that may have been part of it.
4 Q. Do you know in fact that when he gave evidence he
5 indicated that he really -- you had given him an
6 undertaking that he would have, to a degree, editorial
7 control over those portions of the book which referred
8 to him; that he would be shown the items before
9 publication, did that happen?
10 A. I certainly gave no such undertaking.
11 Q. How could Mr Ward be confused about that?
12 A. Did you ask him?
13 Q. Yes, I am asking you now. Was there any room for any
14 doubt in the discussions or conversations that you had
15 that would have given rise to the impression in
16 Mr Ward's mind that he would have some form of control
17 over what you included in your book concerning him?
18 A. Not as far as I am aware. There was no such
19 undertaking. We would not make such an undertaking.
20 Q. He also said, when asked, that he really did not
21 understand the purpose of the book, and he only had
22 a few days for reflection before the long interview took
23 place in April 2001; is that right?
24 A. I cannot recall.
25 Q. When did you first speak to him?
1 A. Mr Ward?
2 Q. Yes.
3 A. I spoke to him briefly, as I have said to you,
4 in November 2000.
5 Q. And you say that you interrupted an interview with your
6 husband; was that the first time to your knowledge that
7 your husband had spoken to him?
8 A. I did not interrupt the interview, I came along at the
9 end of it. I am honestly not sure, you will have to ask
10 my husband.
11 Q. At least he was aware between November and April 2001
12 that you were interested in the detail of what he knew
13 in relation to Martin McGuinness, including
14 Bloody Sunday?
15 A. From memory, we mentioned to him that we were
16 considering writing a biography of Martin McGuinness.
17 We had not progressed much further than considering it
18 and in fact our contract was not signed until, um,
19 either the end of 2000, the start of 2001. We then did
20 preliminary research, background reading and so on and
21 it would have been at a much later stage, much closer to
22 finalising the interview with Mr Ward in April 2001,
23 that there would have been any further contact with him.
24 Q. You had no further contact with him?
25 A. I had no further contact with him.
1 Q. In dealing with the allegations that were made by
2 Mr Ward, when you were finalising the chapter on
3 Bloody Sunday, did both of you go over it and consider
4 it and determine what ought or ought not to be included
5 in it?
6 A. We did.
7 Q. One of the essential ingredients of Mr Ward's evidence
8 and his account to you was that the actual march was to
9 proceed to the Guildhall and because it was to proceed
10 to the Guildhall, that was the justification for the
11 initiation of a nail bomb attack upon the property which
12 existed there; is that not right?
13 A. I believe so.
14 Q. How could it be, if you were making any evaluation of
15 the credibility of Mr Ward's evidence that the book
16 refers not on one, but on two occasions to the fact that
17 it had been determined on the Monday night at
18 Mr McFadden's house, where Mr McGlinchey was told not to
19 go to the Guildhall, and yet no-one relates that to the
20 allegation that was being made by Mr Ward?
21 A. I believe there was a great deal of confusion about what
22 route the march was going to take, was there not?
23 Q. Your book says there was not. Your book indicates on
24 two occasions that Mr McFadden directed Mr McGlinchey on
25 the Monday night beforehand, that it was not to go to
1 the Guildhall, it was to turn down William Street. Did
2 you seek to make any evaluation of Mr Ward's evidence
3 against that or were you simply content to buy his
4 story?
5 A. Well, we accepted his story and I must add that there
6 was confusion at the time and large sections of the
7 crowd and large sections of the people from NICRA who
8 were there were not sure what way the march was going.
9 Q. That might well be justification for some random
10 individuals, groups of unconnected individuals not
11 knowing where it was going, but it is no excuse for
12 Mr McGuinness who, in the book you point out, was
13 constantly in and out of Mr McFadden's house; do you see
14 that?
15 A. I do see that and you will have to ask Mr McGuinness
16 about that.
17 Q. It is not Mr McGuinness I am asking questions about, it
18 is the apparent whole justification provided by Ward
19 which is undone within the content of your own book; do
20 you understand that?
21 A. I can see your point.
22 Q. One of the matters within this particular chapter is
23 that in the preface to the second edition you include
24 for the first time reference to Mr Gerard Donaghy having
25 nail bombs at the corner of High Street. You have
1 already been shown this, could we quickly look at
2 M112.50. You can see where it says:
3 "High Street full of people.
4 "Gerard Donaghy had several nail bombs, S McCallion
5 wanted them.
6 "Throw nail bombs over roof."
7 If we go to the next page, M112.51, "Gerard Donaghy
8 and MG standing beside each other and Edward Daly
9 standing against wall when argument with McCallion was
10 going on."
11 That could not possibly relate, as was suggested to
12 you for your consideration by Mr Glasgow, to the subject
13 of Father Daly's gunman, because Gerard Donaghy never
14 went in anywhere near the direction where this gunman
15 was; he was in the company of a man called McLaughlin
16 and went up Rossville Street and you never, at any
17 stage, considered that this line ever applied to any
18 other conversation than the throwing of nail bombs over
19 the roof from High Street to William Street; is that not
20 right?
21 A. I am sorry, I never at any time --
22 Q. Considered that this reference --
23 A. To the argument.
24 Q. To the argument, related to anything other than the
25 argument in High Street about throwing the nail bombs
1 over the roof?
2 A. Not until it was earlier suggested to me, no.
3 Q. Probably for good reasons, but let us just deal with
4 this for the moment: the source of this particular
5 allegation in relation to all of the information on
6 these pages, you have said there were several sources?
7 A. That is correct.
8 Q. Do you know the source for the specific allegation in
9 relation to Mr Gerard Donaghy?
10 A. I do.
11 Q. Do you know the specific sources for the other
12 allegations?
13 A. I do.
14 Q. Let us deal with what you told Mr Clarke. What you told
15 Mr Clarke this morning was that your source indicated
16 that Gerard Donaghy had several nail bombs and that your
17 source was speculating that Mr McCallion wanted them to
18 throw them; is that right?
19 A. I cannot remember if I used the word "speculating".
20 Q. That is exactly what you used, "speculating." You said:
21 "The person I was speaking to was speculating that
22 perhaps the reason that the person referred to wanted
23 the nail bombs, was to throw them over the roof."
24 Was that accurate?
25 A. It is an accurate reflection of my notes. I cannot
1 speak for what happened at the time, for I was not there
2 and I do not think any of this was used in the book.
3 Q. Let us see what you did put in the preface of the book.
4 Could we go to T477 and the third paragraph:
5 "Another eyewitness claims that he saw
6 Gerard Donaghy outside the bookies, where rioters wanted
7 to throw nail bombs over the roof on to the Army
8 barricade. Because of the shortage of nail bombs after
9 Mr McGuinness had issued orders for their recall, at
10 least one person at the scene argued with Donaghy,
11 trying to get the nail bombs off him to throw himself."
12 A. Yes, I am sorry, you are right.
13 Q. I am right about what?
14 A. That we had included this in the preface.
15 Q. How could it be that you include that in the preface and
16 tell this Tribunal that what the person you were
17 speaking to was merely speculating as to this as
18 a possibility?
19 A. Well, I will have to go back and consider that.
20 Q. I am sure you will, but in the meantime you do see the
21 contradiction, you do see the contradiction?
22 A. I do.
23 Q. The contradiction being, that if what you have told this
24 Tribunal is the truth then you have sexed up this
25 particular allegation?
1 A. I do not accept that because you are referring to one
2 set of notes which were found in a box of papers which
3 were recently returned to us by the police.
4 Q. Sorry, I am not referring to the notes, I am referring
5 to what you told this Tribunal this morning and what you
6 included in the book; you see that?
7 A. Well, all I can say is that what is written in the book
8 is as accurate as we can make it. If I have earlier
9 misremembered something and agreed with a suggestion
10 about speculation or used the word speculation, then
11 I may have been wrong.
12 Q. Could you tell me why was it excluded from the book,
13 firstly, that Father Daly was there when this argument
14 took place?
15 A. There was no particular reason.
16 Q. Was it the same person who gave you that information in
17 relation to Father Daly being present --
18 A. I am not sure.
19 Q. -- as who gave you the information about the argument?
20 A. I am not sure. The notes are not up on the screen. It
21 might help if I could see the original.
22 Q. I think if we go to --
23 A. Copy of the notes.
24 Q. I think it is at M112.44, is this the original
25 handwritten note.
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Could we go over the page and over the page again:
3 "Gerard Donaghy and MMCG standing beside each other
4 and [something] you have typed it up as "against the
5 wall when argument took place" you have typed it up "and
6 Eddie Daly standing against the wall." It looks as
7 though Eddie Daly's name has been taken out of this, for
8 whatever reason.
9 A. It was not taken out by me.
10 Q. I am not suggesting it was, for whatever reason,
11 nonetheless, it is Father Daly's. I am asking you why
12 you would have excluded that if it was true?
13 A. Well, I can give you no explanation. I mean, the
14 preface is very short. There are only a couple of
15 paragraphs --
16 Q. The truth of the matter is: if Father Edward Daly was
17 there when this conversation took place in High Street,
18 it simply means he must have seen it and witnessed it
19 and committed perjury when he gave evidence to this
20 Tribunal, because the evidence to this Tribunal is that,
21 far from being at High Street, he moved up
22 Rossville Street and stood in a position between
23 Pilot's Row and Eden Place; he refers to seeing some
24 young boys acting suspiciously on the wasteground, at
25 the shops near the wasteground on William Street,
1 nowhere near this position.
2 Did you exclude it because you knew that your
3 informant was simply spinning you a yarn?
4 A. No, I do not believe so.
5 Q. In other words, this is another person who was giving
6 you information which you believed to be true but
7 nonetheless excluded from the account a very important
8 line: that what was occurring was witnessed by
9 Father Daly?
10 A. I am sorry, I simply cannot give you any reason why that
11 was excluded. I mean, as I have told you, um, these
12 notes were found by us during a search of some material
13 which had been taken from our house in circumstances
14 which have been explained to the Tribunal. We have been
15 looking through them as quickly as we could. We found
16 these handwritten notes. They were made some time ago.
17 There are no dates on them. I have made some attempts
18 to date them.
19 Q. I entirely understand that and welcome what you have
20 done, but the real matter is: you included it in your
21 book. You can check for me whether it is the same
22 informant or different informants for these two pieces
23 of information; can you?
24 A. I can check back to my original notes and see if I can
25 help the Inquiry any further. I can do no more than
1 that.
2 Q. You have already told me that you can identify the
3 informant for the first part of the allegation contained
4 in these notes and you can identify the other
5 informants; is that right?
6 A. I believe it to be so, yes.
7 Q. It would not be greatly difficult, therefore, to work
8 out whether these two pieces of information come from
9 the same informant?
10 A. I will try to help you when I go home by -- if that is
11 acceptable to the Inquiry -- by seeing if they are taken
12 at the same time.
13 Q. But this piece of information, it is only if there are
14 not two sources, this is the only source contained
15 within this note of this allegation?
16 A. I am sorry, I am a little confused.
17 Q. The allegation that Gerard Donaghy was at High Street
18 with two nail bombs or some nail bombs and that there
19 was an argument with himself and Mr McCallion. There is
20 no other source other than the source contained in this
21 note.
22 A. I can help you no further on this point without
23 checking.
24 Q. There being no other source, did you actually just go
25 round and have a look at High Street; did you go that
1 far?
2 A. I did at one stage, yes, go to High Street.
3 Q. Did you look and see in fact, High Street on the side,
4 that is the eastern side which marches alongside the
5 rear of the houses on William Street has three-storey
6 houses, about 40 to 45 feet high including a pitched
7 roof?
8 A. I will be guided by you.
9 Q. No, do not be guided by me, be guided by what you saw
10 when you went round; do you recall that?
11 A. Um, I do not recall that, no.
12 Q. Do you recall that in between the buildings, between
13 High Street and William Street there is actually
14 a vacant space before you go on to the, again,
15 three-storey houses on William Street?
16 A. I am sorry, Mr Harvey, it is some time since, since we
17 examined that.
18 Q. What I suggest to you, if you had gone and checked --
19 A. We did go and check --
20 Q. -- the first thing that would have struck you is that
21 this is impossible; it is impossible to throw a nail
22 bomb from High Street into William Street, to go 45 feet
23 into the air, to cross approximately 25 metres and still
24 be 25 feet in the air, the thing would have had to have
25 been thrown almost vertically, it would have fallen on
1 the houses, at the rear of the houses in High Street;
2 that never struck you?
3 A. You may be right, I was not there on that day and all we
4 have attempted to do is to report what we were told.
5 Q. But you understand?
6 A. I can see your point.
7 Q. And you understand, therefore, the necessity of having
8 the source of this information because he alleges he was
9 there on the day. He would, therefore, be aware of the
10 precise details that I am putting to you, but because of
11 you I cannot put these questions properly to him?
12 A. I accept that.
13 Q. But I could to Mr Ward and in your book one of the
14 matters that you indicate is, Mr Ward, because he was
15 free from threats of intimidation, was free to come and
16 tell the truth; that is right, is it not? It actually
17 follows on from the quote that I have just read from
18 you, if you want to go back to it, T477, if one goes to
19 the fourth paragraph:
20 "Mr Ward, the commander of the Fianna was given nail
21 bombs by McGuinness before he gave orders for their
22 withdrawal when he realised the scale of the British
23 military presence, has agreed to give evidence to the
24 Saville Inquiry ... Ward no longer lives in Derry, so is
25 subject to no threats from the IRA. Others are not so
1 fortunate."
2 What I want to suggest to you is that when Mr Ward
3 gave evidence, he was exposed as a person who, far from
4 being an individual giving accurate, reliable, and
5 dependable information, was giving evidence which was at
6 the other end of the spectrum from that; did you
7 appreciate that? Did you read the transcript of his
8 evidence?
9 A. I do appreciate that.
10 Q. You do appreciate in fact he was basically exposed --
11 A. I appreciate your point.
12 Q. And if he is exposed the quality of the decision that
13 you made as a journalist to include his allegations is
14 also exposed. I am referring to the quality of the
15 judgment, not the quality of the other journalism, you
16 do understand that?
17 A. I can hear what you are saying, but I must point out
18 that we did make attempts to check out the veracity of
19 Mr Ward's story as far as we could.
20 Q. Do you therefore also understand the one informant, the
21 one that you and your husband have relied upon has been
22 publicly exposed and, therefore, the people against whom
23 your anonymous sources are making allegations could
24 equally be exposed if they come forward to assist this
25 Inquiry, you are aware of that as a possibility; are you
1 not?
2 A. I can hear what you are saying. I wish the sources --
3 and I prefer to call them sources than informants -- who
4 have spoken to us could come forward to this Inquiry, we
5 have tried to encourage them to do so.
6 Q. But you do understand the importance of this informant
7 in relation to Gerard Donaghy being the only source of
8 this information where there are practical questions and
9 answers which he and he alone can answer; you understand
10 that?
11 A. Yes, I understand that.
12 Q. Do you understand, therefore, that when people have
13 fought for 30 years to have the truth come out, that
14 anonymous sources appearing in books through honourable,
15 reliable journalists with no possibility of examining
16 them, denies them the opportunity to pursue truth in all
17 its guises; do you understand that?
18 A. I can hear what you are saying.
19 Q. Do you understand it, but?
20 A. Yes, I do understand it.
21 Q. The unclouded face of truth often has unpalatable
22 consequences for many people, including journalists; is
23 that not right?
24 A. I am sure you are right.
25 Q. I would implore you, on behalf of the families and the
1 people that I represent, to provide this source of this
2 information so that he can come and answer questions for
3 which you are little more than the vehicle for supplying
4 answers; will you do that?
5 A. I will certainly approach, sir, our sources again.
6 MR HARVEY: I have no further questions.
7 Questioned by MR O'DONOVAN
8 MR O'DONOVAN: My name is O'Donovan. I represent a number
9 of people who, in 1972, were members of the Official
10 IRA. You were involved, were you not, in the interview
11 with Liam O'Comain?
12 A. I was.
13 Q. As you have already explained to this Tribunal, that the
14 entire contents of that interview are now before this
15 Tribunal?
16 A. Except for one part; we asked for the tape to be
17 switched off, yes.
18 Q. Those, as you have already explained, are matters not
19 particularly relevant to this Tribunal?
20 A. That is right.
21 Q. When you were conducting your interview with him, would
22 I be right in thinking that there were no questions
23 which were off limits as regards Bloody Sunday?
24 A. Are you suggesting that he suggested that he would only
25 speak to us about some things or others?
1 Q. What I am suggesting really is the opposite to that: the
2 nature of the interview between you and your husband and
3 him was that there were no limits set by him; would that
4 be right?
5 A. No, that is correct, yes.
6 Q. Consequently I assume it would follow that if anything
7 of interest occurred during the interviews, you would be
8 able to pursue those matters?
9 A. I would have thought so, yes.
10 Q. I wonder if we could have on the screen, please, the
11 document AO82.5, if that could be put on the left-hand
12 side of the screen, please. If the top three paragraphs
13 could be highlighted, and on the other side of the
14 screen could you put T495. Could you highlight the
15 paragraph that begins:
16 "The man who was captured on film... "
17 Ms Johnston, I am particularly interested in the
18 third paragraph down on the interview record:
19 "There is an interesting twist to Bloody Sunday ..."
20 Do you see that?
21 A. I do.
22 Q. You will be familiar with the page of the book on the
23 other side that begins:
24 "The man who was captured on film... "
25 You would be familiar with that now?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Your familiarity with it should indicate to you that
3 within both those passages there is no mention of
4 whether this alleged activity was authorised by the
5 local Official IRA command in Derry; there is no mention
6 of that, is there?
7 A. Yes, that is correct.
8 Q. Similarly, there is no mention of whether those involved
9 were officers or merely volunteers?
10 A. No, I cannot see any.
11 Q. There is no accurate reference to how many people were
12 allegedly involved; is there?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Your source, it appears, did not identify, it appears
15 from this report, any individuals who were involved?
16 A. I do not believe so.
17 Q. There is no detail given, is there, as to how the
18 decision so to act was to be implemented?
19 A. No, I do not think that was covered.
20 Q. Nothing is said as to how the plan was implemented, in
21 other words, whether it was the original plan or on the
22 day there was some variation when the plan got altered;
23 there is nothing about how it was implemented at all, is
24 there?
25 A. No.
1 Q. If you look at the left-hand side of the screen and the
2 note, there is a comment:
3 "It was nothing to do with Bishop Daly's gunman."
4 Do you see that?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. There is no clarification as to where that fits into the
7 story or what it might mean; do you see that?
8 A. I am not sure what, what your last point means. What do
9 you mean by your last point?
10 Q. I merely make the point that the comment is made: "it
11 was nothing to do with Bishop Daly's gunman", but it is
12 not taken any further, is it?
13 A. Not in that passage.
14 Q. As you see later on, in fact after the word "Daly's
15 gunman", this is recorded:
16 "I was on the fringes then."
17 Do you see that?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And notwithstanding the fact that this individual, on
20 his own admission was on the fringes, there is no
21 indication as to how he came across the information;
22 that is right, is it not?
23 A. I believe so.
24 Q. I have just raised with you as we have been through it
25 a number of separate issues. Would you not agree that
1 those issues are matters which an investigative
2 journalist might have chosen to pursue given the bare
3 bones that are shown on the left-hand side of the
4 screen?
5 A. Well, I would point out to you, we were not writing
6 a book about Bloody Sunday. We were asking Mr O'Comain
7 for his recollections of Martin McGuinness.
8 Q. However, there is an assertion there -- and you must
9 appreciate this -- that either a renegade group or
10 a group representing the Official IRA, named
11 individuals, had set upon a course and had decided to
12 implement an attack; that is what this man was saying,
13 O'Comain?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. That was a very important piece of information; was it
16 not, potentially?
17 A. Potentially, yes.
18 Q. I merely ask this: I have highlighted to you seven or
19 eight potential issues which certainly, judging by the
20 complete note that you say it is, do not seem to have
21 been pursued with Mr O'Comain?
22 A. Can I just answer to that -- say that at that time it
23 was believed that some former members of the Official
24 IRA were going to give evidence to this Inquiry, and it
25 was indeed hoped that Martin McGuinness would be giving
1 evidence before this Inquiry at an earlier date,
2 possibly that will answer your question.
3 Q. With respect, it does not because the chapter from which
4 this is called -- it is called Bloody Sunday -- it
5 covers a wide spectrum of events on the day; does it
6 not?
7 A. It does.
8 Q. You have mentioned to this Tribunal that what you were
9 doing in part in this book -- you certainly seem to have
10 put certain matters in that, in your view, are correct
11 and true; that is right, is it not?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And there are other matters which you say you merely
14 reported?
15 A. Neither of us have any first-hand knowledge of
16 Bloody Sunday.
17 Q. Precisely.
18 A. What we have attempted to do is to accurately and fairly
19 report what others told us.
20 Q. Yes. What I am suggesting to you is that this was
21 potentially a very important story: that the officials
22 had conspired together to shoot. What I suggest to you
23 is simply this: that had you regarded Mr O'Comain's
24 evidence as being in any way credible, you would have
25 asked the obvious questions to get the full story?
1 A. Well, possibly we would have done had we been writing
2 a book about the Official IRA or about the events of
3 Bloody Sunday, but what we were trying to do, we asked
4 Mr O'Comain in the interview to tell us what he
5 remembered about Martin McGuinness because we were
6 writing a book about Martin McGuinness, not any other
7 subject.
8 Q. With the greatest of respect that is simply not so; you
9 have put it in, "it is an interesting fact that ... "
10 and that is as high as you put it, it is merely an
11 interesting piece of information. I am suggesting
12 simply that had you regarded what Mr O'Comain was saying
13 as being worthy of consideration and credibility, you
14 would have pursued it further and asked the obvious
15 questions and that is right, is it not?
16 A. We did include it in the chapter and, as I said earlier,
17 the chapter, the chapter about Bloody Sunday is one of
18 several chapters in the book about Martin McGuinness,
19 a biography.
20 Questioned by MR NICHOL
21 MR NICHOL: You were asked a series of questions by
22 Mr McGrory on behalf of Mr McGuinness. The thrust of
23 them was that you had deliberately selected material
24 that was adverse to Mr McGuinness and deliberately
25 omitted material that would have been favourable to him;
1 is that true?
2 A. That is what Mr McGrory said, yes.
3 Q. Is it true that is what you did?
4 A. No, it is totally untrue, I mean, we quote many people
5 in the book who have the highest of praise for
6 Martin McGuinness, among them John Hume, Ken Maginness
7 and Michael Oatley, a member of MI6.
8 Q. You were asked again by various counsel about your views
9 about the truthfulness of the material that you included
10 in the book. Can I ask you this: was there anything
11 that you included in the book which you knew positively
12 was untrue and which you reported either as true or in
13 neutral terms?
14 A. Not at any stage.
15 Q. You were asked by Mr Harvey as to whether it was correct
16 that of your sources the only one to come forward to
17 give evidence to the Tribunal was Mr Ward. Was one of
18 your other sources a person who has the pseudonym
19 Martin Ingram?
20 A. That is correct.
21 Q. The Tribunal will know that he has come forward to give
22 evidence to this Tribunal.
23 You were asked by Mr Harvey about a passage in the
24 book that concerned the plans for the route of the march
25 on Bloody Sunday; do you recall that?
1 A. I do.
2 Q. The thrust of that question from Mr Harvey was that that
3 passage demonstrated that Mr Ward's account of the plan
4 to go with the march to the Guildhall and throw nail
5 bombs must have been untrue?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Do you understand?
8 A. Yes, I do.
9 Q. Do you accept that that passage that Mr Harvey took you
10 to demonstrated that Mr Ward's account must have been
11 untrue?
12 A. Sorry, could you repeat that?
13 Q. Do you accept that the passage concerning the plan for
14 the route to go down, I think it is Rossville Street,
15 demonstrated that Mr Ward's account of a plan to go with
16 the march to the Guildhall must have been untrue?
17 A. Um, can you direct me to the --
18 Q. If you have the book, I am afraid I do not have the
19 scanned reference. It is at page 58 of the book. It is
20 possible it is T491?
21 MR CLARKE: T488.
22 MR NICHOL: I am grateful.
23 The passage Mr Harvey was talking about is the
24 second passage on that page:
25 "At their Monday night meeting, Barney McFadden had
1 instructed McGlinchey to turn down Rossville Street."
2 It is that sentence really. Mr Harvey was
3 suggesting that that piece of information demonstrated
4 that Mr Ward's account that the march was intended to go
5 on towards the Guildhall must have been untrue?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Do you accept the logic of that argument being put to
8 you?
9 A. No, I do not.
10 Q. I think it was also being suggested to you that there
11 was something sinister in your choice of what to include
12 or exclude in the preface, the preface to the paperback
13 or second edition. In making your selection as to what
14 to include or exclude were you seeking to pursue some
15 separate agenda?
16 A. No, we were not. I mean, you will see the preface is
17 very brief. We had hoped it would have been longer, but
18 that was the space we were given by our publishers.
19 Q. Indeed. It is probably too obvious to need saying, but
20 when one is writing a book it is necessary to be
21 selective; is it not?
22 A. It is.
23 Q. Even more so when one is writing a preface to a second
24 edition?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. You were asked, I think well, by Mr Harvey about your
2 response to Mr Ward's evidence before the Tribunal?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. It is, of course, right and you recognise that the
5 process of questioning will expose a witness to being
6 tested; that is correct, is it not?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. In that sense, of course, Mr Ward was indeed exposed to
9 that process?
10 A. He was.
11 Q. You have had a chance to see the transcript of that
12 evidence. Having read that transcript, is it your view
13 that his essential account to you remains an accurate
14 one?
15 A. Certainly.
16 Q. Thank you, sir, those are the only questions I have.
17 Questioned by MR CLARKE
18 MR CLARKE: Just a number of matters. There have been
19 a number of questions that you were asked in the course
20 of my learned friends' questioning in which your
21 response was that you would be able to give or might be
22 able to give an answer on consideration. I would like,
23 if I may, to itemise what I think are either all or most
24 of them to see whether you can now or will be able in
25 the immediate future to answer those questions.
1 The first thing you were asked is whether you are
2 able to indicate approximately how many of the people
3 who gave you information which related to Bloody Sunday
4 talked of nail bombs being in circulation. Are you able
5 to tell us that now?
6 A. I would prefer to have some time to consider this,
7 I have not had much time during the earlier part of
8 today. What I am saying will appear in the transcript,
9 it will be possible to look at the list when the
10 transcript comes forward.
11 Q. The second question you were asked was whether you were
12 able to give some indication of the number of people --
13 not the identity of people -- who had expressed to you
14 fears for their safety if they were to give evidence to
15 this Tribunal.
16 Again, is that something to which you are able to
17 give an answer now?
18 A. No, it is something I would wish to consider.
19 Q. The third matter is the extent to which you may be able
20 to indicate how many informers we are concerned with in
21 your notes.
22 If we could go back to M112.48. What appears at
23 M112.48 is three separate sets of manuscript notes which
24 are typed-up and divided by the comments "Captain
25 Johnston typed up notes for preface 1" and then 2, and
1 then "Catherine Johnston typed up notes for book" and
2 then that entry "typed-up notes for book" extends over
3 to pages 112.49, 112.50 and 112.51.
4 Would you be able on consideration to give us some
5 idea of how many separate people there are giving you
6 the information which is recorded on the separate
7 documents of which this is a composite typescript?
8 A. Yes, and I would also be perhaps able to distinguish if
9 these are separate documents taken at different times
10 when I have had a chance to examine them.
11 Q. I wonder if I could ask you to consider those matters
12 and give the Inquiry an answer when you are able to do
13 so. You were also going to consider whether you would
14 be prepared to give the Inquiry privately the name of
15 the O/C of the Provisionals in January 1972. Do you
16 remember?
17 A. Yes, I do.
18 Q. I think that was the lot, but if there is anybody
19 standing behind or beside me who thinks that I have left
20 something out, it would be helpful if he or she could
21 stand up and add it to the checklist now.
22 LORD SAVILLE: I think you agreed with Mr Harvey that you
23 would reapproach the individual who was in the
24 High Street?
25 A. Yes, I did.
1 LORD SAVILLE: To see whether in fact he would be prepared
2 to approach the Tribunal in the first instance, of
3 course, confidentially to the Tribunal.
4 A. Yes, I did agree. This person has been asked before,
5 but I will ask him again.
6 LORD SAVILLE: I think that was it, I do not think there is
7 anything else.
8 MR CLARKE: I did not have any further questions than that.
9 LORD SAVILLE: Ms Johnston, thank you very much indeed. Of
10 course, you appreciate the problem that both you and
11 I have, which is that you have your confidentiality
12 agreements that you made with these individuals. We
13 have the public duty of trying to find out everything we
14 can about Bloody Sunday. I think what we will do at the
15 moment is we will have to leave over the question as to
16 whether or not we should reach the conclusion that in
17 some or all instances we would have to make an order
18 that you disclose us that information. Of course,
19 before we did that, we would have a proper legal
20 argument from your counsel. I will have to leave it
21 like that for the time being and I hope you appreciate
22 why.
23 A. I appreciate that.
24 LORD SAVILLE: We will rise for a few minutes to take
25 a break before we get on to Mr Clarke.
1 (3.30 pm)
2 (A short break)
3 (3.45~pm)
4 MR LIAM CLARKE, affirmed
5 Questioned by MR CLARKE
6 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Clarke, I expect you were in the hall this
7 morning when I introduced myself to your wife. I do not
8 think there is any reason for me to introduce myself to
9 you. Can you try and keep close to the microphone so we
10 can hear what you have to say.
11 MR CLARKE: Could we have on the screen, M112.1, this is the
12 first page of your statement to the Tribunal of 13th May
13 of this year. We know also that you have made three
14 further statements. We need not have them on the
15 screen, one of them is a statement 6th October, your
16 second statement agreeing with Ms Johnston's statement
17 the same day; the third is your statement of
18 13th October, which is at M112.10 and the latest is your
19 statement, your fourth statement, 27th October of this
20 year which is at M112.81. Are the contents of each of
21 those statements true to the best of your knowledge and
22 belief?
23 A. They are.
24 Q. Could we go back to M112.1, you tell us that you were
25 the co-author with your wife of "From Guns to
1 Government" published, as we know, in 2001.
2 Could we have on the screen M113.1, this is the
3 statement of your publisher, the Managing Director of
4 your publisher, Mainstream Publishing, Mr Bill Campbell.
5 He says in paragraph 3 that he spoke to you for the
6 first time in the autumn of 2000 or possibly September
7 and he says he was on the look-out for writers at the
8 time and at the end of the conversation he asked you if
9 you had ever considered writing a book and indicated
10 that he might be interested in publishing it.
11 Does that mean that the first time that you had any
12 communication with Bill Campbell was in August
13 or September 2000 or does he mean that that was the
14 first time he spoke to you in connection with a possible
15 book?
16 A. I think that is the first dealings I had with him of any
17 kind.
18 Q. Of any kind. Over the page, paragraph 4, he says "He
19 [that is to say you] later rung me and said that he and
20 his wife would be interested in working jointly on
21 a book. We considered a number of options but we
22 decided on a biography of Martin McGuinness."
23 He said in paragraph 5 the reason was that he, that
24 is McGuinness, was one of the few leading politicians in
25 Northern Ireland who was not the subject of a biography.
1 Is that accurate, that description of the process by
2 which you came to write a book and the reason for
3 choosing this subject?
4 A. It is indeed.
5 Q. Do you know why he telephoned you or communicated with
6 you in the first place?
7 A. Yes, another person who was proposing to write a book
8 had been the subject of some articles by me and he was
9 asking me did I think this person was -- what did
10 I think of him and how did I get on with him, that sort
11 of thing.
12 Q. May we go back, please, to M112.1. You say in
13 paragraph 2 that you started preparing the book in 2000
14 and carried out interviews early in 2001. What was your
15 position, if you still had any, with the Sunday Times at
16 that stage?
17 A. I was the Northern Ireland editor and I still am, it is
18 unchanged.
19 Q. How long have you been the Northern Ireland editor?
20 A. Well, I was working for the Sunday Times, on the staff
21 since 1988 and I have had various titles and before that
22 I was working for them on a more or less freelance
23 capacity.
24 Q. Could we have on the screen, please, KM3.81. Could we
25 have paragraphs 2. This is the passage I asked your
1 wife about this morning in Mr McGuinness's statement,
2 where he expresses the view that the whole thing,
3 meaning the project to write the book and its production
4 was politically motivated and intended to be malicious.
5 Was the writing of the book in whole or in part
6 politically motivated?
7 A. No, it was not.
8 Q. He goes on to say that many people believe that the two
9 of you are members, or former members, of the Official
10 Republican Movement. I have asked your wife about that
11 and she said I should ask you about your position, which
12 is what?
13 A. Well, I am a bit chary about the word 'Official
14 Republican Movement'. I was a member of the political
15 party which was once described as Official Sinn Fein,
16 but it was called Republican Clubs and later the
17 Workers' Party when I joined it and I left it in 1981
18 whenever I went into full-time journalism.
19 Q. It was called Republican Clubs?
20 A. Clubs.
21 Q. Then the Workers' Party?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. When you joined it what was it called?
24 A. Republican Clubs.
25 Q. When was it described as Official Sinn Fein?
1 A. Well, I think it is branching -- it had gone through
2 many name changes. In the Republic of Ireland or the
3 Irish Free State, if you want to describe it as the
4 southern state, it was described as Official Sinn Fein
5 still, but Republican Clubs in the north. I am not sure
6 for the reason for that, I joined it as a student at
7 university.
8 Q. It is the political wing of the Official IRA?
9 A. Well, it had been associated with the Official IRA in
10 the past, but at the time when I joined it, it was the
11 Official IRA had declared a ceasefire and I was never
12 a member of the Official IRA or associated with it in
13 any way.
14 Q. When did you join Republican Clubs?
15 A. I was trying to remember that this morning. I mean it
16 was my first year at university and I think that was
17 1973. I could check it if needs be.
18 Q. The statement goes on to say:
19 "Clarke is also widely regarded as a vehicle for
20 leaks and briefings from anti-peace process elements in
21 the Special Branch and British intelligence."
22 What do you say to that?
23 A. Well, I regard this as a smear by Mr McGuinness and
24 I think it is a deliberate smear because he himself has
25 had contact with British intelligence on and off since
1 the early 1970s. The only member of MI6 I have ever
2 spoken to, Michael Oatley, so far as I know, the only
3 person I know is a member, sung Mr McGuinness' praises.
4 I think this is just a smear he throws out when
5 something is printed that he does not like and
6 I certainly would deny it most vigorously and if it was
7 repeated outside the forum of privilege I would sue.
8 Q. What about being a vehicle for anti-peace process
9 elements?
10 A. Well, I would deny that as well. I mean, I have many
11 sources for stories and often sources will often have
12 axes to grind. That is why people talk to journalists,
13 even a press statement is coming out with an agenda, but
14 I mean I would point out that I have done many things to
15 embarrass the Security Forces it the past. My house was
16 raided by the police. I have been arrested under the
17 Official Secrets Act. I have been showered with
18 injunctions for writing articles which Mr McGuinness,
19 certainly Sinn Fein thought very highly of at the time
20 and certainly reproduced and Republicans used and
21 I think this is a bit shooting the messenger.
22 Q. Could we have on the screen M112.81. This is your
23 fourth statement. May we highlight paragraphs 2 and 3.
24 You say in your first statement at paragraph 22 that you
25 were the main contact with Paddy Ward. In this
1 statement you describe in paragraph 2 how you first met
2 him. That was in November 2000 when he had been
3 assisting The Times's newspapers' legal department on
4 another case and you say in paragraph 3 that he came to
5 see you at your house and mentioned a book that he was
6 considering writing about his life. You describe how
7 your wife and yourself told him that a publisher had
8 asked you to write a book about Martin McGuinness and
9 you discussed his knowledge of McGuinness and he agreed
10 in principle to help.
11 When he came to see you, which is at a time after
12 you had first met him, were you aware of his background?
13 A. I was aware to some degree of his background. He
14 explained it to me. I mean I was -- I cannot remember,
15 I cannot date all the knowledge, but I became aware that
16 he had been a member of the IRA and the INLA and he had
17 been involved in a big deportation case in Canada,
18 I knew roughly his background, I learnt more.
19 Q. Why was it that he came to see you in the first instance
20 that you describe in paragraph 3?
21 A. Well, I was also involved in the legal case, it was not
22 me who was the subject of the case, but I was consulted,
23 as I would be in any legal case in Ireland by Times
24 Newspapers. He knew about me and we knew people in
25 common and he decided that, you know, he would consult
1 me about how you go about getting a book published and
2 talk to me.
3 Q. Instead of him writing the book he helped you in part
4 with the book that you were writing. Did he give any
5 reason why he was prepared in principle to discuss with
6 you his knowledge of Martin McGuinness?
7 A. He did not really, I mean I think he possibly is still
8 writing a book himself, I do not know about that but,
9 well, he did not -- I think it would be fair to say he
10 did not like Martin McGuinness but he was willing to
11 talk about his past at some length because he was now
12 living outside Ireland and I think he felt it was safe
13 to do so. He is probably at the age where people want
14 to explain their life to some extent, I find that
15 happens to people a lot, you know, as a journalist.
16 Q. The meeting at which there was a taped interview of
17 which we have a transcript, is that the meeting that you
18 are describing as taking place in April 2001?
19 A. Yes, it is.
20 Q. How long did that meeting last approximately?
21 A. Well, I was with him most of the day, but the taped
22 interview, there was a little bit, it was about an hour
23 and a half that you have and there was a second tape
24 which is now lost, but I think it was probably about and
25 there was not much -- the main stuff was on the one you
1 got. Though I talked to him during the day about other
2 matters and about this and then, and then went over it
3 on tape.
4 Q. After the interview had finished, was there any
5 agreement or understanding as to what was going to
6 happen next?
7 A. Well, he gave me, you know, he gave me the material
8 I needed and he gave me a number of statements he had
9 made for other purposes too, which were quite unrelated
10 to Bloody Sunday and I told him that if anything else
11 struck him he should come back to me and that we would
12 stay in contact and we did stay in contact to some
13 degree, after that I had an e-mail address for him and
14 so on.
15 I did not make, if what you are driving at, I did
16 not make an agreement to let him vet the manuscript, but
17 I did ask him for corrections and I suppose if he had
18 come back to me and said "I am not sure about what
19 I said on such and such a topic, can you let me see it"
20 I would have, but it did not come up.
21 Q. Did he have, after you had had the interview with him,
22 either your own form of transcript, your own summary of
23 the interview, or any more extended transcript of the
24 interview?
25 A. He had my own summary and I think he had that certainly
1 before he made his statement to the Tribunal, I do not
2 know if it was before he made con-- I think he went
3 through a period of negotiation and sort of 'will he
4 won't he' with the Tribunal and at some stage during
5 that I gave him my, my rough transcript or my typed-out
6 notes, whatever you want to call it.
7 Q. Did he have your rough transcript before the book was
8 published?
9 A. No, he did not.
10 Q. Did he have any advanced copy of the contents of the
11 book?
12 A. No, he did not.
13 Q. Was there any communication between you and him after
14 the meeting in April 2001 and before the publication in
15 the summer 2001?
16 A. Um, well there was some contact. There was the
17 occasional e-mail or telephone call but not, not a lot,
18 and they were not very lengthy.
19 Q. May we come, please, back to M112.1. Could we go to
20 M112.4. Could we have a look at paragraphs 24 to 26.
21 You deal in this section with page 29 of the book which
22 is, as you record, the section that says that Paddy Ward
23 had joined the Fianna with his friends and that
24 McGuinness was not in the Fianna?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. And the confirmation by the Fianna people to whom you
2 spoke that McGuinness was not in the Fianna and
3 confirming the story about St Columb's school. Do you
4 recollect how many people you saw who said that they had
5 been in the Fianna?
6 A. Well, Kathy did most of the research for this chapter
7 with the exception of the Ward interview. My impression
8 is it was a fairly small number of Fianna people.
9 I spoke to other people who remembered him being in
10 Derry at the time and being a Republican, who had seen
11 him, that sort of thing.
12 Q. She is the person who principally knows about this?
13 A. She is really, she did most of the research on
14 Bloody Sunday, apart from the Ward interview.
15 Q. Could we scroll down to paragraphs 27 to 29 under the
16 heading "Page 31." You are dealing with page 31 in
17 these paragraphs and you say in paragraph 29 that the
18 information about the Fianna being nominally neutral and
19 secretly working closely with Daithi O'Connell in
20 Donegal comes from both John Joe McCann and
21 Liam O'Comain.
22 "Everything was in a state of flux ... and the
23 Fianna tended to float between... " two wings of the IRA
24 to see which way the wind blew. Are they the only two
25 sources of that information?
1 A. I think Peter Doherty gave us a similar opinion in the
2 Fianna and I do not remember speaking to anybody who
3 gave a different -- I mean, this was a period when the
4 IRA were dividing and different wings, and different
5 associated groups were deciding what to do.
6 Q. Could we come, please, to paragraph 34 on M112.5. You
7 are dealing in this paragraph with page 44 of the book
8 and you say:
9 "I have been asked why the O/C [the O/C of the
10 Provisionals] should regret deeply the promotion of
11 McGuinness to adjutant and second in command of the IRA
12 in Derry. The point I was trying to make was that the
13 O/C would have been unhappy because McGuinness
14 ultimately supplanted him."
15 Did you ever speak to or otherwise communicate with
16 the O/C of the Provisionals?
17 A. I am not going to comment on anybody who is not named in
18 the book on whether we spoke to him or not, certainly
19 anybody from Derry.
20 Q. You say the point that you were trying to make was that
21 he would have been unhappy because McGuinness ultimately
22 supplanted him. That fact, if it be such, that
23 McGuinness ultimately supplanted him, where did you
24 gather that information?
25 A. Well, I had been told by many people that McGuinness
1 became leader of the IRA in Derry, indeed, that is
2 common knowledge and I think Mr McGuinness said in his
3 later statement that he later made the O/C as adjutant,
4 which would suggest that the roles were reversed.
5 But it is common knowledge that Mr McGuinness became
6 the leader in Derry after that.
7 Q. Is it common knowledge as to when that happened?
8 A. Um, I cannot give the date, but I thought it was fairly
9 shortly afterwards.
10 Q. Could we come, please, to paragraphs 39 and 40 on
11 M112.6, which are two paragraphs when you deal with
12 page 56 (sic). You are dealing with a paragraph that
13 appears on that page and could we have this on the
14 left-hand side of the page and could we have page T487
15 and could we highlight the paragraph that begins:
16 "Around the same time... "
17 I am sorry, the left-hand side of the page, could we
18 have paragraphs 42 and 43. What you are saying in
19 paragraph 43 is that:
20 "The information in the paragraph that starts
21 'Around the same time ...' almost certainly comes from
22 interviews with Peter Doherty."
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. The information is expressly ascribed to Peter Doherty,
25 that McGuinness had secretly planned to attack the Army
1 after the nail bomb attack led by Paddy Ward and you go
2 on to say:
3 "To do this McGuinness needed to convince other
4 volunteers to disobey the O/C's orders."
5 Then there is a long quote in relation to McGuinness
6 and the fact that he and others thought the O/C was
7 a stick in the mud and got the gear in the Bogside car,
8 from which went out two shorts and a Thompson.
9 Do you know whether or not the quoted passage in
10 that paragraph is a quote from Peter Doherty?
11 A. As I say, Kathy mainly wrote this chapter, I revised it.
12 My impression is that it is, I cannot say with complete
13 certainty.
14 Q. This is her drafting, is it?
15 A. Yes, I mean, the way we proceeded is one would write
16 a chapter and the other would revise it and we would
17 discuss it. You know, this is some time ago since this
18 is written, but my impression is, reading it, that is
19 what I would think.
20 Q. May we come, please, to M112.6, paragraph 45. You refer
21 to the fact that your wife has dealt with the incident
22 at Duffy's bookmaker's. You then say this:
23 "However, following publication of the book,
24 a number of people contacted us with similar information
25 that tends to suggest that the story is true. As far as
1 the kicking in the door rather than using a key is
2 concerned (which subsequently we were told McGuinness
3 had), this cannot be resolved by me."
4 When you say that following the publication of the
5 book a number of people contacted you with similar
6 information, should we understand that you are referring
7 to people with whom you had not previously communicated?
8 A. My recollection is it was a mixture; sometimes someone
9 who we had communicated with said that since the book
10 had come out he had heard from another person; sometimes
11 a couple of people rung us up or contacted an e-mail we
12 had for the book so it was a mixture and it was
13 sometimes people who had been maybe in the book would
14 say, you know, since that has come out, it has been
15 talked about, I have heard another bit of it from
16 someone else.
17 Q. When you say that "As far as kicking in the door rather
18 than using a key is concerned ... this cannot be
19 resolved by me."
20 Do you simply mean you received an account of
21 kicking the door in and received an account of using
22 a key and you cannot resolve which of the two is right;
23 is that the point or --
24 A. That is more or less it or having a key certainly. But,
25 I mean, I will accept the point that there were slightly
1 varying accounts of this, as indeed there was of a lot
2 of what happened on Bloody Sunday.
3 Q. Could we come, please, to M112.7, paragraph 53 at the
4 bottom of the page. You say that it was you who wrote
5 the section which is page 261 of the first edition about
6 persistent rumours that former senior IRA figures were
7 visited by current senior IRA men after Mr McGuinness'
8 announcement that he was going to give evidence to the
9 Inquiry in an attempt to prevent them giving their own
10 version of events. You say:
11 "It also came to our attention through people
12 telling us, directly or via a third person, that this
13 had happened to a friend."
14 Can I understand the sense of those two
15 sentences: are you saying you were aware of a rumour to
16 that effect and also it came to your attention through
17 people telling you that this had happened to a friend?
18 A. That they knew somebody had happened to -- that they
19 knew somebody it had happened to.
20 Q. Did anybody -- I am not asking for the identity of the
21 person -- tell you it had happened to him?
22 A. I do not want to elaborate because this will have
23 happened to a very limited number of people, I do not
24 know if it is very limited, but certainly a finite
25 number of people and I do not want to give any clues to
1 their identity or who has talked to me.
2 Q. Can we keep this on the left-hand side of the screen and
3 can we have on the right-hand side of the screen KM3.77.
4 What is on the right-hand side of the screen is an
5 article that appeared in the Sunday Times News Review
6 written by you on 6th May 2001 which was at about the
7 time when Mr McGuinness had announced that he was going
8 to give evidence; is that right?
9 A. That is correct.
10 Q. Could we have a look at the paragraphs that you wrote.
11 You recorded:
12 "There are persistent rumours that other former
13 senior IRA figures have been visited ... in an attempt
14 to prevent them giving their own version of events. The
15 visits were from IRA men of such reputation that as one
16 man put it: 'it is the next best thing to sending round
17 the grim reaper.'"
18 Presumably those quotation marks signify, according
19 to the normal convention, that this is something that
20 somebody directly said to you?
21 A. It does.
22 Q. You say in your statement at paragraph 53:
23 "I confirm that Martin McGuinness's brother,
24 Willy McGuinness, is the grim reaper."
25 Should we understand from that that the person who
1 used the expression "grim reaper" explained who he meant
2 by that phrase?
3 A. That is right, it was -- I did not wish to publish the
4 names in the paper, but when I was asked by Eversheds,
5 I gave them.
6 Q. You say "I confirm that the other visitor is
7 Raymond McCartney."
8 That again is from information somebody gave you, is
9 it?
10 A. Yes, that is right.
11 Q. You say at the end of paragraph 53:
12 "The gist of their message was -- do not get
13 involved, Martin will deal with it."
14 Do not, if you will, attempt to answer this question
15 if you cannot really do so, but did you understand one
16 way or the other from what you were being told that
17 people were being warned off because their evidence was
18 likely to contradict whatever Mr McGuinness was going to
19 say or because it was thought that it would be better to
20 leave him to put the case for what the Provisional IRA
21 either had done or had not done?
22 A. I understand the distinction and I want to be very
23 careful not to understate or overstate it. I think it
24 was -- the purpose of it was to ensure that the clear
25 message, a clear and unified message went out from the
1 Provisional IRA and there were not too many voices with
2 differing accounts or differing recollections. Now,
3 I do not know whether that was a deliberate attempt to
4 falsify or simply an attempt, you know, because people's
5 memories change and we have seen this in all the
6 witnesses that come.
7 Q. Your article in the Sunday Times recorded:
8 "Sources suggest that McGuinness's boss at the time,
9 the actual officer commanding the IRA, is among those
10 who have been warned off giving evidence."
11 When you refer to "sources" is that sources of
12 either yourself or your wife?
13 A. Yes, it is.
14 Q. You say also in the article:
15 "This man, whom McGuinness later ousted from the
16 leadership, missed the march because he had been up most
17 of the night trying to ensure that no IRA weapons would
18 be deployed in the area. It is not known whether
19 McGuinness, a young hardliner followed his orders to the
20 letter or took matters into his own hands."
21 This article is written in May 2001. Have you
22 received by that stage any information one way or the
23 other as to whether or not McGuinness had taken matters
24 into his own hands?
25 A. It is hard to remember now because, you know, so much
1 else has happened to me in between. I think from what
2 I have written that we must have been in the process of
3 researching it and trying to make sure I must not have
4 felt a strong enough likelihood to say one way or the
5 other.
6 Q. The last matter I wanted to ask you about was this: were
7 you present when your wife was giving evidence this
8 morning?
9 A. I was.
10 Q. This may seem a rather lazy question, but I cannot think
11 of any other way of asking it: is there anything that
12 I asked of her to which you have further information to
13 add or substitute over and beyond what she has said?
14 A. Well, I will look over the transcript if you wish, but
15 I remember generally agreeing with her evidence and you
16 know --
17 Q. There is nothing that she missed out that you were able
18 to add -- anything that she could not say that you are
19 able to add?
20 A. Nothing that strongly strikes me now.
21 MR CLARKE: Thank you, those are my questions.
22 Questioned by MR MCGRORY
23 MR McGRORY: My name is McGrory, Mr Clarke, as you know,
24 I want to ask you some questions on behalf of
25 Martin McGuinness.
1 Mr Clarke, I presume you would agree that certainly
2 in terms of his own generation, Martin McGuinness is
3 perhaps one of the most important leaders of
4 Republicanism?
5 A. He is certainly a very important political figure.
6 Q. Certainly in terms of the politics of the 20th century
7 in this part of the island of Ireland he would be a very
8 important figure?
9 A. That is what I have just said.
10 Q. I said within this generation, within the context of the
11 history of the entire 20th century; you would agree?
12 A. I do not know how far we have to go, he is certainly an
13 important figure now and has been throughout the time he
14 has been politically active.
15 Q. We can certainly be in no doubt, Mr Clarke, that when
16 the history of these times come to be written, that the
17 only existing, at the moment, biography of Mr McGuinness
18 would be a useful tool for historians to rely upon in
19 terms of gleaning information about him?
20 A. Well, I would hope so.
21 Q. Any author of such a work ought to want to have that
22 work viewed as being independent, impartial, and
23 reliable and accurate, all of those things; would you
24 agree?
25 A. These are things you always seek to approach. I do not
1 know if you ever completely achieve it, but you seek to
2 approach it.
3 Q. As a working journalist you would want to achieve that,
4 and in your work generally, would you not?
5 A. Those were what you were aiming at, that would be the
6 ideal.
7 Q. In order to achieve that one would assume one would need
8 to be very careful how one treats one sources?
9 A. You always have to be very careful of sources. If
10 people put trust in you, you have to be worthy of it.
11 Q. Certainly any information, or even little nuggets of
12 information about the subject's life you would want to
13 make sure it was reliable and you would check up on it?
14 A. As much as you could. If it seemed in some way unlikely
15 you would make particularly strong checks.
16 Q. You say at the beginning of the book that Mr McGuinness
17 was a nephew of the Bishop of Nottingham?
18 A. That is wrong. It is my understanding it has been
19 published before. I did not see any reason for anybody
20 to make this up. I have since asked the Bishop of
21 Nottingham and he said he is not related and I accept
22 that is a mistake.
23 Q. You have since asked him, you did not ask him when you
24 were writing the book?
25 A. I asked him when Mr McGuinness suggested it might not be
1 true and the Bishop of Nottingham -- I had some
2 difficulty contacting him, he was in a nursing home, but
3 I eventually got hold of him and I corrected it in the
4 paperback, which is not normally how I usually proceed.
5 Q. Is it perhaps indicative, Mr Clarke, of your whole
6 approach to your subject in this book that a piece of
7 information like that which is easily checked and one
8 would have thought would have set the tone for the
9 reliability and dependency of your work was not checked
10 at the time?
11 A. No, it is not indicative, Mr Grory, you know very well
12 we made many efforts to contact Mr McGuinness and you
13 yourself sent us a solicitor's letter saying we could
14 not speak to him. Things like that would have been very
15 easily checked with him.
16 Q. We will come to Mr McGuinness' view of you and your view
17 of him later, Mr Clarke. You have already said you were
18 able to try and get in touch with the Bishop of
19 Nottingham subsequently but you did not try beforehand.
20 You have relied very heavily in this book on the
21 material that was given to you by Patrick Ward; have you
22 not?
23 A. I have relied on him for some sections of the book.
24 Q. Pretty much hook, line, and sinker, Mr Clarke, in terms
25 of the allegations about nail bombing on Bloody Sunday
1 that you have made against Martin McGuinness; is that
2 correct?
3 A. I believed that he was credible.
4 Q. In fact he is the only person who gives you that
5 information; is that correct?
6 A. He is.
7 Q. Mr Ward has, of course, subsequently come to this
8 Tribunal and given a completely different story than the
9 one he gave you?
10 A. No, that is not true.
11 Q. Is it not? In your book does Mr Ward, through you, not
12 say that Mr McGuinness met him on the Saturday night
13 before Bloody Sunday to tell him of his plans; that he
14 gave him nail bombs the next day; that the operation was
15 called off, not by Mr Ward but by the character known as
16 'Mad Dog' Doherty. All of those things are in your
17 book, Mr Clarke.
18 A. They are. I do not think that constitutes a completely
19 different account, Mr McGrory. This is somebody who is
20 remembering something that happened when he was 16. It
21 is a variation, he has changed things a bit.
22 Q. Do you not accept to this Tribunal, in statement form
23 and in oral evidence, Mr Ward has said that there were
24 two meetings, that he in fact picked the targets, that
25 he in fact made the nail bombs, that he in fact called
1 up the operation; there are four examples of very
2 important material facts which he has given a completely
3 different version of to this Tribunal than the one he
4 gave you; do you accept that?
5 A. I query with "completely different." I mean it is
6 a very similar account. His account has changed to some
7 degree. I have seen other witnesses at this Tribunal
8 who have given different accounts at different times of
9 these events. This is something that happened when he
10 was 16. I think he also had time to reflect on the
11 possible effect on his family and so on of his evidence.
12 Q. Do you not agree, Mr Clarke, that in terms of, whether
13 future historians or whether it be this Tribunal, in
14 deciding on the reliability or the truth of what Mr Ward
15 is saying, that where there are two quite conflicting
16 accounts of material facts, you would not know which one
17 to believe?
18 A. You go for superlatives all the time. I do not know
19 about 'quite conflicting'. There are variations in the
20 account he has given over a period of what, a year
21 separating them, or something?
22 Q. The Bishop of Nottingham was not the only nugget of
23 information you got wrong in the book. You say in the
24 book that Mr Ward was 17, yet you have just said that
25 you are well aware that in fact he was 16?
1 A. Yes, sorry, I counted his birthday wrong.
2 Q. Did you want to sex up his age a little bit, Mr Clarke,
3 because you were of the view that it stretched the
4 credulity of even your readers that someone of that age
5 could have been engaged in such activity in one single
6 day?
7 A. No it does not stretch credulity at all. The IRA have
8 used people as young as that, they have been injured in
9 training, they have been killed. It is quite likely.
10 Q. It so happens you got the age wrong?
11 A. It so happens I got the age wrong.
12 Q. We know he told you his age of course because you have
13 now had to produce the transcript of the conversation
14 you had with him.
15 A. Yes, I produced a transcript, that is the source of your
16 information.
17 Q. That was not a transcript, Mr Clarke, which you produced
18 voluntarily at the beginning, sure it was not, of your
19 contact with this Inquiry?
20 A. I produced it as soon as I could find it.
21 Q. You did not find it for some time, did you?
22 A. I did produce a working transcript and then I produced
23 the tape when I found it.
24 Q. Would it be correct, Mr Clarke, that you produce the
25 transcript after you had found out Mr Clarke has given
1 a different account to this Inquiry?
2 A. It did happen after that, that is true.
3 Q. Do you accept, Mr Clarke, that in order to show that
4 Mr Ward did tell you more or less what you transcribed
5 in the book, that you had to produce the transcript?
6 A. Well, it was certainly helpful, but I would repeat,
7 I produced the tape when I found it.
8 Q. Otherwise you were going to face an awful lot of
9 questions about what was and what was not said during
10 the course of the interview. At least by producing the
11 transcript that largely settled that?
12 A. That is true.
13 Q. You would not want it to have looked like a journalist
14 who was printing a story you were not told?
15 A. No I certainly would not.
16 Q. You certainly were not expecting some of the information
17 when you first came to this Inquiry, that was contained
18 within the transcript to come forward because at that
19 time you had not found the transcript?
20 A. I never produced -- the transcript is a transcript made
21 from the tape I gave, just to be clear on that matter of
22 detail. I did give a working transcript which I had
23 prepared myself at the time which is very similar to the
24 final transcript to the Inquiry. I do not know if you
25 want to make some point, if you have compared the two
1 documents, in some way of contrasting them.
2 Q. We will come to that later. If we deal with the
3 transcript at M112.22, please, the first page of the
4 transcript. During the course of the whole interview
5 most of the people involved in the Inquiry have actually
6 listened to the tape and read the transcript. You do
7 quite a bit of date checking?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Mr Ward had difficulty recollecting when things happened
10 and you helped him out from time to time?
11 A. Yes, and I had difficulty myself, I was not doing the
12 chapter on Bloody Sunday, I brought along Lost Lives and
13 the chronology to check things.
14 Q. It was Lost Lives you used, was it?
15 A. Yes, and a chronology written by Paul Bugge(as heard),
16 Northern Ireland chronology of The Troubles; those are
17 the two books I had.
18 Q. If you look at the transcript on the screen at the
19 second last paragraph towards the bottom of the page, if
20 that could be highlighted, please, beginning:
21 "The rest of us ..."
22 There, Mr Ward is talking about the incident where
23 Gerry Doherty was killed; is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Mr Ward gives you a story that in fact Mr Doherty was
1 killed because Ward and others had been sent out as new
2 Provisional Fianna members to raid a Sticky dump, for
3 want of a better phrase, to get some arms; is that
4 correct?
5 A. That is correct.
6 Q. In fact in the next page, there is no need to bring it
7 up on to the screen, you actually ask him was there no
8 comeback from the Officials after that incident
9 happened; do you remember that?
10 A. Yes, I do.
11 Q. And he describes that there was quite a feud broke out,
12 there were a couple of altercations and a shooting match
13 and so forth; is that right?
14 A. That is right.
15 Q. Could I have Lost Lives T49, pages 4 and 5 on the
16 screen, please. Perhaps I have the reference wrong.
17 Can I tell you that in the Lost Lives book where it
18 deals with the death of Gerry Doherty, in fact it
19 suggests that he was killed in an internal incident,
20 there was a speech at his graveside oration. There was
21 an oration at his graveside which in fact made that very
22 clear, that it was a matter internal to the Officials?
23 A. I recall you making this point when Mr Ward was giving
24 evidence.
25 Q. T494, and then the following page would be T495, that is
1 my mistake. The very top paragraph, if that could
2 perhaps be highlighted. The paper said, this is the
3 Starry Plough, the paper said:
4 "Speaking on behalf of the Official IRA in the city
5 that no other person was involved in the youth's
6 accidental death."
7 Do you see that?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You would have to have read that, Mr Clarke, when you
10 were date-checking the death of Gerry Doherty when
11 Mr Ward was telling you all about it?
12 A. Well I might not have read the whole thing, I might just
13 have checked when it happened.
14 Q. Even if you did not read the whole thing on the spot,
15 did you not read the whole thing a little bit later?
16 A. I will accept that I should have read that, I do not
17 have a recollection of doing so. I thought about that
18 after I asked you, Mr Ward about it -- I heard you
19 asking him about it.
20 Q. Do you accept it would have been good practice,
21 Mr Clarke, to have read the whole thing, even on the
22 spot. To have said to Mr Ward, you would have been able
23 to say to him -- that is funny, that is not what it says
24 in Lost Lives?
25 A. It would have been good practice, you are quite right.
1 Q. Of course you did not really care, Mr Clarke, because
2 what Mr Ward was saying was music to your ears.
3 A. No, I do not think that is the case, Mr McGrory.
4 Q. It certainly would have sold a lot of books?
5 A. What would have sold a lot of books?
6 Q. Able to name someone who said Martin McGuinness had sent
7 someone out with nail bombs on Bloody Sunday. You were
8 not going to have any situation where he was
9 contradicted or rendered unreliable to you; sure you
10 were not?
11 A. No, that was not the case. If I had believed he was
12 unreliable I would not have used him or I would have
13 done so with warnings. This was --
14 Q. You mentioned, Mr Clarke, the story in the book about
15 Martin McGuinness being embarrassed, this is the story
16 that Willy Breslin gave you, being embarrassed in front
17 of factory girls when he was working in Doherty's
18 butchers; is that right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. I will get the transcript of the tape. You also raised
21 this with Mr Ward; did you not?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. If I could have on the screen, please, the transcript of
24 the interview of Mr Ward at X2.44 and the following
25 page, X2.45. I am not going to put this up on the
1 screen, but while the extracts from the tape are being
2 put up, Mr Clarke, do you accept in your transcription
3 of the interview with Patrick Ward you say the
4 following:
5 "Kevin worked with him in Doherty's butchers after
6 school. Kevin said he was on odd character. Everyone
7 was put up against a wall by the Brits and laughed at by
8 the girls from the factory. He was just paranoid."
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Do you accept that you transcribed that? This is the
11 note of course which your wife relied upon when writing
12 up this part of the book.
13 A. I think this is the Inquiry's transcript that is up on
14 the screen.
15 Q. That is correct, this is what we have been given, yes.
16 A. Then I did not transcribe that, that is the Inquiry
17 transcribed that.
18 Q. We can listen to the tape, of course, let us deal with
19 it on paper first.
20 A. I am just answering the questions you put to me, you
21 know, because I have to try to be precise.
22 Q. X2.40, page 4 and page 5 if they could be side by side,
23 please. Do you accept, Mr Clarke, that also in the book
24 at page 28, I am afraid I do not have the Inquiry
25 reference for this, but I do not think we need it.
1 Paddy Ward heard about it --
2 A. Is this the hardback or paperback?
3 Q. Hardback, if you look at page 28.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. The third paragraph.
6 A. By October.
7 Q. Paddy Ward heard about it. It is the last sentence of
8 the large second paragraph, page 28 of the hardback.
9 You see the paragraph beginning:
10 "By October ..."
11 A. Yes, I do.
12 Q. The sentence above it:
13 "Paddy Ward... "
14 A. I see the sentence you mean.
15 Q. We have in the note which you transcribed and upon which
16 your wife relied when writing the book:
17 "Kevin worked with him in Doherty's butchers after
18 school. Kevin said he was on odd character. Everyone
19 was put up against a wall by the Brits and laughed at by
20 the girls from the factory."
21 Your wife wrote:
22 "Paddy Ward heard about it from his older brother
23 Kevin... "
24 Do you see that?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. "... who worked in Doherty's at the time. Kevin told me
2 McGuinness was absolutely raging, he seemed to take more
3 of a part after that."
4 A. I would mention to you there was a section of the tape,
5 remember I mentioned possibly about 20 minutes, we did
6 not find and I did have subsequent conversations with
7 Mr Ward and it may be that he recollected further.
8 I would make a point -- what is the point you are
9 making?
10 Q. I am coming to the point I am making now in a moment.
11 Would you look at the very bottom of the first of those
12 pages on the left-hand side, at letter H?
13 A. I will continue what I was saying, Mr McGrory, before
14 you interrupted me --
15 Q. I want you to comment -- do you see --
16 A. I want to finish, Mr McGrory, you cannot cut across me.
17 LORD SAVILLE: Just a minute, Mr Clarke. Mr McGrory, if
18 Mr Clarke wants to expand on an answer you must allow
19 him to do so. I was personally getting lost as to what
20 point you were putting to Mr Clarke. Perhaps you could
21 put it again and then give him the opportunity to answer
22 it.
23 MR McGRORY: It is a rather complex point. I will summarise
24 it.
25 LORD SAVILLE: It is very complex at the moment, it has
1 passed me by, so you will have to start again.
2 MR McGRORY: I accept responsibility for that, sir. The
3 point I am making is that in the book it was written
4 that Paddy Ward heard about this incident from his
5 brother Kevin; do you follow that?
6 A. I do.
7 Q. In your notes one can understand where your wife got
8 that because in your notes, when you wrote up your notes
9 from the tape you say:
10 "Kevin worked with him in Doherty's butchers after
11 school. Kevin said he was on odd character. Everyone
12 was put up against a wall by the Brits and laughed at by
13 girls from the factory."
14 Do you follow what I am saying to you is that you
15 are clearly suggesting in your notes that Ward had heard
16 this story from his brother?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Which is what your wife says when she puts it in the
19 book?
20 A. Now, the point --
21 Q. Sorry, do you follow the point I am making?
22 A. I have already said that, you did not need to interrupt
23 me to ask me that a second time, Mr McGrory. There is a
24 point I want to make here. Your thesis is here that I
25 am out to do down Martin McGuinness, these are not
1 incidences that would add to his discredit at all,
2 whether he is related to the Bishop of Nottingham or not
3 or whether he was annoyed when soldiers put him up
4 against the wall. Anybody would be annoyed by that.
5 Q. I will come back to that in a minute. At point H at the
6 bottom of the first page on the left-hand side:
7 "He is paranoid, everybody got putting up against a
8 wall in those days."
9 You have asked him about the story just above, if he
10 had heard about that, do you accept that?
11 A. "He is paranoid, everybody got putting up..." that is
12 off the tape.
13 Q. Yes. The next page:
14 "Question: You never remember hearing that story?
15 "Answer: No."
16 So you asked specifically Mr Ward had he ever heard
17 the story about Mr McGuinness being put up against
18 a wall in front of factory girls when you heard that his
19 brother also worked in Doherty's butchers; is that not
20 right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And he said, did he or did he not, say no?
23 A. This is repetitious, Mr McGrory. I have already said
24 that there was a section that -- of tape and I had
25 spoken to him subsequently, it is probably a point
1 I went back to him on. There is no reason to make it
2 up.
3 Q. Never mind the section that we do not have. It would be
4 very helpful had we had it, but we do not. Here we have
5 a section and this is a section during which you asked
6 him, now I presume you did not ask him twice, did he or
7 did he not say he had never heard that story from Kevin?
8 A. He did, but you should not presume I did not ask him
9 twice. I mean I have been saying do not make that
10 presumption, you keep on making it.
11 Q. It is rather convenient that that section of the tape,
12 if you had asked him during the course of it, has been
13 lost. What I suggest to you is that this is a situation
14 where you did more than sex up the information, that you
15 deliberately invented a double source for the factory
16 girls' story and Mr Ward denied he had ever said it and
17 you wrote up your notes as if he had said it and you
18 misled your own wife?
19 A. I deny that absolutely. Nothing hinges on this
20 incident, there would be no reason to make it up.
21 Q. Do you carry a personal firearm, Mr Clarke?
22 A. I do not see that that has anything whatsoever to do
23 with you, Mr McGrory, do you?
24 Q. Did you ever have any reason to fear that your life was
25 in danger?
1 A. I am not going to comment, this is nothing to do with
2 Bloody Sunday whatsoever.
3 Q. Were you ever advised by the RUC at any time that they
4 thought --
5 LORD SAVILLE: What is the purpose of these questions,
6 Mr McGrory?
7 MR McGRORY: I am about to go into a different section of my
8 examination of Mr Clarke.
9 LORD SAVILLE: What is the answer to my question?
10 MR McGRORY: The purpose is to show that Mr Clarke was
11 advised at one point in his life that there may have
12 been an IRA plot to kill him --
13 LORD SAVILLE: If I may put it crudely, so what? What has
14 this to do with the evidence Mr Clarke is giving us
15 relating to the events of Bloody Sunday?
16 MR McGRORY: Mr Clarke's ability to tell the truth about any
17 senior Sinn Fein figure has been tainted by his own
18 history, in that he believes --
19 LORD SAVILLE: Tainted in what sense?
20 MR McGRORY: Tainted in that so far as he is concerned he
21 has for some time been a target for assassination and
22 therefore his reliability as an objective observer and
23 writer about the affairs of Sinn Fein and (inaudible due
24 to coughing) is unreliable, is tainted. That is the
25 purpose of the questions.
1 LORD SAVILLE: Would that apply to every witness?
2 MR McGRORY: I know of no other witness who has written
3 a book about Mr McGuinness.
4 LORD SAVILLE: I was thinking of your client. If that is
5 the sort of point you are making, would it be fair to
6 make it to Mr McGuinness?
7 MR McGRORY: I have to say I am lost now, sir. I do not see
8 how this is a point I could make --
9 LORD SAVILLE: The point you were making as I understood it
10 was that Mr Clarke's evidence is not to be trusted
11 because he has been the target of paramilitary groups
12 with which he does not agree; is that not the case of
13 your client?
14 MR McGRORY: He does not come to this Inquiry to make any
15 allegation against anyone.
16 LORD SAVILLE: I do not think we are going to be helped by
17 that sort of line of questioning, Mr McGrory.
18 MR McGRORY: As you please, sir. You of course, Mr Clarke,
19 you say you left the Republican Clubs in 1981; is that
20 correct?
21 A. Yes, I believe so.
22 Q. That was to go into full-time journalism?
23 A. That is right.
24 Q. Was that when you joined the Sunday News?
25 A. Yes, I joined the Sunday News shortly after that.
1 Q. Before that you had written for the Northern People; is
2 that correct?
3 A. Yes, I did, that was my first entry to journalism.
4 Q. The Northern People would have been an organ of the
5 Republican Clubs?
6 A. It was.
7 Q. A party or political movement which you had been
8 a member of since 1973 --
9 A. Or thereabouts, that is right.
10 Q. -- you said to the Inquiry this morning. You were
11 aware, of course when you joined the Republican Clubs in
12 1973, of the existence of the Official IRA?
13 A. I was aware of it.
14 Q. At that time, of course, and in subsequent years the
15 Official IRA, you accept, historically would have been
16 involved in quite a bitter feud with the Provisional
17 IRA?
18 A. That is right.
19 Q. Right up to 1977 even?
20 A. That is right.
21 Q. And that perhaps most of the people, if not all of the
22 people that the Official IRA would have killed at the
23 time would have been members of the Provisional IRA
24 movement?
25 A. I do not know, I have not researched that, but
1 I certainly -- all these deaths were very much to be
2 regretted and it was something to which I was opposed
3 and I would not have joined if the organisation --
4 I would not have joined even a political party
5 associated, had there not been a ceasefire.
6 Q. Do you accept the description of the Republican Clubs in
7 the dictionary of Northern Ireland politics as the
8 political counterpart of the Official IRA as an accurate
9 description?
10 A. I suppose it probably is, yes.
11 Q. Do you agree, Mr Clarke, that your own personal history,
12 in terms of involvement in politics, is one which had
13 been bitterly opposed to the Sinn Fein Republican
14 movement as we know it today?
15 A. I can remember in 1977 when I was living in the New
16 Lodge Road, even after some of those deaths you
17 mentioned, being quite friendly with members of
18 Sinn Fein and I remember I was working on a welfare
19 rights project in an advice centre and helping them set
20 up their advice centre at the time.
21 So although there was this bitterness in Belfast --
22 I am not from Belfast myself -- I certainly was very
23 opposed to it and I was opposed to any use of violence
24 for political ends.
25 If you want to give my political background, I do in
1 fact come from a Protestant background. I became
2 involved through the Civil Rights movement. I joined it
3 at school, that was through my support for it, and I met
4 members of Republican Clubs there and it seemed to be
5 that they were trying to develop a non-violent
6 republicanism which I agreed with at the time.
7 Q. Do you accept, Mr Clarke, that the two organisations,
8 one to which you belonged, the Official movement, and
9 the one to which Mr McGuinness belonged, certainly
10 during the 1970s, when you were very active, when you
11 were an editor of the news sheet, were engaged in
12 killing each other; do you accept that?
13 A. No, I was never a member of the Official IRA and,
14 Mr McGrory, if you say that outside this Tribunal,
15 I will sue you.
16 Q. I never said you were a member of the Official IRA --
17 A. You said the two organisations were involved in killing
18 each other. That is quite untrue, would you withdraw
19 that, please?
20 Q. Mr Clarke, I put it to you that you were member of --
21 A. Would you withdraw that, Mr McGrory?
22 Q. I put it to you, Mr Clarke, that you were a member of
23 the Official Movement, that as a member of the
24 Republican Clubs, as the editor of the Republican Clubs'
25 news sheet you were unequivocally a member of the
1 Official movement. I did not use the words "IRA". Do
2 you accept that or reject it?
3 A. No, I am asking you to withdraw your comments,
4 Mr McGrory, I was not a member of any organisation that
5 was killing members of another and I am asking you to
6 withdraw that, that is a shameful comment, this is not a
7 place for a party political broadcast which is what you
8 are trying to turn this Tribunal into. You are trying
9 to turn it into a farce.
10 Q. There is a deep history of political animosity between
11 you and Mr McGuinness and at best, Mr Clarke, your book
12 is inadequate, ill-researched and a wholly unreliable
13 account of Mr McGuinness's life and at worst, Mr Clarke,
14 you have abused your situation as a journalist to
15 satisfy your own deep and long-standing animosity
16 towards Mr McGuinness and his politics?
17 A. That is quite untrue and I am asking you to withdraw
18 your comments.
19 LORD SAVILLE: We have your answer, Mr Clarke, to the
20 questions. Does anyone else want to ask any questions?
21 Questioned by ARTHUR HARVEY
22 MR HARVEY: Mr Clarke, my name is Arthur Harvey and I appear
23 on behalf of a number of the families of the deceased
24 and injured. For the purposes of this matter I will be
25 asking you questions on behalf of the family of
1 Gerard Donaghy.
2 I might make it clear to you, I have absolutely no
3 interest in your politics, just what was published and
4 your reliance on, in particular, Mr Ward.
5 You have read the transcript, I take it, of
6 Mr Ward's evidence to this Tribunal?
7 A. Yes, I have and I listened to it in the press centre.
8 Q. When Mr Ward spoke to you from the answers that you have
9 already supplied today, he gave you a different account
10 from that which he supplied to the Tribunal; that is
11 a fact?
12 A. He did, it differed.
13 Q. It is a fact that when he supplied the different account
14 to the Tribunal that he gave you, the explanation that
15 he provided was that you and your wife had attributed to
16 him comments that he had not made, attributed to him
17 names that he had not given, made presumptions from the
18 evidence that he did give and were confused on
19 occasions; you are aware of that?
20 A. He did that on some points.
21 Q. That is not the actions of a man saying "Well, when it
22 came to dealing with the Tribunal I simply remembered
23 things slightly differently," he actually was accusing
24 you and your wife of deliberately, purposely,
25 calculatedly and over a period of time, distorting what
1 he told you; you are aware of that?
2 A. He did on some points, not on every point.
3 Q. Do you still hold to the thesis that Mr Ward in terms of
4 the general background of the evidence available to him
5 on Bloody Sunday could be regarded as reliable?
6 A. I believe he was credible. I cannot, I cannot have
7 absolute certainty that what he said was true, but
8 I think that it was a high likelihood.
9 Q. Credible simply means believable without the necessity
10 of moving forward to being truth?
11 A. I cannot establish the absolute truth of what happened
12 on Bloody Sunday without -- I do not want to be
13 flippant -- without a time machine or something, I was
14 not there.
15 Q. Also you did not do specific research in relation to
16 some of the claims that were made by Mr Ward in relation
17 to items that he claimed to have seen and things that he
18 actually did on Bloody Sunday; did you?
19 A. Well, as I say, Kathy has answered most of the questions
20 on this, she did most of the research on Bloody Sunday.
21 Um, I checked what I could with Paddy Ward and I found
22 many of the things -- things that are not in the book --
23 that he was telling me were true and it seemed that he
24 was, he was generally capable of telling the truth.
25 Q. Let us deal with that, Mr Clarke. Could we look at
1 T489. If one looks at the final paragraph on this:
2 "Meanwhile, 15-year-old Damien 'Bubbles' Donaghy was
3 hunting for a rubber bullet. The bullets were popular
4 trophies and visiting journalists offered good money for
5 them. Paddy Ward saw what happened next. 'The first
6 one I saw firing a shot was the Major at the barricade
7 in Sackville Street and he pulled out a short arm, which
8 was on a rope or a lanyard. His first shot got
9 Damien Donaghy, Bubbles. Then he shot John Johnston at
10 the corner of Colm Bradley's pub -- nobody could believe
11 their eyes."
12 Nobody could believe that account if they had
13 carried out any check as to where Mr Johnston was shot.
14 When you say you checked it as far as you can, what
15 check, if any, was made in relation to that?
16 A. I did not personally check this.
17 Q. Did your wife?
18 A. Well, you were questioning her earlier.
19 Q. Yes. Are you aware of whether or not she carried out
20 any check of it?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Is that included in your book simply because, as
23 a judgment, and a value judgment, journalists
24 occasionally have to make, you simply regarded him as
25 credible and, therefore, it was unnecessary to check the
1 facts?
2 A. Well, it is something that I would accept should have
3 been checked, Mr Harvey, I would not try to get away
4 from that. That should have been checked.
5 Q. The situation is, in relation to this particular point,
6 he goes on to say, and he told you at the time of your
7 interview that when that happened the thought crossed
8 his mind that this was a signal for other troops to open
9 fire on an unarmed crowd; you did not include that in
10 the book. Is there a reason for that?
11 A. Well, as I say, Kathy wrote the chapter on
12 Bloody Sunday. We were not setting out to write a book
13 primarily on Bloody Sunday, it was a book about
14 Martin McGuinness. I remember after we had written the
15 book, the cover had been published, had been printed and
16 we had to cut out 13,000 words, you know, we tried to
17 keep it as tight as we could.
18 Q. I entirely understand that, Mr Clarke. In fact you
19 referred, when you were questioned by Mr Christopher
20 Clarke, that a journalist has to be particularly careful
21 when he is dealing with sources who may have interests
22 to serve other than the truth; is that not right?
23 A. Well, just to rephrase -- just to go back to what
24 I said: I believe that you have to be careful with all
25 sources because all sources have interests, there are
1 very few people who are disinterested when they approach
2 the press.
3 Q. Sources may use journalists as simply the instrument of
4 putting into the public domain their own bitternesses,
5 their own resentments, their own agendas; is that not
6 right?
7 A. I think that invariably anybody who approaches the press
8 has an agenda, whether it is a political party,
9 government, or an individual, they are generally trying
10 to achieve something by the exercise.
11 Q. As an experienced journalist you try to be aware of that
12 and take account of it whenever you yourself are putting
13 forward an account to the public?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. But you do not get it right all of the time, that is not
16 possible; is that not right?
17 A. No, you, you try -- you have ideals that you try to
18 approach, you do not always reach them completely.
19 Q. When you were looking at Mr Ward, you were using your
20 experience as an journalist to make an assessment, but
21 you acknowledge that your assessment may well be wrong
22 because you did not possess the background information
23 that would be available to this Tribunal?
24 A. That is quite correct. I would -- if it is shown that
25 I was wrong on something, then I would correct it, that
1 is the proper way to proceed.
2 Q. It is not so much that you are wrong, it is just that
3 you can make a misjudgment in your assessment of someone
4 who is supplying you information, they are the person
5 that is wrong; is that not right?
6 A. I do not know how far I want to go down this. I mean,
7 it is possible for me to make a misjudgment, my judgment
8 is not perfect and I would try to avoid it and admit
9 a mistake when I make it.
10 Q. With Mr Ward, it is not just that he claimed to you to
11 have seen Mr Johnston and Mr Damien Donaghy being shot,
12 he also claimed that in fact a Major was the first
13 person to fire shots on Bloody Sunday which sparked off
14 the carnage on the streets of Derry; that is also right,
15 is it not?
16 A. He said it was the first person he saw firing a shot was
17 a Major.
18 Q. And that is what sparked, according to the account which
19 he gave you which is not included in the book, that is
20 what sparked the on-rush of the soldiers from
21 Sackville Street and the subsequent deaths that occurred
22 in Rossville Street, Glenfada Park, Joseph Place and the
23 car park in Rossville Flats?
24 A. Well, I have not got that in front of me, Mr Harvey, but
25 I am sure you would give me an accurate reading of it.
1 Q. But a simple check would have shown that no Major fired
2 a shot in the location claimed by Mr Ward. Again was
3 that simple check omitted because of the investment that
4 you made based on your experience on his credibility?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Why was it not made?
7 A. What would the simple check have been?
8 Q. You could have easily checked any record of -- you had
9 available all of the statements; you had the opening to
10 this Tribunal; not one claim by one soldier or one
11 civilian that any Major stepped forward and fired the
12 first shot. That would have been startling news if
13 true; would it not?
14 A. It would have been startling news -- well, I am tempted
15 to say -- and it was included in the book. But I must
16 admit -- I do not want to give a flippant answer --
17 I did not make those checks. As I say, I was not mainly
18 responsible for the chapter on Bloody Sunday, this is
19 something that you could have raised with Kathy when she
20 was a witness.
21 Q. I am sorry at the end of the day you were the one who
22 actually interviewed Mr Ward. Mr Ward also claims that
23 soldiers came out on foot from Sackville Street and
24 there is an overwhelming body of evidence available to
25 this Tribunal that that also did not happen?
1 A. What I would point out Mr Harvey to try to help you and
2 I do, you know, sympathise with the families and I am
3 not -- I have no animosity whatsoever towards your
4 clients.
5 What I would point out is that I made -- basically
6 I made the best checks we could on the subject of
7 Bloody Sunday. The book was not about Bloody Sunday
8 and, um, if there is something that you feel is
9 inaccurate in it and you correct me, then I would have
10 to accept that.
11 I mean, but I would point out also that for instance
12 Kathy has been on the TV with the relatives of the
13 Bloody Sunday dead; nobody has ever made this point
14 before, and you are a barrister who has been working on
15 this case for a number of years; you have come up with
16 it now.
17 It did not strike any of the reviewers of the book,
18 it did not strike anybody else in all these years, so
19 perhaps it was not -- perhaps you should look at it in
20 that light.
21 Q. Did it strike you when you were reading the transcript
22 of Mr Ward's evidence he actually claimed to have seen
23 and witnessed events which it would have been quite
24 impossible for him to have seen and witnessed?
25 A. I listened to your cross-examination which was very
1 skillful in the press room and looked at the transcript
2 afterwards. I must admit you would have blinded me with
3 science on the geography of Derry, I do not have that
4 close knowledge of it. I remember one or two
5 journalists in the press room saying that you might have
6 been wrong on some points, but I could not have judged
7 that.
8 I would point out these are points that have never
9 been made since the book was published, not made by the
10 families on TV, not made by any reviewer and they are
11 made by you after a very detailed study.
12 Q. I accept that, but irrespective of whether they were
13 made after a detailed study, do you see the validity in
14 them?
15 A. I am not able to judge all the geographic points you
16 made, I mean I would need to take days to do that and
17 I have been working since you cross-examined Mr Ward.
18 Certainly if I was issuing a new, a new version of the
19 book I would look very carefully at your
20 cross-examination and check them at that stage.
21 Q. Let alone looking at it, would it make you revisit the
22 actual credibility that you invested in Mr Ward?
23 A. As I have said a few times, I am not really able to
24 judge some of the detailed geographical points that you
25 made.
1 Q. What I really want to suggest to you on behalf of the
2 family of Gerard Donaghy, at least they had the
3 opportunity of examining this source but not the other
4 source that your wife has claimed refers to him. Would
5 you not think as a journalist in fairness that they are
6 entitled to that?
7 A. Again I will give the same answer as I did to other
8 things: that would be ideal and it would be good if that
9 could happen.
10 Q. Because it is really the only way that they can get
11 justice, is it not, because you are just the vehicle for
12 providing information supplied by others?
13 A. I am sure it would be more satisfactory for the families
14 if they could interview everybody and have you
15 cross-examine them.
16 MR HARVEY: Thank you.
17 Questioned by MR O'DONOVAN
18 MR O'DONOVAN: Sir, my name is O'Donovan, I represent
19 a number of people who were, in 1972, members of the
20 Official IRA.
21 May I ask you some matters about the interview with
22 Mr O'Comain: were you present when I was asking your
23 wife a number of questions about the interview?
24 A. I was.
25 Q. You heard the issues that I raised as to questions that
1 might have been asked and were not asked; did you hear
2 those?
3 A. I did, but you would need to take me through them again.
4 Q. Do you recall a limited number of matters dealing with
5 the interview with Mr O'Comain, first of all as to the
6 allegation that a number of Officials agreed to shoot on
7 that day, nobody appears to have asked him -- either you
8 or your wife -- as to whether that was authorised by the
9 local command or it was various people acting as they
10 saw fit?
11 A. No, we did not ask him that. We were not primarily
12 concerned with, even with, with Bloody Sunday, I mean,
13 it was a chapter and it was Martin McGuinness's role --
14 or with the history of the Official IRA.
15 Q. I can take you through the other matters: I am reluctant
16 to take more time than is necessary. Do you recall the
17 other matters that I put to your wife?
18 A. I cannot now, you would need to at least remind me of
19 them.
20 Q. He was never asked in the brief amount of information
21 that he gave you as to whether the people involved were
22 the officers or they were volunteers; that is right, is
23 it not?
24 A. That is right, we did not pursue that aspect.
25 Q. Certainly. The aspect of how many people were involved,
1 that was never pursued either, was it?
2 A. No, I do not believe so, I have given you the
3 transcript.
4 Q. The issue of the identity of the relevant individuals
5 was never pursued; that is right, is it not?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. No questions were directed to him as to how the decision
8 was implemented; in other words, what was the plan and
9 how it was to be undertaken on the day?
10 A. I am not looking at the section, but I do not think we
11 even said that the plan was completed -- is that --
12 I would wish perhaps to look at the page.
13 Q. It does appear those issues were not dealt with?
14 A. It was what people wanted to do rather than ...
15 Q. Precisely. No-one asked him how the plan was
16 implemented or if in fact it varied on the day, that was
17 an issue that was never raised either?
18 A. No, we did not pursue that.
19 Q. You will be familiar, I am sure, with the point
20 Mr O'Comain was making. He was saying of course at that
21 stage he was on the fringes of the Officials; do you
22 remember him saying that?
23 A. I do.
24 Q. Nobody appears to have asked him, therefore, in that set
25 of circumstances, how it was that he came across the
1 information?
2 A. No, but I mean, I took it that he had been involved with
3 the Officials for some time, I mean, if you look at
4 earlier parts he talks about knowing Malachy McGurren(?)
5 and being at various meetings, so I took it that he had
6 first-hand knowledge.
7 Q. Of course, you were not to know, unless you asked him,
8 whether it was some third-hand, fourth-hand, fifth-hand,
9 however many hand gossip, that he was telling you. He
10 may have believed it but you never tested the source,
11 did you?
12 A. No, it is not something I had pursued, though I assumed
13 that he was probably speaking that he had been a member
14 himself.
15 LORD SAVILLE: I am not sure why we are going into this sort
16 of detail. I see entirely the sort of questions you
17 have posed, interesting questions. But first
18 Ms Johnston and Mr Clarke have said they did not ask
19 these matters because they were not writing a book about
20 Bloody Sunday or the Official movement or anything like
21 that, they were concentrating on Martin McGuinness.
22 I do not know how much further we can take this.
23 MR O'DONOVAN: If I may take it a very small part
24 further: it is the case, sir, is it not, that what he
25 told you was reported in the book?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. I am suggesting that you reported it really as an
3 interesting view that somebody had provided you with,
4 but you really did not have a great deal of confidence
5 in it as to its accuracy?
6 A. Well, I suppose we did not have a great deal of
7 interest, that is what it boils down to. I mean, it was
8 interesting that he said there was such a plan. We did
9 not want to go in, we had limited space; I have
10 explained that, having you know to fit everything in;
11 Mr McGuinness has had a very full life and it is
12 something we did not really want to go into a lot of
13 detail about the doings of the Official IRA and, despite
14 what Mr McGrory would suggest, I was not keen to either
15 condemn them or defend them.
16 Q. I am not going to trouble you with what Mr McGrory was
17 troubling you with.
18 What I am suggesting is, taken that you were not
19 particularly interested in it, but you did form the view
20 that the information you were receiving was probably
21 rather light-weight?
22 A. I do not know, I took it that Mr O'Comain, to be honest,
23 had had inside information and had been a member of the
24 Official movement, that was my assumption and he had
25 indicated that he had known people in it and I remember,
1 having met him when he was in the IRSP afterwards, he
2 had been in the Official movement, and that was clear.
3 So I thought that he was probably, he was going to be
4 probably right, but it was not something I really wanted
5 to flesh out or do pages about.
6 Q. I am merely suggesting that you formed a view that it
7 was light-weight information because if you did, you
8 would have been publishing serious allegations against
9 individuals who could be identified without even
10 researching them properly and that is why you formed the
11 view you did?
12 A. I do not know if I can take it much further. I mean, it
13 is something I did not want to pursue.
14 LORD SAVILLE: I did not quite understand the question, if
15 you did answer it by all means, but I did not understand
16 what the question or the suggestion was, perhaps you
17 could put it again.
18 MR O'DONOVAN: Sir, the suggestion is that if you had not
19 formed a view that it was light-weight information,
20 interesting but not carrying much weight, you would not
21 have published it without thinking about it because if
22 you had published it, it was making serious accusations
23 against people and to make those accusations you would
24 be making them without having researched it.
25 LORD SAVILLE: I am sorry, Mr O'Donovan, we have at least
1 a double, if not a treble negative in that. Mr Clarke,
2 if you think you understand what Mr O'Donovan is saying,
3 by all means answer it. At the moment, I must repeat,
4 I do not understand.
5 You are suggesting to this witness that he must have
6 formed the view that the information he was given by
7 this individual was, as you put it, light-weight; did
8 you form that view, Mr Clarke?
9 A. No, I did not, I must admit, I thought it was probably
10 right. It was information about what people were
11 thinking of doing, not what necessarily happened.
12 I suppose, when you mention it, it is something maybe
13 I could have persued, but it was not at the top of my
14 priorities.
15 Questioned by MR NICHOLS
16 MR NICHOL: In one of Mr McGrory's multi-barrelled
17 questions, Mr Clarke, he slipped in this comment,
18 I think he said it was rather convenient that the second
19 tape of the interview you had with Mr Ward was lost; did
20 you lose that tape deliberately so that the Tribunal
21 would not have it?
22 A. No, I certainly did not.
23 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Clarke, do you have any further questions?
24 MR CLARKE: No.
25 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Clarke, thank you very much for coming
1 here to give evidence. You will appreciate, as I said
2 to your wife, we may have to revisit the question as to
3 whether or not we should order you to reveal sources.
4 If that takes place, then of course you will have the
5 assistance of your counsel on any legal argument.
6 Again, as I said to your wife we do appreciate that you
7 have a problem of your confidentiality agreements and we
8 have a duty to seek the greatest possible information
9 about Bloody Sunday, so we may have to come back to that
10 topic.
11 Meanwhile, thank you for coming here today.
12 MR CLARKE: Sir, I am given to understand that the list for
13 tomorrow is as published, save that Teresa Maxwell will
14 not be called tomorrow, she will be called in a couple
15 of weeks' time.
16 LORD SAVILLE: Thank you very much. 9.30, please.
17 (5.10 pm)
18 (Proceedings adjourned until 9.30 am on Thursday,
19 30th October 2003)
20
21
22
23
24
25
1 INDEX
2 PAGE
3 MS KATHRYN JOHNSTON, affirmed ................ 5
4 Questioned by MR CLARKE ...................... 5
5 Questioned by MR ELIAS ....................... 77
6 Questioned by MR GLASGOW ..................... 83
7 Questioned by MR McGRORY ..................... 93
8 Questioned by MR A HARVEY .................... 116
9 Questioned by MR O'DONOVAN .................. 140
10 Questioned by MR NICHOL ...................... 146
11 Questioned by MR CLARKE ...................... 150
12 MR LIAM CLARKE, affirmed ..................... 154
13 Questioned by MR CLARKE ...................... 154
14 Questioned by MR MCGRORY ..................... 173
15 Questioned by ARTHUR HARVEY .................. 196
16 Questioned by MR O'DONOVAN ................... 206
17 Questioned by MR NICHOLS ..................... 212
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25