The commander of the British army unit that fired more than 100 shots on Bloody Sunday today claimed his men did the best they could under the circumstances.
Colonel Ted Loden was the major in command of the Parachute Regiment's Support Company on January 30th, 1972, when 13 civil rights marchers were shot dead by soldiers in Derry. A 14th man died later.
Col Loden told the Saville Inquiry in London some things could have been done better on the day his soldiers were deployed into the nationalist Bogside area of the city through crowd control barriers.
"I suppose certain things could have been done better, but with the value of hindsight it is always very easy to say that," he said.
"But I think certainly we did the best we could in the circumstances and I can assure you that, when I arrived at barrier 12, I had absolutely no idea at all as to what was going to happen subsequently.
"It is very easy now to examine everything in the most minute detail and to look at all these photographs and videos in the cold, calm light of day, plot the moves of every soldier, but believe me, for me, faced with the problem as I went through the barrier, I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen and we did the best we possibly could".
Mr Gerard Elias QC, representing some of the military witnesses, asked the colonel: "So far as you are aware on the ground, you are telling this tribunal, are you, that in the light of the orders that you were given, whatever you did was the best that you could have done at the time?"
"Myself? I am, yes, most certainly," he replied.