Lawyers for the Bloody Sunday families think they made progress this week, writes Eamon McCann
Evidence from a British army commander to the Saville tribunal this week seemed to undermine the account of Bloody Sunday which was being offered by the majority of army officers and by British politicians.
The testimony of Maj Gen Peter Welsh, commander of a battalion of the Royal Green Jackets regiment in Derry in January 1972, was described by one of the lawyers for the Bloody Sunday families as "critical . . . as telling as anything we've heard over the course of the inquiry so far".
Welsh gave evidence at the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, days 282 and 283 of oral hearings chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate.
The former British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath took the witness stand on both afternoons.
It will be argued by the families' lawyers when they come to make their final submissions, probably towards the end of this year, that Welsh's evidence casts doubt on the accuracy of the former prime minister's recall of events, as well as on the version of Bloody Sunday provided by a number of other politicians and senior officers.
Welsh's evidence touched critically on two key issues - the extent to which British ministers knew, or ought to have known, of the prior concern of senior officers of regiments resident in Derry at the prospect of paratroopers being brought to the city to deal with the civil rights march on January 30th 1972; and the circumstances in which the paras entered the "no-go" Bogside area on the day.
Welsh was questioned about a telephone call he is said to have made a few days before Bloody Sunday to a friend at army headquarters in London, David Ramsbotham, who at the time was personal military assistant to Britain's top soldier, the Chief of General Staff (CGS), General (later Lord) Michael Carver.
In evidence last October, Ramsbotham recalled Welsh complaining about the behaviour of paratroopers the previous weekend at a civil rights protest at Magilligan and expressing concern about the decision of the Commander of Land Forces (CLF), General Robert Ford, to deploy the paras in Derry the following Sunday.
Welsh said on Tuesday that he had little memory of the phone-call but didn't deny Ramsbotham's account.
He insisted that his intention would not have been to have the CGS intervene "in minor matters in Northern Ireland. I mean, that is why we have brigadiers and CLFs."
Ramsbotham had taken the same view, saying that he believed Welsh had phoned him merely "as a close colleague and friend [who] would be interested . . . He certainly would not want to break the chain of command".
However, Ramsbotham evidently took the call sufficiently seriously to raise the issue with Carver.
Questioned by Lord Gifford QC, for the family of James Wray, Ramsbotham said he was "quite certain" that Carver had alerted cabinet ministers to the anxiety of Welsh and others and that a "rather lurid picture" of what might happen in Derry was likely conveyed to them.
"It was such a strong discussion around the time I cannot believe that it was not ."
That senior politicians were alerted to the worries of Welsh and others seems confirmed by a briefing note, made available by the tribunal to the various legal teams, from cabinet secretary Burke Trend to Heath in advance of a meeting of the cabinet's Northern Ireland Committee on January 27th 1972.
Referring to media comments on the paras' behaviour at Magilligan, Trend suggested that Heath "may wish to question the Secretary of State for Defence [Lord Carrington] about recent suggestions soldiers of the Parachute Regiment, by being unnecessarily rough, have gratuitously provoked resentment among peaceful elements of the Roman Catholic population."
In evidence in December, Carrington said that he could recall "general talk" about the march "but no discussion about the actual strategy for dealing with the march".
However, the fact that the cabinet secretary was suggesting to the prime minister just three days before the march that he questioned the defence secretary about alleged misbehaviour by paratroopers has been taken by lawyers for the families as an indication of serious concern at a high level about the regiment's role.
"We have the CGS and the cabinet secretary voicing alarm, or at least concern," said one of the lawyers last week. "If other people at the very top didn't know there was a disaster in the making, it's because they did not want to know."
Against this background, Heath's insistence this week that he was unaware that paratroopers would be involved in Derry the following Sunday, and that the January 27th cabinet committee had believed that the Derry march would be "a quiet matter", may prove difficult to sustain.
Lawyers for the families will return to the topic next week.
Welsh's personal role on Bloody Sunday was to observe events from a helicopter and report to the man in overall command of the army operation, Brig Patrick MacLellan, at the Eighth Brigade's headquarters in Ebrington Barracks, about two miles from the Bogside in the Waterside area of Derry.
In evidence in December, MacLellan laid great stress on Welsh's role as "my eyes in the sky". He said that he had resolved not to launch the planned arrest operation until Welsh had confirmed "clear separation" between peaceful civil rights marchers and rioting "hooligans" on the ground. He described Welsh as "my best officer".
MacLellan's brigade major, Col Michael Steele, who gave evidence over three days in November, underlined the importance MacLellan attached to "separation" and Welsh's role in establishing its achievement.
He recalled a co-ordinating conference of commanders two days before Bloody Sunday: "I remember that Brigadier MacLellan told Lt Col Welsh that monitoring the march from the helicopter was to be his specific role, and that he was to . . . ensure that Brigadier MacLellan knew when separation of the marchers and the rioters had occurred.
"Brigadier MacLellan made it clear in front of all the commanding officers, including Lt Col Wilford of 1 Para, that he would not mount an arrest operation until separation had occurred. It was an indication of the importance [of the issue\] that he asked such a senior officer to do the monitoring job. He needed somebody he could trust absolutely."
MacLellan told the inquiry that he gave the order for the paras to go in only after checking for a second time with Welsh in the helicopter that separation had been achieved.
One difficulty with this account has been that neither a tape of radio traffic made on the day by local radio "ham" James Porter nor the brigade log of radio messages contains either the request from MacLellan for confirmation of separation or the reply.
Another difficulty emerged this week when it became clear that Welsh's memory of the sequence of events differs sharply from MacLellan's and Steele's.
Questioned on Tuesday by tribunal barrister Catherine McGahey, Welsh said that the account he had given to the Widgery inquiry in 1972 was likely accurate.
In this, he made no mention of the co-ordinating conference or of the importance MacLellan had supposedly attached to his role, but recalled hearing on the morning of Bloody Sunday "that a helicopter was to fly an observer over the march. As some of my own men were involved, I volunteered".
He said that before he took off he had had "an informal briefing" from MacLellan. He agreed that the Sioux helicopter did not give a clear view of events on the ground and that separation would have been more easily observed from the roof of the Embassy ballroom overlooking the Bogside, on which there was a permanent British army observation post.
Questioned by Arthur Harvey, QC, for a majority of the families, he agreed that it would have required "a highly interpretative act" for MacLellan to have concluded from his reports that separation had taken place.
He said that he had had no prior knowledge of whereon the terrain below him the proposed arrest operation was to be launched.
The Bloody Sunday families have argued from the outset of the inquiry that the para incursion into the Bogside was not a bona fide arrest operation at all but a violent assault designed to inflict damage on the "no-go" area and that the details of the supposed arrest plan were devised afterwards to cover up the truth.
The families' lawyers were content at the end of the week that they had made some progress towards establishing their case.