The individual pieces of investigation and challenges to the findings of the Widgery Report by various academics, experts and journalists have cast doubt on the report's reliability over the years. Put together into one volume in the Government report published yesterday, their effect on the credibility of the report appears devastating.
The evidence in the Government document is entirely consistent with the relatives' version of what happened that day: that British soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians without warning, that they shot dead some of the wounded and planted nail bombs on victims to allow them attempt afterwards to justify the killings.
It further contains evidence that the Widgery Tribunal staff concealed material evidence from relatives of the dead; fabricated evidence; ignored evidence which contradicted that of the soldiers and were biased in favour of the British army and against the deceased.
As well as detailing evidence not considered by Widgery, the report goes through the Widgery Report, paragraph by paragraph, contradicting and challenging most of them. Lord Widgery's report is dismissed as "a startlingly inaccurate and partisan version of events, dramatically at odds with the experiences and observations of civilian eyewitnesses . . . It was inherently and apparently wilfully flawed, selective and unbalanced in its handling of the evidence to hand at the time."
The conclusion about Lord Widgery is equally blunt: either his judgment was "inherently unsound" or he was guilty of "a wilful act of partiality and bias".
A most telling point, according to the Government report, is that if the official version of events is to be changed, the British authorities cannot say that this is as a result of new evidence. Much of the evidence of soldiers and eyewitnesses was available to the official side of the Widgery Tribunal. It is "new" now only in the sense that it is new to the public.
Furthermore, some of the challenge to the Widgery conclusions does not even come from this newly-publicised evidence. It is based on what the Government report says are inherent contradictions and illogicality in the Widgery Report.
The Government's report relies on:
The work of Mr Don Mullan, who compiled and edited a large volume of evidence concerning Bloody Sunday which was never considered by the Widgery Tribunal. His book, Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, The Truth, was published last year.
This includes a selection of civilian eyewitness statements drawn from more than 500 accounts given to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and the National Council for Civil Liberties, which were submitted to the Widgery Tribunal but not substantively considered by it.
Mr Mullan's book also contains accounts of recently released archival material, an assessment of the significance of intercepted army and RUC radio messages, and reassessments of ballistic and medical evidence.
The effect of the book was to suggest that Widgery was partisan and selective in its use of evidence. In particular Mr Mullan produced medical, ballistic and eyewitness evidence that shots were fired from Derry City walls on the marchers and that several died as a result. This possibility was not even considered by Widgery, despite some evidence being available to him.
An analysis of recently released statements by British soldiers who were present on the day. These were effectively concealed by the Widgery Tribunal from the next-of-kin. The analysis of these statements is contained in The Bloody Sunday Tribunal of Inquiry, a resounding defeat for truth, justice and the rule of law by Prof Dermot Walsh, published in 1997.
Transcripts of interviews carried out by Channel 4 News with individuals it believes were soldiers on duty in Derry on Bloody Sunday. These interviews support the thesis that shots were fired from Derry's walls by the British army; that military command and control was absent for a period in which "shameful and disgraceful" acts were perpetrated; and that officials working for Lord Widgery changed the evidence of at least one soldier.
An account reputedly given by a member of 1 Para of the actions of members of his unit in Derry that day including deliberate killing of unarmed and fleeing civilians, some of whom had already been wounded. This account, given first to the Sunday Business Post, also claims that the staff of the Widgery Tribunal fabricated aspects of this soldier's statement.
Extracts from 101 statements by eyewitnesses collected by the Government in 1972.
There is consistency and clarity throughout the eyewitness statements used in the Government document. They say that the British army deployed quickly and aggressively into Rossville Street and Glenfada Park, took no obvious precautions against return IRA fire, shot unarmed civilians, abused those who sought to assist the wounded and dead including members of the Order of Malta and shot dead a number of the wounded. They also support Don Mullan's thesis that shots were fired from the vicinity of Derry City Walls.
THESE eyewitness statements were all available to the Widgery Tribunal. They were ignored by Lord Widgery in the drawing up of his report. As the Government report says: "A version of events was presented in the Widgery Report which was seen as so perversely at odds with that of civilian eyewitnesses (including journalists) that any remaining public confidence in the Widgery Tribunal's methods, conclusions and ultimately motives was undermined."
The statements made by the British soldiers on the night of Bloody Sunday, analysed by Prof Dermot Walsh of the law department at the University of Limerick, are much different from the statements these same soldiers ultimately made for the Widgery Tribunal. Had these original statements been made available to lawyers acting for the next of kin at the tribunal, many soldiers would have been subjected to rigorous cross-examination over the inconsistencies, according to the report.
According to Prof Walsh, quoted in the Government document: "The effect of the changes was to convert what had originally amounted to an unlawful or reckless shooting to a more justifiable one." The changes also reduced conflicts of evidence between the soldiers, the document says.
The Widgery Report, the Government document concludes, "has been viewed by many as an attempt to present an `acceptable' official version of events, the purpose of which was not to establish the truth but to exculpate the British army".