THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY/Day 218: The television journalist, Peter Taylor, who has made a number of programmes on Bloody Sunday, said yesterday a military source told him the political instructions to mount a tough arrest operation in Derry came from London.
Mr Taylor refused to reveal to the tribunal the names of military and IRA sources he interviewed for the 1992 BBC documentary, Remember Bloody Sunday, which included interviews with soldiers who were on duty in the city on January 30th, 1972, when 13 civilians were shot dead after a civil rights march.
He was asked about a passage in the broadcast in which he said: "The army also had a secret plan, ordered at the highest level by Gen Robert Ford - again acting on political instructions. Derry's hooligans were to be taught a lesson, and the Paras had been imported to do the teaching."
He said his source or sources for this "would have been in a position to know". Asked by Mr Christopher Clarke, counsel for the tribunal, whether the sources were military or political, or both, he said they were military.
He said he had been led to understand that the use of the phrase "teach a lesson" meant "to go in hard and conduct a scoop-up arrest operation, not to kill people".
Asked by the chairman, Lord Saville, if he had been told where the political instructions had come from, he said he thought they would have come initially from the Security Committee. In further replies, he said: "I think my source identified that it [the instruction] came from London, because London would have to authorise this sort of situation."
Questioned at a later stage by Mr Michael Mansfield QC, for a number of victims' families, Mr Taylor said he thought political approval was given by Gen 47, the name of the British Cabinet sub-committee on Northern Ireland.
He said one of his prime sources in regard to the scoop-up operation and the "secret plan" was Col Derek Wilford, OC of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, whom he could name because the colonel had already been fully identified. But there were about four other sources from different military ranks whom he could not name.
On foot of an earlier ruling by the tribunal, edited transcripts of notebooks used by Mr Taylor during his research were supplied to the inquiry and he was questioned on them yesterday. The names of IRA members and soldiers were blanked out, and Mr Taylor said he was not prepared to provide these names.
He confirmed he had become aware that a number of individuals, specifically three members of the Official IRA who have supplied statements to the inquiry, were said to have told their legal representatives that they were prepared to release him from his duty of confidentiality to them.
However, when he rang these individuals, their reaction was one of surprise, and when he told them he intended nevertheless to maintain the confidentiality, they had said they respected that position.
The inquiry continues today.