The ordeal of a father who called repeatedly on soldiers to help his mortally-wounded son at the makeshift barricade on Rossville Street in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday was recalled in statements yesterday.
Alexander Nash, who is now dead, was aged 53 on January 30th, 1972. He went to the aid of his 19-year-old son, William, who was fatally wounded at the rubble barricade when British paratroopers opened fire. Mr Nash (snr) was hit in the arm by a bullet.
The circumstances, as seen by several soldiers, were described in their statements, outlined yesterday by Mr Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the tribunal.
Pte U, of the mortar platoon of 1 Para, had told the Widgery inquiry in 1972 that he saw a youth who seemed to have a stomach wound behind the rubble barricade and an older man was holding him. The old man shouted, "He's dying."
Mr Clarke outlined Pte U's further evidence in which he said he saw a hand holding a pistol appear from the side entrance of the nearby Rossville flats and fire two quick shots, one of which appeared to hit the old man in the arm.
Pte U said the old man had called out to him. "He was trying to get myself and some of the others to go over and give assistance but we could not . . . he was pointing to me and waving."
Mr Clarke said the young man was, fairly clearly, the younger Nash. " . . . he was shot in the right chest . . . and the old man must be his father, who was wounded in the left arm by what was thought by Mr Bennet, the surgeon, to be a low-velocity bullet, the bullet passing from right to left."
Mr Clarke said there was some other evidence that a gunman with a handgun at the Rossville flats was responsible for shooting Alexander Nash. Lord Widgery, in his 1972 report, concluded that the most probable explanation of Mr Nash's injury was that it was inflicted by a civilian "firing haphazardly in the general direction of the soldiers without exposing himself enough to take proper aim".
Examining the evidence previously given by soldiers who were in the vicinity of the rubble barricade, Mr Clarke referred to the Widgery inquiry evidence of Soldier 28, a captain in the 22nd Light Air Defence Regiment.
This officer had claimed to have seen a man armed with what looked like a Thomson machinegun about 20 yards behind the barricade and that this man fired a burst of about 15 shots towards paratroopers who were dismounting from vehicles in Rossville Street.
Counsel said that Soldier 28 was alive and had been traced "but he has so far declined to be interviewed".
Sgt K, who had a marksman's badge and carried a rifle with a telescopic sight, had described firing an aimed shot at a man who was crawling towards the door of Rossville flats. K had claimed that the man was carrying a weapon which he believed to be a .303 rifle.
Mr Clarke said that K, in his statement to this inquiry's solicitors, said: "I have been asked about the Yellow Card, with which I was familiar and, under our standard operational procedure, carried with me.
"As far as I was concerned, I did not need an order to fire; if I saw a man carrying a weapon and he intended to use it then I was entitled to shoot. There was no point in me shouting a warning at the man . . . because he was approximately 150 yards away from me."
Counsel quoted from the provisions in the British army's Yellow Card rules on opening fire, as they were constituted in November 1971, and questioned whether they could apply to someone who was carrying a firearm but was crawling away.
"Leaving aside the Yellow Card, the question arises as to whether in time of peace it is legitimate to fire a 7.62mm bullet at a person who, albeit carrying a firearm, is crawling on his knees in a leopard crawl in a direction away from the firer, 150 yards away," Mr Clarke said. The inquiry continues today.