Former British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath yesterday accused the lawyer representing many of the families of the Bloody Sunday victims of "muckraking" in order to strengthen his case.
Sir Edward (86) denied he gave the British army the go-ahead, directly or indirectly, to use unlawful lethal force in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
He never agreed to, or knew of a suggestion, posed three weeks before Bloody Sunday by Gen Sir Robert Ford, that shooting hooligan ringleaders was the best way to restore order.
Sir Edward yesterday began his third day of evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which is investigating the circumstances surrounding the killing of 13 men on a Derry civil rights march by British paratroopers.
He quickly became locked in a prickly exchange with Mr Michael Lavery QC, representing many of the bereaved families and injured.
Lord Saville warned Mr Lavery that he would have to "sit down" if his questions were not more helpful and precise.
Mr Lavery accused Sir Edward of an almost "wilful blindness or indifference" to Northern Ireland's problems.
This attitude could have infected the thinking of British soldiers into believing they could breach rules with impunity, it was suggested.
Mr Lavery said: "Northern Ireland was something that was of no great interest to him [Sir Edward], that he would have been prepared to countenance things in Northern Ireland that he would not have tolerated for one moment in England.
"The political reality, Sir, is if this [Bloody Sunday] had happened in England, Sir Edward's government would not have lasted 24 hours."
An increasingly exasperated Sir Edward said he was proud of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government that he helped to establish in November 1973.
He told Mr Lavery: "We are proud of it and so are the people of that country, despite all the muck which you produce from time to time whenever you can get a hearing."
Sir Edward rejected appeals from Mr Lavery to think how he would have responded if the memo had been available before Bloody Sunday, saying it was a hypothetical question.
"It is an imaginary question. For heaven's sake, just wasting time," he said.
When Mr Lavery asked Sir Edward why he had not "drummed" Gen Sir Robert out of the army for making such an "outrageous proposal", Sir Edward replied: "If you can not think of anything better to ask then you had better stop".
Disciplining soldiers was an army and not a government matter, he said.
Sir Edward was also asked why Lord Hailsham, then the Lord Chancellor, was not sacked for telling ministers that anyone obstructing the army could be shot as enemies of the queen.
Everyone present ignored Lord Hailsham's comments because they were "objectionable", Sir Edward said. - (PA)