Former British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath today denied that he gave the British army the go-ahead, directly or indirectly, to use unlawful lethal force in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
Sir Edward (86) also accused the lawyer representing many of the families of the Bloody Sunday victims of "muck-raking" in order to strengthen his case.
He said he never agreed to, or knew of a suggestion, posed three weeks before Bloody Sunday by General Sir Robert Ford, the Commander of the Land Forces, that shooting ringleaders was the best way to restore law and order.
Sir Edward today began his third day of evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry which is investigating the circumstances surrounding the killing of 13 Catholic men on a Derry civil rights march by British paratroopers in January 1972.
He quickly became locked in a prickly exchange with Mr Michael Lavery QC, representing many of the bereaved families and injured. 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, particularly those in charge of security in the region, 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."
Sir Edward said he was proud of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government that he helped to establish in November 1973.
The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.
PA