What the report says
MAJOR GENERAL FORD
The commander of the British land forces in Northern Ireland, Maj Gen Ford, neither knew nor had reason to know at any stage his decision to employ an additional battalion (1 PARA) as the means of seeking to deal with rioters in Derry on Bloody Sunday would or was likely to result in soldiers firing unjustifiably on that day, the inquiry found.
Lord Saville says that in light of the situation that obtained in Derry in early 1972, Gen Ford’s decision to use 1 PARA as the arrest force “is open to criticism, on the ground that 1 PARA was a force with a reputation for using excessive physical violence, which thus ran the risk of exacerbating the tensions between the army and nationalists in Londonderry”.
However, he concluded that Gen Ford had no reason to believe and did not believe that the risk of soldiers of 1 PARA firing unjustifiably during the course of an arrest operation was such that it was inappropriate for that reason to use them for such an operation.
Gen Ford denied, both to the Widgery Inquiry and to the Saville Inquiry, that the army plan for January 30th, 1972, was to cause a confrontation with the IRA, Official, Provisional or both. “We accept his denial. We are sure that there was no such plan,” the report says.
“As to General Ford’s memorandum, where he suggested shooting selected ringleaders of rioters after warning, we are surprised that an officer of his seniority should seriously consider that this was something that could be done, notwithstanding that he acknowledged that to take this course would require authorisation from above. We are sure, for the reasons given in the report, that this idea was not adopted and that the shootings on Bloody Sunday were not the result of any plan to shoot selected ringleaders,” it adds.
“We found no evidence to suggest that the use of lethal force against unarmed rioters, who were not posing a threat of causing death or serious injury, was contemplated by General Ford or those senior to him as a possible means of dealing with any rioting that might accompany the then forthcoming civil rights march,” it continues.
BRIG PATRICK MacLELLAN
He was the British army commander in Derry on Bloody Sunday, and the inquiry concludes that he does not bear any responsibility for the deaths and injuries from the unjustifiable firing by soldiers on Bloody Sunday.
The report says he had no reason to believe and did not believe that the limited arrest operation he ordered ran the risk of deaths or injuries from unjustifiable firing by soldiers.
“In our view Brigadier MacLellan cannot fairly be criticised either for not imposing additional restrictions on when soldiers could open fire, over and above those in the Yellow Card; or for failing to order soldiers engaged in an arrest operation to disengage rather than respond if they were or believed that they were under attack from republican paramilitaries, so as to minimise the risk that innocent civilians would be killed or injured. In his case, suggestions to the contrary incorrectly assume that he bears responsibility for sending soldiers into the Bogside. The arrest operation Brigadier MacLellan ordered was limited in scope and would not have involved soldiers going into the Bogside to any or any significant extent; and in our view the risk to civilians from such an operation did not call for any such special restrictions or special orders,” it says.
LIEUT COL DEREK WILFORD
As the man who led the PARA regiment in Derry on Bloody Sunday, he is severely criticised in the report. The inquiry concludes he should not have sent soldiers into the Bogside for a number of reasons. By doing so, it says, he disobeyed orders of Brig MacLellan. “His failure to comply with his orders . . . cannot be justified,” it says.
It adds that a further reason he should not have sent soldiers into the Bogside was because his soldiers, whose job it was to arrest rioters, would have no or virtually no means of identifying those who had been rioting from those who had simply been taking part in the civil rights march, and because they were being sent into an unfamiliar area which he and they regarded as dangerous “where the soldiers might come under attack from republican paramilitaries, in circumstances where the soldiers’ response would run a significant risk that people other than those engaging the soldiers with lethal force would be killed or injured by army gunfire”.
The report says he should have ordered his soldiers to stay in and around William Street and the northern end of Rossville Street. “It appears to us that he wanted to demonstrate that the way to deal with rioters in Londonderry was not for soldiers to shelter behind barricades like (as he put it) ‘Aunt Sallies’ while being stoned, as he perceived the local troops had been doing, but instead to go aggressively after rioters, as he and his soldiers had been doing in Belfast”.
PRIVATE 027
He was present in Derry on Bloody Sunday as the 19-year-old radio operator for Lieutenant 119, the platoon commander. The report says that in 1975, he wrote a “memoir ” that dealt, among other topics, with the events of Bloody Sunday. The memoir contained serious allegations against other members of 1 PARA. In it he wrote that on the night before Bloody Sunday, Lieutenant 119 had told his platoon: “We want some kills tomorrow”. The memoir went on to describe circumstances where, on Bloody Sunday, certain members of his platoon had, without justification, fired at, and killed, unarmed civilians. It also alleged that soldiers had fired dum-dum bullets (modified rounds), of which they held illicit supplies.
Pte 027’s memoir also contained a claim that the written statement he made for the Widgery Inquiry (which contained none of the allegations in the memoir) was written for him by “Crown lawyers” and was not a truthful account.
The allegations made by Pte 027 in his memoir featured in the dossier the Irish government later presented to the British government, in which the Irish government called for a new public inquiry into events in Derry on January 30th, 1972.
The Saville Inquiry report says “it is difficult to categorise Private 027’s evidence”. It adds that in his oral closing submissions, counsel for the majority of the families described Pte 027 as “a wretched witness ”.
“To a substantial extent we agree that this comment was justified. At the same time, we take the view that Private 027’s evidence cannot be wholly dismissed on the basis that it is such exaggeration, fantasy and deceit as to be of no assistance. Our conclusion is that it would be wrong to ground any of our findings about Bloody Sunday on his evidence alone, but equally wrong to ignore it where there is other material that tends to support what he told us,” the report says.
“In our view, what is likely to have happened is that Private 027 felt that he had to invent a reason to explain providing a statement for the Widgery Inquiry that was inconsistent with his later accounts; and chose to do so by falsely laying blame for the inconsistency on others.”
LANCE CORPORAL F
This one soldier is cited by the inquiry for killing and injuring more civilians in Derry on Bloody Sunday than any other individual soldier. The report says the inquiry was sure he fired the shot that mortally injured Michael Kelly, and that he fired at and shot Bernard McGuigan and Patrick Doherty. The report says it was highly probably he was responsible for shooting Patrick Campbell and Daniel McGowan. It was also “more likely than not” that either Lance Cpl F or Pte H fired the shot that mortally wounded William McKinney; that one or other of these soldiers was responsible for the shot that wounded Joe Mahon, and that either Lance Cpl F or Pte G fired the shot that wounded Joe Friel. The report says Lance Cpl F “did not fire in panic or fear”.