A man who was seriously injured on Bloody Sunday claimed yesterday that a soldier subsequently fabricated a conversation in which he was said to have admitted, while on the way to hospital, that he had been in possession of a gun.
Mr Joseph Friel, who was shot in the chest while running from paratroopers, described the soldier's account as "complete, utter rubbish" and suggested he had been "put up to it".
Giving evidence about the circumstances in which he was shot, Mr Friel, who was then an Inland Revenue tax officer, said that he was running across Glenfada Park when he heard a warning shout from another civilian.
This made him pause and look around, and he saw a number of soldiers entering Glenfada Park. One was firing his gun from the waist. "I heard three shots - bang, bang, bang," said Mr Friel.
"I felt a slight blow to my body, no harder than a tap by a couple of fingers. My first thought was that I had been hit by a rubber bullet ...I looked down and could see blood. Within a second or two a large gush of blood came out of my mouth."
The witness described how he was carried to a house by several men, and was then put into the back of a car to be taken to Altnagelvin hospital. The car was stopped at an army checkpoint just outside the Bogside and those who were in it with him were ordered out or dragged out.
A soldier, referred to as Soldier 104 by the inquiry, got in and drove the car a short distance to a junction where a policeman climbed into the passenger seat.
Mr Friel said he was aware Soldier 104 had testified in 1972 that during this short drive he (witness) had admitted he was carrying a gun when shot. This testimony was a complete fabrication, he said. (The inquiry was told last year that Soldier 104 will say in evidence that he cannot now remember any details of a conversation with Mr Friel.)
The witness also described as "farcical" a report written by RUC Det Sgt D.H. Cudmore, who interviewed him in hospital in 1972. This report, on RUC notepaper, came to light when discovered by lawyers for the present inquiry.
In it, the RUC officer stated: "Friel is a quiet-spoken young man, intelligent, and is obviously involved in the Civil Disorders which are occurring in this city. (Derry).
"He is the man from whom the Army obtained a verbal admission of using/having a gun, although he would not admit same to me ... I am convinced that he did admit this to the soldier. Because of his injury and location he was not pressed about this admission." Mr Friel said yesterday these comments had added insult to injury. "I do not know how he had the audacity to say that I was obviously involved in civil disorder. At no time did he question me about the allegation made against me by the soldiers," he said.
Mr Friel said the surgeon who operated on him in 1972 told him that if the trajectory of the bullet had been one-eighth of an inch different, either way, it would have been fatal. He still attended a pain clinic, and he had physical and mental scars.
The inquiry will continue today.