The Bloody Sunday Inquiry/Day 353: A paratrooper who believes he shot and killed two people on Bloody Sunday said yesterday he could not recollect the circumstances of the deaths.
The live rounds he fired on January 30th, 1972, were the only ones he had fired, except in practice, in his 14-year army career, the soldier, known only as Soldier P, told the Saville inquiry in London.
The former corporal in Mortar Platoon, Support Company, in the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment, said in his written statement to the inquiry that after he left the army he put his years of service to the back of his mind and forgot about them.
However, he accepted that he stated in 1972 that he shot what he believed to be a nail-bomber and a man with a pistol.
He fired two rounds at the alleged nail-bomber, four at the alleged gunman and also three rounds in the air, he said then.
Answering questions from Mr Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the inquiry, Soldier P said that day was the only occasion in his army career on which he fired live rounds, except on the range.
Mr Arthur Harvey QC, representing some of the dead and wounded, asked him: "There is not a question in your mind that you shot and killed two people that day?"
Soldier P: "That is correct."
Mr Harvey continued: "And yet you have no recollection of the circumstances in which you took the life of two of your fellow human beings?"
Soldier P: "No."
Mr Harvey asked Soldier P why in 1972 he had changed his statements about the man with the pistol from him having pointed it "in our general direction" in his statement to Royal Military Police on the evening of Bloody Sunday to him having fired it when he gave evidence to the Widgery tribunal that year.
Soldier P denied that the description was "firming up" every time.
Mr Harvey also asked him about his claim in 1972 that he fired four shots at the man with the pistol and that three of them hit him.
Mr Harvey said: "There is no person behind that barricade that has three bullets in them . . . Did you in fact kill three people behind that barricade and claim you had really only killed one but hit him three times?"
Soldier P replied: "No, not at all."
Mr Harvey, concluding his questions, suggested Soldier P's inability to recall what happened that day was not "any failure of memory" but "a failure of conscience".
He said: "You are not prepared to tell the truth and you have taken refuge in a failure of memory as being the easiest way to cope with the difficult situation and questions that you knew you were going to have to face. Is that not the case?"
Soldier P replied: "No, sir, it is not."
Lord Saville told Soldier P at the end of his evidence: "Soldier P, you told us you have no recollection of the events of this day. You will have understood from the questioning that you are in fact accused of killing people or wounding them without any justification at all.
"This really is your last opportunity to say anything else you wish to say about those accusations."
Soldier P said: "Just to say that I have no recollection of it whatsoever. When I came out, I came out under a medical discharge. I got on with my life, I put those events behind me, and it slipped from my mind entirely, it's gone."
The hearing was adjourned until today. - (PA)