British paratroopers who were supposed to be arresting trouble-makers on
Bloody Sunday drove straight past a group of rioters when they moved into Derry's Bogside that day, it was claimed today.
Retired school principal Mr Niall McCafferty said the soldiers instead headed towards the "big crowd" taking part in the civil rights march that day 29 years ago.
The military operation for what turned into Bloody Sunday envisaged the men in the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment moving in when there was a big enough gap between the main body of marchers and the trouble-makers who broke away to attack an army barricade.
They were then under orders to venture in only a few dozen yards to scoop up the rioters.
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In the event they penetrated much further into the Bogside and lawyers for the families of those killed and injured have claimed the arrest operation was in fact a cover for a wider plan to teach the people of Derry a lesson.
Mr McCafferty told day 138 of the Saville Inquiry's public hearings that the rioting had virtually stopped when the troops came in.
But he added: "There were a tiny number of rioters on the corner of Little James Street and William Street and the army vehicles - some with soldiers running behind them - they simply passed these by and headed towards what they could see, the big crowd."
Earlier Mr McCafferty spoke of his anger at the troops' handling of the riot at Barrier 14 on William Street before the Paratroopers came in.
He said he was discussing it with the then Father Edward Daly in the moments afterwards, again before the arrival of the troops.
"We were talking about a riot that we thought had all but fizzled out,'' he told the hearing in Derry's Guildhall.
"We were astonished at what we described as the overreaction of the Army to a small riot. What we were saying turned out actually to be a remarkable piece of prophetic irony because we little thought just how much the army was going to overreact to the events of the day with the shooting that was still to come.''
PA