Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry Volume 3

28.11 In his report to the Ambulance Corps, Robert Cadman made no mention of observing this shot, but stated that Rosemary Doyle told him that she had been hit. “I presumed it was a rubber bullet. ”1In his written statement to this Inquiry, Robert Cadman told us that as the Saracens (APCs) approached he pushed both Rosemary Doyle and Maureen Gallagher to the ground and then crouched over them for protection. “The Saracens carried straight on towards the Rossville Flats and I presume that they stopped at the Rossville Flats, but I did not see this. ” It was when they got up that Rosemary Doyle said that she had been hit.2Robert Cadman did not give oral evidence to this Inquiry.

1 AC1.23 2AC1.28

28.12 In her report to the Ambulance Corps,1Maureen Gallagher described how a Saracen tank came up Rossville Street and “tried to ram Vol [volunteers] Doyle, Cadman and myself down. We then walked up towards Columbcille Court where they were firing rubber bullets, of which one hit volunteer Doyle in the neck. ”

1 AG21.18

28.13 In her written statement to this Inquiry, Maureen Gallagher told us that she recalled that a rubber bullet was fired from the first Saracen. “I felt it skim past my right cheek. It missed me and I heard Rosemary cry ‘I’m hit’. The rubber bullet had hit Rosemary on her left cheek and the left hand side of her neck. She must have turned to look north towards the Saracens when the bullet hit her. ”1In her oral evidence, Maureen Gallagher was sure that the soldiers were all inside the vehicle and that the baton round was fired from the APC, though its doors were shut. She also said that Rosemary Doyle was not wearing a gas mask at the time and that Robert Cadman was not with them but on the other side of Rossville Street. When she was shown the report that she had made at the time, Maureen Gallagher said that she was sure that when Rosemary Doyle was struck, they were not in the Columbcille Court area, but “coming across Rossville Street ”.2

1 AG21.2 2Day 70/63-65; Day 70/77-78; Day 70/91

Consideration of the evidence concerning Rosemary Doyle

28.14 It is difficult to tell from this evidence whether the soldier who fired the baton round had come from Lieutenant N’s or Sergeant O’s APC. The APC in the foreground of the first of the three photographs shown above is that of Sergeant O. Just behind the rear wheels can be seen the pavement turning into Pilot Row. Behind the APC are three soldiers, who we have no doubt have just disembarked from that vehicle. All three of these soldiers appear to be carrying rifles, not baton guns, but since in our view both Sergeant O’s baton gunners disembarked at this stage, they must be either out of this picture, behind the APC, or about to disembark. As already noted, the film footage to which we have referred in previous chapters1shows soldiers firing baton rounds very soon after disembarking both from Sergeant O’s APC in Rossville Street and Lieutenant N’s APC on the Eden Place waste ground.2This is illustrated by the following still photographs, the first taken from the helicopter footage showing the arrival of Lieutenant N’s APC and the second taken from the ABC film showing the disembarkation of soldiers from Sergeant O’s APC in Rossville Street.

1 Paragraphs 24.15, 24.26 and 26.60 2Vid 2 02.10; Vid 48 12.26




28.15 The three photographs in which Rosemary Doyle can be seen and which we have set out above are shown in the order in which they were taken. In each both the group of Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteers and soldiers are visible. The second and third photographs show soldiers, but it is impossible to tell for certain whether the one shown in the third photograph who is closest to the Ambulance Corps volunteers came from Sergeant O’s APC or that of Lieutenant N. There is another photograph (attributed to Fulvio Grimaldi) which seems to us also to show Rosemary Doyle and the people close to her while soldiers were disembarking from Lieutenant N’s APC.



28.16 Rosemary Doyle has consistently said that the soldier who fired the baton round had just got out or was in the process of getting out of the APC. Her evidence, as a whole, inclines us to the view that the APC in question was that of Lieutenant N. The report that she made at the time seems to refer to the leading APC as the one from which the soldier appeared, while her oral evidence to us seems to be to the same effect. When she was shown the third of the photographs set out above, her evidence was as follows:1

“Q. If we go to 595, I think we get a clearer or slightly clearer picture of the scene. If we look at this group here, it has been suggested that that group is Robert Cadman in the middle, you on the right and Maureen Gallagher on the left. Do you recognise that scene or any of those people?

A. Yes, because one of the things was – I remember was the way that the armoured vehicle came cutting across the ground to where it is now, yeah.

Q. So we can take it, can we, that probably is you and Robert Cadman?

A. I think it could be, yeah.

Q. That would certainly be consistent with your report because if the army vehicle had got to where it is on that photograph, it is not very far away from you?

A. No.

Q. And it looks as if it must have crossed quite close to you and it rather looks as if at this moment, when the photograph was taken, a soldier may have got out or been getting out from the back of that vehicle. ”


1 Day 101/10

28.17 On the basis of her evidence that she was hit very soon after the APC had stopped, it seems to us that this must have happened at about the same time as the three photographs were taken, and when she and her colleagues were at or close to their position as shown in those photographs. This would be consistent with the account that Robert Cadman gave at the time.

28.18 Robert Cadman has never suggested that he saw the shot that hit Rosemary Doyle. As to Maureen Gallagher, we do not accept the accuracy of the evidence that she gave to this Inquiry. She was undoubtedly doing her best to assist us, but as is shown by the photographs, she was wrong in believing that Robert Cadman was at the time on the other side of Rossville Street. In our view she was also mistaken in recalling that the baton round was fired from inside an APC, since the film footage shows otherwise, and in recalling that Rosemary Doyle was not wearing a gas mask. We have referred to these parts of Maureen Gallagher’s evidence, as they provide good examples of how the years distort the recollections of honest witnesses.

28.19 There remains the question as to whether or not Rosemary Doyle was correct when she said in the account that she gave at the time that the soldier had fired at a range of 2ft 6in to 3ft.

28.20 For three reasons, we are unable to accept that this was or even might have been the case. In the first place, we were given a demonstration of the discharge of baton rounds. To our minds, a baton round at this range would be likely to have knocked Rosemary Doyle down and caused greater injuries than she sustained. In the second place and more importantly, had a soldier fired his baton gun at such a range, we have no doubt that one or both of her colleagues would have been bound to have seen and heard this happen. As it is, neither has suggested at any time that such an incident occurred. In the third place, until she was reminded of what she had said in her 1972 report, Rosemary Doyle’s recollection was of a soldier firing from a much greater distance. Had the soldier in fact been only a couple of feet away, we believe that this would have been an abiding memory. However, we have no reason to doubt that the baton gunner was quite close to Rosemary Doyle when he fired, probably only a matter of a few yards away.

28.21 It was suggested by the representatives of the majority of the represented soldiers that there is no justification for concluding that the injury to Rosemary Doyle occurred “other than by accident ”.1

1 FR7.362

28.22 None of the four soldiers in Mortar Platoon armed with baton guns admitted firing the baton round that hit Rosemary Doyle. From the film footage discussed above, it is clear that baton guns were fired very soon after soldiers had disembarked. In our view, based on her evidence, it seems to us that it was one of those shots that hit Rosemary Doyle. We are sure that neither she nor her colleagues, all of whom were in uniform, were rioting or could be mistaken for being rioters. It is possible that the baton round was shot at the ground and bounced up to hit Rosemary Doyle. It is also possible that it was aimed at or towards her. What is evident, again from the film footage and the photographs, is that there were a considerable number of people in the area, so that the chance of a baton round hitting one or more of them was far from remote. In such circumstances we find it difficult to describe her injury as an accident, even if the round was not aimed at her. In the end we are unable to conclude with any certainty whether this shot was fired deliberately at Rosemary Doyle, at someone else in her vicinity, or recklessly without thought in her direction. Given the speed with which the baton gunners fired as they disembarked, it seems to us that the last of these possibilities is the most likely.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume III - Chapter 29




The incident concerning Patrick “Barman” Duffy
Chapter 29: The incident concerning Patrick “Barman” Duffy

29.1 Patrick Duffy (known as Patrick “Barman ” Duffy) was 51 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. He is now dead and gave no evidence to this Inquiry, but he did make a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) statement, in which he recorded that he had been a steward on the march and that after trying to help some people who had been affected by CS gas he went to the Rossville Flats. His statement continued:1

“I was standing at the doorway to the flats at the William St end. A crowd of people then rushed around the corner and headed for the stairs. Two saracens then came around the corner into the square behind the flats. These saracens were travelling very fast and they stopped dead at the corner. I saw a boy who was actually struck by one of the saracens and his body somersaulted a few times. My view was then blocked by another saracen which arrived. Two soldiers jumped out of the back and rushed at me in the doorway. I appealed to the soldiers not to fire gas or rubber bullets as the stairs were packed with women and children. One of the soldiers kicked me in the pelvis and as I did not drop to the ground, he fired a rubber bullet from close range at me. This bullet struck me in the left thigh. The soldier then pointed the rifle at my head and was going to shoot me when William McIntyre tackled the soldier and pushed him out of the way. The other soldier then hit a woman with the butt of his rifle. These soldiers then left. ”


1 AD164.1

29.2 Although in his NICRA statement Patrick Duffy described himself as a “Storeman in Gas company ”,1it seems that he may have got the nickname “Barman ” from the fact that he also worked at some stage as a bouncer at a local public house or dance hall.2

1 AD164.1 2AB97.2; AS34.4

29.3 The doorway at the William Street end of the Rossville Flats was, as shown in the photograph below, on the eastern side of the northern end of Block 1, and opened onto the car park area.1

1 This photograph was not taken on Bloody Sunday.



29.4 The two baton gunners who were in Sergeant O’s APC were Private 017 and Private 112. As we have described above,1it appears that these two soldiers disembarked from this APC when it stopped briefly on Rossville Street. We consider in detail later in this report2what these soldiers then did, but for present purposes it is sufficient to note that Private 017 went with Corporal P to the western side of Rossville Street, while Private 112 was involved with Private U in the arrest of Charles Canning on the Eden Place waste ground. It therefore seems that Patrick Duffy was mistaken in thinking that the baton gunner who fired at him had disembarked from the APC nearest to him. From his position at the doorway he may not have been able to see the two baton gunners disembarking from Sergeant O’s APC in Rossville Street.

1 Paragraphs 24.21–25 and 24.32–36 2Paragraphs 69.1 and 69.32–58; Chapters 34 and 35

29.5 Private Q, who was in Lieutenant N’s APC, told the Widgery Inquiry that the soldier he was covering ran ahead of him towards the car park, firing his baton gun several times as he did so in the direction of the retreating crowd, some members of which were turning and throwing stones. The two soldiers took cover at the north end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.1

1 B636

29.6 Of the two baton gunners in Lieutenant N’s APC, Private 019 went with Lieutenant N to the Eden Place alleyway at the north-east corner of the Eden Place waste ground. We describe in the next chapter1what happened there, but suffice it to note here that he was in that area for some time and is thus most unlikely to have been the baton gunner who shot at Patrick Duffy. That leaves the other baton gunner from Lieutenant N’s APC, namely Private 013.

1 Chapter 30

29.7 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Private 013 told us that he was probably firing his baton gun as he disembarked from his vehicle and that he chased “a lad ” up the stairs at (he believed) the northern end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, and fired a baton round up the stairs. No incident of this kind is mentioned in his RMP statement,2 although he did say in that statement that he fired ten baton rounds at the crowd in the car park of the Rossville Flats.

1 B1408.003 2B1406

29.8 Patrick Duffy could hardly be described as a lad, but from the fact that Private 013 is the most likely of the baton gunners to be involved in this incident and from the fact that he told us that he fired his baton gun up the stairway leading from the door at the northern end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, it seems to us that he was the baton gunner concerned.

29.9 The representatives of the majority of the families submitted that Private 006 was a “prime candidate ” for having been present during the incident involving Patrick Duffy.1 This submission was based on the fact that in his written evidence to this Inquiry Private 006 stated that he and a couple of other soldiers had entered “a stairwell of the high flats ”.2 However, as we describe elsewhere in this report,3 after he disembarked from his vehicle Private 006 was involved in the arrest of William John Dillon, and on his own evidence it was only after that, and after he had seen soldiers firing towards the rubble barricade, that he entered the stairwell. By contrast, Patrick Duffy’s NICRA account indicates that the incident in which a baton round was fired at him happened directly after the arrival of the Army vehicles. In our view Private 006 was not present at the time of this incident.

1 FS1.1361

2 B1377.006
3 Chapter 33


29.10 There is a substantial body of evidence given at the time that supports Patrick Duffy’s account of being kicked and then hit by a baton round fired at short range.

29.11 Margaret Mellon was 52 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. In her NICRA statement1 she recorded:

“I got into the first door at the bottom of the multi storey flats when a soldier came running. He struck Mr. Paddy Duffy with the butt of the rifle. I got a slap with it as well. When Mr. Duffy tried to tell him that there were women present, he shot a rubber bullet at close range into his thigh. The soldier kicked Mr. Duffy in the groin as he stumbled after been [sic] struck with the rubber bullet. ”


1 AM400.5

29.12 Frank Deane was 65 and retired at the time of Bloody Sunday. In his NICRA statement1he described being on the march and running from the Army vehicles as they came in. His statement continued:

“I then ran into the entrance of the high flats, where there were a number of people including Mrs Mellon and Mr P. Duffy. A soldier ran into the doorway. Mr Duffy said, ‘There are a lot of women in here. ’ The soldier immediately turned and kicked him in the pit of the stomach and then shot a rubber bullet at him, at point blank range. Then the soldier ran out. ”


1 AD16.1

29.13 We should note at this point that Andrew Barr told us in his oral evidence1that no shots of any kind were fired in the stairwell when he was there with Patrick Duffy, but he made no statement at the time and in view of the evidence of Frank Deane and Margaret Mellon, as well as other evidence to which we refer below, we are satisfied that with the passage of years he simply forgot that a baton gun was fired.

1 Day 98/19

29.14 Counsel to the Inquiry prepared what we regard as an accurate summary of the evidence of other civilians that we consider related to the incident with Patrick Duffy.1We set down below an adapted version of this summary, which includes some comments of our own:

Monica Barr

In her interview with Kathleen Keville2 she said that she saw an elderly man coming down the stairs in the Rossville Flats. She took it that he had been a steward because he was wearing a white armband. A soldier with a baton gun stopped him at the door. The man put up his right hand and took one step backwards. The soldier fired his

baton gun from a range of about two feet. When Monica Barr made her statement to this Inquiry,3 her recollection was not that the soldier had fired a baton gun at the man but that he had hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle. She confirmed in her oral evidence4 that she believed that her current recollection related to the same incident described in her interview with Kathleen Keville.

In our view the account given by Monica Barr to Kathleen Keville in 1972 is to be preferred to her recollections after so many years.

Michael Brown

In his NICRA account5 he stated that a soldier ran over to Patrick Duffy, who was standing in a doorway in the Rossville Flats, and kicked him in the testicles. Patrick Duffy doubled over with pain. The soldier then placed the barrel of his baton gun within an inch of Patrick Duffy’s testicles and fired. As he did so, Patrick Duffy moved slightly to the side and the baton round struck him high on the left thigh. In his written statement to this Inquiry6 Michael Brown gave a generally similar account. He did not give oral evidence.

Dolores MacFarland

In her NICRA account7 she stated that soldiers went “right into the bottom entrance ” of the Rossville Flats, where there was a crowd of men, women and children taking shelter. One of the soldiers opened fire with a baton gun at point blank range, while the other soldier went in kicking people and hitting them with the butt of his rifle. The people then fled up the stairs in panic. Her written statement to this Inquiry8 is to much the same effect. In her oral evidence9 she said that the soldier who fired his baton gun had done so from outside the doorway at the people inside.

Jack McIntyre

In his NICRA account10 he stated that soldiers chased him to the “bottom basement of flats ”. He turned round and a soldier made at him with either a gas gun or a “bullet gun ”. Jack McIntyre caught the gun and shoved at the soldier, who was wearing a gas mask and looked nervous. Patrick Duffy came to help him, but the soldier went up to Patrick Duffy and fired a baton round into his leg. Jack McIntyre was 53 years old at the time. He did not give evidence to this Inquiry.

1 CS4.35

2 AB16.11-12

3 AB16.2

4 Day 148/6

5 AB97.5
6 AB97.1

7 AM8.10

8 AM8.4

9 Day 83/96

10 AM285.1


Consideration of the evidence concerning Patrick Duffy

29.15 Although there are slight differences in these accounts and those of the other witnesses, including Patrick Duffy himself, we are sure that they all refer to the same incident. Although Private 013 did not, because he was unwell, give oral evidence to this Inquiry, and therefore could not be questioned about this incident, the evidence that we have been able to consider points strongly to the conclusion that he did fire his baton gun at close range and hit Patrick Duffy. There is nothing in this evidence or the written account of Private 013 that suggests that there was, or could have been believed by him to be, any justification for discharging his baton gun in this dangerous manner.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume III - Chapter 30




Soldiers at the entrance to the Eden Place alleyway
Chapter 30: Soldiers at the entrance to the Eden Place alleyway



30.1 We now turn to consider what happened after the soldiers had disembarked from Lieutenant N’s Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) and some had moved towards the north-east corner of the Eden Place waste ground and the Eden Place alleyway. We deal first with the evidence of Jeffrey Morris.

The evidence of Jeffrey Morris

30.2 Jeffrey Morris was a professional photographer working as a staff photographer for the Daily Mail newspaper. He gave a written statement for and oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry. He also gave a written statement to the present Inquiry in which he told us that while he had no recollection of the events of Bloody Sunday, or of giving oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, he stood by the statements that he had given at the time.1In these circumstances the Tribunal decided not to call him to give oral evidence, on the ground that no purpose would be served by doing so.

1 M57.30

30.3 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1Jeffrey Morris described being sprayed by dye while at the corner of William Street and Chamberlain Street, seeing Army vehicles moving across the junction of William Street and Rossville Street, and following a crowd of people running down a small alley that led from William Street into the Eden Place waste ground.2

1 M57.1 2M57.2

30.4 We have no doubt that the alley was Macari’s Lane, which is marked on the photograph reproduced below, and which ran from William Street to the north-east corner of the Eden Place waste ground.




30.5 Jeffrey Morris then gave the following description1of what he saw and what happened to him:

“When I got to the open ground at the end I could see over the area of open ground in front of Rossville flats. The Saracens had stopped in Rossville Street. The paratroops were fanning out and running in pairs across the open ground. It was just like watching an old war film, a sort of bayonet charge without bayonets. As the paratroops caught anyone they knocked him down with their rifle butts and kicked him. Then, leaving him lying, they ran on. I would have photographed this, but two paratroops caught me and forced me against a wall with a rifle jammed across my neck, forcing my head back. I reached in my pocket for my press card and one of the pair lifted his knee to kick me in the crutch. I moved and the kick landed on my thigh. I managed to say ‘Press, Daily Mail’. At this moment someone ran from a nearby doorway. The paratroop holding me against the wall said ‘Get that bastard’ and the one with the rifle turned on the man running, saying ‘Hold him, [name]’ to the man who stayed with me. My Press card had fallen on the ground. As the paratrooper reached the running man I lifted my camera and took photograph No. (4). Just after I took it the paratrooper (wearing a gas mask in the picture) slammed this chap on the head with his rifle butt. I would have shot this too but the paratroop with me realised what I was doing and threw me on the ground virtually next to the other soldier in the foreground of photo No. (4) who is pointing his rifle down the alley (which on the map appears as Continuation of Eden Place) in the direction of Harvey Street. This soldier took no notice of me but still looking down the alley went into a crouching position and fired two rounds up the alley. I think people were running down this alley. Just as I was grabbed I noticed some people going that way. I could not see up the alley as the shots were fired. I do not recall hearing any shots fired (other than rubber bullets) immediately before this. ”


1 M57.2

30.6 Jeffrey Morris went on to describe how he had then taken cover under the burned-out van shown in the photograph below, at which stage he was hit by a rubber bullet and heard a lot of shooting. “It was all rifle shots, no automatic and certainly no Thompson. ”1

1 M57.3

30.7 The Inquiry was unable to identify a soldier from the name Jeffrey Morris recalled had been used to address the soldier who held him.

30.8 The photograph Jeffrey Morris described as No. 4 is reproduced below.


30.9 Jeffrey Morris gave a similar account in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry.1 The transcript of that evidence records Jeffrey Morris as saying that he was hit across the side of the face with a rifle, but in our view in the light of the written statement this was a transcription error and Jeffrey Morris was in fact referring to the man he saw caught by the soldier who had left him. He said that he had heard a lot of rubber bullets being fired in the vicinity, but that the two shots he recalled being fired up the alley into Chamberlain Street “were in my opinion the first two rifle shots I had heard ”. Later in his oral evidence he told the Widgery Inquiry that he saw people running away from the paratroopers who were in three pairs and that he witnessed “three separate incidents of them coming behind clubbing with rifles, and as they went down they were almost kicking them ”.2 As for himself, he told the Widgery Inquiry that he was carrying three 35mm cameras round his neck, though he had dye on his shoulder and had a face mask which he had pulled down to his throat. When it was suggested to him that when the soldiers arrested him they quite clearly understood he was “one of the rowdies ”, his answer was, “I don’t know, because I wasn’t done over as the other people were. ”3

1 WT2.47-48 3WT2.46; WT2.64

2 WT2.56

30.10 Jeffrey Morris also told the Widgery Inquiry that he had heard no nail bombs that afternoon and that he saw no paratroopers running and firing at the same time.1

1 WT2.59

30.11 The evidence of Jeffrey Morris lends no support to the suggestion that soldiers from Lieutenant N’s APC were fired upon as or soon after they had disembarked from the APC. On the contrary, his evidence, which we accept, was that the shots fired by Lieutenant N were the first live shots that he had heard that day.

30.12 At this stage we consider the circumstances of the arrest of the civilian shown in the photograph reproduced above.

The arrest of Duncan Clark

30.13 There is no doubt that the soldier shown holding the civilian in this photograph was Private INQ 1918, who was the radio operator and who identified himself in this photograph.1

1 C1918.3

30.14 It was suggested on behalf of the majority of the families that “in all likelihood ” the soldier who had held Jeffrey Morris as he took the photograph was Private 019.1We are not persuaded that this is so. Lieutenant N told us that a soldier with a baton gun was on the other side of the alleyway when he fired towards Chamberlain Street. As can be seen from the photograph shown above,2a soldier’s helmet is visible behind Lieutenant N, which in our view was that of Private 019. This soldier put himself in this position in his Royal Military Police (RMP) statement3and also told us that he was the soldier behind Lieutenant N in this photograph.4

1 FS1.1325

2 Paragraph 30.8
3 B1492

4 B1494.003; B1494.007


30.15 It is possible that the soldier who held Jeffrey Morris was Corporal 162. Although in his RMP account1Corporal 162 described himself as running towards the alleyway that runs between Eden Place and Chamberlain Street, in his oral evidence to us he said that this was wrong and that he had run to a much narrower alleyway, though this too led to Chamberlain Street.2He might have meant Macari’s Lane, but this alleyway goes into William Street, not Chamberlain Street. We are sure that apart from the Eden Place alleyway, there was no other alleyway that went from the Eden Place waste ground into Chamberlain Street. This can be seen most clearly from the enlargement of an aerial photograph reproduced below.

30.16 In the end, though Corporal 162 is a possibility, we have found ourselves unable to identify the soldier who held Jeffrey Morris.

30.17 We are satisfied from a photograph taken after he had been arrested that the civilian being held by Private INQ 1918 was Duncan Clark, a man of 39. In his NICRA statement,1Duncan Clark recorded that:

“On the evening of January 30th I intended to look in on the meeting in Guildhall Square. Hearing the commotion in William Street I went down High Street to Chamberlain Street. While standing at the corner of Chamberlain Street and High Street a soldier (paratrooper) approached from Eden Terrace and said, ‘Come with me you bastard. ’ I went with him to Eden Terrace, where there was an armoured car parked. He searched me and told me to get into the armoured car. ”


1 AC61.1

30.18 Duncan Clark is dead and gave no evidence to this Inquiry.

30.19 There are differences between Duncan Clark’s NICRA statement and the evidence of Jeffrey Morris. According to Duncan Clark, he was standing at the corner of Chamberlain Street and High Street when he was arrested and was not hit until he was in the armoured vehicle; according to Jeffrey Morris, Duncan Clark was arrested after running out of a doorway and was hit over the head with a rifle butt shortly after Jeffrey Morris had taken the photograph shown above.

30.20 There is some other civilian evidence that seems to refer to the arrest of Duncan Clark.

30.21 Patrick Clarke made a NICRA statement1 in which he said that he saw a soldier grab an “old man ” who had been standing inside the confectionery shop in what was left of Eden Place. This would appear to be a reference to the Eden Place alleyway. The soldier hit the man on the head with a baton and dragged him away. Patrick Clarke gave evidence to the same effect to this Inquiry, but did not recognise Duncan Clark in a photograph.2

1 AC64.1 2 AC64.4; Day 74/82-85; AC64.20

30.22 Tony Morrison made a NICRA statement1 in which he recorded:

“I ran to the junction of Chamberlain St/Eden Terrace. From there I saw the soldiers take up position at the junction of William St./Chamberlain St. From Eden Terrace I saw soldiers in Rossville Street and in the wasteground there. There was an elderly man standing beside ‘Johnny’s’ Shop in Eden Terrace. I roared to him, ‘There’s the soldiers coming.’ He replied, ‘I cannot see with the gas in my eyes.’ A mate of mine, Connie Moore, and myself went to help this man, when he was grabbed by a soldier who appeared round the corner of ‘Quinn’s Lane.’ We were about to run when a second soldier appeared from the opposite corner of the street (Eden Terrace). We turned and ran back into the flats end of Chamberlain Street. As we turned from Eden Terrace into Chamberlain St I look back, thinking the soldier was going to run after us but I noticed he was bringing the rifle into a firing position and aiming at us. I shouted to Connie, ‘Duck.’ A second later, I heard a rifle shot, which passed over our heads and I saw bullet strike the wall of […] house, just in front of us. This house is at the junction of Chamberlain St/Harvey St., just opposite the 720 Bar. ”


1 AM439.1

30.23 As we have noted, Macari’s Lane used to be called Quinn’s Lane. It may originally have extended all the way down the backs of the houses on the west side of Chamberlain Street.

30.24 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Tony Morrison recalled that the man was fat and was wearing a black jacket and white shirt. He thought that the man was going to get a walloping, and so he himself tried to pull the man back and struggled with the soldier for a while, but let go and ran off when another soldier fired a shot into the air. In oral evidence,2 he said that the man shown in a photograph taken by the Irish Press photographer Colman Doyle, and reproduced below, looked just like the man he had seen.



30.25 Tony Morrison said that the arresting soldier hit Duncan Clark on the head, though it appeared from later in his evidence that he did not see this happen but instead saw blood running down Duncan Clark’s head and deduced that he had been hit.1

1 Day 184/103; Day 184/147-149

30.26 In his written evidence to this Inquiry, Joe Nicholas told us that he saw three or four paratroopers beating an old man who was in what he described as the gap between Eden Place and Chamberlain Street. He stated that together with a few others from the crowd he advanced to try and rescue the old man and managed to get hold of his arm. “I was trying to pull him away from the soldiers. I had my head down, but suddenly I was aware of one of the paras bringing his rifle up and firing a shot. He only fired one shot and I immediately retreated towards Chamberlain Street. ”1In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, he said that he was with about 20 or 30 others and that it appeared to him that a warning shot was fired over their heads as they advanced to the rescue of the old man.2Shown Jeffrey Morris’s photograph of Private INQ 1918 holding Duncan Clark, he said that he could not be sure that that was the man that he had seen.3

1 AN17.3 3Day 78/65-67

2 Day 78/6-7

30.27 In view of Jeffrey Morris’s evidence, which is to the effect that Duncan Clark had been arrested and was being held by Private INQ 1918 behind Lieutenant N when the latter fired, we take the view that Joe Nicholas was mistaken in saying that the shot he heard was fired as he was trying to pull the man away from the soldiers.

30.28 Malachy Duddy told this Inquiry that he walked along Chamberlain Street to the entrance to Eden Place where he saw a man of about 50 to 60 years of age being manhandled by a soldier on the Eden Place side of this gap. He stated that he did not remember any other soldiers around at the time. He recalled that the soldier was carrying a rifle but did not remember him carrying a baton gun. “I tried to pull the man away from the soldier but then I saw other soldiers advancing towards us and I started to run. ” He then described being hit by a baton round as he did so and then hearing a live shot fired over his head.1

1 AD151.2

30.29 In our view this evidence from civilians relates to the arrest of Duncan Clark, and though there are details that appear inconsistent with the account given by Jeffrey Morris, it seems to us that this could well be explicable on the basis that what the latter observed occurred shortly after Duncan Clark’s arrest. In this connection there is an earlier photograph taken by Jeffrey Morris showing Private INQ 1918 looking up the alleyway to Chamberlain Street and Lieutenant N (holding his helmet) approaching him from behind. Jeffrey Morris’s contact sheets show that this photograph was the one taken before that showing Private INQ 1918 holding Duncan Clark.

30.30 According to the arrest report forms, Private INQ 1918 arrested Duncan Clark for throwing stones at the arrest forces in Rossville Street and rioting. Private INQ 1918 told us that he had no recollection of how he came to arrest Duncan Clark or of hitting people with his weapon.1

1 Day 342/90-97; Day 342/126-128

30.31 On the basis of the foregoing accounts, there is nothing, apart from the arrest report forms, to suggest that Duncan Clark was arrested because Private INQ 1918 had seen him throwing stones in Rossville Street and rioting. On the basis of the civilian accounts, he appears to have been a merely a bystander who, according to Tony Morrison, was recovering from exposure to CS gas. It is difficult to see how Private INQ 1918 could have seen Duncan Clark in Rossville Street, though it is possible that the description of the place given in the arrest report forms was not intended to be exact, but merely a general description of the area. However, even if that is so, in our view there is no acceptable evidence to suggest that Duncan Clark was arrested for any reason other than that he happened to be present when the soldiers arrived.

30.32 As to the allegations of assault, we consider that, although the accounts differ, the civilian evidence indicates that Duncan Clark was roughly treated when he was arrested. Although, as we have pointed out, Duncan Clark himself did not record that he had been hit on the head at this stage, it seems to us from the evidence of Tony Morrison and Jeffrey Morris that he might have been, though we are not certain about this, since there are doubts (which we consider below1) as to whether Jeffrey Morris accurately described what happened during another arrest made a little later. If this did happen, we have found no evidence to suggest that that Private INQ 1918 would have had or could have believed that he had any justification for hitting this middle-aged man on the head with his rifle.

1 Paragraphs 33.15–29 and 33.42

30.33 Later in this report,1we return to Duncan Clark’s account of what happened when he was in the APC.

1 Chapter 43

30.34 The foregoing evidence, including that of Jeffrey Morris, is to the effect that it was after Duncan Clark had been arrested that Lieutenant N fired into the alleyway leading from the Eden Place waste ground into Chamberlain Street. In our view this was the case.

30.35 We now turn to consider in more detail the evidence concerning this firing.

The first shots fired by Lieutenant N

The evidence of soldiers

30.36 In his first RMP statement, timed at 0045 hours on 31st January 1972,1Lieutenant N gave this account:

“As I got out of the vehicle several people ran past throwing stones and bottles. Some ran towards the flats, others ran into Eden Place and continued in a south westerly direction towards Chamberlain St. I ran after the people, running towards Chamberlain St and was accompanied by [Private 013] and [Private INQ 1918] from my platoon. The object of this was to make an arrest.

On nearing the junction of Eden Place and Chamberlain St the people I was chasing turned and faced me. In all there was a crowd of about 100 people. They began throwing stones and bottles and began to advance towards us.

I fired three rounds 7.62mm to disperse the crowd. One shot I fired high into the east wall of number 14 Chamberlain St. 2 shots I fired high into the north wall of number 13 Chamberlain St. There were no injuries to anyone in the crowd as a result of my firing. The crowd dispersed after the firing and I then moved back into the car park in front of Rossville Flats. ”


1 B373-374

30.37 According to this statement, Private 013 accompanied Lieutenant N. In our view this was probably an error on the part of Lieutenant N. For reasons given in the preceding chapter,1we consider that Private 013 is likely to have moved on disembarking up to Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, where he was responsible for firing a baton round at Patrick “Barman” Duffy. For reasons given below, we are sure that Private 019 was with Lieutenant N at this time. The mistake was that of Lieutenant N, and not a transcription error, since in his original RMP statement he gave the name of Private 013.

1 Chapter 29

30.38 In another RMP account dated 1st February 1972,1Lieutenant N described how he had recocked his weapon after firing the first shot into the north wall of 13 Chamberlain Street in the mistaken belief that the gun had not reloaded itself. He stated that he had immediate cause to fire again into the north wall of 13 Chamberlain Street and “after a short pause ” another shot into the east wall of 14 Chamberlain Street.

1 B391

30.39 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1Lieutenant N stated that before this firing he had tried to grapple with a man he described as throwing lumps of concrete at him, as a result of which his helmet strap broke and his helmet fell over his eyes.

1 B398

30.40 Though neither Private 019 nor Private INQ 1918 had any recollection of the incident,1we have no reason to doubt Lieutenant N’s account of seeking, immediately he had disembarked, to arrest a man who was throwing lumps of concrete at him, and breaking his helmet strap as he did so.

30.41 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 William McCloskey told us that he entered the waste ground at Eden Place and saw the Army vehicles arrive and the soldiers disembark. A paratrooper ran towards him and he decided to have a go at him. He thought that the paratrooper was a second lieutenant. William McCloskey hit the paratrooper in the lower body, and then turned and ran back towards Chamberlain Street. When he had just about reached Chamberlain Street, he heard a live round fired from behind him in Eden Place, which hit the house on the south side of the junction with Harvey Street. He stated that he thought the bullet was aimed at him “since there was no one else around ”. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 William McCloskey said that he kicked the paratrooper in the crotch once with his left foot.

1 AM120.2 2Day 73/144; Day 74/11-12

30.42 Although the description of the incident differs from that given by Lieutenant N, it is possible that William McCloskey may have been the man he tried to apprehend. However, when shown Lieutenant N’s evidence William McCloskey said that this must have been a different incident.1

1 Day 73/144-145

30.43 William McCloskey was also referred to but did not accept the evidence of Maurice McColgan, who described seeing a soldier run at William McCloskey only to be felled by a punch, shortly after which Maurice McColgan heard the crack of a self-loading rifle (SLR) round.1

1 AM124.2; Day 74/161-164

30.44 We formed the view that William McCloskey’s oral evidence to us was unreliable, and that he did not have a true recollection of events. As will be seen from the evidence discussed in this chapter, he was not in our view alone in Chamberlain Street when a shot hit the building there. In these circumstances we remain far from sure that he was the man Lieutenant N described.

30.45 To return to Lieutenant N’s written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1after describing the incident with the man he tried to arrest, Lieutenant N described then taking up position with his radio operator and a soldier with a riot gun. “The situation here was not comfortable because some of the rioters who had run from the open spaces away via Eden Place into Chamberlain Street had returned and were throwing rocks. ” His statement continued:2

“9. The situation appeared dangerous and there were only two of us there (apart from my operator who was just round the corner). I fired two SLR rounds over the heads of the crowd. They go back for a moment and then started to come forward again. I fired one more round and they went away. At one stage during this incident I had a stoppage and cocked my rifle. Since at the end of the operations I was one unaccounted for round short I think that I must have ejected it at this moment.

10. My signaler had arrested a man and I went with him to my pig which was still in the middle of the open space and put the prisoner in it, the corporal there taking charge. I then moved straight to the back of the Chamberlain Street houses again to get cover. ”


1 B398 2B399

30.46 The reference to “My signaler ” [sic] is a reference to Private INQ 1918.

30.47 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, Lieutenant N described the crowd advancing towards him as about 75 to 100 strong. He said that he fired two aimed shots into the wall behind them about 2ft above their heads. The crowd moved back around the corner and then came round again and he fired another shot, after which the crowd “lost interest ” and disappeared. He told the Widgery Inquiry that after this he went to his signaller (Private INQ 1918) and helped him to march the man the signaller had detained back to the APC. He then said that he went back towards the wall (by which it seems he meant the wall of the gardens of the houses in Chamberlain Street backing on to the Eden Place waste ground) and started moving along towards the end of Chamberlain Street.1

1 WT12.65-67

30.48 It was suggested to Lieutenant N, who agreed, that there was nothing in the Yellow Card (which set out the circumstances in which soldiers could fire and which we discuss later in this chapter) that justified his shots, but he said that he fired the shots to save life. “If that crowd had gone through that little gap to my position and started stoning me at point blank range they would undoubtedly have injured myself and my soldiers. ” He agreed in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry that he had fired without warning.1He later said that he had fired from the kneeling position.2

1 WT12.78 2WT12.83

30.49 In the trajectory photograph prepared for the Widgery Inquiry, which we reproduce below, the wall described as the north wall of 13 Chamberlain Street is the wall marked 1 (which is in fact the front wall of 9 Chamberlain Street) and the wall described as the east wall of 14 Chamberlain Street is the wall marked 2 (which is the side wall of 14 Chamberlain Street). Lieutenant N’s oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry1 suggests, consistently with his second RMP statement, that the first two shots were fired at the wall marked 1 on the photograph and the third at the wall marked 2.2 He agreed with the Widgery Inquiry that the photograph taken by the Daily Mail photographer Jeffrey Morris might have been taken at the moment when he fired two shots into the wall.3

1 WT12.65-67

2 The line marked 3 refers to a further shot by Lieutenant N, which we consider

30.50 Lieutenant N gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. His recollections in a number of respects differed from the accounts that he gave at the time, though in his written statement he cast no doubts on the accuracy of those accounts.1He did, however, recall that before Bloody Sunday there had been an incident in Ballymurphy when, after calling on them to disperse, he had fired a shot over the heads of a small group of people about 50 yards away whom he suspected of spotting him for a possible ambush. He described this as “not really accepted conduct ”.2

1 B438.007-010 2 B438.002

30.51 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Lieutenant N told us that he recalled the confrontation with the man he said had thrown concrete at him as having occurred immediately after he had disembarked and that the man had come towards him from the north.1He also told this Inquiry that he recalled that when he faced the people he described coming towards him from the Eden Place alleyway he stepped into the middle of the entrance to the Eden Place alleyway and shouted something like “Fuck off or I will shoot you ”.2He also told us that he had no recollection of seeing his signaller Private INQ 1918 arresting anyone in the alleyway.3He agreed that he was very probably the soldier shown in the photograph reproduced earlier in this chapter (in our discussion of the arrest of Duncan Clark) holding his helmet and approaching Private INQ 1918.4He said he had no recollection of two soldiers apprehending Jeffrey Morris or of Private INQ 1918 hitting Duncan Clark on the head.5He agreed that the following two photographs “very possibly ” showed him and his signaller escorting the man the latter had arrested. In our view these photographs do show this event. Both of these photographs were taken by Colman Doyle, a photographer from the Irish Press newspaper.6

30.52 As will be seen later in this chapter, a photographer, Gilles Peress, gave evidence of a paratrooper shooting at him from the hip as he attempted to cross the junction of Chamberlain Street and the Eden Place alleyway. Lieutenant N said that he had no recollection of seeing a photographer and that “I certainly did not fire from the hip ”.1

1 Day 322/76-77

30.53 Lieutenant N’s account of mistakenly recocking his rifle and ejecting a live round is supported by the evidence of Paul Martin, then 10 years old, who told us in his written statement to this Inquiry that on the evening of Bloody Sunday he found a live round in a position corresponding to that where Lieutenant N said he had ejected it.1

1 AM26.4

30.54 In his RMP statement dated 4th February 1972,1 to which we have already made reference, Private 019 (who was armed with a baton gun) stated that he was with Lieutenant N at the corner of Eden Place and Harvey Street. His statement continued: “As I was trying to hold back the rioters which were 150 in number and were of mixed sex. The crowd started to advance on my position throwing bottles and bricks and at both myself and ‘N’. At this point we were the only two persons at the junction and so ‘N’ fired two 7.62 rds into a brick wall above the rioters heads in an attempt to stop them advancing. This had complete effect and the crowds dispersed up Chamberlain Street in a northerly and southerly direction.” Private 019 recorded nothing in this statement about firing his baton gun. He did not give evidence to the Widgery Inquiry.

1 B1492

30.55 In his written evidence to this Inquiry,1Private 019 gave an account of being on the southern corner of the Eden Place alleyway, with Lieutenant N and the radio operator on the northern corner. He told us he could see a crowd of civilians at the junction between Chamberlain Street and Harvey Street, but could not remember what they were doing. He stated that he probably would have fired baton rounds at this stage, but that he could not remember doing so. His statement continued:

“Lieutenant N then fired two or three shots from his SLR. I was not looking at him as he fired and I heard rather than saw, the shots fired. I was looking at the crowd. I saw two strikes where bullets hit walls above the heads of the crowd. I realised more or less straight away what Lieutenant N was doing. I thought he was firing warning shots, rather than at a target, because they hit the wall above the heads of the crowd. If he had been firing at a target he could not have missed from that range, It was not

common for a soldier to fire warning shots and it was not covered by the Yellow Card but I think his idea was to disperse the crowd … The crowd dispersed when the shots were fired.

Lieutenant N obviously thought that firing warning shots would disperse the crowd. Some people said afterwards that he panicked but I did not really think about it at the time. ”


1 B1494.003

30.56 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Private 019 said on frequent occasions that he had no recollection of events, including firing his baton gun, though he did not seek to resile from his 1972 account. He agreed that it was clear that he would have used his baton gun if he had to hold back a crowd, but said to us that he could not remember what the crowd had been doing or whether he had needed to fire his baton gun.1

1 Day 343/115

30.57 Much of Private 019’s oral evidence was taken up with the question as to whether or not he had given an interview to Neil Davies.

30.58 Neil Davies was a producer and researcher in the television and film industry. Between 1965 and 1969 he had been a member of the Parachute Regiment, though he did not serve in Northern Ireland. In 1989 and 1990 he interviewed a number of soldiers and former soldiers, while working for the television production company Praxis Films Ltd. At first these interviews were conducted for the purposes of a proposed documentary about the British withdrawal from Aden in the 1960s, but as the research progressed, it became apparent that many of the soldiers had knowledge of the events of Bloody Sunday. John Goddard of Praxis Films Ltd was also interested in producing a documentary about Bloody Sunday, and so Neil Davies began to discuss Bloody Sunday more specifically in the course of these interviews.1 The project resulted in the making of the documentary Bloody Sunday, broadcast as part of Channel 4’s Secret History series on 5th December 1991.

1 M19.1-2

30.59 Praxis Films Ltd provided a great deal of material to this Inquiry in the form of transcripts and notes of interviews, including some of the interviews conducted by Neil Davies. Recordings of the interviews appear not to have survived.

30.60 Neil Davies identified one of these documents1as a page of his notes of one of his interviews. In his supplementary written statement to this Inquiry, he told us:2

“I interviewed this soldier in a pub, but I do not recall if anyone else was present. I am not willing to identify him because of my duty of confidentiality. This is not a transcript, but consists of notes I wrote up after talking to the soldier. ”


1 O27.1 2M19.14.15

30.61 The notes are written in the first person, in terms that indicate that the speaker was armed with a baton gun on Bloody Sunday and was in the same vehicle as Corporal 162, namely Lieutenant N’s APC.

30.62 There are two further sets of notes which seem to us to have been taken from the same tape recording, as Neil Davies himself suggested might have been the case.1

1 Day 397/85; Day 397/136

30.63 The first set1consists of notes written up by him after talking to the soldier. These notes include the following:

“In 10 minutes the world collapsed around us. Specially for the officers, lots of careers ruined that day.

...

I was by the platoon commander, he fired first empty cases flew past my head. ”


1 O27.1

30.64 The second set of notes,1which Neil Davies said appeared to have been compiled by one of his colleagues from a tape recording of an interview he (Neil Davies) had conducted with a soldier,2includes this passage:3

“N officer, me in his pig. cheering as we raced off, through the barricades, lads were shouting, ‘Get the fuckers’, get the adrenalin going, snatch squad.

Waste ground below flats. Jump out, running away, thousands of them, screaming, shouting. Me with officer, loads of fuckers came around the corner at us.

Officer, firing, first, right by him, cartridges whistled past my head, he had lost it, hadn’t he. Ran back to pigs to get our weapons, all did. Cover. See? Shooting started, not see anything, no targets, nothing, not fire a bullet.

Only that officer firing, careers ruined. ”

1 O28.1-3

2 Day 397/81
3 O28.3


30.65 The third set,1Neil Davies said, was a note written up by someone else or a transcript, and he could not tell with any certainty whether all three notes related to the same interviewee.2The third set of notes includes the following passage:

“N he was nervous in and out of the pig. we were telling him stories of sorting the IRA out. Bigger price on an officers head

The officer started firing first.

Q. Are you sure the Officer started firing first.

I was right by him cases were flying right by my head. Lost it had’nt he.

I ran back to the pig. we all did to get our weapons. get to cover. he must have seen something.

Well you dont hang about when the shooting starts.

I did’nt see anything. no targets.

I only heard the officer firing. did’nt see any targets. did’nt do any firing. Did’nt fire a bullet.

The world collapsed around us. especially for the officers. Lots of careers ruined that day. ”


1 O29.1-2 2Day 397/84-85

30.66 Neil Davies conducted his interviews of former soldiers in 1989 and 1990.1Private 019 had been shown the interview notes by 3rd February 2000 when his solicitor wrote to the Inquiry’s solicitor to say, on instructions, that the first of these three notes2was the only document that could possibly be a record of Private 019’s conversation with Neil Davies. On 16th September 2002, during the course of the hearing, Private 019’s counsel said that Private 019 believed that this document “must represent part of the conversation he had, but may I say he has considerable reservations about the way it is recorded and the language which he is supposed to have used ”.3

1 M19.14.1-6

2 O27.1
3 Day 233/119


30.67 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Private 019 told us that Neil Davies had approached him and asked for his assistance in connection with some research that he was doing for a television programme. Private 019 said that he spoke to Neil Davies briefly but told him that he was not interested when he realised that Neil Davies wanted to talk about Bloody Sunday.

1 B1494.005

30.68 However, in his oral evidence he denied that any of the three notes was drawn from anything that he had said to Neil Davies.1

1 Day 343/98-102; Day 343/125-163; Day 343/177-183

30.69 Notwithstanding Private 019’s denial, and the fact that Neil Davies seemed reluctant to accept that the notes recorded information from that soldier,1the content of those notes, as set out above, and the other evidence considered above of the baton gunner with Lieutenant N at the entrance to the Eden Place alleyway, satisfy us that he was the source. Private 019 may well have regretted what he said in his interviews, but that does not excuse giving evidence to the Inquiry that in our view he must have known was untrue.

1 Day 397/73-88; Day 397/99-115

30.70 There are two relevant aspects of what Private 019 told Neil Davies, namely his account of Lieutenant N being the first to fire and his view that Lieutenant N “lost it ”.

30.71 As to the first of these matters, it seems to us that, in the light of this account, Private 019’s evidence to us that he was pretty sure that he heard high velocity fire before Lieutenant N fired1cannot be accepted. Thus we are left with the account of earlier high velocity firing that he gave in 1972,2but again, in view of what Private 019 said to Neil Davies, and the fact that Lieutenant N did not record hearing any such firing, we are not persuaded that this was something that Private 019 had heard.

1 Day 343/115; Day 343/165 2B1492

30.72 Whether Lieutenant N had in fact “lost it ”, by which we understand Private 019 to mean that Lieutenant N had fired in panic for no apparently good reason, is a matter to which we return later in this chapter when we have considered other evidence of what was happening at the Eden Place alleyway at this time. However, we note here that it appears from his account given to Neil Davies that Private 019 recalled, as he put it, “Me with officer, loads of fuckers came around the corner at us ”.

30.73 In his written evidence to this Inquiry, Private INQ 1918 (the signaller) stated that he recalled looking up what appears to the Eden Place alleyway and seeing a crowd of civilians throwing stones and bottles and bricks towards him.1However, in his oral evidence to us, Private INQ 1918 said that he did not recall Lieutenant N opening fire. Since this soldier was engaged in detaining Duncan Clark when Lieutenant N fired, his evidence goes more to the situation before Lieutenant N fired than to the time when that firing took place.

1 C1918.2

The evidence of civilians

30.74 Eamonn Baker gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. In his written statement, he described being one of those behind the corrugated iron shield in William Street facing Barrier 14. He stated that he remembered seeing armoured cars at the junction of William Street and Rossville Street and ran down Chamberlain Street to get away. He recalled seeing a soldier appear at the junction of Chamberlain Street and Eden Place and a man running ahead of him who ran towards the soldier in order to throw a stone at him. “I recall the soldier lifted his rubber bullet gun to fire at the man. The man threw his stone at the same time as the soldier fired, but they missed each other. I cannot really remember much about this soldier except that he was wearing a perspex visor and a riot helmet. ”1

1 AB2.2-3

30.75 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Eamonn Baker agreed that he had been throwing stones in William Street and that, contrary to his written statement, he had engaged in rioting on other occasions.1He agreed that he had run down Chamberlain Street with a whole crowd of people and he said that the soldier whom he saw had been at the south-west corner of the Eden Place alleyway.2

1 Day 96/125-126; Day 096/153 2Day 96/129-130

30.76 We have already considered the evidence of Patrick Clarke, Tony Morrison, Joe Nicholas and Malachy Duddy in relation to the arrest of Duncan Clark by Private INQ 1918.

30.77 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Patrick Clarke said that when the soldier fired there were people running south down Chamberlain Street but there was nobody at all in the part of Eden Place between Chamberlain Street and the waste ground.1

1 Day 74/88-89

30.78 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Tony Morrison said that when he arrived in Eden Place there was no-one else there apart from himself, his friend and the civilian who was apprehended.1 He was asked whether at the time when he turned and ran back into Chamberlain Street after a shot had been fired, there was a crowd around the junction of Chamberlain Street and Eden Place. He replied that there were a few people about, but not many and did not agree with the suggestion that it was “a fairly large crowd ”. He said he did not see anyone holding a missile of any kind.2

1 Day 184/96-97 2Day 184/146

30.79 As already noted, Joe Nicholas told us that he went with a few others from the crowd to try and rescue “the old man ”.

30.80 In his written evidence to this Inquiry, Malachy Duddy told us that on seeing soldiers approaching he started to run back up Eden Place (eastwards) towards Chamberlain Street; that as he ran he was hit by a rubber bullet in his back, which caused him to fall forward onto one knee; and that as he was being helped to his feet by someone, “a live shot was fired over our heads ”.1 In the course of his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Malachy Duddy was asked what was happening as he tried to go to the rescue of the man:2

“Q. And while you were doing that, another 15 or 20 people were some yards behind you, but coming in the same direction?

A. Yes, that is correct, yeah.

Q. Mr Duddy, would it be fair to say, if another soldier had been watching that scene he would have seen you as an individual going to interfere with an arrest, he would have seen 15 or 20 people advancing on the soldier who was trying to make an arrest at the same time?

A. Yes, that is right.

Q. At about that time somebody fired at least one rubber bullet in the direction of you and the advancing 15 or 20?

A. That is correct, yes.

Q. And when that did not succeed, a live round was fired over the heads of the same crowd?

A. That is my recollection. ”

30.81 John Friel gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. In his written statement, he described being on the south side of the junction of Chamberlain Street and the Eden Place alleyway.1 About half a dozen people were standing there with him, but he was the closest to Eden Place. He saw a soldier with a baton gun on the corner of the Eden Place alleyway and the waste ground. The soldier disappeared and John Friel picked up a large stone or half brick, intending to throw it at the soldier if he appeared again. Instead a different soldier appeared on the same corner, carrying a rifle. He immediately swivelled round and fired a single round towards John Friel, holding his rifle at hip height. John Friel dropped the stone and ran away. He did not see the strike of the bullet. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, John Friel described himself as having been at the front of the crowd (though he also said that he could not see who was behind him or how many) and agreed that the sight that the soldier with a rifle would have seen “was you with half a brick in your hand ready to throw and a crowd behind you ”.2

1 AF33.1; AF33.12 2Day 76/7; Day 76/60

30.82 According to his evidence to this Inquiry, Patrick Walsh was standing at the junction of Eden Place and Chamberlain Street and heard a shot, which hit the brickwork of a house just above a window. According to his written account,1 the house struck by the bullet was the house adjacent to 9 Chamberlain Street. He stated that he did not see which soldier opened fire.

1 AW5.2

30.83 In his oral evidence,1 he said that he could not be definite about which house it was, but that it was on the east side of the road. He also said that he assumed that the soldiers had been aiming either at him, or at a photographer, or at one of a group of men lined across Chamberlain Street. According to his evidence, these men formed a stationary line on the south side of the junction with Harvey Street to resist paratroopers advancing down Chamberlain Street from the north.2 Patrick Walsh said that he did not see civilians at any stage advancing towards the paratroopers in Eden Place.3

1 Day 171/15

2 AW5.1; Day 171/11-14
3 Day 171/17


30.84 In interview notes made by Tony Stark of Praxis Films Ltd,1 Patrick Walsh is recorded as denying that there was a large crowd threatening Lieutenant N when he fired and as saying that after the shot had been fired, he heard another shot and then saw a soldier on one knee with his rifle in his shoulder and pointing towards the Rossville Flats. He told Tony Stark that he threw a brick at this soldier and ran off. However, in his supplementary written statement to this Inquiry2 and in his oral evidence,3 Patrick Walsh said that he believed that he threw this brick before the first shot was fired, at the soldier furthest away from him in the area of Eden Place, who was down on his knee. That soldier appears to have been a little way back from the entrance to the Eden Place alleyway.4

1 AW5.19

2 AW5.26
3 Day 171/15-16

4 AW5.40; Day 171/7-9


30.85 Patrick Walsh’s evidence continued:1

“Q. Can I understand your present recollection as to the sequence of events: you are at the nook, the corner; is what happens – tell me if it is not – that you see a soldier at the corner you have pointed out on the photographs; you throw a brick at him and then you hear a rifle shot or a whoosh and a whack?

A. I had seen the old lady come out of the house first of all and I moved towards her to tell her to get in out of the road and that is when I heard the bullet hit the, hit the window and take the brick out of the window.

Q. When did you throw a brick?

A. Oh, I was standing at the niche. I moved out of the niche and threw the brick at the furthest soldier from me, down on his knee.

Q. Was that before or after you had seen the old lady?

A. That was before.

Q. Before?

A. Before I seen the old lady, yes.

Q. Was there anybody else who was throwing a brick or a stone at the soldier?

A. I cannot – I could not, I could not recall any at that particular time, no. ”


1 Day 171/15-16

30.86 In his NICRA statement dated 1st February 1972,1Mitchel McLaughlin recorded:

“I took part in the parade up until we reached and were stopped at the barricade. We argued with the soldiers and ended up by throwing stones until they brought in the water tank. After a time the crowd dispersed but we continued stone throwing. After about half an hour there were only a handful of stone throwers left and it was atthis time the Saracens, at least 3 of them, and one or two ferret cars came across Little James’ St into the Bogside. We didn’t want to be cut off so we decided to vacate the area and moved straight back along Chamberlain St. towards the multi-storied flats and went towards the Car Park. As we were crossing the Harvey St./Eden Place Junction we were fired upon by a Paratrooper kneeling at the corner at Quinn’s Lane. A foreign photographer was the only person left at the William St. end of Chamberlain St. and we shouted for him to come towards us as we saw the soldiers take up position where Hunter’s Bakery used to be. He stepped out with both hands in the air, facing the soldier who had shot at us and this soldier shot at him also. This bullet lifted a chunk out of the masonry surrounding the window at the end house in Harvey St. (this can be seen and the photographer involved photographed it). This was the first real evidence we had that they were using lead bullets. I have, through experience, become familiar with the sounds of nail bombs and I can state without any question or doubt that none had been thrown. ”


1 AM340.9

30.87 Mitchel McLaughlin gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. In his written evidence,1he described the same sequence of events as in his NICRA statement, though he said that he did not see the first shot or in what direction it was fired. He stated that the soldier shouted no warning when he fired at the photographer, “Nor were any civilians attacking soldiers in this area ”. He stated that he ran away south down Chamberlain Street and as he did so heard “sustained rifle fire ”.

1 AM340.3

30.88 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Mitchel McLaughlin said that after the first shot he took cover on the south-west corner of the junction between Chamberlain Street and Harvey Street. He told us that by this time the majority of people going down Chamberlain Street had already gone past this junction and that he saw none of them going into the Eden Place alleyway.1He said that he recalled the photographer standing in the middle of the junction, seemingly frozen to the spot.2He also agreed that it was “a distinct possibility ” that the soldier fired above the photographer’s head to scare him and others off: “it was very close range. ”3He also said that although there were people in the vicinity he could not recall anybody between him and the soldier. All he could recall was a soldier, himself and the photographer standing in the middle of the entry.4

1 Day 80/12-13

2 Day 80/13
3 Day 80/16-17

4 Day 80/68-69


30.89 We have no doubt that the photographer Patrick Walsh and Mitchel McLaughlin saw was Gilles Peress.

The evidence of Gilles Peress

30.90 In 1972 Gilles Peress was working as a photographer for the Magnum Photos agency, which was based in Paris. He had visited Northern Ireland on previous occasions, and had returned about two weeks before Bloody Sunday to work on “a photographic essay on the troubles ”.1

30.91 Gilles Peress gave a written statement for and oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry.

30.92 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1he stated that he had taken the following photograph (which he numbered 72-1-7 No.37) from what he described as the corner of Chamberlain Street and Eden Street “just as the shooting begins ”. It can be seen from this photograph that it was taken from the Chamberlain Street end of the Eden Place alleyway, that missiles were being thrown and that one civilian appears to be retreating from where a baton gun had just been fired. Enlarged parts of this photograph appear to show that one of the objects in the sky was a piece of brick or large stone and the other a baton round, while lower down on the left side of the lane there is something that could also be a missile of some kind.2


30.93 Gilles Peress continued:1

“After taking the picture of the Saracen (72-1-7 No. 37) shooting was going on in Rossville Street. I went carefully down Chamberlain Street and at the Eden Street corner I held up my cameras saying ‘Press’. There was a soldier at the corner of the buildings on Eden Place. He was kneeling. After saying ‘Press’ I turned and crossed the street very slowly. As I got to the footpath the soldier shot at me from the hip. The bullet smashed the second window of No. 6 missing me by a few inches. ”


1 M65.1.1

30.94 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, there was the following exchange:1

“Q. I want you to deal with for a moment simply the photographs which have been enlarged. You may be asked by others about the prints themselves. You remember, after taking a photograph of a Saracen, or an armoured car, you went down Chamberlain Street to the corner of Eden Place?

A. Yes.

Q. How many cameras had you with you?

A. Three.

Q. Was there a soldier on the corner of the buildings at Eden Place?

A. Yes, there was.

Q. Did you speak to him?

A. Yes. Turning the corner, I turned towards him and said to him ‘Press’, showing the cameras at this level (indicating) approximately. And then I walked slowly across Eden Place. Approximately about two-thirds of the street, as I was going to put my feet on the footpath, I heard a shot – he shot at me. ”


1 WT6.63

30.95 When asked how he was sure the soldier had shot at him and not at someone else, Gilles Peress said: “Because I was the only one, and where I was, and where he was, and where the bullet is. I see no other target. I do not say he shot to kill me, but he took a very fair chance to frighten me. ”1

1 WT6.63

30.96 Later in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, Gilles Peress said that when he went down Chamberlain Street he was alone. “In a way I was between the Army and the crowd. ” He denied that when he got to Eden Place a section of the crowd turned into Eden Place, and said that when the soldier fired there were no other people within sight or range.1

1 WT6.72

30.97 In his written statement to this Inquiry, Gilles Peress gave a similar description of the soldier firing at him, but made no mention of the circumstances in which he came to take the photograph shown above. He did state that he heard high velocity fire for the first time that day as he went along Chamberlain Street from William Street.1

1 M65.20

30.98 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Gilles Peress told us that he recalled being at the tail end of the crowd of people fleeing along Chamberlain Street from William Street.1

1 Day 212/185-186; Day 212/191-192

30.99 It is clear from the transcript that Gilles Peress, understandably after so many years, was finding some difficulty in recalling the exact sequence of events, but equally was being very careful not to tell us anything of which he was not sure:1

“Q. The photograph we see on the screen, was it taken before you saw the paratrooper?

A. Correct, and actually, to be more specific, the moment – as you were speaking, as you were asking me these questions, I was trying to understand how much time I stayed at that corner because obviously two events happened at that corner: one is I shoot that picture, and the second one is that I see the paratrooper and I show him my cameras and I scream ‘press’, and subsequently he shoots at me.

So I may have spent more than even just the moment of hesitation, I may have spent half a minute, a minute at that corner, somewhere between that, between 30 seconds or a minute at least for that many events to happen at the same time.

The second thing I want to be specific, is that when I see the paratrooper, the point D is not actually in the car park. I remember him crouching at the corner of the last building on the right-hand side.

Q. At about this corner?

A. Right, in a crouched position.

Q. That was something I was going to ask you because that would seem to be the evidence that you gave to the Widgery Tribunal in 1972, that the paratrooper was at the corner.

I do want to ask you more questions about what happened when you saw this paratrooper, but looking – if we can remove the arrow, you are on the corner now in Chamberlain Street. We can see the burnt-out vehicle in the centre of the photograph and beyond one can see some Army vehicles on Rossville Street.

Did you venture down this alleyway towards the burnt-out vehicle at any time?

A. I do not recollect so. I do not remember doing that at all. I remember – I mean, I remember staying a little bit at that corner and trying to understand what the situation was. I tend – and it is something that is in my nature and it is something I have come to realise over the ages – is that things go very fast like this, I tend to slow down, which is I, I always instinctively slow down. So that is most likely what happened, is I lingered at that corner trying to understand what was happening. ”

30.100 Later in his evidence and when he was being asked again about the photograph shown above, Gilles Peress said that although he had no recollection of lads throwing stones down Eden Place, his photograph, which showed objects in the air, would indicate that this was happening.1He also said that he remembered that when he came upon the scene depicted in the photograph, there was a group of about ten people on his left. He said he could not remember whether any of them was carrying a stone or piece of brick.2

1 Day 213/2-3 2Day 213/4; Day 213/7-8

30.101 When asked whether he had seen anyone trying to rescue Duncan Clark, Gilles Peress told us that he had not:1

“Q. We also have evidence from a number of civilian witnesses that they did witness the arrest of Mr Clark, whom we have the red arrow pointing, and that they moved down to try and intervene in that arrest.

Were you aware at any time of a crowd of people moving down Eden Place when you saw the paratrooper?

A. No, no, I say it is the first time I even hear of this notion, so, no, and I want to say that I did not see anything resembling this arrest, so there must be a time span between this picture and my coming through Eden Place. So it is either before or after, I would not be able to judge. ”


1 Day 213/6

30.102 Gilles Peress was asked about his written statement in which he described hearing high velocity fire as he made his way along Chamberlain Street towards the junction with the Eden Place alleyway, and his attention was drawn to the fact that in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry he had recorded that the photograph had been taken just as the shooting began. He told us that his recollection was of high velocity fire starting up before he took the photograph, though he had already made clear that his current recollection was really based on reconstruction.1

1 Day 213/49; Day 213/51; Day 213/87

The evidence concerning the firing by Lieutenant N up the Eden Place alleyway

30.103 The situation in Chamberlain Street around the time Lieutenant N fired was clearly fluid, with people moving away from William Street and making their way south. However, our consideration of the civilian evidence leads us to conclude that some of those people did advance down the Eden Place alleyway in an attempt to help Duncan Clark. It also appears to us that some of the civilians threw throw stones or similar missiles at the soldiers who were at the waste ground end of the Eden Place alleyway. Eamonn Baker, John Friel and Patrick Walsh told us as much and Gilles Peress’s photograph shows this happening. Those civilians who suggested that there was no aggressive behaviour towards the soldiers were in our view mistaken or missed what others had seen.

30.104 We are not convinced that there was an aggressive crowd anything like as large as that described by Lieutenant N and Private 019 in 1972. At the same time the Eden Place alleyway was narrow and a substantial crowd of people were going along Chamberlain Street. Thus Lieutenant N may well have seen not just the 15 or 20 people Malachy Duddy recalled advancing towards the soldiers but also others behind who were going along Chamberlain Street.

30.105 We have no doubt that Lieutenant N fired a shot at the time when Gilles Peress was at the Chamberlain Street entrance to the Eden Place alleyway. The gist of Gilles Peress’s evidence1 is that this shot narrowly missed him and struck the house on the south side of the junction of Chamberlain Street and Harvey Street. In his NICRA statement,2 Mitchel McLaughlin said that the shot fired at the photographer “lifted a chunk out of the masonry surrounding the window at the end house in Harvey St ”. These descriptions are consistent with Lieutenant N’s evidence as to the trajectories of his first two shots, rather than his third shot. Mitchel McLaughlin said in his interview with Kathleen Keville3 that before the shot was fired at the photographer, the soldier had “fired at us and hit the gable wall of the house opposite ”. In his written statement to this Inquiry,4 he said that before the shot was fired at the photographer he had heard one shot as he ran past Eden Place, but did not see who fired it or in which direction.

1 M65.1.1; WT6.63; M65.20; Day 212/196-197

2 AM340.9
3 AM340.20

4 AM340.3


30.106 On the basis of this evidence it could be that the shot that narrowly missed Gilles Peress was Lieutenant N’s second shot. That would require there to have been an interval between the two shots in which Lieutenant N ducked back around the corner and Gilles Peress took the photograph. The interval need not have been more than a few seconds long.

30.107 Alternatively, it could be that it was Lieutenant N’s third shot that narrowly missed Gilles Peress. Gilles Peress’s evidence is that he was more or less at the back of the crowd leaving William Street and was going along Chamberlain Street towards the Eden Place alleyway when he heard high velocity shots. He was sure that he did not see people going to the aid of Duncan Clark. Lieutenant N’s evidence was that there was a pause between his first two shots and his third shot. On this basis it could be that what Gilles Peress first heard were the first two shots fired by Lieutenant N.

30.108 In these circumstances we are left in doubt whether the shot Gilles Peress described was the second or third of those fired by Lieutenant N. What to our minds is clear is that Lieutenant N did not intend to hit anyone with any of his shots.

30.109 The representatives of the majority of represented soldiers submitted that Gilles Peress must have taken his photograph after Lieutenant N had fired all three shots.1We do not accept that suggestion. It does not in our view fit with the account given by Gilles Peress, nor with the evidence of Lieutenant N, that after the third shot there was no more trouble from the crowd.

1 FR7.381

30.110 Lieutenant N told us that he had no recollection of seeing a photographer. He is not visible in Gilles Peress’s photograph. It seems likely that at this stage he was in cover behind the northern corner of the Eden Place alleyway. It is possible that he came out quickly to respond to the missile throwing, some at least of which is recorded on the photograph, and that he simply did not notice Gilles Peress. It is at least equally possible that he did see Gilles Peress, but nevertheless fired above him and the others there. In view of the evidence of Gilles Peress, we are left in doubt whether Lieutenant N fired from the shoulder or from his hip, though we are sure that he sought to aim his shots at the walls of buildings as he described.

30.111 We now turn to the question as to whether or not Lieutenant N can be criticised for firing as he did.

30.112 We consider first the provisions of the Yellow Card, the description given to the Instructions by the Director of Operations for Opening Fire in Northern Ireland,1which we have also discussed elsewhere in this report.2Rule 3(a) stipulated that the soldier should only fire aimed shots, while Rule 3(b) stipulated that the soldier should not fire more rounds than were absolutely necessary to achieve his aim. Rules 8 to 14 set out the circumstances in which a soldier was permitted to fire. With the exception of Rule 12, these rules relate to firing at individuals or (in the case of Rule 14) at a vehicle carrying individuals. Rule 12 provided that the soldier could fire after due warning, “If there is no other way to protect yourself or those whom it is your duty to protect from the danger of being killed or seriously injured ”.

1 ED71.1-2 2 Paragraphs 8.121–122

30.113 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Lieutenant N expressed the view that his firing was outside the scope of the Yellow Card because “the Yellow Card, as I understand it, deals with firing at people ”.1

1 Day 322/159-160

30.114 The view in the Ministry of Defence at the time appears to have been that soldiers were not permitted to fire warning shots over the heads of people because this would reduce the deterrent effect of firing, might provoke return fire, might cause injury to innocent people and would relax control to some degree over the actions of soldiers.1In May 1971 Lord Balniel (Minister of State for Defence) told a meeting of the Defence and Oversea Policy Committee of the British Cabinet that the firing of warning shots was not authorised.2

1 G130A.865.018 2G1AAC.19.1.1.12

30.115 There thus appears to have been a general recognition that the Yellow Card did not permit the firing of warning shots, even if they were specifically aimed to miss people and even if there was no other way (apart from firing at people) to protect the firer or those whom it was his duty to protect from the danger of being killed or seriously injured.

30.116 Despite this general recognition, it could be said that as worded the Yellow Card did not forbid the firing of aimed warning shots. Rule 12 is not on its face limited to firing at people. The requirement to fire only aimed shots is likewise not on its face limited to aiming at people. The warning to be given under Rule 7 is a warning “that fire will be opened ” if the order to stop attacking or to halt is not obeyed, not expressly that those to whom the order is addressed will be shot. Thus neither the requirement to fire aimed shots nor the requirement to give a warning can be said necessarily to imply that Rule 12 was limited to firing at people. However, in our view Lieutenant N did not shout a warning before he fired. As we have already noted, in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry he agreed that he had given no warning. Thus on any view he did not comply with the Yellow Card, so that the question whether (had he given a warning) he could have argued that what he did was not contrary to the Yellow Card is one of academic interest only and we do not discuss it further.

30.117 In the circumstances under consideration, we bear in mind that Lieutenant N, when he reached the entrance to the Eden Place alleyway, had only his signaller and a baton gunner close to him. He was facing some people who had made an attempt to rescue Duncan Clark and people were also throwing stones or similar missiles towards him. However, we are not persuaded that the situation was such that Lieutenant N could reasonably have concluded that he or the other soldiers were in such danger that his only option was to fire his rifle. Although only he and two other soldiers were in the immediate vicinity of the entrance to the Eden Place alleyway, virtually the whole of Support Company had come into the Bogside and were not far away, and it should have occurred to him that in those circumstances civilians were most unlikely to be foolhardy enough to try to move into the open area of the Eden Place waste ground, especially since they would have no idea what other soldiers might be out of sight but nearby.

30.118 Both he and his baton gunner (Private 019) gave in our view estimates (100 and 150 respectively)1of the number of people involved, which we consider they must have known were grossly exaggerated. In our view at best only about 16 people were involved and probably not so many when Lieutenant N fired over Gilles Peress. We are sure (from the evidence of Malachy Duddy and the photograph taken by Gilles Peress) that Private 019 fired his baton gun at least twice up the Eden Place alleyway. However, what to our minds is lacking is any persuasive evidence that the firing of baton rounds was thought by Lieutenant N or Private 019 to be unlikely to have, or was failing to have, the desired effect. Although Private 019’s Royal Military Police (RMP) statement2could be read as indicating that despite his efforts the crowd was still advancing, this is not what he suggested in his written evidence to this Inquiry,3where he told us he could not remember what the crowd was doing. Had the situation been as dangerous as Lieutenant N suggested, it seems to us that this was something Private 019 would be likely to have remembered. As it is he merely observed that he realised that Lieutenant N was firing to “disperse the crowd ”.

1 B373; B149 3B1494.003

2 B149

30.119 The question remains as to Lieutenant N’s state of mind when he fired. Private 019 expressed the view to Neil Davies that Lieutenant N had “lost it ”, while in his written evidence to this Inquiry he told us that “Some people said afterwards that he panicked but I did not really think about it at the time ”.1

1 B1494.003

30.120 We are not persuaded that Lieutenant N believed that it was necessary for him to fire to avert danger to him or other soldiers. It is possible that he fired in fear or panic, without giving proper thought to whether he was justified in doing so, but in the end we have concluded that the most likely reason Lieutenant N fired was that he decided that this would be an effective way of frightening and moving on the people, regardless of whether or not they posed such a risk to him or the other soldiers that firing his rifle was the only option open to him. In our view such a use of his weapon cannot be justified. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, General Ford said:1“It is always undesirable to fire over the heads. It occasionally has to be done as a last resort to prevent being overrun or something similar. ” We consider that Lieutenant N was not faced with such a last resort situation.

30.121 There is another aspect to the firing by Lieutenant N. As we have noted earlier in this chapter, the photographer Jeffrey Morris said that Lieutenant N’s shots were the first that he heard; Private 019 appeared to say the same; and Lieutenant N told the Widgery Inquiry that apart from the shots that he had fired, he registered no other firing at that stage and “heard no shots which I was aware of ”, before his own firing.1

1 WT12.67; WT12.79

30.122 In a minute dated 4th February 1972 of the opening meeting two days earlier of the Army team assembled for the purpose of the Widgery Inquiry, Major General INQ 2144 (Director of Personal Services (Army)) recorded that General Ford had told him that the opening shots had definitely come from the IRA, who had fired twice while 1 PARA was “crossing the barricade ”, but that “it would probably be established that an officer of 1 Para had subsequently fired a burst of warning shots into a brick wall immediately before the main battle began ”.1We have no doubt that that officer of 1 PARA was Lieutenant N.2

1 G114B.743.5 2Day 322/173-174

30.123 As already noted,1General Ford had observed soldiers of C Company crossing Barrier 14. We have no evidence that suggests to us that there was any IRA fire at this time. In an account apparently dictated to his personal assistant Sergeant INQ 1832 on 31st January,2General Ford had recorded that “At about 1610 barrier 14 was lifted and Coy 1 PARA went in after the mob in a ‘sweep-up’ operation. I followed 1 PARA as far as just behind the junction of Chamberlain St/William St. It was at this stage that I heard shots fired from the direction of Rossville Flats. ”

1 Paragraphs 20.230–231 2 B1123-1127

30.124 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, General Ford seemed to agree that the shots that he ascribed to the IRA might in fact have been the shots fired by Lieutenant N.1In our view they were. Furthermore, we consider that these were the first shots fired after soldiers had come into the Bogside. We return later in this report2to a detailed consideration of the movement of C Company through Barrier 14. There it will be seen that Lieutenant N fired his shots shortly before C Company soldiers started going down Chamberlain Street.

1 Day 258/4-5 2Chapter 65

30.125 In the course of Lieutenant N’s oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, there was this exchange:1

“Q. Did you consider what effect the shots which you fired into Chamberlain Street might have on other paratroopers?

A. No, sir.

Q. Might they have caused other paratroopers to consider that they were being shot at?

A. No, sir.

Q. But any soldiers who did not see you fire would simply have heard high velocity shots?

A. That is correct, sir.

…

Q. So if some people consider that the first shots they heard were three high velocity shots, those shots might have come from you?

A. Yes, sir. ”


1 WT12.79

30.126 In view of the relatively small area of the Eden Place waste ground, some if not all the soldiers who had disembarked from the two APCs of Mortar Platoon, as well as the other soldiers coming into the Bogside behind them, must have heard one or more of Lieutenant N’s shots. We will return to what individual soldiers heard or said that they had heard when considering what later happened in the sectors. Here we should observe that Lieutenant Colonel James Ferguson, the Commanding Officer of 22 Lt AD Regt, told us (which we accept) that in a built-up area it would be very difficult for individual soldiers to know who was shooting and from where. One shot was all that it might take for everyone to believe that they were coming under fire.1Lieutenant Colonel Roy Jackson, the Commanding Officer of 1 R ANGLIAN, gave evidence to the same effect.2Furthermore, as Major Loden seemed to agree,3even if soldiers realised that the shots were from an Army rifle, they would be likely to assume that they had been fired at legitimate targets; and that accordingly that there were gunmen or bombers active in the area.

1 B1122.11

2 CJ2.2; Day 287/8
3 Day 347/6-7


30.127 We are of the view that Lieutenant N’s shots had the effect of causing other soldiers who had come into the Bogside to believe either that there was high velocity gunfire from paramilitaries, or that a soldier or soldiers had fired in justifiable response to paramilitary activity. In either case this would have led them to believe that they had encountered paramilitary activity.

30.128 As we have noted, Lieutenant N told the Widgery Inquiry that he had not considered what effect the shots he had fired into Chamberlain Street might have on other paratroopers. If, as we consider was likely to be the case, he decided to fire otherwise than as a last resort to protect himself or other soldiers, he can in our view fairly be criticised for failing to realise the effect his firing would be likely to have on the other soldiers who had come into the Bogside; and for that reason too have refrained from using his rifle as he did.

30.129 We now consider other relevant incidents that occurred soon after the soldiers had disembarked from Lieutenant N’s APC.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume III - Chapter 31




Other incidents on the Eden Place waste ground
Chapter 31: Other incidents on the Eden Place waste ground

Charles McMonagle

31.1 Charles McMonagle was a volunteer in the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps. He was wearing his uniform on the day. In his Keville interview1he described being on the Eden Place waste ground and treating a man who had been hit by a rubber bullet, when someone screamed that armoured cars were coming in:

“... someone screamed that they were coming up Rossville Street in armoured cars and I looked up and I saw three or four coming in the general direction of the flats. We picked up the patient and ran towards the, the car park at the back of the High flats but there was a wire fence across so there was a very narrow gap for the crowd to get through in the panic. I tried to hold the crowd back to save our patient but I was knocked down and trampled under foot I lay up against the wall as paratroopers poured out from the back of the armoured cars. I saw one at least jumping out from the armoured car and standing behind it and firing indiscriminately in the general direction of the high flats and they seemed to spread the rifle from side to side. At this stage I thought he was firing in my general direction but I think now it was [inaudible] he hit I lay on the ground with my hands outstretched and at this stage I was wearing a gas mask. One paratrooper come, I think it was the same paratrooper, came dashing over and grabbed me by my, by my uniform and pulled me up and stuck a rifle in my chest I think he was going to fire and I gesticulated wildly at my red cross badge which he looked at and then released me and left me lying on the ground and said that he would kill me if I moved. I lay there for a few seconds and another paratrooper came over who he started shouting something but as he was wearing a gas mask I could not hear him he whipped off the gas mask and told me that there was no gas you silly fucker and I waited for another few seconds until I could recover my composure I then asked him would it be alright if I moved and he said yes you can go so I picked up my effects and headed down towards the Chamberlain Street. When I reach the corner the soldier there told me not to move picked up his rifle as if to shoot at me but I stopped dead and looked back at the other soldier who said I could go. ”


1 AM367.23-24

31.2 Charles McMonagle also made a report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps.1He gave much the same account, but in this report he stated that he had seen the vehicle come over the waste ground through a “large ‘lake-type’ puddle ” and that the paratrooper had fired from the hip in the direction of the fleeing people. He also stated in this report that the paratrooper who had grabbed him and then released him had afterwards moved off towards the car park of the Rossville Flats and returned with an old man as his prisoner. According to this report the soldier had removed Charles McMonagle’s gas mask, not his own.

1 AM367.19-22

31.3 Charles McMonagle gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. In his written account1 he described the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) from which the soldier had come as having stopped immediately to the north of the wire fence running across the southern edge of the Eden Place waste ground. He also stated that a paratrooper, who had fired from his hip in the direction of the Rossville Flats, approached him and pointed his rifle at his chest, while Charles McMonagle pointed frantically at his badge. A second paratrooper then arrived, and the two soldiers roughed him up and threw him to the ground. At one stage they rifled through his kit bag.2

1 AM367.4 2AM367.3-4; AM367.16

31.4 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Charles McMonagle confirmed that the crowd had initially knocked him down, as he had recorded in the accounts that he gave in 1972.1 He also told us that his gas mask had been pulled to one side rather than being torn from his face.2 Shown a photograph of the position of Lieutenant N’s APC, he said that he could not now remember whether the soldier had come from this APC.3

1 Day 102/112

2 Day 102/153-154
3 Day 102/118


31.5 Colman Doyle, the Irish Press staff photographer, took a photograph that Charles McMonagle told us shows him lying on the ground, and the two paratroopers who had approached him.1 According to Colman Doyle, he took this photograph after those he had taken of the arrest of William John Dillon,2 which we describe later in this report.3




31.6 An enlargement of this photograph gives a closer view of Charles McMonagle and the two soldiers.



31.7 As we have described earlier in this report,1 Lance Corporal V was in Lieutenant N’s APC. In his written account to this Inquiry,2 Lance Corporal V described how he disembarked from his vehicle and broke the ice on top of a frozen puddle. He noticed a man in a uniform and respirator and ran at him, pinning him against the wall with his rifle. The man called out something to indicate that he was a first-aider, and this was sufficient for Lance Corporal V to realise that he was not a threat. He stated that the wall seen in the photographs displayed above could be the wall against which Lance Corporal V pushed the first-aider, but Lance Corporal V could not identify the soldiers or the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer shown in these photographs.

1 Paragraphs 24.6–9 2B821.003

31.8 We have no doubt that the soldier who initially approached Charles McMonagle was Lance Corporal V. Charles McMonagle recalled that this soldier was left-handed1 and on behalf of Lance Corporal V we were told that he was left-handed.2 Furthermore there is no evidence to suggest that there was another incident in which a soldier approached an Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer who was against a wall in the Eden Place waste ground.

1 AM367.4 2Day 103/198

31.9 In his written account for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Lance Corporal V stated that his task was to arrest rioters and that he had gone forward after disembarking, “covering soldier S who was ahead of me ”. As already noted,2in his first RMP statement3 Private S described deploying to a position at the back of one of the houses at the southern end of Chamberlain Street.

1 B801

2 Paragraphs 26.36–37
3 B693


31.10 Private S told us that he had no recollection of an incident involving a first-aider,1 but in view of the account Lance Corporal V gave at the time, it seems to us that he was probably the second soldier involved in this incident.

1 Day 331/52-56

31.11 Those acting on behalf of the majority of the families submitted that Lance Corporal V and Private S “clearly assaulted a first-aider who presented no threat ... ”.1

1 FS1.1346

31.12 Lance Corporal V denied that he had pushed Charles McMonagle to the ground, or rifled through his kitbag, or seen anyone else doing these things.1 He also told us that his immediate thought when he first saw a person in a uniform was “that the guys here were extremely well organised. I had never before or since seen civilians with respirators and uniforms. Because of this I ran at the man and pinned him against the wall with my rifle. ”2

1 Day 333/52-53 2B821.003

31.13 Private S denied that he had assaulted a first-aider.1

1 Day 332/36

31.14 In our view Charles McMonagle was assaulted. He had identified himself as a first-aider, but this did not prevent Lance Corporal V from pushing a rifle into his chest and threatening to kill him if he moved, and Private S then pulling his gas mask to one side. However, it is right to point out that according to the accounts that Charles McMonagle gave in 1972, the soldier who first approached him let him go as soon as he had identified himself as a first-aider. Furthermore, we are not persuaded that either soldier rifled through his kitbag, or that they threw him to the ground, since had either of these things happened we consider that he would have mentioned them in one or other of the accounts that he made soon after these events.

Antoinette Coyle

31.15 In her report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps,1 another volunteer, Antoinette Coyle, stated that as she crossed the waste ground she saw two vehicles, one of which was driven straight at the crowd. A soldier jumped out in front of her and a man collided with him. Both fell to the ground. She stopped to see whether they were injured. The man stood up and ran on. The soldier jumped up, raised his rifle by the barrel high above his head and tried to bring it down with full force on a girl’s head as she ran by, but as she was almost past him it landed on her shoulders. Antoinette Coyle grabbed the girl and ran with her to the Rossville Flats. The girl was badly shocked but not badly hurt. Antoinette Coyle gave a similar account of the incident in her NICRA statement,2 and in her written statement to this Inquiry,3 in which she explained that the soldier had held the barrel of his rifle with his hands and swung it like a club, hitting the girl with the butt in the middle of her back. In her oral evidence4 she was asked whether she was sure that the soldier had tried to hit the girl on the head, and she replied: “He was hitting out at her. I would say only as he came down she ducked, he could have hit the head, yes. But she was running as well at the same time. ”

1 AC85.24

2 AC85.1
3 AC85.5

4 Day 95/34


31.16 We have no reason to doubt that some such incident as that described by Antoinette Coyle took place soon after the APCs arrived, though we are not persuaded that a soldier would use his rifle in this way, as there would not only be a significant risk of shooting himself if the rifle was loaded, but also a risk that the civilian would be able to grab the rifle from the soldier. We have been unable to identify either the girl or the soldier involved in this incident. It is not even clear from which vehicle the soldier had disembarked or just where the incident took place. However, there is nothing to suggest that there could have been or could have been believed to be any justification for a soldier to hit the girl, whatever means were used.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume III - Chapter 32




The arrival of Sergeant O’s Armoured Personnel Carrier
Chapter 32: The arrival of Sergeant O’s Armoured Personnel Carrier

32.1 As we have already described, Sergeant O’s Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) followed that of Lieutenant N along Rossville Street. After Lieutenant N’s APC had turned off into the Eden Place waste ground, Sergeant O’s APC continued along Rossville Street and stopped briefly near Pilot Row, where probably six soldiers disembarked before the vehicle turned left off Rossville Street into the entrance to the Rossville Flats car park.

32.2 We now turn to consider, in this and the following chapters, the evidence of the six soldiers who we consider disembarked in Rossville Street. We deal first with where they said they initially went. After this, we deal likewise with the soldiers who disembarked when the APC stopped in the car park. In the course of doing this we discuss a number of incidents involving some of the soldiers from Sergeant O’s APC. We treat as a separate topic the evidence about incoming fire that the soldiers from Sergeant O’s APC gave.

The movements of the soldiers who disembarked in Rossville Street

Corporal P and Private 017

32.3 Corporal P and the baton gunner Private 017 were two of the soldiers who disembarked from Sergeant O’s APC in Rossville Street. These two soldiers then moved to an area on the west side of Rossville Street near Kells Walk. We discuss this movement and what they say they saw and did in the course of considering the events of Sector 3.1

1 Paragraphs 69.20–58 and 71.1–10; Chapters 73–75

Private R

32.4 In his first RMP statement timed at 0630 hours on 31st January 1972,1Private R stated that he had been detailed to cover the vehicle (ie the APC in which he had been carried) but it “suddenly drove off and located itself outside No 1 Block Rossville Flats. I moved through the crowd to the vehicle. They were throwing stones and bottles at me. ” In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,2he stated that as his APC passed the junction of William Street and Rossville Street people threw stones and bottles at the vehicles. He then described disembarking and running after the APC, during which he said he was hit by stones and bottles from the people around him. He gave a similar account in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry and in his written evidence to this Inquiry.3

1 B658-659

2 B669-670
3 WT13.72-73; WT13.79-80; B691.002


32.5 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Private R agreed, having been shown the photograph of three soldiers behind Sergeant O’s APC and the next photograph in the sequence, that it was possible that he was the soldier shown running towards the Rossville Flats in the latter photograph. Although these photographs appear in an earlier chapter,1it is convenient to show the second of them again, with an arrow pointing to the running soldier. Since there is no evidence from any of the other soldiers in either APC that suggests that it was one of them, we consider that this photograph probably does show Private R.

1 Paragraph 28.5


32.6 We return to Private R’s evidence later in this report.1

1 Paragraphs 46.25–31, 47.29–34, 48.21–24, 49.38–42, 51.164–207, 51.261–264, 51.307–317, 52.8, 53.11–12,
58.12–14, 66.8–11, 66.18–27 and 66.36–37

Private 006

32.7 As already noted,1in his RMP statement2Private 006 recorded that he and others debussed “at the junction of Eden Place and Rossville Street ”. As we have already observed, in our view he meant Pilot Row, not Eden Place. He then described arresting William John Dillon with the assistance of Private 037, the driver of Major Loden’s command vehicle, and taking him back to an APC. According to his RMP account, Private 006 afterwards went south to Sergeant O’s APC.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume III - Chapter 33



The arrest of William John Dillon
Chapter 33: The arrest of William John Dillon

33.1 In his RMP statement Private 006 recorded that:1

“There was a large mixed crowd gathered on waste ground in the forecourt of the Rossville Street flats. The crowd were throwing bottles and stones at us, most of which struck the vehicles. I was armed with an SLR [self-loading rifle], with a magazine of twenty rounds affixed and was a member of a Snatch Squad commanded by [Sergeant] ‘O’ of my unit.

The crowd were running past the vehicles and I ran out and took hold of a youth aged about fifteen. [Private] 037 who was also on the Snatch Squad also grabbed the youth. Between us we took him to an Escort APC [Armoured Personnel Carrier] and handed him over to the APC guard. The youth’s name was Dillon and he was arrested for assault by [Private] 037. ”


1 B1375

33.2 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Private 006 told us that he saw a young man running across the waste ground towards the soldiers. He ran out to grab him “as he was a threat ”. He caught him and tussled with him. Private 037 came to help and the two soldiers frogmarched the man to the vehicles. He stated that he “arrested the youth because I believed him to be a rioter ”.2 We have no doubt that the man was William John Dillon.

1 B1377.005 2B1377.009

33.3 In the course of his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Private 006 was asked in what way William John Dillon was a threat. He replied: “I think, from actually de-bussing from the initial crowd dispersing, there were actually a bit of a lapse in time there and he were, he were coming across that wasteground rather, you know, on his own, running towards the soldiers. I thought he should have been running the other way really. ” He went on to say that he saw no weapon or missile in the man’s hand and had not seen him throw any kind of missile. Later in his evidence he was again asked what threat William John Dillon presented, and he replied: “Well, at the time I must have thought he were a threat. Do not forget, we are still in a riot situation here. ”2 He said that he probably hit the man with his rifle butt, but not on the head.3 He also said that it was possible that the man kicked him in the tussle, but he did not now remember that happening.4

1 Day 334/17-18

2 Day 334/23
3 Day 334/22

4 Day 334/91


33.4 Private 037 was the driver of Major Loden’s armoured command vehicle, which followed the Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) of Lieutenant N and Sergeant O down Rossville Street, and was thus the third vehicle in the Support Company convoy.1

1 B1635

33.5 The majority of those arrested on Bloody Sunday, including William John Dillon, were taken to Fort George, then the headquarters of 1st Battalion, The Coldstream Guards.1 This was one of two locations selected as a point where prisoners could be detained and processed by the RMP.2 We discuss the treatment of the arrestees taken to Fort George later in this report.3 For now it is only relevant to note that the documents relating to the processing of William John Dillion at Fort George included an arrest statement by Private 037. This records that Private 037 had arrested William John Dillon after seeing him kick a soldier.

1 C588.1; C179.1; C454.1

2 G95.571
3 Chapters 155–164


33.6 Private 037 made no mention of this arrest in his RMP statement,1 which was concerned with what he said he saw when looking at the rubble barricade from the north-west corner of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. In his written statement to this Inquiry2 he told us: “I also have a vague memory of being handed a prisoner by another soldier and seeing that soldier being kicked by the prisoner before he handed him over to me. However, it was standard practice for anyone who was arrested to kick out at the arresting soldier so I’m not certain that I can recall this particular incident. ”

1 B1636.007
2 B1636.003


33.7 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry he said this:1

“Q. You did not actually see him being kicked at all, did you?

A. I saw him struggling.

Q. You did not see him being kicked; did you?

A. No.

Q. You told a lie in your arrest statement to that effect; did you not?

A. I saw him struggling and I went to his help, his aid.

Q. When you said in his statement –

A. I thought he kicked him, he looked very much like he was trying to kick him. He was trying to escape.

Q. You now know that you did not see him kick this soldier, because you have just told us that, but 30 years ago you made a solemn statement to the effect –

A. 30 years ago I would remember better, would I not? ”


1 Day 357/179

33.8 William John Dillon was 15 at the time of Bloody Sunday.1There is a transcript of a Keville interview in which the name of the interviewee has been transcribed as William Dunne. The address given by the interviewee was that of William John Dillon’s parents at the time, and since William John Dillon told us that this was where he was then living, we have no doubt that he was the person interviewed by Kathleen Keville. In that interview he gave this account of his arrest:2

“Ah – William J Dunne, […] I’m aged 15 years old.

Er – on the thirtieth of January nineteen seventy two in the waste ground at Rossville Street I was arrested by several soldiers. I was hit several times on the arms, and the body with –

[Female voice] What were you doing? Why were you arrested?

I was on a protest march. I was hit several times on the body with butts of rifles, kicked, hit with batons, threatened with being shot and several other things. I was er – put against a wall and made to stand for over an hour in the cold. I was harassed, roughed up and … I was er – put in a – an army vehicle and transported down to the camp at Pennyburn and on the way down I was kicked in the back, thumped in the gut.

[Female voice] Why?

Because I was just a rioter.

[Female voice] Just because you were there?

Just because I was there. ”


1 AD46.1 2AD46.15

33.9 Later in this interview William John Dillon described what happened as he was taken to Fort George (“the camp at Pennyburn ”), a matter we consider elsewhere in this report.1However, we should note that he told Kathleen Keville that he had not kicked any soldier: “the only time I got near enough was when they were hitting me and I never got any kicks at any of them. ”2

1 Chapters 155–164
2 AD46.16


33.10 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1William John Dillon described how, after rioting in William Street, he had eventually gone along Chamberlain Street, which was completely deserted, and then through the Eden Place alleyway. He recalled seeing a soldier at the northern corner of the alleyway on the waste ground side, who pointed his rifle at him. “I bolted and ran across the waste ground in a southerly direction towards the Rossville Flats. I did not hear any shooting at this time … ” He then described seeing “Saracens ” and soldiers at the entrance to the Rossville Flats car park. He stated that the soldiers did not see him because they were looking south. His statement continued:

“At this point, I was still convinced that the soldier I had surprised on entering the waste ground was about to shoot me. However, suddenly, a big soldier came out into the waste ground area from the direction of the wall running alongside the back yards of Chamberlain Street (on the waste ground side). He grabbed me at point K (grid reference N13) on the waste ground. I am convinced that if he had not grabbed me then the other soldier with the rifle would have shot me. I think this big soldier saved my life.

I can remember what he looked like very clearly. He was a giant of a man, He was very tall (much taller than me and I was 6 feet tall then). He was obviously a paratrooper because I remember he had a red beret on his head. He had pips at the shoulders of his uniform and I think he must have been an officer, perhaps a sergeant. His attitude was certainly that of a superior officer. I remember that he looked very tough and had very short, fair hair, which I could see clearly because he was the only soldier not wearing a helmet. I think I saw his face so I do not think he had a gas mask on. I cannot believe that there was anyone shooting at the soldiers in the waste ground area (or that they would have been expecting to be coming under fire), or this soldier would not have been running around without a helmet. This big soldier was clearly not worried about being shot. However, he impressed me as being a macho man. He reminded me of John Wayne.

He grabbed me by the scruff of my jacket collar, nearly lifting me off the ground, and ran me across the waste ground in a north-west direction towards William Street to point L (grid reference M09). My head was down as he dragged me along and I did not see anything or anyone except for the soldier who had hold of me. I could not hear any shooting around me. He was such a strong man that he was able to lift me easily. As he ran with me my feet were hardly touching the ground. It was like floating. He kept yelling at me: ‘Run you bastard!’ I think he was also hitting me on my back with his baton as he ran me across. He never let go of me once until he threw me at some soldiers who were standing with other people who had been arrested who were all lined up along a wall at the corner of Rossville Street and William Street at point M (grid reference M09). All the soldiers near this wall were paratroopers. ”


1 AD46.4-5

33.11 The points to which William John Dillon referred in this statement were shown on a map that he had marked. Point K (where he recalled he was grabbed) was close to the backs of the houses in Chamberlain Street, about halfway between Eden Place and Pilot Row. Point L (to which he recalled that he was taken) he marked as being on the west side of Rossville Street, not far from the junction with William Street. Point M was marked as he described in his statement.

33.12 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, William John Dillon told us that as he ran across the waste ground there was no-one else in the area. He saw “Saracens ”, but explained that it was only about a couple of seconds before he was caught.1He said that he thought the soldier who arrested him was a sergeant. He also said that he was not sure now whether the arresting soldier had hit him with his baton.2

1 Day 103/174 2Day 103/176-178

33.13 During the course of his oral evidence, William John Dillon was shown three photographs (taken by the Daily Mail photographer Jeffrey Morris) in which he had identified himself in his written evidence.1He told us that he was now not sure about the first two of these but he did identify himself in the third.2However, Jeffrey Morris told the Widgery Inquiry that all three photographs showed the same incident and that they were taken in the order in which they appear below.3

1 AD46.8

2 Day 103/178-179

33.14 We are sure that all three of these photographs show William John Dillon.

33.15 William John Dillon also thought he recognised himself in photographs of arrestees being held against a wall in Rossville Street and then in William Street.1

1 Day 103/179-180

33.16 There are other photographs of the arrest of William John Dillon, to which we refer below.

33.17 When asked whether he had been hit on the head with a rifle, William John Dillon replied:1

“No, the first, I am not even conscious of being hit on the head with a baton. I am conscious of a soldier grabbing me by the back of the neck and running me across the waste ground as hard as he could. As I say, I cannot even remember getting hit across the head with a baton. He grabbed me and run with me, that was it. He was a very strong soldier because he had me feet nearly off the ground. ”


1 Day 103/183

33.18 William John Dillon was “positive ” that he had not kicked a soldier.1He also told us that although he did not hear shots, there could have been shooting as he ran across the waste ground.2

1 Day 103/191 2Day 103/214

33.19 William John Dillon was recalled to give further evidence the next day. He was shown a document, which took the form of an unsigned statement in the name of “William Dunne ” and bore the same address as in the transcript of the Keville interview.1At that stage the Inquiry had yet to obtain and transcribe the Keville tapes and so did not realise that this statement was in fact a transcript made in 1972 of William John Dillon’s Keville interview, from which we have quoted above. Thus, unlike some other witnesses who had been interviewed by Kathleen Keville, William John Dillon did not have an opportunity to listen to the recording of his interview, nor did he know that the unsigned statement being shown to him was based on a taped interview he had given. His reaction to the unsigned statement was that it looked like “a rough outline to my story, but it seems to be hyped up a bit ” and embellished. “They have sort of made it up themselves. ”2

1 AD46.14 2Day 104/4-5

33.20 We note that the unsigned statement records that William John Dillon had been hit with rifles, whereas the tape recording1 confirms, as shown in the transcript prepared for this Inquiry, that the unsigned statement omits the assertion that William John Dillon had made to Kathleen Keville that he had also been hit with batons.

1 Aud 33 01.02.10

33.21 We now turn to consider the evidence of two photographers and a journalist, which may relate to the arrest of William John Dillon.

33.22 Jeffrey Morris, the Daily Mail photographer, recorded in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry1 that, before he took the first of the photographs shown above, a paratrooper next to a three-ton lorry on Rossville Street had levelled his pistol at the youth and told him to stop and then another paratrooper had “slammed the boy across the head with his rifle ”. After Jeffrey Morris had taken the photograph, another paratrooper came up and “they both went for the boy ” who was crying out “God, don’t hit me ”. In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,2 Jeffrey Morris also said that before the young lad was apprehended, an officer had twice challenged him to stop, and that this photograph “shows a paratrooper hitting him with the rifle ”. However, it seems to us that an enlargement of this photograph, as shown below, shows the rifle being held in two hands and used to push or shove William John Dillon, rather than being slammed across his head.

33.23 The BBC Radio news reporter David Capper, having described standing against the back of the Chamberlain Street houses on the Eden Place waste ground, gave this account in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry:1

“5. A youth in an entry near me asked a soldier if he could move across to the opposite side of Rossville Street. I assume he got permission, for he began running. He got about half way across when he was challenged by an officer carrying a pistol. The youth kept on running, the officer shouted that he’d open fire and the youth stopped. A soldier ran up to him and clubbed him with the butt of his rifle. The youth fell to the ground and was dragged to a Saracen. The soldier threw him into it. ”


1 M9.2

33.24 During the course of his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, David Capper was asked about this incident:1

“Q. Do you remember a youth who was standing near you, Mr. Capper, request permission from a soldier to cross the open ground?

A. Yes, he was in the corner of Eden Place and there was a soldier there and I can recall him saying something about ‘All right to go?’ and I assumed he got permission because he started running right across from the corner moving this way and when he got about half way across an Officer with a pistol, a drawn pistol, challenged him and said ‘Halt or I fire.’ The youth did not stop and ran on about another 15 feet. The Officer challenged him once more. The youth did stop and put his hands above his head. A paratrooper came up, an ordinary Private, with a rifle and hit him on the side of the head and he fell. ”


1 WT2.70

33.25 William John Dillon was shown this evidence when he was giving oral evidence to us.1He told us that he had never asked anyone for permission to cross the waste ground, that he was not conscious of hearing anyone telling him to halt and that he would not have halted even if told to do so. “I do not know if anybody has ever been throwing stones at the army, but you do not stop, you run, and I run. ”

1 Day 103/182

33.26 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 David Capper said that the soldier jumped out of the back of an APC and hit the youth over the head with his rifle butt once or twice. The youth was knocked unconscious, and was picked up and thrown into the APC.

1 Day 73/30

33.27 Shown the three photographs reproduced above of William John Dillon being arrested, David Capper said that this was not the same incident because his recollection was that only one soldier was involved in hitting the person with the butt of his rifle.1William John Dillon has never suggested that he was knocked unconscious or picked up and thrown into an APC. We are sure from his accounts that this did not happen.

1 Day 73/30-31

33.28 Both David Capper and Jeffrey Morris recalled an officer with a pistol challenging a youth as he ran across the waste ground. Their evidence on this point is also substantially consistent with the account given by the Irish Press photographer Colman Doyle to John Barry of the Sunday Times Insight Team,1 of a soldier at the side of a vehicle shouting at the youth seen in two photographs that Colman Doyle had taken “I’ll shoot you if you don’t stop ”. We refer below to these photographs, which in our view are further images of William John Dillon.

1 M23.15

33.29 Warrant Officer Class II Lewis (the Company Sergeant Major (CSM) of Support Company) identified himself as the tall figure standing next to the turret of the command vehicle in the third of the photographs shown above. He confirmed that he was armed with a pistol, but said that he did not draw it at any stage.1

1 Day 373/47-49

33.30 Ciaran Donnelly was a photographer for the Irish Times newspaper. It appears from his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry that he was probably somewhere in the area of the pram-ramp at the northern end of Glenfada Park South, ie to the south of the rubble barricade on Rossville Street, when he witnessed “a youth run out from the back of the Rossville flats and make his way towards the soldiers. A parachutist ran after him from an army vehicle and the youth ran back to the Rossville flats but was caught by another paratrooper who came out from behind the Rossville flats. They hit him with batons and took him back to a vehicle. They had to drag him as he was unable to walk. ”1In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,2 Ciaran Donnelly said that he thought that the young man was full of bravado and had been going to throw a stone; but later3 he said that the young man did not seem to have anything in his hand.

1 M22.2 3WT3.7

2 WT2.83

33.31 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Ciaran Donnelly told us that the young man was taunting the soldiers. When he gave oral evidence to this Inquiry2 he was shown the photographs taken by Jeffrey Morris, reproduced above, and said that they looked very much like the incident that he saw. He was asked how the young man had been taunting the soldiers and replied: “He was just basically running up with a stone to throw at them, that is what I assumed it was. ”

1 M22.21 2Day 71/25-26

33.32 William John Dillon was shown the account given by Ciaran Donnelly. He told us that he did not think that this account was of him as he had not got as far south as the person Ciaran Donnelly had described.1

1 Day 103/184-185

33.33 There are further civilian witnesses to whom we should refer at this stage. Counsel to the Inquiry prepared what we regard as an accurate summary of their evidence.1We set this out below with a few changes and additions:

Gavan Duffy

He recorded in his written statement to this Inquiry2 that he was in Rossville Street behind the rubble barricade and saw a youth running on the waste ground. A soldier appeared and hit the youth with his rifle butt. The youth fell to the ground. People at the rubble barricade surged forward to try to help the youth. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry3 Gavan Duffy was shown one of the photographs that we are sure show William John Dillon4 and said that it showed a scene very similar to the one that he had witnessed.

Damien Friel

He said in his Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association statement5 that when the soldiers were moving down Rossville Street he went into 2 Kells Walk. From there he saw a youth run into the waste ground from Chamberlain Street and head towards the Rossville Flats. A soldier confronted the youth and attempted to thrust his bayonet into his upper body. The youth jumped back but the bayonet injured him below the arm on his right side. The youth tried to run towards William Street, but soldiers in Rossville Street captured him and put him into an army vehicle. As they did so, they kicked him and hit him on his head and shoulders with their batons and rifle butts, and thrust his head three or four times against the edge of the back door of the vehicle. Damien Friel also described the incident in his written statement to this Inquiry.6 In that statement he expressed himself more cautiously with regard to the bayonet injury, saying that he believed that a bayonet was affixed to the soldier’s rifle because of the jabbing movement that he made, and that the soldier “seemed to slash down from left to right into the young man and seemed to injure the young man on his right arm or shoulder ”. Damien Friel also said that the army vehicle into which the youth was placed was approximately at point 9 on the plan attached to his statement7 (just short of the entrance to the car park of the Rossville Flats). In his oral evidence to this Inquiry Damien Friel told us that he did not actually see a bayonet.8

Paul McGeady

He recorded in his written statement to this Inquiry9 that he was to the south of the rubble barricade when he saw a young lad trying to run across the waste ground to reach Rossville Street. A soldier appeared from behind the north end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, holding his rifle across his chest. He hit the young lad on the left side of his face with the butt of his rifle and knocked him down. Three or four fellows behind the rubble barricade then said that they would go out and try to rescue the young lad. During the course of his oral evidence to this Inquiry,10 Paul McGeady was shown one of the photographs that we are sure show William John Dillon11 and said that the young man in the photograph looked similar to the young man whom he had seen.

Eamon Melaugh

He is recorded as having said in a statement made to the Sunday Times12 that he was about 20 yards north of the rubble barricade in Rossville Street as the APCs came into Rossville Street. In his statement to this Inquiry he marked his position as the “Pigs ” came in as being at the northern end of Block 1.13According to the Sunday Times note,14 “The soldiers who jumped out of the pigs caught a young lad and were giving him an unmerciful beating. He was on the gorund [sic] and they were giving him a kicking. And a number of us ran forward to try and effect a rescue and we were throwing stones. ” In oral evidence15 Eamon Melaugh denied that he had seen such an incident or told anyone of it. He acknowledged that he had spoken to Peter Pringle of the Sunday Times newspaper, but said that the Sunday Times version was 85% fiction, although “Obviously there are elements in the statement that I conveyed … ”.16 The reference to a rescue attempt is a feature common to the evidence of Gavan Duffy and Paul McGeady as well as to the statement attributed to Eamon Melaugh.

We agree with counsel’s suggestion that this indicates that all three witnesses probably saw the same incident. If they did, we also agree that the circumstances as described by these witnesses appear more consistent with the arrest of William John Dillon than with any other known incident, although we cannot be certain about this.

Don Mullan

He was only 15 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. In his written statement to this Inquiry17 he told us that from the rubble barricade he saw three soldiers swinging their rifle butts high above their shoulders in order to deal vicious blows to a young man who was lying on the waste ground around grid reference L13 (near Rossville Street south of Pilot Row). He said that he could identify the incident in photographs. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,18 he said that it was shown in one of Colman Doyle’s photographs of the arrest of William John Dillon,19 which is shown below. When it was pointed out to him that his account was not in accordance with the evidence of William John Dillon, he insisted that his memory was clear and said that perhaps the young man he had seen was someone else. Despite this, the location of the incident suggests that he did see the arrest of William John Dillon.

Brian Power

He was, like Damien Friel, watching from 2 Kells Walk. In his written statement to this Inquiry20 he stated that he knew William John Dillon and remembered seeing a soldier grab him and give him a “battering ”. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,21 he said that the soldier did this with his boots and the back of his rifle. He said that William John Dillon tried to protect himself but did not struggle with the soldier.

Maura Power

Maura Power (then Maura Reilly) was in 2 Kells Walk with Brian Power. In her written statement to this Inquiry,22 she said that she saw William John Dillon “being given a good hiding by soldiers with batons ”.

1 CS4.46-48

2 AD155.2

3 Day 126/143

4 Paragraph 33.36, second photograph

5 AF30.14

6 AF30.3

7 AF30.7

8 Day 159/137-142

9 AM219.3

10 Day 137/126-127

11 Paragraph 33.36, second photograph
12 AM397.22

13 AM397.3; AM397.18

14 AM397.23

15 Day 143/39-40

16 Day 143/23-24

17 AM448.5

18 Day 148/110-113

19 Paragraph 33.36, fourth photograph

20 AP18.3

21 Day 425/16-17

22 AP19.2


33.34 Noel McCartney was a staff reporter for the Derry Journal newspaper. In his written account for the Widgery Inquiry he stated that he was near the rubble barricade when the Army vehicles came in, and that he saw soldiers arresting people in the waste ground. “A youth ran out from behind the flats and threw stones at a vehicle. A soldier came up from behind the flats and arrested him. About 20 people came from behind the barricade and made for the youth to help him. ”1

1 M55.8

33.35 Colman Doyle (the Irish Press photographer) took a number of photographs during Bloody Sunday, including six of the arrest of a man on the Eden Place waste ground. His contact sheet enables us to see the sequence of those photographs.

33.36 The first of the photographs on the contact sheet shows a scene very similar to the first of the three photographs taken by Jeffrey Morris, which we have set out above. It was obviously taken not far from where Jeffrey Morris was and, in view of the similarity, probably at more or less the same time. The following photographs are enlargements of frames 7, 8, 10 and 11.

33.37 We have no doubt that all these photographs show the arrest of William John Dillon. Colman Doyle recorded, in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, that the first and last of those shown above were of the same youth.1William John Dillon told us that the figure in the first and second looked like him.2The shape and clothing of the person being arrested are the same in every case and the same as in the photographs taken by Jeffrey Morris.

1 M23.1 2Day 104/5

33.38 We should note at this point that the final photograph on the contact sheet, which we have also reproduced below, is not of this arrest, but of Duncan Clark being taken by Lieutenant N and Private INQ 1918 from the area of the Eden Place alleyway to Lieutenant N’s APC.