Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry Volume 4

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 55



Section: Sector 2: The Launch of the Arrest Operation and Events in the Area of the Rossville Flats
The casualties in Sector 2
Sector 2: The Launch of the Arrest Operation and Events in the Area of the Rossville Flats



55.1 As we have already indicated, in Sector 2 Jackie Duddy was killed by gunfire, while Margaret Deery, Michael Bridge and Michael Bradley were wounded by the same means. Patrick McDaid, Patrick Brolly and Pius McCarron were also injured, though whether by gunfire or otherwise was a matter of controversy.

Jackie Duddy

55.2 There is no doubt that Jackie Duddy was shot and mortally wounded in Sector 2. There is equally no doubt, and none has been expressed, that he was shot by a soldier.

Biographical details

55.3 Jackie Duddy’s full name was John Francis Duddy. In the course of this Inquiry, witnesses usually referred to him as either Jackie or Jack Duddy. His family knew him as Jackie, and that is the name that we have used in this report.

55.4 Jackie Duddy was 17 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. He lived in Central Drive, Creggan, with his father, his five brothers, and eight of his nine sisters. His mother had died of leukaemia in 1968, aged 44 years. Jackie Duddy was employed as a weaver in the factory of Thomas French & Sons Ltd on the Springtown Industrial Estate. He was a keen and successful amateur boxer.1



Prior movements

55.5 Jackie Duddy went on the march on Bloody Sunday with some of his friends. His brother Gerry Duddy and sister Kay Duddy recall him saying that he was going to listen to Bernadette Devlin speaking.1



Medical and scientific evidence

55.6 An autopsy of the body of Jackie Duddy was conducted by Dr Derek Carson, then the Deputy State Pathologist for Northern Ireland,1 on 31st January 1972 at Altnagelvin Hospital. Three other doctors and two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) photographers were also present.2 The notes, reports and photographs from this autopsy have been considered by Dr Richard Shepherd and Mr Kevin O’Callaghan, who were engaged by this Inquiry as independent experts on pathology and ballistics respectively. Dr Carson, Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan, all gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. Dr Carson also appeared before the Widgery Inquiry.


55.7 In his autopsy report,1 Dr Carson described the following two gunshot wounds:

1. A fairly neat circular hole, 7mm in diameter, on the outer side of the right shoulder, centred 4cm below the tip of the acromion process. This appeared to be an entrance wound. It was surrounded by a narrow rim of abrasion, 1–2mm wide. There was no appreciable bruising around the wound nor was there any blackening of the skin.

2. A somewhat ragged exit wound, measuring 18mm x 8mm, on the left front. This wound was located near the shoulder and centred 9cm to the left of and 2.5cm above the suprasternal notch, and 14cm above the nipple. The long axis of the wound was almost vertical. It lay within an irregular oval zone of abrasion measuring 32mm x 16mm, around which there was vague reddish-purple bruising within an area measuring 9cm x 4.5cm.



55.8 Dr Carson noted that, with the arm by the side, the two wounds lay in a line passing from right to left, forwards at about 20° to the coronal plane and downwards at about 10° to the horizontal plane. A probe could not be passed through the entrance wound in a direct line between the two, even when the arm was put in a variety of positions.

55.9 The internal injuries found by Dr Carson are described in his report.1



55.10 Dr Carson summarised his conclusions about the fatal injury as follows:1

“Death was due to a gunshot wound of the upper chest. The bullet had entered the outer part of the right shoulder and had passed behind the upper part of the arm bone and the right shoulder blade, notching the inner border of the shoulder blade, before passing through the inner end of the second right rib and the second thoracic vertebra. On striking the spine the bullet had been deflected slightly upwards and had then fractured the middle third of the left collar bone and the adjacent parts of the first and second left ribs before leaving the body through the upper part of the left chest. No bullet was recovered from the body.

In its course through the upper chest the bullet had damaged the upper part of each lung and divided the windpipe, the gullet and the left common carotid and subclavian arteries. Bleeding from the damaged blood vessels and lungs would have caused rapid death, whilst breathing would also have been severely impaired by the injury to the windpipe. Death must have occurred within a few minutes.

The extent of bony injury indicated that the bullet must have been fired from a medium or high velocity weapon but since the missile was not recovered it was not possible to determine the calibre. There was nothing to suggest that the weapon had been discharged at close range.

The track of the wound within the body indicated that after entering the body the bullet had first passed from right to left and slightly downwards until it struck the spine, whence it had been deflected slightly upwards and forwards. If the deceased was fully erect when struck, then the bullet must have come directly from his right and slightly above him. ”




55.11 Dr Carson also described a number of minor external injuries.1 His findings about these injuries were as follows:2

“Superficial injuries on the body surface included a shallow laceration on the outer part of the left eyebrow, and abrasions on the left cheek, the upper lip, the left cheek, the left side of the neck, on the backs of the hands and on the front of the left knee. Some were probably caused when he fell to the ground after being struck by the bullet; others, particularly those on the face and neck with a linear marking, could have been caused by his being dragged along face-downwards, or by his sliding along the ground on falling. All these injuries were of trivial nature and none played any part in the death. ”



55.12 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 and in his written statement to this Inquiry,2 Dr Carson confirmed the conclusions set out in his autopsy report.



55.13 In their report, Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan reached conclusions similar to those of Dr Carson, which they summarised as follows:1

“[Jackie] DUDDY was struck by a single bullet in the right shoulder which entered the back of the right side of the chest, damaged the right lung, spine, major blood vessels and the left lung and then exited through the left upper chest.

Assuming the Normal Anatomical Position the initial track clearly passed from right to left and there is probably a slight angle backwards. After deflection by the scapula the track passed forwards into the chest where it was again deflected this time by the spine. The greatest care must be exercised in interpreting the track angles in this injury since the mobility of the shoulder may allow for many different positions of the chest and body with the arm in the same position.

The other injuries are minor and due to blunt trauma. The injuries to the face and knee are consistent with a collapse, the injuries to the hand may have been caused in the same way but other forms of minor blunt trauma cannot be excluded. ”



55.14 The photographs of Jackie Duddy’s body taken in the mortuary show the wounds and other injuries described by Dr Carson. We have examined these photographs but do not reproduce them here. A diagram appended to the report of Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan1 illustrates the positions of the wounds.

55.15 Dr John Martin, then a Principal Scientific Officer in the Department of Industrial and Forensic Science in Belfast, examined the clothing of Jackie Duddy. In his report dated 18th February 19721 he set out the following findings:

“There is a small hole in the right shoulder area of the jacket (item 1). Traces of lead were detected on the edge of this hole which is consistent with a bullet entry. A larger hole in the area of the left chest is consistent with bullet exit. There was corresponding damage to the shirt (item 2). ”



55.16 Dr Martin tested the jacket that Jackie Duddy was wearing when he was shot, and swabs taken from his hands, for the presence of lead particles. Apart from the traces of lead consistent with bullet entry around the hole in the right shoulder of the jacket, Dr Martin detected no significant number of lead particles on the jacket and none on the hand swabs. He concluded that Jackie Duddy had not been using a firearm.1



55.17 Mr Alan Hall, then a Senior Scientific Officer in the same department as Dr Martin, examined the outer clothing of Jackie Duddy for explosives residue. None was detected.1



Where Jackie Duddy was shot

55.18 When discussing the first shots fired by Lieutenant N, we referred to the evidence of the photographer Gilles Peress, who was in Chamberlain Street. After that incident, Gilles Peress ran on to the end of Chamberlain Street.1As he told the Widgery Inquiry, he saw a body in what he described as Rossville Square (by which he meant what we call the car park) beside which was a priest waving a handkerchief.2He then took the following photograph.

55.19 Fulvio Grimaldi, the photojournalist, told the Widgery Inquiry that he arrived at the south end of Chamberlain Street and saw first aid men and priests around a body in the middle of the car park. He said that he watched them duck as they were being fired at from the direction of the Army vehicles; and that he went back to the corner of Chamberlain Street and shouted at the soldiers to stop firing. The shooting continued; the first three shots went over his head. Fulvio Grimaldi then approached the group around the body and took photographs.1

1 M34.1; WT7.61

55.20 In his evidence to this Inquiry, Fulvio Grimaldi said that his recollection was that shots were fired and he shouted at the soldiers before he saw the body.1He told Paul Mahon2that he had seen Jackie Duddy fall;3Fulvio Grimaldi does not appear to have said this on any other occasion and in our view it is probably wrong. It appears from the Mahon transcript that Fulvio Grimaldi was having difficulty in recalling the sequence of events surrounding the shooting of Jackie Duddy. Fulvio Grimaldi took the following photographs of Jackie Duddy lying in the car park.

1 M34.58; Day 131/31-34

2 Paul Mahon completed an academic dissertation on the events of Bloody Sunday in 1997 and thereafter undertook further substantial research into the subject, in the course of which he conducted a large number of recorded interviews of witnesses, the great majority of whom were civilians.

55.21 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Liam Bradley identified himself as the man shown wearing a cap in these photographs. In his written statement to this Inquiry, Charles Glenn, a Corporal in the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps, said that the first of these photographs showed the scene as he attended to Jackie Duddy. He can be recognised in this and the other two photographs by his Order of Malta Ambulance Corps uniform.2



55.22 It is possible, from the lines marking the car park bays, to see more or less exactly where Jackie Duddy was in the Rossville Flats car park when these photographs were taken. However, there is evidence that indicates that he was probably a little further north when he fell.

55.23 Fr Edward Daly (who later became Bishop Daly) is the priest shown in these photographs. In his evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 and in an account given to Philip Jacobson and Peter Pringle of the Sunday Times on 16th March 1972,2 he said that he had been in Rossville Street between Eden Place and Pilot Row when he heard the Army vehicles and saw them coming towards Rossville Street. He ran with others across the Eden Place waste ground and past the western end of the wire fence. At about the corner of the Rossville Flats he passed a young boy, and shortly after that, when the boy was a few feet behind him, he heard a shot ring out, looked round, and saw the boy falling. Fr Daly’s evidence was that Jackie Duddy fell forwards onto his face and, alluding to the car park markings, that he “actually fell on the ground on the cross-section of one of those lines – I think about the third or fourth one in. Again I could not swear to that, but it was in the middle of that diagram for the cars ”.3




55.24 Fr Daly ran on, not realising that a live round had hit Jackie Duddy, and then lay on the ground for cover. After a time, he looked over his shoulder and saw Jackie Duddy lying on his back. Fr Daly then went to the aid of Jackie Duddy.1 He did not appreciate that in the meantime a Mr Barber had come to Jackie Duddy’s aid, and until he discovered this Fr Daly was puzzled as to how Jackie Duddy had come to be lying on his back.2



55.25 We are sure that the man to whom Fr Daly referred in his evidence to the Widgery Inquiry was the late Willy Barber, who said in an interview with John Barry of the Sunday Times Insight Team that a young man (evidently Jackie Duddy) had been running on his left and suddenly fell forwards. Willy Barber and someone else put their arms under his shoulders and tried to drag him along, but found him very heavy and turned him over.1



55.26 Brian Johnston told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1 that he saw Jackie Duddy fall forwards onto his face at a point that he indicated on a photograph as being near the centre of the line separating the third and fourth parking bays in the row of seven closest to Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, counting from the end closer to the waste ground.2 Brian Johnston said that after he fell, Jackie Duddy’s head was pointing towards the south-east corner of the car park of the Rossville Flats and his feet were pointing towards Rossville Street.3





55.27 The Inquiry experts Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan noted in their report that Jackie Duddy sustained a number of minor injuries to the face (predominantly on the left side) and the front of the left knee, consistent with a collapse.1 This in turn is consistent with the evidence that Jackie Duddy fell forwards.



55.28 On the evidence of these witnesses we are sure that Jackie Duddy was shot and fell on his face as he was moving in a generally southerly direction, probably somewhere around the centre of the row of seven parking bays closest to Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, and that his body was then dragged a short distance further on and turned over, so as to arrive in the position in which it is seen in the photographs shown above. We set out below an aerial photograph of the Rossville Flats, showing on the basis of this evidence where Jackie Duddy fell and where he was when the photographs were taken.

55.29 According to the Sunday Times Insight article published on 23rd April 1972,1 Neil McLaughlin, Jackie Duddy and others came along Chamberlain Street from William Street, and seeing the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) drawn up in the car park surged towards it, “most if not all of them ” on their way to the back of the car park. However, a note prepared by John Barry of the Sunday Times Insight Team of an interview with Neil McLaughlin does not explicitly record that the group going along Chamberlain Street and into the car park included Jackie Duddy, but only that it included Neil McLaughlin “and his mates ”.2



55.30 According to this note, while Neil McLaughlin was a “self-confessed aggro man ”, he described Jackie Duddy as someone who usually went miles to avoid trouble. The note does not record Neil McLaughlin saying that Jackie Duddy was taking part in the riot at Barrier 14, and implies the contrary in the remark “If he wasn’t throwing stones, it was only because he was with Jack Duddy ”, though in his written statement to this Inquiry1 Neil McLaughlin admitted that he himself did throw stones.



55.31 Again according to this note, Neil McLaughlin said that the group of which he was part surged towards the soldiers who were disembarking from their vehicle (evidently Sergeant O’s APC). He saw an Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer fall, not necessarily shot, “by the back wall of the C[hamberlain] St row – in other words the crowd running forward had just about cleared the gable end ”; then Margaret Deery was shot on his right and Neil McLaughlin flung himself to the ground, after which he saw a crowd “up in the car park ” clustered around another body; and then Michael Bridge ran past Neil McLaughlin and was shot.

55.32 To our minds this evidence suggests that Neil McLaughlin’s group was active in the area around the gable end and side wall of the garden of 36 Chamberlain Street, rather than in the area where Jackie Duddy was shot; and that if (as seems to us to be the case) Jackie Duddy was the person around whose body a crowd was clustered in the car park, he must have parted company with Neil McLaughlin some time before he was shot.

55.33 Neil McLaughlin’s evidence to this Inquiry was that he now had no recollection of seeing Jackie Duddy at all on Bloody Sunday, either before or after he was shot, although he accepted that it was possible that he had done so.1 He took issue with, or said that he had no recollection of, several matters recorded in John Barry’s note.2 However, we are of the view that John Barry’s note is likely to be an accurate account of what he was told by Neil McLaughlin.

1 AM347.9; Day 91/15; Day 91/18 2Day 91/16-37

55.34 In his written evidence to this Inquiry,1 Kevin Leonard told us that he recalled seeing Jackie Duddy throwing stones in the group of people rioting with him at Barrier 14, and that Jackie Duddy was ahead of him when they ran down Chamberlain Street. However, in his oral evidence to this Inquiry, he accepted that this was all presumption on his part:2

“Q. It seems to be the case that when you saw a person shot in the courtyard of the flats you did not appreciate that it was Jackie Duddy?

A. No, not at the time.

Q. Is it the case, really, that you presumed that because this person was shot in a group ahead of you running across the courtyard, he must have run from Chamberlain Street?

A. That is correct.

Q. You presumed also, then, that if he was running along Chamberlain Street, as you had, he must have been in William Street near the barrier as you had?

A. Yes.

Q. And therefore you presumed, effectively, that he was at the barrier in the group throwing stones?

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. Really you cannot be sure that Jackie Duddy was in this group throwing stones at the barrier, is that fair?

A. Yes, that is a fair comment to say. ”



55.35 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Patrick McKeever told us that he and his friend Joseph McGrory were in a group of four or five people running from the south end of Chamberlain Street towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats. A young man (evidently Jackie Duddy) was running in the group, and fell in front of Patrick McKeever and to his right, clearly fatally injured. Joseph McGrory gave a similar account in his written statement to this Inquiry,2 but added that he did not recall whether the young man had been running as part of a group or on his own; and in oral evidence3 he said that people were scrambling in all directions and he would never have known from where the young man had come.


55.36 There is other evidence that suggests that Jackie Duddy may not have come down Chamberlain Street. We set out below, with some changes and additions, what we regard as an accurate summary of this evidence prepared by Counsel to the Inquiry:1

(a) In his written statement to this Inquiry2 (see also his interview with Jimmy McGovern3,4), Gerry Duddy said that he spoke to his brother Jackie at about the point marked C on the plan attached to his statement5 (on Rossville Street near the north end of Kells Walk). His brother told him that he had been up by the Army barrier in William Street. After a few minutes, his brother said that he was heading off, crossed Rossville Street and started to walk across the waste ground in the direction of the Rossville Flats. Subsequently the Army vehicles entered the area from Little James Street.

(b) In her Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) statement,6 Isabella Duffy described coming out of her brother’s flat in the Rossville Flats and seeing the arrival of the Army vehicles and the disembarkation of the soldiers. She said that she saw a little boy (in our view Jackie Duddy) running across the car park of the Rossville Flats “from the direction of the soldiers ”. She saw the soldiers shooting, and initially thought that they were firing baton rounds, but then saw the boy fall, apparently dead. In her statement to the Widgery Inquiry,7 she said that the boy was running away from the soldiers. In her oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, she said that her brother’s flat was on the second floor of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats.8,9 She told the Widgery Inquiry10 that the boy was coming “from the Saracens ”. In her statement to this Inquiry,11 she said that she saw Jackie Duddy running in from the entrance to the car park, and that he seemed to be at the tail end of the people who had run down William Street (sic) towards the Rossville Flats.

(c) In his written statement to this Inquiry,12 Brian Johnston said that Jackie Duddy had run from the waste ground by Pilot Row into the car park of the Rossville Flats, at the tail end of a small group.



3 Jimmy McGovern was the scriptwriter of the Channel 4 drama-documentary Sunday, first broadcast on 28th January 2002 to mark the 30th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.




9 Isabella Duffy gave us a different description of the location of her brother’s flat (AD158.1). However, we are sure that the brother in question was the late Patrick Friel, since Isabella Duffy referred to him as Pat Friel (AD158.1), and Patrick Friel’s son John Patrick Friel told us that Isabella Duffy was his aunt (AF32.25). Patrick Friel’s address was 19 Garvan Place (AF38.1; AF38.3), which was at the western end and on the second and third floors of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats.




55.37 It will be seen from the foregoing that there is conflicting evidence as to whether Jackie Duddy had come into the car park from the southern end of Chamberlain Street or from the Eden Place waste ground. On the whole we consider the latter the more likely. In this regard, although Fr Daly told us that he did not know where Jackie Duddy had come from when he saw him,1 his evidence to the Widgery Inquiry was to the effect that he remembered the young boy running beside him: “I was running and he was running and looking back, and I overtook him. He laughed at me. He was amused to see me running. ” There was then this passage:2

“LORD WIDGERY: But you overtook him?

A. Yes. I am not an athlete myself. I do not think I am a very graceful runner. He looked at me at this point about the corner of the wire. That is why he stuck in my memory. I went in here and the Saracens came right up this way, and I remember that the first shot I heard, this young boy was about a few feet behind me and there was a shot, and simultaneously he gasped or grunted – something like that. I looked round and he just fell. ”




55.38 We are sure that Fr Daly had come, as he said, from Rossville Street, somewhere between Eden Place and Pilot Row. The wire to which he referred in this passage was in our view the wire fence across the southern edge of the Eden Place waste ground, which Fr Daly must have passed at its western end. To our minds this account by Fr Daly is another indication that Jackie Duddy had come into the car park from the same general direction, rather than from the end of Chamberlain Street.

When Jackie Duddy was shot

55.39 Fr Daly has consistently stated that the shot that hit Jackie Duddy was the first shot that he heard after the soldiers entered the Bogside.1 As already noted, he did not realise at first that what he had heard was a live round as opposed to a baton round, though he did say to us: “I thought the shot was a bit sharp for that of a rubber bullet gun. ”2 Fr Daly told us that he did not recall hearing any reports of baton rounds before Jackie Duddy was shot. It is also clear from Fr Daly’s evidence that Jackie Duddy was shot soon after the soldiers arrived.3



55.40 Brian Johnston, to whose evidence we have referred earlier in this chapter,1 gave a Keville interview2 in which he described seeing Jackie Duddy fall about four to five feet to his right; and went over to lift him up. He said: “… I know that up until this stage there were no guns fired at all. ”


55.41 We have discussed earlier in this report1 the circumstances of the arrest of William John Doherty by Sergeant O near the back wall of the Chamberlain Street houses, which from the evidence we have considered in that context was soon after Sergeant O’s APC had arrived in the car park. We now describe the evidence of a number of civilian witnesses whose accounts seem to us to show that Jackie Duddy was shot at the same time as, or immediately after, this incident.


55.42 We have referred above1 to John Barry’s note of his interview of Willy Barber. According to this note, Willy Barber said that he ran past a paratrooper who was trying to beat hell out of an old man with the barrel of his rifle. He turned at “the Chamberlain St gable ” and saw someone thumping the soldier in the face. This enabled the old man to run off, but the soldier apprehended him again. Willy Barber ran, and a young man running beside him fell.2 It seems to us that the “old man ” was William John Doherty, and from Willy Barber’s account of then trying to move the fallen man, which we have considered above, we are sure that this was Jackie Duddy.



55.43 We have also referred above1 to the evidence of Isabella Duffy when considering the direction from which Jackie Duddy had come. In her NICRA statement, Isabella Duffy said that after she had seen a boy fall in the car park of the Rossville Flats she saw an old man being beaten.2 In our view she was referring to Jackie Duddy and William John Doherty respectively.


55.44 Elizabeth Dunleavy told us that she saw the shooting of Jackie Duddy after she had seen three soldiers beating a “boy ” (who may well have been William John Doherty) and after a “boy ” in Order of Malta Ambulance Corps uniform had been hit by a baton round (perhaps Charles Glenn, although if so Elizabeth Dunleavy appears to have been mistaken as to how he was hurt).1 Her NICRA statement2 does not refer to the beating, but places the other two incidents in the same sequence.



55.45 We have already referred1 to some of the evidence of Charles Glenn, a Corporal in the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps, when considering the arrest of William John Doherty. As we have already noted, Charles Glenn described how he was hit with a rifle butt and knocked to the ground after trying to intervene in an incident in which a paratrooper had grabbed an old man, which we consider is likely to have been the arrest of William John Doherty. In his NICRA statement he recorded that as he fell, he heard a shot. He was stunned, but when he recovered, he saw a man lying in a pool of blood in the car park with Fr Daly bending over him.2 We have no doubt this was Jackie Duddy. A similar account appears in the record of Charles Glenn’s interview with Philip Jacobson of the Sunday Times,3 and in his written statement to this Inquiry.4




55.46 Celine Brolly described to this Inquiry being in a flat on the second floor of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats.1 According to her NICRA statement,2 she saw a “First Aid boy ” running to the aid of a middle-aged man who was being punched and battered by three soldiers. The first aid boy was thrown on the ground. “He was still lying on the ground and Father Daly called him. ” It seems from this statement that by then Fr Daly had gone to Jackie Duddy. We consider that this “First Aid boy ” was Charles Glenn, who went to the aid of Jackie Duddy and can be seen beside him in the photographs shown earlier in this chapter.3



55.47 According to his NICRA statement1 Patrick McCrudden was visiting a friend at 37 Donagh Place. This was on the top floor of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, at about the centre of that block. He gave an account of seeing the “saracens ” come in, and continued:

“The people were fleeing in panic. While one soldier was attacking a middle-aged man, a member of the Order of Malta attempted to intervene. The soldier turned and struck this first aid man (dressed in the usual grey uniform) first with the butt of the rifle on both body and face and kicked him. The Order of Malta man collapsed and disappeared from view behind a wall. The middle aged man was arrested. Others were being beaten up and arrested in the same manner in different parts of the wasteground.

I glanced down into the courtyard and saw a man lying on the ground with dark red stains on his chest. Father Daly seemed to be attending to this man. ”



55.48 In our view what Patrick McCrudden saw was Sergeant O arresting William John Doherty; Charles Glenn, the Corporal in the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps; and then Fr Daly attending Jackie Duddy.

Whether Jackie Duddy had anything in his hands

55.49 A number of witnesses said that Jackie Duddy had nothing in his hands. As to accounts given in 1972, Fr Daly said in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry that when he reached Jackie Duddy there was nothing in his hands.1 He also told the Widgery Inquiry that when he passed Jackie Duddy before he fell “he was not carrying anything that I saw in his hand ”.2 William McChrystal recorded in his NICRA statement that when he reached Jackie Duddy Fr Daly was kneeling over his body, and added: “When I arrived at the youth’s side there was no evidence of any weapon, gun, nail-bomb, or stone. ”3 Patrick Gerard Doherty recorded in his NICRA statement4 that he saw Jackie Duddy fall, and that “He had nothing in his hands ”.



55.50 In evidence to this Inquiry Cathleen O’Donnell,1 Brian Ward,2 Kevin Leonard3 and Isabella Duffy4 all told us that Jackie Duddy had nothing in his hands. All except the first of these witnesses gave statements in 1972, but none said anything in those statements about whether Jackie Duddy had anything in his hands when he was shot.5








55.51 On the other hand, two witnesses gave evidence to the opposite effect.

55.52 In his Keville interview1 Christy Lavery described seeing a man fall: “we had just got about three quarters the way across the flats when he fell, as he was falling I saw the blood spurting from his chest and I stopped and turned him over the blood was running out of him he had obviously been shot. ” A little later in this interview he was asked whether any of the people he witnessed being shot or beaten were “armed with any stones or any guns or anything else? ”. He replied: “The boy who was shot had a stone in his hand but he had no arms. When he fell his hand was facing up and there was a stone on it. ”



55.53 Christy Lavery gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. In his written evidence he told us that Jackie Duddy had a stone in his right hand.1 In his oral evidence he first described the stone as “pretty small about tennis ball size ”, but later as smaller, perhaps the size of a golf ball or large marble.2



55.54 We have already referred to the evidence of Brian Johnston as to where Jackie Duddy fell, and to his account of what he then did.1 In his written evidence to this Inquiry,2 Brian Johnston told us that when he reached Jackie Duddy: “I saw the fellow’s right hand opening. Inside there was a pebble the size of a bead. I remember thinking ‘my God, did you think you were going to take on the might of the British Army with a pebble’ .” He went on to state that he had since thought about it and believed that the pebble must have been scooped up into his hand as he fell. Brian Johnston said nothing about what Jackie Duddy had had in his hand in his interview with Kathleen Keville or in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry.3


55.55 On the basis of these accounts, we consider that Christy Lavery and Brian Johnston were the first to reach Jackie Duddy after he had fallen. Both gave accounts of seeing a stone in Jackie Duddy’s right hand. If they were right about this, that stone might well have fallen out of his hand as he was dragged a short distance, which would account for the fact that Fr Daly did not see it when he went to the body. Despite the other evidence to which we have referred above, we have concluded that Jackie Duddy probably did have a stone in his right hand when he was shot, though its size is uncertain.

What Jackie Duddy was doing when he was shot

55.56 Fr Daly1 and a substantial number of other witnesses2 described Jackie Duddy as running southwards when he was shot.




55.57 However, in his written evidence to this Inquiry,1 Patrick Gerard Doherty told us that at the time he was shot Jackie Duddy was “standing shouting at the soldiers, he was not running away ”. He also told us that he thought Jackie Duddy then fell on his back. When he gave oral evidence he was asked about this:2

“Q. When you said to us earlier ‘when they moved out of the way, I seen he was lying on his back’, does that mean that the other people that were in the car park surrounding him and between you possibly and him, that your view was somewhat obscured?

A. Yeah.

Q. I am not suggesting that when you – at some stage he was not on his back, he definitely ended up on his back?

A. (inaudible) when I seen him, he was lying on his back. I only presumed that he had fell to the –

Q. But I am suggesting the body of the evidence is when he was shot he fell on to his face, and after some time he was turned onto his back?

A. Most likely is.

Q. Which is not too far away from what you are saying, but I am suggesting that when you eventually got a clear sight of him lying on his back, it was that that led you to the conclusion that he must have been standing facing the soldiers when he was shot; could you be a bit mistaken about that?

A. Might have been, it has been a long time ago. ”



55.58 Patrick Gerard Doherty said nothing in his NICRA statement about what Jackie Duddy was doing when he was shot.1 In view of the large body of evidence to the effect that Jackie Duddy was running, we believe that Patrick Gerard Doherty was mistaken in his recollection on this point, as he acknowledged could be the case after so long. In our view Jackie Duddy was running away from the soldiers when he was shot.



Whether Jackie Duddy was in the middle of a hostile crowd

55.59 The representatives of the majority of represented soldiers referred to the evidence of Neil McLaughlin, to which we have referred above,1 that having come down Chamberlain Street he and about 20 others advanced, throwing stones at the APC.2 In reliance on that evidence they submitted:3

“It is therefore probable that Jack Duddy was accidentally hit at a time when he was among or close to a hostile crowd that was throwing objects at the soldiers, and when a soldier aimed at another person. ”



55.60 We do not accept this submission. Apart from the fact that no soldier (save perhaps Private R) admitted even the possibility that he had hit anyone by accident, and all maintained that the people that they had hit had been engaged in activities that justified them being shot, the submission proceeds upon the assumption that Jackie Duddy had come down Chamberlain Street with Neil McLaughlin and others who had previously been rioting. For reasons we have given,1we are of the view that Jackie Duddy had probably come from the Eden Place waste ground. Furthermore, we accept Fr Daly’s evidence that Jackie Duddy was near him when he was shot and that, in that area of the car park at least, people were only trying to run away.2



55.61 Fr Daly told us that he was towards the rear of the crowd that ran through the car park of the Rossville Flats. He said that quite a number of people had been running close to him and Jackie Duddy.1 He also gave evidence that a number of people had been running in the immediate vicinity of himself and Jackie Duddy at the time of the shooting, although he emphasised that he had not been counting heads; and that there were a substantial number (some 60 to 100) of panic-stricken and frightened people ahead of him trying to escape through the gap between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats.2


55.62 Brian Johnston (to whom we have referred above1) told us in his written statement to this Inquiry2 that Jackie Duddy was running at the tail end of a small group, having become isolated and fallen a little behind. In his oral evidence he said that the group consisted only of Jackie Duddy, the priest (Fr Daly) and two or three others.3



55.63 Other witnesses, namely Angela Copp,1Kevin McDaid2and Martin Tucker,3have also said that there were a few other people, but not very many, close to Jackie Duddy as he ran.



55.64 Although Jackie Duddy probably had a stone in his right hand when he was shot, we do not know whether he was about to throw it when he was shot. The medical evidence is that he was shot in the right shoulder, which indicates that at the moment of shooting his upper body was turned towards the soldiers from whom he was running, but it does not follow that he was about to throw the stone, as opposed to turning to see where the soldiers were.

Where Jackie Duddy was taken

55.65 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Fr Daly recorded that after he reached Jackie Duddy there was more gunfire, and he and Charles Glenn lay down beside Jackie Duddy. Fr Daly then described giving Jackie Duddy the last rites, and seeing the shooting of Michael Bridge while still lying beside Jackie Duddy. Fr Daly said that Willy Barber and another man crawled out sometime after Michael Bridge had been shot, and offered to help to carry Jackie Duddy to a position where he could receive medical aid. They suggested that Fr Daly should go in front, carrying a white handkerchief, and that they would carry Jackie Duddy behind him. Just as they were about to stand up and make a dash to Chamberlain Street, a gunman appeared at the wall of the last house in Chamberlain Street and (in an incident to which we return later in this report2) fired two or three shots at the soldiers. Fr Daly shouted at the gunman to go away, which he did. Fr Daly remained on the ground for a few more moments, and then rose onto his knees and was about to stand up when the Army opened fire again. He and the others with him lay down again for a while.


55.66 In his interview with Philip Jacobson and Peter Pringle of the Sunday Times,1 Fr Daly said that the scene of him and the others rising and then throwing themselves to the ground when firing broke out again was shown on CBS film footage broadcast in the United States.



55.67 However, the surviving CBS footage1 shows only the next stage of events, in which Fr Daly, waving a bloodstained handkerchief, led the way as Willy Barber, Liam Bradley, Charles Glenn and William McChrystal carried Jackie Duddy out of the car park of the Rossville Flats to Chamberlain Street. This sequence also appears to show Fr Daly reacting to the sound of shooting, and in his oral evidence to us2 he confirmed that there was “gunfire coming in, at that stage, again ”. It must be borne in mind that this gunfire, or some or it, may have been that occurring in Sector 3, as we describe when dealing with the events of that sector.


55.68 Fulvio Grimaldi’s photograph also shows the group led by Fr Daly making their way across the car park.

55.69 Fr Daly said in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry1 that he and the group carrying Jackie Duddy went up Chamberlain Street and turned right into Harvey Street, where they were challenged by soldiers, and where they met the BBC reporter John Bierman and his camera crew.



55.70 These soldiers were from C Company, who had come through Barrier 14 in William Street. Later in this report1 we discuss the actions of the soldiers of C Company in Chamberlain Street.



55.71 Fr Daly said in his interview with Philip Jacobson and Peter Pringle1 that a couple of shots were fired as he and those carrying Jackie Duddy moved up Chamberlain Street, but he did not know the source of that gunfire.



55.72 Hugh McMonagle told us in his written statement1 that he joined the group led by Fr Daly at the south end of Chamberlain Street and helped to carry Jackie Duddy up the street. As they did this, Hugh McMonagle could hear shooting. He thought that shots were being fired south down Chamberlain Street over the heads of the group carrying Jackie Duddy. Having seen the BBC footage filmed by Cyril Cave,2 he said that it showed a soldier at the corner of Chamberlain Street and Eden Place firing a shot from his midriff towards the south end of Chamberlain Street, at the time when Jackie Duddy was being carried up the street.



55.73 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Cyril Cave referred to the soldier who is seen in his film footage2 in a doorway at the corner of Chamberlain Street and Eden Place. Cyril Cave said that this soldier shouted “Hold fire. They are bringing a casualty ”, but that he had not actually seen any of the soldiers firing in Chamberlain Street. However, in his written statement to this Inquiry,3Cyril Cave said that he thought that he had seen the soldier fire a shot down Chamberlain Street, and that about half a minute later he had heard a paratrooper shout “casualty coming! ” and had seen Fr Daly and the group carrying Jackie Duddy approaching. In his oral evidence4Cyril Cave said that although he was not sure, he thought that it was possible that his footage showed the soldier in the doorway firing down Chamberlain Street.




55.74 On the other hand, Cyril Cave’s colleague John Bierman told us in his written statement1 and in his oral evidence2 that although the soldier in the doorway was in a firing position he did not fire his weapon. John Bierman also said3 that he heard a voice saying “Hold your fire ” coming from south of the junction of Chamberlain Street and Eden Place, and he deduced that these were Fr Daly’s words. In view of this we consider that Hugh McMonagle was mistaken in coming to believe that a soldier had fired down Chamberlain Street at this time and that Cyril Cave’s evidence to the Widgery Inquiry that he saw no soldier firing in Chamberlain Street is to be preferred to his later recollection. No soldier of C Company reported firing his rifle on Bloody Sunday and there is no other evidence to suggest that any of them did so.




55.75 Willy Barber said in his Sunday Times interview1 that he temporarily left the group carrying Jackie Duddy because he had two baton rounds in his pocket and did not wish to be caught with them in the city centre, and that after relieving himself of the baton rounds he rejoined the group. Cyril Cave’s footage2 shows the group carrying Jackie Duddy as they approached and turned the corner of Harvey Street. Hugh McMonagle has taken the place of Willy Barber, who then runs forward and rejoins the group at the corner.



55.76 James Dakin, a Daily Express staff photographer, took a photograph which shows the group carrying Jackie Duddy as they turned the corner into Harvey Street. A second photograph, taken by Frederick Hoare, a Belfast Telegraph staff photographer, and a third, taken by James Dakin, show the group moving up Harvey Street.

55.77 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Fr Daly said that the group proceeded up Harvey Street to the corner of Waterloo Street, where they laid Jackie Duddy on the ground, on Willy Barber’s coat. Soldiers further down the street ordered them to clear off. A woman came out of a house and screamed at the soldiers that Jackie Duddy was only a child and that they had shot him. Another woman called an ambulance. People came out of the houses. Fr Daly and others knelt by Jackie Duddy and said a prayer. After a time the ambulance arrived.



55.78 It appears from Charles Glenn’s NICRA statement1 and from the record of his interview with Philip Jacobson2 that when he arrived in Waterloo Street Charles Glenn checked Jackie Duddy’s pulse and breathing and, finding no signs of life, concluded that he had died on the way to Waterloo Street. In his statement to this Inquiry3Charles Glenn said that he thought that Jackie Duddy was already dead when he first reached him in the car park of the Rossville Flats, although he acknowledged that he was not qualified to make that assessment.




55.79 The ambulance driver Norman McElhinney and attendant William Wilson recorded in statements made to the RUC1that they took Jackie Duddy to Altnagelvin Hospital where Mr Harvey pronounced him dead on arrival. They then conveyed his body to the mortuary.



55.80 We return later in this report1 to consider whether it is possible from the evidence available to us to identify the soldier who shot Jackie Duddy.


Margaret Deery

Biographical details

55.81 Margaret Deery, often known as Peggy Deery, was 38 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. She lived in Swilly Gardens, Creggan, with her 14 children, whose ages ranged from 16 years to 10 months. Her husband had died of cancer in October 1971, aged 37 years.1


Prior movements

55.82 In her statement to the RUC,1 Margaret Deery said that she had reached the Rossville Street area after being given a lift in a car from the Creggan to Great James Street and then walking down Little James Street. According to Philip Jacobson’s notes of his interview of her,2 Margaret Deery told him that she was “not really on the march ” but had been “intending to look at the end part of the march ”. The car journey is not mentioned in these notes, and Margaret Deery did not say in either of her other accounts3 how she reached Rossville Street.




55.83 On the other hand, Margaret Deery’s daughter Helen Deery told us in her written statement to this Inquiry,1 and in an interview with Stephen Gargan of Gaslight Productions Ltd, the co-producer of Sunday, a drama-documentary first broadcast in 2002,2 that she accompanied her mother on the march, together with two cousins and one of her mother’s friends. Margaret Deery’s son Owen Deery said in his written statement to this Inquiry3 that he had also been with his mother at the beginning of the march. Celine Brolly told us in her written statement4 and in her oral evidence5 that she saw Margaret Deery moving down the part of William Street east of the junction with Rossville Street towards Barrier 14.






55.84 The evidence of Helen Deery, Owen Deery and Celine Brolly satisfies us that Margaret Deery took part in the march on Bloody Sunday, and that the account that she gave to the RUC of how she came to be in the area of Rossville Street was untrue. However, we find it understandable that Margaret Deery should have been unwilling to admit that she had been on the march, since had she done so she might have been prosecuted and imprisoned for taking part in a prohibited public procession. Indeed, in her oral evidence to this Inquiry1 Helen Deery told us that when her mother made her statement to the RUC,2 she was afraid to say that she had been on the march in case she was charged. We consider that this is the reason why Margaret Deery lied to the RUC about how she reached the Rossville Street area, and apparently also to Philip Jacobson about whether she had been on the march. In these circumstances, we do not attach any significance to these lies in evaluating the remainder of Margaret Deery’s evidence.



Medical evidence

55.85 Mr George Fenton, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Altnagelvin Hospital, gave the following description of injuries to Margaret Deery’s left thigh in a letter to Detective Sergeant Cudmore of the RUC dated 7th February 1972:1

“Admitted with gun shot wound thigh. Small entrance wound on front of thigh and very large exit wound on back of thigh. There was extensive damage to thigh muscles and comminuted fracture of femur. ”



55.86 In recovering from her injuries, Margaret Deery suffered serious complications. On the evening of Bloody Sunday, she underwent an operation at Altnagelvin Hospital, during which she received a transfusion of blood which was afterwards discovered to be rhesus incompatible. Following the transfusion, she developed acute renal failure and on 1st February 1972 was transferred to the renal unit at Belfast City Hospital. She became very ill and for a time it was thought that her leg might have to be amputated. Margaret Deery remained at Belfast City Hospital until 3rd March 1972. She was then transferred back to Altnagelvin Hospital, where she underwent further operations. She was eventually discharged on 29th May 1972.1


55.87 Dr Richard Shepherd and Mr Kevin O’Callaghan, the experts on pathology and ballistics engaged by this Inquiry, reviewed the medical records relating to the injuries sustained by those who received non-fatal gunshot wounds on Bloody Sunday. In their report on these cases,1 Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan made the following comments about Margaret Deery’s injuries:

“Peggy [Margaret] Deery is recorded to have had an ‘extensive wound on the back of her left thigh’ and a complex and compound fracture of the left femur. At operation a wound to the front of the lower left thigh was recorded as simply being present but the wound on the back of the lower left thigh was described as ‘extensive’. The track of the wound is therefore more likely to be from front to back than the reverse. No comment can be made concerning the nature of the projectile. ”



Accounts given by Margaret Deery

55.88 Margaret Deery was in hospital while the Widgery Inquiry was sitting, and gave no oral evidence to that Inquiry. She died in 1988 and consequently gave no evidence to this Inquiry. However, she gave the following accounts:

1. a statement to the RUC dated 19th February 1972, when she was in Belfast City Hospital;1

2. a statement for the Widgery Inquiry dated 29th February 1972, which was taken and witnessed by a Belfast solicitor’s apprentice;2

3. notes made by Philip Jacobson of the Sunday Times Insight Team of an interview with her conducted on 29th February 1972;3and

4. a note of her recollections made on 25th January 1983.4We do not know who made this note.






55.89 According to her statement to the RUC, Margaret Deery had a conversation with Fr Daly at the junction of Rossville Street and William Street in which Fr Daly advised her to go wherever she was going because “there may be a lot of trouble ”. Her statement continued:1

“At this point there was no stone-throwing or trouble that I could see, but again I was in the middle of the main crowd. The Army then fired coloured dye and I ran like hell towards Rossville Street at the back of the High Flats. By this time my sister and I had got separated in the crowd. I was round the back of these high flats running towards the wee gate at the back of the flats whenever I tripped and fell. There were hundreds of people in this area running to get away from the Army who had driven into the back of the flats in Saracens. A man had fallen on top of me and he got up and ran around the corner. Whilst I was on the ground I was able to see the Army men in front of me and I saw and heard them shooting. I attempted to get up but I slipped and cut my head and nose. I then saw a soldier in front of me and he appeared to be taking aim at me and I then felt a blow to my left thigh. I called to a man to help me which he did and he took me to a house in Chamberlain Street where Mr. Slingwing the Chemist treated my wound. I was later taken to Altnagelvin Hospital by ambulance along with Michael Bridge. I’d like to say that I did not take part in the Civil Rights March although I was in the crowd at William Street. I am not a member of any organisation and have not attended any Civil Rights Meetings. ”



55.90 Detective Sergeant Cudmore took this statement. In his report1he referred to a map on which Margaret Deery had marked her approximate position when she was shot. We are sure that that map is the following, which accompanied Detective Sergeant Cudmore’s report when that was passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

55.91 Margaret Deery’s written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, dated 29th February 1972, was in the following terms:1

“I am Mrs. Margaret Deery. I am a widow and I have 14 children. I live at […].

On January 30 the soldiers were firing C.S. Gas. I ran from William Street, along Rossville Street to Chamberlain Street. Someone shouted that the soldiers were coming. I looked at the courtyard of Rossville Flats and saw 8 or 9 Saracens coming in. Soldiers jumped out of the Saracens. There was a man standing there. He seemed to be mesmerised. I ran towards this man. I told him that I thought that the soldiers looked as if they were going to shoot. I looked. I sa [sic] a soldier take aim and fire. He, the soldier who shot me, was only about 20 feet away from me. I was hit in the leg. I had absolutely nothing in my hands. I fell. I got up and fell down again. I hadn’t realised I had been hit by a lead bullet. I didn’t see anybody else fall down.

A man came to help me. The man pulled me round the corner. A young fellow I knew, Michael Kelly, helped the man to carry me into a house. The chemist, Otto Slingwing, bandaged up my leg. The ambulance came and took me to Altnagelvin. Micky Bridge was in the ambulance with me. ”




55.92 The note of Philip Jacobson’s interview of Margaret Deery records her as saying:1

“I was standing just out on the waste ground by eden street, actually it was where pilot row used to be and i heard a man nearby shout ‘the army’s coming in.’ I looked over towards rossville street and there were the big pigs coming in and one headed over towards where we were. then i saw a soldier with the red para hat come up from the pig that was near us and he took aim I thought at me or the man standing next to me (she doesnt know who he was). I shouted to this chap ‘for gods sake, watch out, that ones going to shoot’ and as i moved towards the man, for protection like, i felt this big thump in my leg, in the thigh really. its funny, i never heard the bang. the soldier was not more than 25 yards, i could recognise him clearly if i saw him again. he was about your height (5' 10"), fatter than you (!) with a round fat face and a little dark of complexion, although he also had that black stuff streaked over his face.

I tried to get up, i didnt realise i was shot then, and i staggered forward and fell again and cut my eye open (deep cut over left eye). when i was down the second time i saw a chap suddenly fall and crawl away round the corner into chamberlain street. i thought he was shot, but then he came back round and him and Michael Kelly carried me round into chamberlain street. ”



55.93 The note of Margaret Deery’s recollections made in 1983 includes the following passage:1

“‘I’ll never forget his face. I can’t forget his face’ – Eleven years on, Peggy Deery, one of the survivors of Bloody Sunday, still remembers the Paratrooper who deliberately shot her from a range of less than 10 feet.

After the initial outburst of firing, Peggy and her friends had run in panic through the Rossville flats carpark and into Chamberlain Street. There she had seen a soldier lift his rifle and point it at her. She threw herself against a Mr Leo Deehan shouting ‘get down, he’s trying to kill us’, when she felt a terrific blow on her leg.

As she lay on the ground, unaware that she had been shot, she was trampled on by the fear-stricken crowd. She could hear someone calling, ‘that woman’s been shot’ and she remembers Michael Kelly and another man crawling towards her and dragging her into a house in Chamberlain Street. Michael Kelly was himself to be murdered less than 10 minutes later. ”




Where Margaret Deery was shot

55.94 As will have been seen from her own statements, Margaret Deery gave conflicting accounts of where she was when she was shot. We do not find this surprising, as she had received a serious wound, as well as later suffering from the results of a transfusion of the wrong blood. According to the map on which she had indicated her approximate position for the RUC, Margaret Deery was about halfway between the corner of the back garden of the southernmost house on the west side of Chamberlain Street and the gap between Block 1 and Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, while in her RUC statement she appeared to be describing running towards “the wee gate at the back of the flats ”. We do not know what Margaret Deery meant by this, though it is possible she meant one of the gaps between the blocks of the Rossville Flats. According to her written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, she was at Chamberlain Street looking at the courtyard of the Rossville Flats. According to her interview with Philip Jacobson, she was standing “just out ” on the waste ground, “where pilot row used to be ”. According to the record of what she said in 1983, she was in Chamberlain Street.

55.95 There is, however, other evidence of where Margaret Deery was when she was shot.

55.96 According to her son Tony Deery, Margaret Deery told him that she had been shot “at the back of Chamberlain Street ”.1 Her daughter Helen Deery confirmed in oral evidence2 that her mother had told her that she had been shot at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses, but had not said where along the line of those houses. However, in the course of Helen Deery’s interview with Stephen Gargan,3 her sister Margie appears to have indicated that her mother was shot beside the back gate of the third house from the south end of Chamberlain Street.


55.97 There is a Sunday Times Insight Team note relating to Margaret Deery:1

“bernard gallagher was standing very close to mrs deerey [sic] when she was hit. he places it as just out from the end gable of chamberlain street where a group of some 20 people were standing. this was the gable nearest the waste ground and mrs deery was standing on his right, nearer the waste ground. gallagher recalls she was instantly picked up by several men and whisked into 33 chamberlain street. ”



55.98 The only witness called Bernard Gallagher known to us gave a NICRA statement and a written statement to this Inquiry,1but mentioned nothing about Margaret Deery. However, there is a Peter Gallagher who gave a written statement to this Inquiry2in which he described seeing a woman shot just beyond the end of the gable wall at the end of Chamberlain Street. In view of the close similarity between this position and that recorded in the Sunday Times note, it seems to us that he must have been the man who gave an account to the Sunday Times Insight Team. His NICRA statement,3so far as it concerns Margaret Deery, records that he was at the gable house at the end of Chamberlain Street with a group of about 20 people when a girl (clearly Margaret Deery) was shot in the thigh beside him and immediately taken to the last house on the east side of Chamberlain Street. Peter Gallagher also gave oral evidence to this Inquiry.4He told us that he was a chronic alcoholic; and although he maintained that this had not affected his memory of Bloody Sunday, we took the view that we should treat his evidence to us with caution and prefer to rely on the accounts that he gave in 1972.





55.99 The note of Margaret Deery’s recollections made in 1983 refers to her seeing a soldier lift his rifle and point it at her, and throwing herself against a Leo Deehan, shouting to him to get down.

55.100 There is a handwritten statement signed by an L Deehan, which seems to us to be an account by the Leo Deehan to whom Margaret Deery referred.1We are not sure when this statement was made, but it was supplied to the Inquiry along with other material dating from 1972 and so is likely to have been made at that time. The Inquiry prepared a typed copy of the statement.2


55.101 According to this statement,1Leo Deehan was heading towards Free Derry Corner when there was a shout that the Army was coming:

“Suddenly a couple of Saracens appeared on the roadway racing towards the flats. All around me people were shouting and trying to hide or run towards the back of the flats. I followed but one of the Saracens headed right up on the waste ground. There was a big pool of water near the middle and I thought I saw a girl go down right in the path of the tank. I raced on. The Saracen seemed to be going one way then the other after people.

All of a sudden soldiers appeared some had helmets some none but I noticed they all carried rifles and not the usual shield & Baton.

I ran close to one tank to avoid being seen, as I got level a soldiers ran round from the other side. I ran at him and believe I pushed him more than punch him he staggered, and looked like losing his gun.

I ran on, I then saw one soldier beating and elderly man with the butt of his rifle. The old man fought gamely, he went down and the soldier tried to bash him with the rifle again. I had stopped and was edging back. I started to run towards the soldier shouting at him.

I saw another appear and raise his gun. He seem to point at me, I faltered and just then a woman ran across my path. She shouted he will shoot you and, I believe she pushed me, it was like a bad dream and I must have been all tensed up for I know I lost my balance. At that second I heard the same type of sharp shot I had heard earlier. It made me jump for it was much closer, and I just noticed the soldiers rifle move or something made me look at him, as I started to run in the opposite direction.

Then I heard a fellow close by calling she is shot. It was then I noticed the woman that had pushed me was lying on the ground bleeding. I thought she had been hit by a rubber bullet. I ran back and grabbed her and pulled her toward the cover of the wall. The fellow reached her and we two carried her across to Nelis’s House on Chamberlain St. ”


55.102 In our view this account shows that Leo Deehan was in the area where William John Doherty was being arrested, ie at or close to the position described by Peter Gallagher.

55.103 We have also considered the evidence of a number of other witnesses in seeking to establish where Margaret Deery was shot.1


55.104 However, these witnesses either did not see Margaret Deery until after she had been picked up, or were uncertain about whether or not they had done so, or gave only an imprecise account of where she had fallen; though one of them, Brian McGee,1while he only saw Margaret Deery being carried, described what he saw in the following terms:

“A youngish looking woman, who looked to be about 18 or 20, was then carried around the gable end, close to where I was standing. She was being carried by two men, one of whom was holding her under her knees and the other was holding her by the shoulders. ”


55.105 This evidence indicates to us that Margaret Deery was shot, not on the very corner of the garden wall of the houses in Chamberlain Street, but at a point further to the north-east of that corner.

55.106 We have also considered the evidence of Charles McCarron,1who in a NICRA statement recorded seeing a woman shot in front of him as he was walking home along Chamberlain Street. His description of what then happened demonstrates that the woman was Margaret Deery, but in view of the other evidence discussed above, the location cannot in our view be right, unless by walking home along Chamberlain Street Charles McCarron meant walking along the backs of the Chamberlain Street houses facing the Eden Place waste ground, in which case his account would be consistent with the other evidence that Margaret Deery was in that area when she was shot.

55.107 The representatives of the majority of represented soldiers submitted that the account John Tyre gave to this Inquiry1of seeing a girl with a leg wound being lifted off the ground in Chamberlain Street as he ran towards the car park, was (in the absence of any suggestion that she had been put down on the ground and then picked up again) “inconsistent with her having been shot anywhere other than in Chamberlain Street itself ”.2We do not know whether Margaret Deery was put down and picked up again in Chamberlain Street. Billy Gillespie told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,3that he saw her on the ground surrounded by a crowd of people when he was in Chamberlain Street. In his oral evidence,4he described her position as “more in to the waste ground to the High Flats at the bottom ... of Chamberlain Street ”. It may be this incident that John Tyre saw. We do know that she was taken to 33 Chamberlain Street, the southernmost house on the east side of that street. In our view, in the light of the evidence discussed above, Margaret Deery was not shot in Chamberlain Street.

55.108 We conclude, on the basis of the material we have considered, that Margaret Deery was shot somewhere near the corner of the garden of 36 Chamberlain Street, probably a matter of feet to the north or north-east of that corner. This position is marked in red on the map below

55.109 We note at this point that the representatives of the majority of represented soldiers observed in their submissions that:1

“The fact that Mrs Deery managed to name three different people as being the man next to her when she was shot, is even more strange, as it will be recalled that she told the Sunday Times’ Insight Team that she ‘doesn’t know who he was’. ”



55.110 The three different people to whom this submission referred were the man named in the Sunday Times note discussed above1as “Bernard Gallagher ”, Billy Kelly and Leo Deehan.



55.111 As Counsel to the Inquiry pointed out,1this criticism of the accounts given by Margaret Deery is misconceived. Margaret Deery did not say that “Bernard Gallagher ” was standing next to her. The note that contains his name2accompanies Philip Jacobson’s record of the account given by Margaret Deery,3but it is clear from its terms that it is a note of information provided not by Margaret Deery but by “Bernard Gallagher ” himself. As explained above, we believe that “Bernard Gallagher ” was in fact Peter Gallagher. As to Billy Kelly, this name appears in a further note made by a Sunday Times journalist,4which records Billy Kelly’s account of Margaret Deery rushing over and pushing him out of the way as a soldier was about to shoot him. As the journalist noted, “mrs deery puts it somewhat differently ”. As to Leo Deehan, the fact that Margaret Deery gave this name in 1983 is in no way inconsistent with the fact that when she was in hospital in February 1972 she did not then know who the man was.



When Margaret Deery was shot

55.112 Margaret Deery herself, as can be seen from her accounts that we have set out above,1consistently stated that she had been shot after the Army vehicles had come into Sector 2 and soldiers had disembarked. Leo Deehan and Peter Gallagher gave evidence to the same effect, as did many of the other witnesses to whom we have referred. Peter Gallagher’s NICRA account2was in the following terms:

“From Harvey Street I could see a soldier at Quinn’s Lane, and Saracens in Rossville Street. The soldier was armed with a rifle which he was pointing in our direction. I panicked, and ran as fast as I could towards the flats. When I reached the end of Chamberlain Street I could hear rifle fire from the direction of Rossville Street. I headed for the kiosk at the junction of two blocks of flats. As I ran I saw one of the crowd in front fall. When I saw the blood on his chest I realised he had been shot, and ran back the way I had come to the gable-house at the end of Chamberlain Street, where about twenty other people were standing. As we tried to discover where the shooting was coming from and wich [sic] way to get away from it a girl was shot beside me. She had been shot in the back of the thigh, was picked up instantly and taken to the last house on the left hand side of Chamberlain Street (coming from William Street). ”




55.113 In our view, Peter Gallagher witnessed the shooting of Jackie Duddy, followed quite soon by Margaret Deery falling from a gunshot wound in the thigh. The fact that Peter Gallagher thought that Margaret Deery had been shot in the back of the thigh, whereas the entry wound was in the front, is in our view explicable on the basis that, as will have been noted from the medical evidence to which we have referred above,1the wound at the back of her thigh was much more extensive than that at the front.



55.114 Other evidence suggests that Margaret Deery was shot at the same time as, or very soon after, the arrest of William John Doherty. As will have been seen from the account of Leo Deehan that we have set out above,1he referred to a soldier beating an elderly man just before Margaret Deery pushed him and was shot. In our view that elderly man was almost certainly William John Doherty.



55.115 According to John Barry’s interview note,1 Neil McLaughlin told him that Margaret Deery fell shortly after he had seen an old man emerge from behind the APC in the entrance to the car park of the Rossville Flats, having been lifted by a soldier from (as Neil McLaughlin was sure although he could not see) the doorway at the north end of Block 1. The soldier was beating the man over the head and leading him into the waste ground, presumably to the other APC. Neil McLaughlin told John Barry that Margaret Deery had fallen after the soldiers had fired. Neil McLaughlin’s description of the old man seems to us to be an account of William John Doherty being arrested and taken towards Lieutenant N’s APC. In oral evidence2 Neil McLaughlin said that he now had no recollection of this incident.



55.116 We should draw attention at this point to the fact that Billy Gillespie and Patrick McDaid gave accounts to the effect that it was after Margaret Deery had been shot and taken into 33 Chamberlain Street that Jackie Duddy was shot.

55.117 According to a note made by Peter Pringle of the Sunday Times Insight Team,1 Billy Gillespie “helped to carry mrs deery into 33 chamberlain st with michael bridge. went with bridge into the car park between the flats and saw duddy shot. ” However, in his written statement to this Inquiry,2 Billy Gillespie told us that he “did not see Duddy shot ”, and in oral evidence3 he said: “I cannot recall young Duddy getting shot. ” In these circumstances we consider that no reliance can be placed on Billy Gillespie’s original account of seeing Jackie Duddy shot a significant period after Margaret Deery had been shot and carried away.




55.118 According to his accounts Patrick McDaid also helped to carry Margaret Deery into 33 Chamberlain Street, and after he had left the house he saw a man shot as he ran from the west gable end of that street towards the gap between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats.1 However, as appears from these accounts, Patrick McDaid did not know at the time that the man was Jackie Duddy, but only afterwards learned his name. Since, from the evidence we have discussed above,2 we are sure that Jackie Duddy was shot soon after the soldiers had arrived and that Margaret Deery was probably shot soon after Jackie Duddy, we take the view that Patrick McDaid’s (second-hand) identification of the man he saw as Jackie Duddy cannot be correct. It is possible that the man Patrick McDaid saw was in fact Michael Bridge, another of the Sector 2 casualties whose shooting is discussed later in this report.3




Whether a soldier shot Margaret Deery

55.119 We now turn to the submission made by the representatives of the majority of the represented soldiers that Margaret Deery may have been shot as or before the soldiers deployed down Rossville Street and before any of them fired, from which it would follow that she must have been wounded by a paramilitary gunman.1


55.120 In our view this submission cannot be sustained. It involves a wholesale rejection of the evidence to which we have already referred, including the accounts Margaret Deery herself gave. As to the witnesses whose evidence is said to provide “persuasive ” support for it,1 we would make the following observations.



55.121 We have already considered1 the account given to this Inquiry by George Nelis,2 and for the reasons we have given we are of the view that it would be unwise to rely on his account as evidence that there was firing before or as the soldiers came into the Bogside. In any event his account does not contain anything to suggest that Margaret Deery was wounded at this stage.


55.122 Martin McGuinness told us that as he walked across the car park from Chamberlain Street towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats he saw some distance away to his left a woman being carried by a group of men across the car park.1 He said that he “had heard no shots being fired ” at this stage,2 nor had he seen any soldiers or any Army vehicles in the Bogside.3 He also told us that he only learned later that the woman was Margaret Deery and he said that his recollection of the circumstances was “an area where I am not speaking with 100 per cent certainty ”.4 For reasons given elsewhere in this report5 we are of the view that Martin McGuinness probably did see Margaret Deery, but that this was at a later stage and after soldiers had opened fire.




55.123 We have considered above1 and rejected Billy Gillespie’s evidence that Margaret Deery was shot a significant time before Jackie Duddy. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2 this witness told us that as he ran down Chamberlain Street, although he did not see the soldiers shooting, he heard live rounds and saw people falling on the Eden Place waste ground before he saw Margaret Deery. In his oral evidence he said that it was just rubber bullets that he had heard.3 However, even on his oral account, there must have been the shot that hit Margaret Deery, as according to him he then saw her lying on the ground. We are of the view that Billy Gillespie’s evidence falls far short of establishing that Margaret Deery was shot before the soldiers had arrived in Sector 2.

55.124 Patrick Moore gave evidence that he was in Chamberlain Street, saw soldiers at the Eden Place alleyway, and ran south down Chamberlain Street where he saw an elderly woman with a badly wounded leg being carried towards him. According to his account he then started to go across the car park when he saw two or three APCs arrive in the car park and soldiers taking up firing positions. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry he accepted that there might have been only one APC.1


55.125 It seems likely that Patrick Moore saw Lieutenant N and the two soldiers with him at the Eden Place alleyway. However, Patrick Moore readily accepted the possibility that he had got the sequence of events wrong,1 as in our view he had.



55.126 We have also considered Patrick McDaid’s accounts earlier in this chapter.1 He too told us that he had heard no shooting as he ran down Chamberlain Street and saw Margaret Deery being carried.2 As we pointed out in relation to the account given by Billy Gillespie, since she undoubtedly sustained a gunshot wound, someone must have fired. For the reasons given above, we are sure that Patrick McDaid was mistaken in his account of the sequence of events.



55.127 In these circumstances we are sure that Margaret Deery was shot after the soldiers had arrived and disembarked in Sector 2, probably soon after Jackie Duddy. We have found no evidence to suggest that a paramilitary gunman shot her, deliberately or by accident. Margaret Deery consistently maintained that she was facing towards the soldiers when she was shot. The bullet entered the front of her left thigh. We are left in no doubt that she was shot by a soldier. No-one has suggested, nor is there any evidence to suggest, that when she was shot Margaret Deery was doing anything that could have led a soldier to believe, albeit mistakenly, that she was posing or about to pose a lethal threat.

Where Margaret Deery was taken

55.128 Margaret Deery said in her statement to the RUC1 that after she was shot she called for help and a man took her to a house in Chamberlain Street. In her statement for the Widgery Inquiry of 29th February 1972,2in her interview with Philip Jacobson3and in her account of 25th January 1983,4she identified this man as Michael Kelly, who was himself shot in Rossville Street, as we discuss later in this report.5However, for reasons we give later,6it seems to us that Margaret Deery was mistaken about this and that Michael Kelly did not assist Margaret Deery after she was shot.




55.129 Several others, including Leo Deehan,1 Elizabeth Gallagher,2 Pascal Keys,3 Patrick McDaid4 and James McDermott5 appear to have helped to carry Margaret Deery to the house in Chamberlain Street.




55.130 The house to which Margaret Deery was taken was 33 Chamberlain Street, which was the southernmost house on the eastern side of that street and the home of Bridget Nelis1 and her daughters Anna Nelis2 and Margaret Nelis.3




55.131 Although in his oral evidence to this Inquiry1 he said that he no longer remembered this, Patrick McDaid said in a number of accounts given in 19722that when he was inside 33 Chamberlain Street he tied a scarf or handkerchief around Margaret Deery’s leg in an attempt to stop it bleeding.




55.132 Anna Nelis said in her NICRA statement,1 and in her written statement2 and oral evidence3 to this Inquiry, that she went outside to seek help after Margaret Deery had arrived at the house. Anna Nelis saw Otto Schlindwein, a local pharmacist, and brought him into 33 Chamberlain Street before going out again to call an ambulance from another house nearby.




55.133 While Margaret Deery was in 33 Chamberlain Street, Otto Schlindwein bandaged her leg with a blanket.1



55.134 One of Fulvio Grimaldi’s photographs shows Margaret Deery in 33 Chamberlain Street. Otto Schlindwein told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he is the man seen on the right side of the picture wearing a hat. In his oral evidence2he said that when this photograph was taken he was holding Margaret Deery’s leg, which he had already bandaged.

55.135 The Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer Charles McMonagle was also present. He said in his Keville interview1 that after attending to Michael Bridge, who had also been brought to 33 Chamberlain Street, he found Margaret Deery with a towel over her leg, and applied some triangular bandages over some more towels in order to control arterial bleeding. In his report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps,2Charles McMonagle said that he had applied the bandages after his colleague Majella Coyle, who had no first aid kit, had covered the wound with a towel. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3he said that this might have been Majella Doherty, not Majella Coyle.




55.136 Majella Doherty said in her Keville interview1and in her report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps2that she bandaged Margaret Deery’s leg with dressings borrowed from the other Ambulance Corps volunteer in the house, and with pillowcases provided by the occupants, because a soldier outside the house had asked to search her kit bag and had returned it held open and upside down, with the result that such supplies as remained in it after her treatment of various earlier minor casualties had fallen to the ground. She had been unable to retrieve them because she had heard gunfire.


55.137 There is another photograph that also shows Margaret Deery in 33 Chamberlain Street. In her statement to this Inquiry,1Majella Doherty, now Majella Cassidy, told us that this photograph shows her arm extending across Margaret Deery’s chest.



55.138 Anna Nelis said in her NICRA statement,1and in her written statement2and oral evidence3to this Inquiry, that after she had called the ambulance she returned to 33 Chamberlain Street and found that the wounded Michael Bridge had also been brought in. She was then told that an Army vehicle had drawn up outside the house, and she went out and asked the soldiers for help. Two soldiers of the Parachute Regiment then entered the house and saw both casualties before leaving. We return to this episode, and to the evidence of Anna Nelis and others about the attitude and language of the soldiers, when we discuss the actions of soldiers of C Company in Chamberlain Street.4




55.139 After this an ambulance arrived. The driver John Holmes1and the attendant William Gray2carried Margaret Deery out of 33 Chamberlain Street on a stretcher and took her to the Casualty Department at Altnagelvin Hospital.


55.140 Later in this report1 we consider whether it is possible from the evidence available to us to identify the soldier who shot Margaret Deery.



Michael Bridge

Biographical details

55.141 Michael Bridge was 25 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. He was then an unmarried man living in Tremone Gardens, Creggan. He was an unemployed labourer.1



55.142 It was brought to our attention that Michael Bridge was convicted of an offence some years before Bloody Sunday. We considered this conviction but it did not affect our view on any material issue and accordingly we say no more about it.

Prior movements

55.143 Michael Bridge took part in the march on Bloody Sunday. He has said in several accounts that after the march had begun, he was approached by a girl who asked him to act as a steward. He agreed to do so and was given a white steward’s armband.1


55.144 Michael Bridge said in his statement to the RUC1 that he and other stewards walked in front of the lorry at the head of the march, asking people to stay at the side of the road until the lorry had passed and then fall in behind it if they wished to join the march.



55.145 Michael Bridge can be seen in the following photograph, facing in the opposite direction to those who ran into the eastern end of William Street after the lorry had turned into Rossville Street. He explained to us in his oral evidence1 that at this stage he was trying to tell people in this group to go back and follow the lorry.

55.146 Michael Bridge told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1 that he and a number of other stewards went down William Street to Barrier 14, where they lined up facing the marchers and telling them to turn back and go to Free Derry Corner. His recollection was that initially the stewards succeeded in persuading some people to do this, but that stone-throwing began and that a stage was reached at which it became impossible to control the situation.


55.147 In two accounts given in 1972, Michael Bridge said that some of the youths in the crowd were carrying sticks, which he and other stewards removed from them.1 In his written statement to this Inquiry,2 he said that he did not now remember the youths having sticks.


55.148 The following photographs show Michael Bridge in front of Barrier 14, as he confirmed in his oral evidence to us.1 In the second of these photographs his white armband can be seen.





55.149 In his statement to the RUC,1 Michael Bridge said that after the water cannon had been used at Barrier 14, he thought that he could “feel fumes come from the water ”. He then “went into an alley at the back of Chamberlain Street and was sick on the waste ground ”. As we have explained earlier in this report,2 we are satisfied that CS gas was thrown from the crowd at Barrier 14 rather than by the soldiers. Michael Bridge confirmed in later accounts that he was affected by CS gas, and that he went down Macari’s Lane onto the waste ground, where he was sick.3



55.150 Michael Bridge recorded, in his statement to the RUC,1 that he then returned to William Street, where a few people were still throwing stones at the soldiers, who in turn began to fire baton rounds towards the stone-throwers. According to Philip Jacobson’s and Peter Pringle’s note of their interview of him,2 Michael Bridge told them that the stoning had become a bit worse at this stage, and that he saw the stone-throwers carrying a big sheet of corrugated iron as a sort of shield. In his written statement to this Inquiry,3 Michael Bridge said that he could not recall seeing the stone-throwers carrying the sheet of corrugated iron, but in his oral evidence to this Inquiry4 he said that his memory of this had been refreshed by looking at photographs.




55.151 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Michael Bridge told us that when he returned to William Street, his intention had been to continue to act as a steward, although he did not think that he had given the matter much thought. However, in a report by Brian Woosey published in the Sun newspaper on 2nd February 1972,2 Michael Bridge was quoted as saying that although there had been nothing in his hands when he was shot, he had “thrown a couple of stones at the barricades previously ”, and in his oral evidence3 Michael Bridge told us that this was correct. He acknowledged that the following photograph shows him adopting a confrontational position in William Street at a stage after the ground had been made wet by the water cannon, and said that he thought that by this stage he had been throwing stones.



55.152 Michael Bridge also said1 that Gilles Peress’s photograph, reproduced below, showed him standing behind the corrugated iron shield with what looked like a stone in his hand.



55.153 Michael Bridge said that he had thought at the time that if the soldiers had refrained from using their riot control weapons, the stone-throwers would either have become fed up or been persuaded by the stewards to leave, and that this view had probably influenced his actions after he returned to William Street.1 He also said that when he returned to William Street and joined in the stone-throwing, he was no longer wearing his steward’s armband.2 He thought it likely that he had used it to wipe his face after he had been sick, as he had said in his statement to the RUC3 that he had “got a piece of cloth ” for that purpose.

1 Day 93/61-63 3AB84.12

2 Day 93/71-73

55.154 Michael Bridge has said in several accounts that he was himself hit on the right foot by a baton round while he was in the area between Chamberlain Street and Barrier 14, and that he then went into Chamberlain Street, where he sat on the pavement until the paratroopers entered the Bogside.1 He is recorded in Philip Jacobson’s and Peter Pringle’s note2 as having said that although this hurt a bit, and caused a mark on his boot, it was nothing serious.

1 AB84.12; AB84.14; WT7.67-WT7.68; AB84.23; AB84.4;
Day 93/36-37
2 AB84.23


Medical evidence

55.155 Mr HM Bennett, a consultant surgeon at Altnagelvin Hospital, described injuries to Michael Bridge’s left thigh in a letter to the RUC dated 7th February 1972.1 He reported that there was an entry wound in the anterior part of the lateral side (ie outside) of the thigh and an exit wound in the posterior part of the same area. He considered that Michael Bridge had sustained a comparatively minor wound and was likely to suffer little if any permanent disability.

1 ED35.3

55.156 Dr Richard Shepherd and Mr Kevin O’Callaghan, the experts on pathology and ballistics engaged by this Inquiry, reviewed the medical records relating to the injuries sustained by those who received non-fatal gunshot wounds on Bloody Sunday. In their report on these cases,1 Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan made the following comments about Michael Bridge’s injuries:

“Mr Bridge had a through and through wound of the left thigh. In a letter of the 7th February 1972 to the RUC Mr Bennett states that the entry wound was on the front of the outside aspect of the thigh and the exit wound at the back of the outside aspect of the thigh. The track of the wound is therefore more likely to be from front to back than the reverse. No comment can be made concerning the nature of the projectile. ”


1 E10.6

Accounts given by Michael Bridge

55.157 Michael Bridge gave the following accounts in 1972:

1. a Keville interview;1

2. a statement to the RUC taken when he was still in hospital on 3rd February 1972;2

3. a further statement of which the Inquiry has only the first page.3This page bears no date or signature, but it is clear that the statement was taken in 1972, since Michael Bridge described himself in it as 25 years old, which was his age in that year. The Inquiry obtained this document from a collection deposited in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland by the solicitor who acted for the next of kin of 12 of the deceased at the Widgery Inquiry. It is similar in form to other statements believed to have been sent to that solicitor on 29th February 1972, in order that he might pass them to the Widgery Inquiry, by an apprentice solicitor in the firm that represented the wounded. We think it highly likely that the statement of Michael Bridge was taken by that firm in preparation for the Widgery Inquiry;

4. a written statement for the Widgery Inquiry dated 25th February 1972;4

5. oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry on 29th February 1972;5 and

6. an interview with the Sunday Times Insight Team journalists Philip Jacobson and Peter Pringle, conducted on 2nd March 1972.6

1 AB84.32-33

2 AB84.12-13

3 AB84.30
4 AB84.21-22

5 WT7.67-71

6 AB84.23-25


55.158 There are also records of interviews that Michael Bridge gave to Paul Mahon on 27th January 19981and to the author and journalist Don Mullan2on 23rd August 1998.3

1 X4.3.1-8

2 Don Mullan was the editor of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, a collection of some of the NICRA statements made by witnesses to the events of the day. The collection was published in 1997.
3 AB84.34-43


55.159 Michael Bridge submitted an approved draft written statement to this Inquiry on 30th September 1999 and gave oral evidence to this Inquiry.1He later made a supplementary written statement to this Inquiry.2

1 AB84.1-9; Day 93/20-95 2AB84.44-50

55.160 In his Keville interview Michael Bridge described people shouting that the Army vehicles were coming in, and said that he ran to the corner at the south end of Chamberlain Street with others.1The interviewer then asked him: “Did you see the young fella dead where was he lying? ”

“He was lying at the, in the carpark at the walls there. He was lying up off the wall and there was a priest and two other blokes there was blood flying out of his mouth and nose but he was dead.

[Female voice] And then what did you do?

I cracked up and turned round faced the troops and started screaming at them I was shot then.

[Female voice] And can you tell which soldier shot you was it a soldier that you could see?

No the soldier that was facing me he didn’t shot [sic] me, he put his, the rifle up to shoot at me it was possible I was standing facing him you know.

[Female voice] Yes

… And I was no more than ten yards away I was standing facing him and the bullet went in the side of my leg.

[Female voice] So were you shot from your left side?

I was shot on my left side at the maisonettes at the waste ground [inaudible] I am nearly sure it was the soldier at the side of the flats. ”


1 AB84.32-33

55.161 On 2nd February 1972 Michael Bridge refused to be interviewed by the RUC. He was apparently extremely agitated and, according to their reports, accused the RUC of shooting into the crowds from the City Walls on Bloody Sunday.1However, on the following day and in the presence of Fr Anthony Mulvey he made a statement to the RUC.2After describing what he had done on the march and being struck on the foot with a rubber bullet while near Barrier 14, Michael Bridge recorded that when people started shouting that the Army vehicles were coming:3

“I ran along Chamberlain Street and cut into Eden Place. On waste ground in front of me I saw an armoured personnel carrier parked with the back doors towards me. These doors were open. I saw two soldiers jump out of this vehicle and they were firing their rifles. I ran back into Chamberlain Street and a man aged about 30 to 40 years fell and I lifted him up. At this stage I saw a soldier standing with a rifle at the corner of the small shop at the rear of 12a Chamberlain Street. I heard a shot fairly close and I thought that this soldier had fired. I ran up Chamberlain Street towards the courtyard of the flats. There were about fifty other people running along Chamberlain Street as well. As I ran I heard a young lad say that there was a young fellow shot. His exact words were, “He’s shot dead, he’s shot dead ”. I ran into the courtyard and I saw a priest bending over a body. I had got to within two or three yards of the priest and I saw blood on the face of the person lying on the ground. I turned round, screamed at the soldiers and walked towards them. I saw a soldier about twenty yards from me with his rifle at his shoulder aiming at me. The next thing I felt was a thud on the left thigh. The soldier with the rifle at his shoulder could not have shot me but I was aware of another soldier at the bottom of Rossville Flats and to my left. I turned and walked a short distance and two fellows came running out and caught hold of me and told me I was shot. I felt the blood on my thigh and I was carried into the first house in Chamberlain Street. ”


1 AB84.10; AB84.11 3AB84.13

2 AB84.12

55.162 Michael Bridge gave a similar account in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry.1He added the detail that as he approached the body he could not remember any shooting. His account of the time after he had approached the body was in the following terms:

“4. While I was standing in the car park, just before I was shot, I noticed a Saracen parked in the waste ground between the rear of the houses in Chamberlain Street and the high flats in Rossville Street. I also noticed a soldier in a kneeling position with his rifle aimed into the car park at the corner of the Rossville Street flats. There was another soldier standing a few feet from the rear wall of one of the houses in Chamberlain Street. He had his rifle in his shoulder in an aiming position. I noticed that he did not have a riot visor down over his face. There was no camouflage paint on his face. ”


1 AB84.21-22

55.163 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, Michael Bridge again gave a similar account. He referred to the two soldiers, one kneeling at the corner of the flats and one standing out from the rear wall of the houses in Chamberlain Street, and said: “I don’t know which one shot me. ”1

1 WT7.70

55.164 The note of Philip Jacobson’s and Peter Pringle’s interview with Michael Bridge records that he ran to Jackie Duddy, and then ran back “towards the saracen ”:1

“I recall very clearly that i was shouting at one soldier up against the back wall of the houses at the top of chamberlain street; he was no more than thirty yards away and i remember he had no visor on his helmet. he brought his rifle to the shoulder and aimed at me. next thing, there was a thump in my leg.

at first i thought I had caught another rubber bullet. i didnt go down and was hobbling towards chamberlain street when a couple of boys dashed out to help me. they took me into the […], no 33, and i went through to the back yard and I think it was then that i realised i was shot, someone said, there s a woman shot in the leg in the front room. i didnt know then that it was peggy deery, who I know well. ”


1 AB84.24-25

Where Michael Bridge was shot

55.165 Sam Gillespie gave a statement in 19721in which he recorded:2

“I was taking photos of the civil rights march. I was in William Street taking pircures [sic] of the confrontation with the British Army when the army charged. I ran over Chamberlain Street. I was one of the last to enter. When I got to the square at Rossville Flats I see a bloke lying on the ground with about 10 people around him. He was dead. I took a picture of this. While I was taking it a young fellow who seemed to be his friend turned and faced the soldiers shouting, “Shoot me, you bastards. Shoot me. ” He was waving his hands in the air, and as he was moving toward the soldier who was taking cover at a Saracen he was shot twice in the leg. I believe his name is Michael Bridges. ”

1 As we explain below (paragraph 55.176), the photographs which accompanied the original of this statement were not attached to the copies of it obtained by this Inquiry.
2 AG36.17


55.166 In his written statement to this Inquiry1 Sam Gillespie told us that he had taken two photographs of Michael Bridge, one before he was shot and one immediately after. In his oral evidence he said2 that the time that passed between the taking of the two photographs was very short, and that after taking the first he had followed Michael Bridge’s movements through the viewfinder of his camera, waiting to see what happened to him, until the shot was fired and he took the second photograph. We set these photographs out below in the order in which Sam Gillespie recalled that he took them.

55.167 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Michael Bridge told us that he was sure that he was not the man shown on the far right of the first of these photographs because it was his very clear recollection that only two or three people were bent over Jackie Duddy when he, Michael Bridge, was shot, whereas the photograph shows more; but by the time he gave oral evidence he had changed his mind, and he agreed that he probably was the man on the far right of the photograph.2 He has never doubted that he is the man shown on the left in the second photograph.



55.168 Fr Daly also gave evidence in 1972 that suggested that by the time Michael Bridge was shot there were not many people around Jackie Duddy. In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, Fr Daly recalled that after he had reached Jackie Duddy a number of people gathered around, but he asked them to go away, which they did.1His statement continues:

“After a few minutes the gunfire got worse. We both lay down beside the boy as I gave him the Last rites of my church. I felt he was dying. Just as I had finished giving him the last rites, a young man dashed out past where we were lying towards the soldiers … I screamed at him to get back. He danced up and down in front of the soldiers shouting something that I could not understand. He had his hands help up at full stretch over his head. I saw a soldier at the corner of the flats take aim and fire at this man … he staggered and ran crazily around for a moment. I don’t know where he went then … I am certain that he was hit … I think his name was Bridge. ”




55.169 However, in his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Fr Daly did not exclude the possibility that the first photograph showed Michael Bridge on the right.1



55.170 The representatives of the majority of represented soldiers submitted that the first photograph did not show Michael Bridge, relying on his written evidence to this Inquiry and on the evidence of Fr Daly.1These representatives also submitted that an examination of the first photograph shows Jackie Duddy to be lying on his front because his heels are seen up and his toes down, whereas, as we have explained earlier in this chapter,2Fr Daly did not reach Jackie Duddy until he had been turned onto his back.



55.171 We do not accept these submissions.

55.172 In the first place, it seems to us that the location in which Jackie Duddy is shown lying on the ground is the same as that shown in the photograph taken by Gilles Peress, which we have considered when dealing with the shooting of Jackie Duddy. That photograph, reproduced below, shows Fr Daly with Jackie Duddy. On the basis of Willy Barber’s account to the Sunday Times,1we are of the view that Jackie Duddy was turned on his back before he was surrounded by the group of people shown in Sam Gillespie’s first photograph.



55.173 In the second place, we are not convinced that Sam Gillespie’s first photograph, which is out of focus, does show Jackie Duddy’s feet with his heels up and toes down. The poor quality of the image and the number of people around make it impossible to tell whether he was lying on his front or his back.

55.174 In the third place, in view of the gravity and fluidity of the situation, with most people’s attention (particularly that of Fr Daly) concentrated on the casualty, recollections as to the number of people present at any particular moment are not in our view likely to be necessarily reliable.

55.175 There remains the question whether Sam Gillespie was correct in his recollection that he had taken the second photograph after Michael Bridge had been shot.

55.176 A note at the top of the statement made by Sam Gillespie in 19721 indicates that photographs accompanied the original statement. Those photographs are not attached to any of the copies of that statement obtained by the Inquiry. In his statement and oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 Sam Gillespie told us that he thought that he had made his 1972 statement to a journalist from the Sunday Times, and that he gave the journalist his negatives, which were subsequently returned to him. He referred to this journalist as “Derek Humphries ”, although in fact his name is Derek Humphry. However, Sam Gillespie accepted the possibility that his 1972 statement had been made to a representative of NICRA. Since the statement is in similar form to a large number of NICRA statements, we are satisfied that the statement was taken on behalf of NICRA, and that Sam Gillespie was mistaken in thinking that Derek Humphry took the statement, although we have no reason to doubt that Derek Humphry met Sam Gillespie and borrowed his negatives.

1 AG36.17 2AG36.6; Day 142/64-66

55.177 In June 1999 the Inquiry received, from the archives of Liberty (then known as the National Council for Civil Liberties) held at the University of Hull, copies of five photographs, which bear on the reverse manuscript annotations indicating that they were taken by Sam Gillespie. Two of these photographs are identical to the two shown above.1

1 Paragraph 55.166

55.178 In October 1999, Sam Gillespie provided to the Inquiry some further copies of photographs taken by him on Bloody Sunday, some of which were annotated on the reverse. This set did not include the two shown above,1 but included copies of the other three photographs supplied by the University of Hull, without annotations, and of some more photographs not found in the archives of Liberty. Sam Gillespie was shown one of the photographs in this last category and the annotations on the back during the giving of his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 and was asked in general terms when he had made the annotations on the copies of his photographs in the possession of the Inquiry. He said that he had done this not in 1972 but only after he had been contacted for the first time by solicitors acting on behalf of this Inquiry.

1 Paragraph 55.166
2 Day 142/58-59


55.179 While we have no doubt that this answer was correct in relation to the photograph and annotations he was shown and the other annotations on the set of photographs provided to the Inquiry by Sam Gillespie, we are also satisfied that the annotations on the reverse of the five photographs from the archives of Liberty were made in 1972. As was explained in a circular letter dated 11th February 1972 from its General Secretary Tony Smythe,1 that organisation acted as a “central clearing house ” for the statements that we have described as NICRA statements. We think that it is highly probable that the five photographs held in the archives of Liberty were those that originally accompanied Sam Gillespie’s NICRA statement, and in our view Sam Gillespie would have had neither reason nor opportunity to annotate those photographs after they had come into the possession of Liberty.

1 AS28.9-AS28.14

55.180 We are confirmed in this view by the fact that, in the annotations on the reverse of the photographs obtained from the archives of Liberty, Sam Gillespie gave the address at which he lived at the time of Bloody Sunday and not his current address.

55.181 The annotations on the reverse of the first of the photographs shown above,1 which we are satisfied were made in 1972, are as follows:

“FIRST FRAME [1]

The death of McIlhenny with Michael Bradley (extreme right) running berserk away from body and shouting to be shot. He was.

Taken by Sam Gillespie [address] ”


1 Paragraph 55.166

55.182 The name “Bradley ” has been deleted and replaced by “Bridge ”. We do not know whether this amendment was made by Sam Gillespie or by someone else, but we have no doubt that the original reference to Michael Bradley was erroneous. We also have no doubt that “McIlhenny ” should read “Duddy ”.

55.183 The annotations on the reverse of the second of the photographs shown above,1 which we are satisfied were made in 1972, are as follows:

“NEXT FRAME [2]

Michael Bradley seconds before he was shot.

Taken by Sam Gillespie [address] ”


1 Paragraph 55.166

55.184 On this photograph, the name “Bridge ” has not been substituted for “Bradley ”, but it is clear to us that the same mistake has been made about the name as was originally made in the annotations on the previous photograph.

55.185 For these reasons we regard the annotations on this photograph as convincing evidence that Sam Gillespie believed in 1972 that he had taken his second photograph shortly before Michael Bridge was shot, rather than immediately after the shooting, which was his recollection when he gave evidence to this Inquiry. Since we consider that his original memory is more likely to be reliable, we have reached the conclusion that this photograph was taken shortly before the shooting of Michael Bridge.

55.186 Bearing these matters in mind, we are of the view that of the two photographs taken by Sam Gillespie, the first shows Michael Bridge advancing towards the soldiers while the second shows him very soon before he was shot. It may be that Michael Bridge had moved a little further towards the soldiers after this photograph was taken and before he was shot, but it seems that this cannot have been any great distance. Hence, by reference to the lines marking the car park bays, it is possible to show on an aerial photograph of the car park the approximate position (marked in red) where, on the basis of the evidence discussed above, Michael Bridge was when he was shot.


55.187 From the accounts that he gave in 1972, it seems to us clear that Michael Bridge had come along Chamberlain Street and seen Lieutenant N’s APC and soldiers disembarking from it. From his description in his RUC statement of seeing a soldier standing at the corner of a small shop at the rear of 12a Chamberlain Street (in other words, on the north side of the entrance to the Eden Place alleyway from the waste ground), and of hearing a shot, we have little doubt that he saw Lieutenant N in that position and heard one of his shots. His descriptions of hearing, as he ran further along Chamberlain Street, a young lad saying that someone had been shot dead, and of seeing, as he ran into the courtyard of the flats, a priest bending over a body, make us sure that Michael Bridge arrived in the Rossville Flats car park at some stage after Jackie Duddy had been shot and after Fr Daly and others had gone to Jackie Duddy.

55.188 Michael Bridge’s account to the Sunday Times of being told, after he had been wounded and taken to 33 Chamberlain Street, that a woman (in our view Margaret Deery) was in the front room of that house indicates to us that she had been wounded and carried there before Michael Bridge was wounded, possibly even before Michael Bridge had reached the southern end of Chamberlain Street, as he made no other mention of seeing her.

55.189 There are other witnesses who in our view confirm that Margaret Deery was taken into 33 Chamberlain Street before Michael Bridge.

55.190 At the time 33 Chamberlain Street was the home of Bridget Nelis and her daughters Anna and Margaret Nelis. The only evidence we have from Bridget Nelis (who died before this Inquiry was established) is a statement that she gave to the RUC in 1972. In this she noted that an injured woman was brought into her house, and that later two wounded civilians were carried away. It appears that she did not see the second casualty arrive.1 Anna Nelis told NICRA that she was at home when a woman with a leg wound was carried into her house. Anna Nelis stated that she subsequently went to the home of Mrs Donahoe in High Street in order to telephone for an ambulance; during the time she was gone Michael Bridge was carried into 33 Chamberlain Street.2 In her evidence to this Inquiry, Anna Nelis gave a consistent account of this sequence, and stated that she subsequently learned that the injured woman was Margaret Deery.3 Margaret Nelis also stated to NICRA and the RUC in 1972 that Michael Bridge was brought into 33 Chamberlain Street after Margaret Deery.4 In her evidence to this Inquiry, Margaret Nelis stated that she remembered Margaret Deery being carried into her home, but although she understood that an injured man might also have been brought into the house she did not have any recollection of this happening.5

1 AN26.1

2 AN8.9

3 AN8.2-3; Day 103/6-10
4 AN11.8; AN11.10

5 AN11.3; Day 103/62


55.191 George Nelis (Bridget Nelis’s son) recorded in his NICRA statement that he was in his mother’s house (33 Chamberlain Street) when: “An injured woman (Mrs. Deery) was carried by a few men into the kitchen. A few minutes later there was an injured man carried into the house. ” Soldiers arrived at the house “Approx 5 minutes later ”.1

1 AN9.9

What Michael Bridge was doing when he was shot

55.192 Philip Jacobson’s and Peter Pringle’s notes of their interview of Michael Bridge carry the following handwritten annotation: “He did chuck a half brick just before getting hit. ” Philip Jacobson told us that this annotation was in his handwriting and that he thought that it must have been based on something that Michael Bridge had told him and Peter Pringle.1However, later in his evidence he agreed that the annotation might have been made as the result of information obtained elsewhere.2

1 Day 191/147-148 2Day 191/168-170

55.193 As already noted, Paul Mahon interviewed Michael Bridge. During the course of this interview, which was video-recorded, Michael Bridge played Paul Mahon a tape recording of an interview that he had earlier given to a local radio station, BBC Radio Foyle.1

1 AB84.49

55.194 Paul Mahon’s interview of Michael Bridge was transcribed,1including the recording played during it. Some of that recording is indecipherable, but its transcription includes the following:2

“Yeah, he was dead, he was down, obviously dead. [Even, in my, you know, sort of …umm … there was a stone just beside the wall.] A priest was with him. Well, even then, like, it’s [still not there]. There are no functions or registrations in the head. [You see it’s there] in full sight. You see it, but it’s not believable. You know it’s … [indecipherable]. [I turned anyway, and I gathered up a number of stones] and the soldiers at this time were … the Saracens, were [just at the high flats on the wasteground]. There was one soldier in particular. He was [along a well]. I started throwing stones at him.

[Indecipherable references to hands in the air and verbal abuse] ‘You can shoot anybody, so shoot me?’ It sounds stupid, but you’d never believe that they would do it, you know. But he shot. He shot five or six shots [at me into the leg. [Indecipherable] [but I didn’t feel it]. [I thought I was hit by a rubber bullet.] I could sense the bullets flying around me. [A boy run out from Chamberlain Street. He grabbed me.] [I was spinning, he grabbed me. He pulled me down to the first wee house in Chamberlain Street. ”

1 Square brackets were used on the transcripts of the Mahon interviews to mark any part of the recording where the transcriber was either unsure of, or could not hear, what was being said.
2 X4.3.5


55.195 In his supplementary statement to this Inquiry,1made after he had given oral evidence, Michael Bridge told us, as he had in his earlier evidence to us,2that he threw no stones in the Rossville Flats car park. His explanation of what he had said in the Radio Foyle interview was: “If I said otherwise in the radio interview about gathering up or throwing stones, it was a point of detail which, on reflection, is probably wrong. ”3

1 AB84.49

2 AB84.5; AB84.6; Day 93/51-55
3 AB84.49-50


55.196 However, there is other evidence to the effect that Michael Bridge was throwing stones or bricks at the soldiers shortly before he was shot.

55.197 William McClintock gave a NICRA statement1in which he recorded that he had been watching from his mother’s flat at 9 Mura Place. This was in Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.

“I could see a wounded man lying in the car park, – Fr. Daly and the Knights of Malta were giving him aid. Paratroopers were lined along the wall opposite the back of the Flats and they opened up fire on the group. A man stepped forward with about half a brick and threw it at the Paratroopers. He then opened his coat and roared ‘Go ahead and shoot me’ and the Paratrooper did, in the leg. ”


1 AM113.1

55.198 In the light of the evidence we have already considered, it seems to us that the man William McClintock saw was Michael Bridge.

55.199 We have also taken into account the evidence of Billy Gillespie,1Hugh Barbour2and Bernard Doherty. We have expressed some doubts earlier3about the sequence of events in the account of Billy Gillespie, and Hugh Barbour appears to have mistakenly thought that Michael Bridge was protesting about the shooting of Michael Bradley, another casualty in Sector 2, to whom we turn later in this chapter.4Bernard Doherty gave evidence that when he was in the car park he saw someone with a piece of brick in his hands, advancing towards the soldiers, and this may have been Michael Bridge.5

1 AG33.2; Day 84/149

2 AB10.3; Day 88/93

3 Paragraphs 55.117 and 55.123
4 Paragraph 55.211

5 AD54.3; Day 85/117-125


55.200 Our assessment of the evidence considered above leads us to conclude that Michael Bridge had thrown at least one stone or piece of brick at the soldiers shortly before he was shot. It follows that in this regard he gave inaccurate evidence to us. However, we consider that at the moment he was shot Michael Bridge no longer had anything in his hands, as Fr Daly told us was the case,1and that he was instead advancing towards the soldiers shouting and gesticulating. Sam Gillespie’s second photograph, which we believe was taken shortly before Michael Bridge was shot, in our view supports this conclusion, since it contains no indication that at that stage Michael Bridge was still holding a stone or a brick.

1 H5.5

55.201 This photograph also shows that there was no-one in front of or beside Michael Bridge. As a number of witnesses told us, including Fr Daly, he was advancing towards the soldiers on his own. There is nothing to suggest, and no-one has suggested, that Michael Bridge was armed or posing or about to pose a lethal threat. Whether at the time he was shot his actions could have led a soldier mistakenly to believe that he was or might have been about to throw a bomb is a matter to which we return,1when we consider whether it is possible to identify the soldier who shot Michael Bridge.

1 Paragraph 64.17

Where Michael Bridge was taken

55.202 Michael Bridge was taken to Bridget Nelis’s house at 33 Chamberlain Street after he had been shot.

55.203 In his statement to the RUC,1Michael Bridge recorded that after he had been shot, he turned and walked a short distance. Two men came running out, caught hold of him and told him that he had been shot. He was carried into the first house in Chamberlain Street.

1 AB84.13

55.204 In Peter Pringle’s and Philip Jacobson’s note of their interview of Michael Bridge,1he is recorded as saying that he “didnt go down and was hobbling towards chamberlain street when a couple of boys dashed out to help me ”.

1 AB84.25

55.205 In his statement to this Inquiry,1Michael Bridge said that the shot spun him round and that two boys ran out of Chamberlain Street and grabbed him. One of them told Michael Bridge that he had been shot. Michael Bridge then collapsed and was either carried or dragged to Chamberlain Street.

1 AB84.6

55.206 William McCloskey,1Maurice McColgan,2Hugh McMonagle3and OIRA 84all said that they carried or dragged Michael Bridge into 33 Chamberlain Street. Maurice McColgan explained5that the house was so crowded that there was nowhere to put Michael Bridge, and on the advice of an Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer he and William McCloskey took Michael Bridge out into the back yard of the premises.

1 AM120.3; Day 73/160; Day 74/21-27

2 AM124.2; Day 74/167-169

3 AM369.4; Day 100/50
4 AW14.3; Day 410/50-51; Day 410/68-69

5 AM124.3


55.207 Fulvio Grimaldi’s photograph, reproduced below, shows Michael Bridge lying on the ground in the back yard of 33 Chamberlain St. Maurice McColgan identified himself1 as the man on the left of the photograph with long hair and spectacles.

55.208 The Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer Charles McMonagle said in his interview with Kathleen Keville1that he attended to Michael Bridge at 33 Chamberlain Street. There was no severe haemorrhaging but he bandaged the wound and covered Michael Bridge with a blanket in the hope of concealing him from the soldiers. He also referred to this in his report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps.2In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3he said that he believed that he had treated Michael Bridge, although he no longer recalled doing so.




55.209 Michael Bridge was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital in the same ambulance as Margaret Deery. We are satisfied that he is the man with leg injuries described in statements made on 2nd February 1972 by the ambulance driver John Holmes1and the attendant William Gray.2



55.210 Later in this report1we consider whether it is possible to identify the soldier who shot Michael Bridge.



Michael Bradley

Biographical details

55.211 Michael Bradley was 22 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. He was recently married and lived in Rinmore Drive, Creggan. He was an unemployed painter.1


Prior movements

55.212 Michael Bradley went on the march on Bloody Sunday with some of his brothers and friends.1


55.213 Michael Bradley stated in several accounts given in 1972 that he was part of the crowd in the area of William Street between Barrier 14 and the junction with Chamberlain Street. When the water cannon was used, and when CS gas was released, as he thought by the soldiers but as we have found by civilians, Michael Bradley moved back up William Street and paused for some minutes as he was affected by the gas. He then proceeded down Quinn’s Lane, otherwise known as Macari’s Lane, and across the waste ground towards the Rossville Flats.1 In his written statement to this Inquiry2 he gave a similar account, although he said that while the rioting was taking place at Barrier 14 he was standing outside James Porter’s shop. As can be seen from the following photograph, that shop was in the part of William Street west of Macari’s Lane, and hence further from Barrier 14 than the position indicated in the accounts that Michael Bradley gave in 1972.


55.214 In his notes of his research interview of Michael Bradley,1 Tony Stark of Praxis Films Ltd wrote that Michael Bradley was “AMONG THOSE STONING THE TROOPS ” at Barrier 14. According to the transcript of the fuller interview that followed, Michael Bradley did not in that interview say that he had thrown stones at Barrier 14, although he described a confrontation with the soldiers at the barrier and said that “of course we grabbed for the barbed wire fences or whatever you call them, pickets, we grabbed for those trying to part them, trying to make our way through ”.2 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3 Michael Bradley was asked whether there had been attempts to part the barrier, and said that he presumed so, but that he had been several rows back from the front.



55.215 In his interviews with Paul Mahon1 and Jimmy McGovern2 and in his written statement to this Inquiry,3 Michael Bradley said that stones were thrown at Barrier 14 but did not say that he had thrown stones himself.



55.216 Michael Bradley is also recorded as having said in his second interview with Tony Stark1 that “the placards which we were carrying were thrown at the army ”, but in his interviews with Paul Mahon2 and Jimmy McGovern3 and in his written statement to this Inquiry4 he said that the placards were thrown over his head by people further back in the crowd.




Medical evidence

55.217 Mr Fenton, the consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Altnagelvin Hospital, gave the following description of injuries to Michael Bradley’s arms and chest in his letter to Detective Sergeant Cudmore dated 7th February 1972:1

“Gun shot wounds right & left forearms and chest. Left forearm – small entrance and exit wounds on forearm. Comminuted fracture radius, mid shaft level. Entrance and exit wound on front of chest. Soft tissue wound only. Right forearm showed large entrance and exit wounds with severe damage to muscle and nerves of forearm and severe comminuted fracture radius at junction of upper 1/3 with mid. 1/3. ”




55.218 An X-ray of Michael Bradley’s right forearm showed that several small metallic foreign bodies were projected in the soft tissues opposite the head of the radius.1



55.219 In a letter to Michael Bradley’s general practitioner dated 22nd March 1972, Mr Fenton expressed the opinion that a bullet had struck the left forearm first and passed across the chest and into Michael Bradley’s right forearm, to which it caused much more severe damage, probably because by that time it was spinning.1



55.220 Dr Richard Shepherd and Mr Kevin O’Callaghan, the experts on pathology and ballistics engaged by this Inquiry, reviewed the medical records relating to the injuries sustained by those who received non-fatal gunshot wounds on Bloody Sunday. In their report on these cases,1 Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan made the following comments about Michael Bradley’s injuries:

“Mr Bradley had a through and through wound right forearm, a through and through wound to the left forearm and two apparently minor injuries to the front of the right lower chest. The injuries to the right arm were the most severe of these injuries.

In a discharge summary of the 22nd March Mr Fenton suggests that the injuries to the left arm are less severe because it was struck first and a bullet ‘went straight through’. Mr Fenton also suggests that the right arm was the more severely injured because the bullet was ‘probably spinning’ when it struck. It is clear that there was damage to both the bones and the nerves of this arm.

A report on an X ray of the right forearm of the 30th January 1972 indicates that ‘Several small metallic foreign bodies are projected in the soft tissues…’ The presence of these fragments is confirmed on the X ray films made available to us. However no foreign bodies were recovered at operation and neither are there any records or reports from DIFS [the Department of Industrial and Forensic Science].

It is not possible to determine if the injuries to the arms were caused by one or more than one projectile or if they originated from left or right. No comment can be made concerning the nature of the projectile or projectiles.

The injuries to the chest are only described as ‘a superficial wound’ in the operation note of 30th January 1972 and as ‘two small wounds’ in the operation note of the 11th February 1972. The injuries to the chest may have been caused by fragments of bone, by fragments of one bullet or of several bullets or by some other object or objects. ”




55.221 Despite the caution shown by Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan, we accept the view of Mr Fenton that Michael Bradley was hit by a single bullet. This conclusion is consistent with the evidence of Michael Bradley himself.

Accounts given by Michael Bradley

55.222 Michael Bradley gave the following accounts in 1972:

1. answers to some questions put to him by Detective Sergeant Cudmore on 4th February 1972;1

2. a written statement dated 7th February 1972, witnessed by Brian Rainey.2Although this is not in the usual NICRA form, we are satisfied that it is a NICRA statement. Brian Rainey (then a schoolteacher) recalled taking a statement from Michael Bradley for, he believed, “the Civil Rights Association ”.3The Inquiry has in its possession a handwritten copy of this statement, bearing the same date and what appear to be the signatures of Michael Bradley and Brian Rainey;

3. an interview with Fulvio Grimaldi, an account of which appears in Fulvio Grimaldi’s book Blood in the Street (published in March 1972);4

4. a written statement for the Widgery Inquiry dated 28th February 1972;5and

5. an interview with the Sunday Times Insight Team journalists Philip Jacobson and Peter Pringle on 1st March 1972.6




55.223 Michael Bradley was not discharged from hospital until the Widgery Inquiry was in progress, and he did not give oral evidence to that Inquiry.

55.224 Michael Bradley gave interviews to Tony Stark in 1991,1 to Don Mullan2 on 23rd August 1998,3 to Paul Mahon in or about 1998,4 and to Jimmy McGovern in or about 1999.5 He submitted an approved draft written statement to this Inquiry on 30th September 1999.6 He spoke again to Paul Mahon on 12th January 2000.7 He gave oral evidence to this Inquiry on 20th March 20018 and made a supplementary statement on 6th June 2004.9



2 Don Mullan was the editor of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, a collection of some of the NICRA statements made by witnesses to the events of the day. The collection was published in 1997.




55.225 Michael Bradley died on 2nd May 2009.

55.226 The answers Michael Bradley gave to the questions put by Detective Sergeant Cudmore1revealed little more than that Michael Bradley had been hit by gunfire at the rear of the Rossville Flats. He said he was heading home from William Street and, when asked how he received his injuries, replied: “I don’t know, I was just standing there, then I was out. ”



55.227 Another RUC officer, Detective Constable Gillanders, wrote a report to his Detective Inspector in which he recorded that during the evening of 4th February 1972 John Hume MP had stopped Michael Bradley from giving an interview to the police and had advised him to appoint a solicitor.1There appears to have been no further attempt by the RUC to interview Michael Bradley.



55.228 In his NICRA statement,1Michael Bradley described how he had gone from William Street through Macari’s Lane (he called it Quinn’s Lane) into the Eden Place waste ground, with a view to going towards the courtyard behind the Rossville Flats (ie the car park):

“I was still on the waste ground, no yet having reached the courtyard, when I looked round and saw the saracens driving along Rossville Street. There were several other people near me and when we saw the troops we began running and shouting, ‘There’s the Army.’ The crowd ran in all directions. I ran straight ahead across the courtyard towards the far top corner of the flats – that is, the corner that leads out to the steps towards Fahan Street and to Joseph’s Place. There was quite a few people running towards this corner also. After I went through the opening at the corner I stopped to catch my breath. I heard gunfire and ran back out through the opening towards the courtyard and it was then I saw a body lying on the ground about five to ten yards away. I observed it was the body of a young man and there was a small group of men around him.

I was standing there with my back towards the back of the shops and I was looking across the courtyard in the direction of the Army, whom I could quite clearly see at the Rossville Street end of the courtyard. There was also a saracen just stopping in the courtyard. It was this saracen in particular that caught my attention. I could see soldiers jump out and take up firing positions at the front of the saracen. All during this time I could hear the sound of gunfire.

Suddenly, I felt a heavy pain in my right arm. I realised I had been shot but didn’t know how serious the wound was. I pulled myself back over the small wall behind the shops. I was still on my feet. I hadn’t lost consciousness. In a bent over position I stumbled along towards the opening which leads out of the courtyard towards Joseph’s Place and which I had come through a few minutes earlier. As I came near the opening a few men reached forward, grabbed me and carried me through to a house. I cannot remember exactly the house I was carried to. My main thought at the time was – would I live or die. ”




55.229 Michael Bradley gave a similar account in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry.1In this statement he recorded that it was because he had heard that Jackie Duddy (whom he knew personally) had been shot that he decided to go back into the forecourt of the flats:

“I jumped over the small retaining wall at the back of the shops in Joseph Place and went towards a small crowd which was positioned near the children’s playground on the north-eastern corner of the forecourt. I noticed blood on the ground where the people were standing. I was not able to see the body at this stage as the people were surrounding it. I was about five or six yards from this crowd when I looked over towards the waste ground at Eden Place. I saw two Saracens in the forecourt. One was near the rear of the houses in Chamberlain Street and the other was positioned in line with it but more towards Rossville Street. I saw soldiers come out of the Saracens and take up position around the vehicles. I noticed that they did not appear to have visors on their helmets. Just as they had taken up these positions I heard shooting. Then I felt a heavy thud on my left arm. I clutched my arm and I then turned and staggered over the small retaining wall again and made my way towards the alleyway I had come out of. ”




55.230 In this statement Michael Bradley recorded that he was not armed with a weapon or a nail bomb at any time.

55.231 According to the notes of his Sunday Times interview,1Michael Bradley again gave a similar account, this time adding that when he saw a body lying in the car park with Fr Daly and a group of others around it, he ran out into the car park and was shouting abuse at the troops when he was hit.



55.232 The Sunday Times map, reproduced below,1which bears the annotation “Michael Bradley 1/3/72 ”, puts what is marked as “duddy’s body ” in or near the recreation ground in the car park of the Rossville Flats. This is consistent with the description given by Michael Bradley in his statement for the Widgery Inquiry.

55.233 We have no doubt that what Michael Bradley saw was the group of people (including Fr Daly) around the body of Jackie Duddy and the body itself. However, as will have been seen from our discussion of the shooting of Jackie Duddy, the location Michael Bradley described is clearly wrong. Michael Bradley himself acknowledged this during his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1though it appears that he was for many years under a misapprehension about the location.2



Where Michael Bradley was shot

55.234 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1Michael Bradley told us that he was shot when standing about six feet in front of the low wall that ran along the northern side of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, and about five or six feet from the body of Jackie Duddy. He sought to illustrate this by reference to a plan2and to the following photograph,3which shows what he described as his approximate position, that of Jackie Duddy and that of an APC.



55.235 The position shown for the body of Jackie Duddy is close to where (for the reasons given earlier in this chapter)1we are confident that he was lying. The position shown for Michael Bradley in this photograph is indeed a few feet from the body, but substantially more than six feet away from the low wall. Thus it is not clear from Michael Bradley’s account exactly where he was, though it should be noted that the Sunday Times map puts him in the general area where we know (contrary to what is shown on that map) that Jackie Duddy was lying.



55.236 Michael Bradley told us that he had always thought that he had dragged or pulled himself back over the wall after he had been shot.1As can be seen from the following photograph taken by Gilles Peress, the height of the low wall above the ground on its south side reduced as the wall ran towards Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.


55.237 In his statement for the Widgery Inquiry, Michael Bradley recorded that he had jumped over “the small retaining wall ”. To our minds the fact that this wall reduced in height towards the north-west, together with Michael Bradley’s description of it and of how he crossed back over after being shot, lend support to the view that he is likely to have been towards the north-western end of this wall both when he jumped over and when he dragged or pulled himself back. This is further supported by the fact that he recalled that after the shooting he returned along the back of this wall in an endeavour to go through the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats, and by the accounts that he gave to Jimmy McGovern and Don Mullan.1



55.238 Brian Doherty,1James O’Kane2and James Rowe3gave evidence to this Inquiry to the effect that Michael Bradley was shot rather further to the south-east (ie nearer to the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats) than would appear to us to be the case from an examination of Michael Bradley’s own accounts. None of these witnesses gave an account in 1972 that indicated where Michael Bradley was shot. Although we cannot be certain, we consider it more likely than not that Michael Bradley was shot when he was further along the low wall in a north-westerly direction than these witnesses suggested, and a short distance out from it (he told Jimmy McGovern that he had taken “about two steps forward ” from the wall), though this would put him a substantially greater distance from the body of Jackie Duddy than the five or six feet he estimated.


55.239 We mark below on an aerial photograph of the car park the approximate position where in our view Michael Bradley is likely to have been shot.



55.240 In his NICRA statement Derrik Tucker Senior, who was watching events from 31 Garvan Place, a flat in Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, gave the following account:1

“Two Saracens turned into the car park of the Flats from Rossville St. In doing so, they drove through the crowd and the first Saracen knocked down one man, sending him spinning away. The Saracens stopped and soldiers deployed from the back of them. One soldier ran to the front nearside wheel and took up a firing position. Another ran to the wall at the backs of the Chamberlain St. houses and started pushing people with his rifle held in a port position.

The soldier at the nearside front wheel of the Saracen started firing and I saw a man fall to the ground. Someone, running in front of the man, stopped, turned and went to his aid. The shot which that soldier fired was the first shot that I heard that day. Shooting continued and I saw two other men shot in the car park. The first of these was roughly in the middle of the car park with his hands raised in the air. He appeared to be shot in the leg as he suddenly grasped his right leg with his right arm and hopped into the top corner of the carpark where the kiddies play area is.

The second man who was shot, was crouching at the little wall dividing the service area of the shops from the car park. He got up from his crouching position. I saw him clutch his stomach and bend over. ”




55.241 To our minds, this account puts the shooting of Michael Bridge before that of Michael Bradley. We know of no other evidence that is inconsistent with this.

What Michael Bradley was doing when he was shot

55.242 Although Michael Bradley stated in his written statement dated 7th February 1972 that “at no time during all this had I any object in my hands ”,1and was recorded by Fulvio Grimaldi as having said “I was carrying nothing at the time, I had neither brick, stone or nothin’ in my hand ”,2there is a body of evidence to the effect that this was not true, and that Michael Bradley had in fact been throwing stones at the soldiers immediately before and perhaps even at the time he was shot.



55.243 There is a manuscript annotation at the side of the typed notes of Philip Jacobson’s and Peter Pringle’s interview of Michael Bradley,1which Philip Jacobson told us was in his handwriting.2 It reads:

“He agrees he was almost certainly stoning then, can’t really recall. ”




55.244 It appears that Michael Bradley may earlier have told another Sunday Times journalist, Derek Humphry, that he had been throwing stones. According to a draft article1that was not published, Michael Bradley had said:

“I was throwing stones at the soldiers – my blood was up, you know. I had just finished throwing a stone when I saw a soldier aiming at me from about 20 yards away and I was hit in the arm and chest. I just caught a glimpse of him – he was to one side of me and I didn’t throw the stone at him, at a saracen. ”




55.245 According to an article in the Irish Times of 30th January 1985,1Michael Bradley had told this newspaper:

“I came back into the forecourt of the flats. I saw the body and my nerves got to me. I lifted stones and started throwing. The army were sitting there. A Saracen was on the forecourt at the Chamberlain Street corner. I saw soldiers shooting. I could see soldiers taking aim and shoot. ”




55.246 In his interview with Tony Stark, Michael Bradley was recorded as saying:1

“… I automatically with the anger being in me and the bitterness being in me, I looked around, looking around the ground for something to throw. Picking up these two stones, which I had held one in my right and one in my left hand. I threw the stones, I just threw them. I didn’t even know where I was throwing them. I just threw them straight in front of me, straight in front of me just. And as I thought when I let the stone go, I went to throw, I felt this heaviness in my right arm, right upper arm and I grabbed my arm such as this. I thought someone had given me a thump, like a thump in the arm and I grabbed the arm like this. I looked over, and there I was in astonishment. The blood was just flowing out of me. Blood was flowing down out of my arm. ”




55.247 The Derry Journal’s Bloody Sunday 20th anniversary publication records Michael Bradley as saying:1

“I lost the head and looked around to see what I could pick up to throw at the soldiers who were pouring into the area. I grabbed two pieces of brick and was just about to throw them when I was shot. I know I had been hit, but I was still on my feet. At first I thought I had been struck by a rubber bullet, but then I felt a heavy thud on the top muscle of my right arm and saw blood pouring from my hand. ”




55.248 Michael Bradley said in his interview with Paul Mahon that having seen Jackie Duddy:1

“… I just looked. And all of a sudden I could hear the name, ‘It’s Jackie Duddy, it’s Jackie Duddy.’ Well when I seen that, I sort of lost everything. I lost control. I was angry, I was frustrated, and I thought, ‘Oh Jesus no, not poor Jackie, it couldn’t be Jackie’ and I looked around me and I found two stones on the ground and I picked them up and I was about to throw them at the soldiers that was directly in front of me. There was a Pig directly in front of me, about 50–60 yards in front of me, say, and I went to throw these two stones and obviously I didn’t get to throw them. The first thing I felt was a terrible, heavy, thud, a massive thud. ”




55.249 Although in his written statement to this Inquiry Michael Bradley told us that he definitely had nothing in his hands when he was shot,1his evidence to us as a whole was to the effect that he had no recollection of throwing stones but could not say that he had not done so. When asked about what he had said to Tony Stark, he said:2“Well, I do not have any recollection of it, sir, because as I said, everything happened so quick. It was within seconds, but I make no apologies if I did throw a stone. ” He also said:3

“… I know I have said on several occasions, sir. It is because, when speaking to so many people, you get the reaction that maybe you did pick up a stone and maybe you did not, and do not forget I was angry, so I had every option to pick up the stone. I possibly could have picked it up, but my recollection today is I do not remember. ”




55.250 In these circumstances, while we take the view that Michael Bradley was not trying to deceive the Tribunal into believing that he had not thrown stones, and that by the time he came to give evidence to us he had no recollection of having done so, nevertheless his accounts to others in the past lead us to conclude that very shortly before he was shot he had been throwing stones, and that he was probably on the point of throwing more when he was shot.

Where Michael Bradley was taken

55.251 After Michael Bradley was shot, he pulled himself over the wall to the north of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats and stumbled towards the passage between Blocks 2 and 3. From there he was assisted to a house in Joseph Place, where he was put down in the hall.1



55.252 Much of the evidence was to the effect that the house to which Michael Bradley was taken was the northernmost house in Joseph Place. Michael Bradley so stated in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1and more recently in his interviews with Don Mullan2and Jimmy McGovern,3although in his NICRA statement4he had said that he could not remember exactly which house it was.




55.253 The evidence of some witnesses suggests that the house to which Michael Bradley was taken was further south in Joseph Place. Mary Anne Murray said in oral and written evidence to this Inquiry1that an injured man was carried into the house of Anna Brennan at 13 Joseph Place, and that this was the fourth house from the north end. She heard someone mention the name Bridge but accepted2that the injured man might have been Michael Bradley. Kay Campbell said in her written statement to this Inquiry3that Michael Bradley was taken into the flat of “Robert Bremen ” but that she could not remember where in the north block of Joseph Place this was. In his interview with Jimmy McGovern,4Michael Bradley said that the house into which he was carried was 13 Joseph Place, and that this was the northernmost house, although he had previously believed that it was 1 Joseph Place. He told Don Mullan,5Jimmy McGovern6and this Inquiry7that the house was that of Michael McConnell.




55.254 While there seems to have been a degree of confusion on this point, in our view nothing turns on it.

55.255 Those who assisted Michael Bradley to Joseph Place included Eugene Lafferty1and John McIntyre.2Eugene Lafferty said that Michael Bradley was taken to the first house in Joseph Place, and John McIntyre that he was taken to the first or second.


55.256 The Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer Noel McLoone stated in his report to the Ambulance Corps1that he gave first aid treatment to Michael Bradley. In his written statement to this Inquiry2Noel McLoone explained that he knew Michael Bradley and had helped to carry him into the northernmost house in Joseph Place. He applied a shell dressing to the wounds on Michael Bradley’s arms.



55.257 Fr Thomas O’Gara briefly attended to Michael Bradley in a house in Joseph Place before leaving to attend to others who had been fatally injured.1



55.258 In due course Michael Bradley was taken from the house in Joseph Place to an ambulance in Rossville Street and driven to Altnagelvin Hospital with a number of other casualties. We are satisfied that he is the man described in a statement made on 4th February 1972 by the ambulance driver John Gilchrist1as having had injuries to both his arms and his left side, and as having been brought to the ambulance from the hall of the first house in Joseph Place.



55.259 Michael Bradley is shown being moved from Joseph Place to the ambulance in the following photographs, taken respectively by Colman Doyle, Constable Robert S Simpson, Gilles Peress and Larry Doherty.

55.260 We have found no evidence to suggest that Michael Bradley was hit by non-Army gunfire. Since he was more or less facing the soldiers, not far from the low wall in front of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, there is no conceivable reason why a paramilitary gunman should have fired in his direction. We are sure that a soldier shot Michael Bradley.

55.261 There is nothing to suggest, and no-one has suggested, that Michael Bradley was armed or posing or about to pose a threat of causing death or serious injury. Whether his actions could have led a soldier mistakenly to believe that he was or might have been about to throw a bomb is a matter to which we return1when we consider whether it is possible to identify the soldier who shot Michael Bradley.



Patrick McDaid

55.262 Unlike the casualties in Sector 2 whom we have discussed above, who we have no doubt were hit by Army rifle fire, we are sure, for the reasons set out below, that while Patrick McDaid was wounded in Sector 2, this was not the result of him being hit by a lead bullet.

Biographical details

55.263 Patrick McDaid was 24 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. He was then an unmarried man living with his parents in Dunaff Gardens, Creggan. He was a plumber employed by the Londonderry Development Commission.1



Prior movements

55.264 Patrick McDaid went on the march on Bloody Sunday with his brother-in-law.1 In several accounts given in 1972, he said that he followed the march down William Street and turned into Rossville Street, where he stood among the crowd for a time. He saw people stoning the soldiers in the area of Sackville Street and Little James Street. The soldiers fired CS gas and baton rounds at the stone-throwers. He then moved up Rossville Street away from the gas, and along Eden Place into Chamberlain Street.2


55.265 In his statement to the RUC,1 Patrick McDaid said that when he reached Chamberlain Street he headed towards the Rossville Flats. In another statement made in 1972,2 he said that he looked towards William Street but turned to walk towards the Rossville Flats. According to Philip Jacobson’s interview note,3 Patrick McDaid told him that he “went to turn left ” towards William Street, but could see that there was more trouble there, with clouds of CS gas and the water cannon being used, and decided to turn right instead. In a further statement made in 1972,4 Patrick McDaid said that he looked up Chamberlain Street from the end of Eden Place and saw stones being thrown, but did not see any soldiers, and then moved down Chamberlain Street towards the Rossville Flats.




55.266 On the other hand, in his note of his research interview of Patrick McDaid,1 Tony Stark wrote that Patrick McDaid was at the junction of Chamberlain Street and William Street, and watched the marchers approach Barrier 14 and begin to throw stones. In his interview with Paul Mahon,2 Patrick McDaid also said that he reached the corner of Chamberlain Street and William Street. A lot of stones were being thrown but he did not think that there was as much rioting as usually occurred on a Saturday afternoon. After a while he made his way back down Chamberlain Street. As he did so, people started to run past him and he began to run too. Patrick McDaid gave a similar account in his written statement to this Inquiry.3 He confirmed this in his oral evidence,4 but explained5 that he had remained some distance to the south of the junction of Chamberlain Street and William Street while watching the rioting. He also gave a similar account in his interview with Jimmy McGovern.6





55.267 In these circumstances Patrick McDaid’s movements before he reached the southern half of Chamberlain Street remain uncertain, but there is no evidence that he took part in the rioting at Barrier 14.

Medical evidence

55.268 Mr HM Bennett, the consultant surgeon at Altnagelvin Hospital, gave the following description of an injury to Patrick McDaid’s back in a letter to the RUC dated 7th February 1972:1

“This patient was admitted about 4.45 p.m. on Sunday, 30th January, 1972 with laceration over the upper part of the left scapula.

Later the same evening he was operated on by Mr. Malhotra who excised the wound edges noting that many carbon particles were present. The wound affected merely the supraspinatus muscle along the back of the left shoulder – i.e. a glancing wound which had been fired as the patient was ducking down and did not indicate a direct hit from behind. The wound was noted to be full of carbon particles which would indicate a fairly close range discharge.

The patient’s life appears to be in no danger and he should make an excellent recovery. ”




55.269 In his notes1 Mr Malhotra, the surgeon who debrided the wound, referred to “black edges (carbon) ” and a “lot of carbon particles ”.



55.270 The wound is shown in two photographs, not reproduced here, which were taken by Eamon Melaugh in the house in Joseph Place to which Patrick McDaid went after he had been injured.

55.271 Dr Richard Shepherd and Mr Kevin O’Callaghan, the experts on pathology and ballistics engaged by this Inquiry, reviewed the medical records relating to the injuries sustained by those who might have received non-fatal gunshot wounds on Bloody Sunday. In March 2000, in their report on these cases,1 Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan made the following comments about Patrick McDaid’s injury:

“Mr. McDaid had a ragged 3 " x 2 " lacerated injury over the upper part of the left scapula. No true entrance or exit wounds are described. The wound was surgically debrided by Mr Malhotra who recorded that the wound had ‘black edges (carbon) lot of carbon particles’

A letter to the Royal Ulster Constabulary from Mr Bennett, Consultant Surgeon, dated 7th February suggested that the injury was a ‘glancing wound’ fired as the patient was ‘ducking down’ which ‘did not indicate a direct hit from behind’. He drew attention to the carbon particles which he suggested ‘would indicate a fairly close range discharge’. In a discharge summary dated 11th February it is again suggested that this is possibly a glancing wound with tearing of the skin and superficial tissues.

[One of the photographs] shows a wound with sharply demarcated margins. The carbon soiling of the edges cannot be confirmed in this photograph.

Comment

The nature of the projectile(s) cannot be determined and in the absence of any further evidence no meaningful conclusions can be made about the ‘black edges’ of the wound. There is no evidence that would allow any conclusions to be drawn about the position of Patrick McDaid at the time he received this injury. ”




55.272 In August 2001, after consideration of the photographs and of enlargements made from the negative of one of them, Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan commented in a supplementary report:1

“The photographs show an, essentially, semi-circular wound with little apparent bleeding. The wound seems shallow, as if the tissues had been sliced.

The top edge of the wound appears to be composed of a flap of skin pushed or folded upward exposing the underlying tissue.

There is a relatively straight margin at the right side and a rather more curved margin at the left.

Conclusions

Even with these photographs, a fresh interpretation of the injury remains difficult, mainly due to the overall lack of reliable information. However, the appearance of the injury suggests that it may have been caused by a thin ‘disc’ or ‘sliver’ of material moving rapidly, which has sliced through the skin of the back from a generally right to left direction leaving a flap of tissue at the upper margin. It does not have the appearance of a typical bullet wound.

There are no obvious features visible in the photographs to help explain or identify the ‘black particles’ described by Mr. Malhetra [sic]. ”




55.273 In August 2002, having again reviewed the medical records and photographs, and having been invited to consider the possibility that Patrick McDaid had been injured by a modified baton round or by a non-standard object fired from a baton gun, Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan made the following comments:1

“1. We are of the opinion that Patrick McDaid was not struck by a bullet.

2a. Objects that could cause such a slicing wound include a penny (old coinage), other metal discs, the top or bottom plates of a ‘U2’ type battery etc and we understand that these items were attached to or fired in place of baton rounds in Northern Ireland in the period of time around Bloody Sunday.

2b. The ‘black particles’ might be explained by the disc being contaminated by either the contents of the battery or by soiling of a penny if it were placed against the charge in the baton round gun. No material suggestive of ‘black particles’ can be seen in the photographs of the wound.

3. There are no specific features that would allow us to make a positive interpretation and we cannot distinguish between the possibilities noted above and we accept that other possibilities may exist. ”




55.274 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Dr Shepherd was asked what significance might be attached to the presence of carbon particles around the wound if, contrary to his view, the wound had been caused by a lead bullet. He replied:

“Carbon particles around the wound are commonly associated with a close discharge of a weapon. That would be of significance, but one would need to see them, in this case also on the overlaying clothing and on other points adjacent to the wound for that conclusion to be drawn. ”




55.275 However, Dr Shepherd said that he thought that it would be fair to say that he and Mr O’Callaghan were “confident ” in the view that they had reached that Patrick McDaid’s injury was not caused by a lead bullet.1



55.276 Dr Shepherd was asked1 whether he and Mr O’Callaghan had considered a metal nut as a possible cause of the injury. He replied:

“No, I do not believe we had considered nuts and bolts because I think the appearances of the injury, having considered it, were so suggestive of this flat slicing action that I do not think you could achieve with a nut or a bolt. If there was a flat base, a tin can lid, for instance, placed on the bottom of a nail bomb or some other explosive device or within it, and it flew in the correct way, then that possibly could be one force. But I could find nothing of the appearances of explosive injuries in the injury to the back of Patrick McDaid. ”




55.277 Dr Shepherd made it clear that the penny and the U2 battery plates were put forward only as two possible causes of the injury, and that he and Mr O’Callaghan did not exclude others. He said:1

“That injury is an extremely difficult one to interpret. I think I understand now the mechanism that caused it, but I do not have any particular idea of – other than the broadest terms of a sliver or disc – of the object that actually damaged the skin in that way. ”




55.278 We accept the evidence of Dr Shepherd and Mr O’Callaghan that the appearance of Patrick McDaid’s wound indicates that it was caused by something other than a lead bullet. We return later to the question of what that object might have been.

Accounts given by Patrick McDaid

55.279 Patrick McDaid gave the following accounts in 1972:

1. a statement taken by Detective Sergeant Cudmore on 4th February 1972 in the presence of a solicitor acting on behalf of Patrick McDaid;1

2. a statement witnessed by Marjorie Donaghy on 7th February 1972;2

3. an undated statement,3which the Inquiry obtained from a collection deposited in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland by the solicitor who acted for the next of kin of 12 of the deceased at the Widgery Inquiry. It is similar in form to other statements believed to have been sent to that solicitor on 29th February 1972, in order that he might pass them to the Widgery Inquiry, by an apprentice solicitor in the firm that represented the wounded. We think it highly likely that the statement of Patrick McDaid was taken by that firm in preparation for the Widgery Inquiry;

4. a written statement for the Widgery Inquiry dated 27th February 1972;4

5. oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry on 29th February 1972;5 and

6. an interview with the Sunday Times Insight Team journalist Philip Jacobson on 7th March 1972.6




55.280 Patrick McDaid gave interviews to Tony Stark in 1991,1 to Don Mullan2 on 24th August 1998,3 to Paul Mahon in or about 19984 and to Jimmy McGovern in or about 1999.5



2 Don Mullan was the editor of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, a collection of some of the NICRA statements made by witnesses to the events of the day. The collection was published in 1997.



55.281 Patrick McDaid gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry.1



55.282 In his statement to Detective Sergeant Cudmore, Patrick McDaid described how he had gone along Rossville Street to get away from the CS gas, and then through the Eden Place alleyway into Chamberlain Street, and had headed towards the Rossville Flats. His statement continued:1

“I was walking up Chamberlain Street whenever crowds started to run pass me going towards the Rossville high flats because somebody had shouted, ‘The Armys coming’. I ran along with this crowd to the top of Chamberlain Street where I slowed down. Two or three youths then appeared from the direction of the Rossville flats and to my right. They were carrying a woman who I now know to be a Mrs. Deery and I saw that she had been shot in the leg. I went over and helped then to carry Mrs. Deery into a house in Chamberlain Street where I tied a piece of scarf around her leg to stop it bleeding. I went outside and started to shout for first aid or an ambulance. I then heard shooting going on in the area and I saw a young fellow fall and I believe his name was Duddy. He fell in the square of the flats but I didn’t see who had shot him. I then moved in along the side of a woman’s house to a wall and I made a run for it over towards an entrance between the flats, that is the flats facing onto Fahan Street and the flats with the shops in them. As I neared the entrance between the flats I bent my head forwards in order to fall to the ground as there was still lots of shooting going on. I then felt a blow to the back of my shoulder and this made me fall to the ground. Another fellow, whose name I don’t know, fell nearly on top of me and he said, ‘You’ve been shot’. This man then dragged me through to the front of the shops and then I was assisted into a maisonette where someone treated my wound. ”




55.283 The other accounts that Patrick McDaid gave in 1972 are to similar effect, as are the accounts he gave later. As we have explained above,1we are of the view that the young man he described seeing fall was not Jackie Duddy, but could have been Michael Bridge. Patrick McDaid told the Widgery Inquiry that he did not know who this man was.2



Where Patrick McDaid was injured

55.284 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, Patrick McDaid described being hit as he bent to take cover behind some steps when trying to reach the passage between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats.1In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry he said that he was just at the top of three steps that led down to the passage for which he was heading.2According to Philip Jacobson’s note Patrick McDaid told him:3

“i carried on running but just before i got to the end, it goes down over a small wall and i was going to sort of dive over behind it, just then i felt something flick my shoulder. ”




55.285 In the course of his interviews with Don Mullan,1 Paul Mahon2 and Jimmy McGovern,3 and in his written statement to this Inquiry,4 Patrick McDaid recounted that at the time when he was hit he had been diving to get behind the wall (which must have been the low wall mentioned in Philip Jacobson’s note) and did not appreciate that the steps were there until after he had landed on the ground. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,5 Patrick McDaid confirmed this and said that he did not know whether he had jumped over the steps or over the wall beside the steps.




55.286 Patrick McDaid marked his position on the following photograph with the long red arrow.1