Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry Volume 4

55.287 The tip of the red arrow marks where a set of steps led down to the area immediately to the north of the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats. The top of these steps can be seen in the following photograph, which was not taken on Bloody Sunday.


55.288 Although in recent years Patrick McDaid recalled that he did not feel anything before he was told he was shot,1 in statements made soon after the event he said that he did recall feeling something hit him. As noted above, in his statement to Detective Sergeant Cudmore he said that he felt a blow to the back of his shoulder, and in his interview with Philip Jacobson he said that he felt something flick his shoulder just as he was about to dive over the small wall. In his statement of 7th February 19722 he said that he was struck on the back left shoulder as he bent forwards to fall. In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,3 he recorded that a bullet hit him on the back of the left shoulder as he bent down, and that initially he thought that the shot had missed him but hit his coat. In oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry4 he said that until someone told him that he had been shot he thought that he had just hurt his shoulder. In his undated statement5 he said that he dived for cover and felt something hitting the back of his shoulder.




55.289 In these circumstances we are sure that something hit Patrick McDaid in the back of his shoulder as he reached the area of the steps and jumped or was about to jump over the steps or the low wall beside them.

55.290 Earlier in this chapter,1in our discussion of the shooting of Jackie Duddy, we have reproduced a photograph taken by Gilles Peress showing Fr Daly and Charles Glenn attending Jackie Duddy in the car park of the Rossville Flats.



55.291 In his written account for the Widgery Inquiry, Gilles Peress described how, having taken that photograph, “I went over towards the centre block taking cover along the wall past Chamberlain Street. I went to the end of the small wall in the centre of the centre block but the body had been taken away. ”1Gilles Peress said that he then took the photograph showing the low wall running parallel to Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, which can be seen above,2where we deal with the wounding of Michael Bradley.




55.292 Gilles Peress told the Widgery Inquiry that he then went back a few yards towards the big concrete wall between the flats, by the children’s playground.1He said that “Shooting was heavy at this time ”.


55.293 At this stage Gilles Peress took six more photographs. The first he described as showing seven men hiding from gunfire, which was coming from two soldiers, “one at the far corner of the high flats and one at the back of 36 Chamberlain Street ”.


55.294 Gilles Peress said that he took the next photograph about 30 to 40 seconds later.



55.295 Gilles Peress took four more photographs of the scene at the bottom of the concrete wall. We return to consider these in our discussion of events in Sector 5,1to which they are relevant for reasons there explained.



55.296 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Patrick McDaid told us that he did not recognise himself in either of the photographs shown above. In his interview with Paul Mahon,2 he said that although it was hard to say, it was possible that he was in these photographs. However, in his oral evidence3 he said that he believed he was the man seen lying on the ground on the right of the group in the first photograph; and it is clear that the second shows the same individual. Furthermore, the balding man seen in the first photograph apparently looking at the back of the man lying on the ground, and in the second holding the right side of that man’s back, is Patrick Walsh; and while Patrick Walsh did not recall the incident when making his written statement to this Inquiry,4 in his interview with Philip Jacobson on 13th April 19725 he described seeing an injured man whose wound looked as it would if flesh had been scooped away with a butter knife.





55.297 The account Patrick Walsh gave to Philip Jacobson1 was that he had decided to run from the steps shown in Gilles Peress’s photographs to the passage between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats; as he was getting into his stride the youth who turned out to be injured cannoned into him and they both fell; he then felt the youth’s back and found a rent in his jacket. Philip Jacobson has added in the notes of the interview that this is shown in “gilles first shot ” (ie the first of the photographs shown above), in which “walsh has his hand on mcdaid’s back ”. When he gave oral evidence to this Inquiry, Patrick Walsh’s memory had been refreshed to a limited extent and he agreed that the first two photographs showed him with a man who could have been Patrick McDaid.2




55.298 In the light of the evidence discussed above we have no doubt that the first two of these photographs show Patrick McDaid lying face down on the ground.

When Patrick McDaid was injured

55.299 It seems to us that Gilles Peress’s photographs of Patrick McDaid must have been taken very soon after he was injured. This in turn leads us to conclude that Patrick McDaid was injured after both Michael Bridge and Michael Bradley, since at the time these two were injured Jackie Duddy was still lying in the car park, whereas Gilles Peress took the photographs of Patrick McDaid after he had gone along the low wall running along the car park side of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats to find that Jackie Duddy had been taken away.

What Patrick McDaid was doing when he was injured

55.300 There is nothing to suggest, and no-one has suggested, that Patrick McDaid was doing anything except trying to run away from the shooting when he was injured.

What injured Patrick McDaid

55.301 It was submitted by the representatives of the majority of represented soldiers that Patrick McDaid might “have been hit by a malfunctioning nail bomb ”.1It was submitted by the representatives of the majority of the families that “It is overwhelmingly likely that he was wounded by a projectile fired from a rubber bullet gun ”2and that the round had been “doctored ” so as to cause an injury of the kind sustained by Patrick McDaid. By “doctored ” was meant that some object, such as a razor blade or coin, had been inserted into the nose of the baton round.


55.302 We are not persuaded by either of these submissions. As to the first, no witness who was near Patrick McDaid gave evidence of any explosion close to him. Had a nail bomb exploded in the area, we have no doubt that the Mortar Platoon soldiers who were in or around the entrance to the car park would have heard and reported it. Having considered their evidence, we have already concluded earlier in this report1that no nail bombs exploded in Sector 2.



55.303 As to the suggestion that Patrick McDaid was hit by a doctored baton round, it was submitted that of the four baton gunners in Mortar Platoon, Private 013 was “a prime contender ” to have fired the round in question.1As we have explained earlier in this report,2his evidence was that he had advanced to the forecourt of the Rossville Flats where he fired his baton gun at the crowd in the car park. He did not say that he had fired towards the area where Patrick McDaid was injured. He did fire a baton round into the stairway at the northern end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats and in our view injured Patrick “Barman” Duffy. However, the distance from this area to where Patrick McDaid was injured was about 100 yards. According to the then current standard operating procedures of 22 Lt AD Regt, baton rounds were ineffective at ranges greater than 50m.3 For this reason it seems to us unlikely that a baton round fired by Private 013 could have been responsible for Patrick McDaid’s injury. In addition, there is no evidence either that anyone saw a baton round hit Patrick McDaid, or that one was afterwards found in the area.


55.304 Of the other baton gunners, Private 017 was, as we have explained above,1in Rossville Street, and there is no evidence that Private 019, who had accompanied Lieutenant N to the Eden Place alleyway, later fired baton rounds in the area of the car park. Private 112 was at the north-east corner of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats and did fire into the car park, but doubted whether he would have fired towards the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats, because of the distance.2As with Private 013, it seems to us that even if he had done so, the distance was such that he would have been unlikely to have injured Patrick McDaid.


55.305 As already noted,1the Inquiry’s experts were of the view, which we accept, that a live round did not hit Patrick McDaid. In these circumstances, since we do not accept the submission that he was hit either by shrapnel from a nail bomb or by a doctored baton round, it seems to us that the most likely cause of his injury was a piece of debris sent flying when an Army bullet hit the ground or some other object. As Gilles Peress told the Widgery Inquiry, there was heavy Army fire at what must have been about the time Patrick McDaid was hit, and Sergeant O, Private Q and Private R all gave accounts of firing towards the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats, only a few yards from where Patrick McDaid was injured.



Where Patrick McDaid was taken

55.306 After he was injured, Patrick McDaid was helped to a house in Joseph Place where his wound was dressed by Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteers.1 In his statement made on 7th February 19722 he said that he was taken by the back entrance into the second or third house in Joseph Place. In later accounts he said either that it was the second house,3 or that it was the first,4or that it was one of the first two houses.5




55.307 The Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer Noel McLoone recorded in his written statement to this Inquiry1that he treated a man with a wound in the centre of his back in the second house in Joseph Place. He stated that this man seemed elderly to him but in his oral evidence2he said that this recollection was not completely clear. He said that the man’s wound was similar to that shown in Eamon Melaugh’s photograph of Patrick McDaid’s wound,3although he could not tell from the photograph whether this was the wound that he had treated.



55.308 In his report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps,1another volunteer, James Norris, described how he and Noel McLoone treated a man with a back wound. He said that the bullet had “scooped a piece out and left an overlap of skin ”. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2James Norris said that this happened in one of the houses in Joseph Place and that he thought that Michael Bradley had been in the same house. He could not recall the identity of the man with the back wound, but in our view it was Patrick McDaid.



55.309 In due course Patrick McDaid 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, including Michael Bradley. We are satisfied that he is the man described in the statement made on 4th February 1972 by the ambulance driver John Gilchrist1as having said that he had been shot in the shoulder.



55.310 Patrick McDaid is shown being escorted from Joseph Place to the ambulance in a photograph found in the Sunday Times archive, and in one of Jeffrey Morris’s photographs.

Patrick Brolly

Biographical details

55.311 Patrick Brolly was 40 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. He was a married man who lived with his wife and children in Leenan Gardens, Creggan.1



Prior movements

55.312 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Patrick Brolly said that he took part in the march on Bloody Sunday and reached the front of the crowd at Barrier 14. When the soldiers came in, he went down Macari’s Lane and across the waste ground to Rossville Street, and entered Block 1 of the Rossville Flats by the main entrance at the south end of the block.



Medical evidence

55.313 We have no medical evidence relating to Patrick Brolly’s injury.

55.314 In a letter to the secretary to the Widgery Inquiry dated 2nd March 1972,1 the Patient Services Officer at Altnagelvin Hospital confirmed that Patrick Brolly had received treatment at the hospital for “Lacerations to face ”. In her written statement to this Inquiry,2 Marie Dunne, the Communications Manager at Altnagelvin Area Hospital, told us that Patrick Brolly’s hospital record contained no reference to injuries sustained on Bloody Sunday, and that it was likely that he had been treated and discharged on the same day, in which case the records of his treatment would have been destroyed.



55.315 This is consistent with Patrick Brolly’s written statement to this Inquiry,1 in which he said that he was sent home on the evening of Bloody Sunday.



Accounts given by and relating to Patrick Brolly

55.316 Although he made a written statement to this Inquiry,1Patrick Brolly was not well enough to give oral evidence. He died on 27th January 2002.


55.317 According to Patrick Brolly’s account,1while in the flat of Kathleen Cunningham (she was his brother-in-law’s sister) in Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, which he marked as being towards the end nearest Block 1, he saw Fr Daly giving the last rites to a young boy in the car park. As he turned away from the window he heard a loud bang and was hit by a bullet “which came through the window and skimmed the left side of my head just above my forehead. I fell to the ground and was knocked out for a while. ”



55.318 Patrick Brolly was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital in the same ambulance as Alana Burke and others but was discharged the same day. Samuel Hughes, the attendant in the ambulance, confirmed that one of the casualties had a cut on his left forehead.1



55.319 Patrick Brolly’s wife Celine Brolly made a NICRA statement1in which she described going into a second floor flat and, from the back bedroom, looking with her husband at the scene in the car park. They could see three soldiers by an Army vehicle and tried to “draw their attention that Father Daly wanted them as the other soldier against the wall was shooting away ”. A small blond stout soldier directly behind the vehicle “aimed the gun and my husband threw me to the ground and they fired right in at the bedroom window. My husband [was] hit in the head with glass and a rubber bullet and was unconscious for half an hour. ”



55.320 The account given by Celine Brolly in her written statement to this Inquiry1 differs in a number of ways. She there stated that she and her husband had seen Fr Daly escorting Jackie Duddy out of the car park of the Rossville Flats while two soldiers on either side of the exit into Chamberlain Street were shooting into the crowd. Her husband told her that one of the soldiers was pointing his gun at them, and threw her to the floor. A bullet then smashed the window and Patrick Brolly was wounded on the top of his head. Celine Brolly told us that for a long time afterwards she thought that a baton round had been fired at the window and that splinters of glass had caused her husband’s injury. According to this account, however, the hole in the window was only small, and she was later told that the projectile was a lead bullet.


55.321 Kathleen Cunningham was the owner of the flat. Celine Brolly told us that according to one of Kathleen Cunningham’s relatives the bullet had lodged in the top of a wardrobe in the sitting room.1 According to Celine Brolly’s NICRA statement2 her husband was in the back bedroom when he was hit.



55.322 Celine Brolly told us that Kathleen Cunningham’s flat was on the second floor of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats towards the end nearest Block 31 (ie much closer to Block 3 than the position indicated by her husband).


55.323 In her oral evidence1 Celine Brolly, while evidently in a state of some confusion on the point, ultimately reverted to saying that the blond soldier by the vehicle had fired the shot that hit her husband.



55.324 In her written statement to this Inquiry Celine Brolly told us that in the last few years she had suffered a stroke and had also had a nasty fall as a result of which she was unconscious, lost her memory and was unable to speak for some months. She admitted that her recall was therefore not as clear as it had been in 1972.1In these circumstances we treat the evidence that she gave to us with caution, though there is no doubt that she was doing her best to help us.



55.325 As Celine Brolly recorded in her NICRA statement, Annie Curran (Patrick Brolly’s sister) was also in the flat at the time. In her written statement to this Inquiry,1 Annie Curran told us that from the living room she saw her brother go into the bedroom, and that through the open door she saw him fall with blood streaming from his head. She could not remember whether the bullet had completely shattered the window or just made a hole. They looked for a bullet but could not find one.



Where Patrick Brolly was injured

55.326 As we have explained, in their accounts to us, both Patrick and Celine Brolly described the flat as being in Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, though in different positions in that Block. However, Annie Curran told us that Kathleen Cunningham’s flat was 3 Garvan Place, on the first floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. She marked the position of this flat on a photograph, reproduced below.



55.327 3 Garvan Place was in fact where Annie Curran marked it.1

1 GEN3.12

55.328 In her NICRA statement,1Celine Brolly did not specify which block the flat was in. However, she recorded that she and the others looked out of the living room windows and “saw the Saracen tanks charging up ”. They then went to watch from the back bedroom, which was where her husband was injured. Had the flat been in Block 2, Celine Brolly could not have seen the Army vehicles moving in from the front windows, though they would have been visible from the front of Block 1.

1 AB88.9

55.329 Marie Cregan is Patrick Brolly’s daughter. She was not present when her father was injured, but told us in her written statement to this Inquiry1 that he had been in a flat in Block 1 of the Rossville Flats when it happened. According to this account, Patrick Brolly initially thought that a baton round had hit him, but in fact it had been a live round. Someone apparently removed a lead bullet from a wardrobe in the flat on the day after Bloody Sunday.

1 AC121.4

55.330 In the light of this evidence it seems to us that Patrick and Celine Brolly’s recollection that the flat was in Block 2 was mistaken; and we are sure that the flat was in fact in Block 1, where Annie Curran marked it. This conclusion is supported by the evidence of Patrick Friel1 and Gearóid Ó hEára.2

1 AF38.1; AF38.3 2AO79.3-AO79.5; Day 406/209-212

What Patrick Brolly was doing when he was injured

55.331 There is nothing to suggest that Patrick Brolly was doing anything that could have led a soldier to believe, albeit mistakenly, that he was either posing or about to pose a threat of causing death or serious injury or doing anything to justify the firing of a baton round.

What injured Patrick Brolly

55.332 As noted above, Celine Brolly originally believed that her husband had been hit by flying glass and a baton round while he was in the bedroom. Annie Curran told us that she and the others looked for a bullet but could not find one, and so she did not know whether a rubber bullet or a live bullet had hit Patrick Brolly.1At the same time, in her statement to this Inquiry Celine Brolly told us that there was only a small hole in the bedroom window; and there is the evidence, to which we have referred,2that a bullet was later found in a wardrobe in the living room. We consider that Patrick Brolly was injured in the bedroom, as he, Celine Brolly and Annie Curran have all said.



55.333 The matter is complicated by the fact that, according to Celine Brolly’s NICRA statement,1 after her husband had been injured and a “First Aid man ” was attending him, she went to the window in the living room, at which point a soldier shot a rubber bullet at her “and Mr McGill who was in the flat helping to attend my husband ”. Celine Brolly, in her oral evidence to this Inquiry, said that this incident had gone out of her mind.2



55.334 James McGill, who is dead and gave no evidence to this Inquiry, gave a Keville interview1in which he said that he went into the flat with a “boy of the Red Cross ” after hearing Celine Brolly shouting that her husband was dead, and looked after Mr Brolly. Asked what had happened to Patrick Brolly, James McGill said that a bullet had come through the window, hit Patrick Brolly and then hit the ceiling. He does not appear to have witnessed a later incident of a rubber bullet coming in through the living room window.



55.335 The Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer Bernard Feeney said in his NICRA statement1 that he was called to attend to a man (in our view Patrick Brolly) who was “said to be shot in the head ” but that on arrival “it turned out that a rubber bullet had come through the window and glass had embedded in his head ”. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2 Bernard Feeney told us that when he arrived at the flat he found a man slumped “on the chair immediately in front of the window which looked out on Rossville Street. People thought that he had been shot in the head, as his head was bleeding. The window had been entirely shot away but as it then turned out, in fact he was simply bleeding from the glass in the window. ” In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Bernard Feeney said that he knew that a rubber bullet had come through the window because he saw the bullet lying in the apartment.3



55.336 In these circumstances it could be the case that Bernard Feeney wrongly concluded that Patrick Brolly had been injured by a rubber bullet that had come in through the living room window.

55.337 Gearóid Ó hEára told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1 that he was called into a flat from the lowest balcony of Block 1. According to this account Patrick Brolly and others were there. He stood with Patrick Brolly at the front window, overlooking Rossville Street. Patrick Brolly hammered on the window to attract the attention of two photographers, and shouted to them to take photographs of what was happening. The photographers had come from behind two soldiers who were lying on the ground near the ramp at the north-east corner of Glenfada Park North, firing down Rossville Street. Suddenly the window blew in. Patrick Brolly fell into the room with blood on his face. At first those in the flat thought he had been shot in the head, but after he had been cleaned up it turned out that the window had been hit by a baton round at close range. It must have been fired either from the west side of Rossville Street or from the Ferret scout car which was beneath the window. In his supplementary written statement,2 Gearóid Ó hEára told us that the two soldiers could have been at the ramp at the south end of Kells Walk, but he did not think so. He believed that Patrick Brolly had been trying to make a photographer take pictures of the soldiers firing. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3 Gearóid Ó hEára said that the two soldiers were by the ramp at the north-east corner of Glenfada Park North. The projectile, which was later found to have been a baton round, seemed to come straight through the window and hit Patrick Brolly “on the face, glass and all ”. He said4 that despite other evidence to the contrary he was “pretty clear ” that the shot came from Rossville Street. He thought that someone had found the baton round in the living room, or at least that “that was the explanation we then had ”.




55.338 In our view Gearóid Ó hEára’s memory was playing him tricks. He might have witnessed a rubber bullet coming through the living room window, but in our view this was after Patrick Brolly had been injured.

55.339 In his NICRA statement1 Patrick Friel recorded that he went into Kathleen Cunningham’s flat after hearing her call out that there was a man dead. “I went into this lady’s flat and there was a man lying on the floor, his face covered in blood with glass splinters stuck in his face and forehead … I was later informed that an army rubber bullet had been shot through the window. ” He did not claim to have direct knowledge that this was so. Patrick Friel is dead and gave no evidence to this Inquiry.


55.340 In these circumstances it is not possible to be certain whether a live round or a rubber bullet caused Patrick Brolly’s injuries. In the end we have concluded that it was probably a live round. If it had been a rubber bullet, it would have been found without difficulty, whereas a bullet lodged in a wardrobe in another room could well have escaped immediate notice. Bernard Feeney’s and Gearóid Ó hEára’s evidence of the window being entirely broken, and the former’s evidence about seeing a baton round, appear to us to be more likely to relate to the later incident in the living room. We cannot tell whether the round itself hit Patrick Brolly, or whether his injuries were all caused by flying glass. If a live round hit Patrick Brolly, it must have only lightly grazed him, for otherwise he would have been killed or seriously injured.

55.341 The only soldier who admitted firing live rounds into the south-east side of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats was Private T. We have considered earlier in this report1the evidence relating to the two shots that he said that he fired towards somebody who had thrown down bottles containing acid or some other corrosive liquid.



55.342 In the course of that analysis1 we noted that the Loden List of Engagements records that this person was on the “top floor ” of the flats.2 This contrasts with Private T’s Royal Military Police (RMP) statement in which he referred to the bomber being on a balcony “some 20 to 30 feet above me ”.3 Private T told the Widgery Inquiry that the “verandah ” on which he saw his target was “about three storeys up ”.4 Private T’s trajectory photograph5 shows a position on the fifth floor balcony of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. Private T told the Widgery Inquiry that both his shots missed and that the second shot hit “the wall a few feet above his [the man’s] head ”6 or “the roof of the building ”.7



55.343 There is thus some uncertainty as to how high up in Block 1 was the man at whom Private T fired. On his RMP map,1 on the co-ordinates given in the Loden List of Engagements2 and on his trajectory photograph3 Private T’s target is shown as slightly further along Block 1 (to the south-west) than the flat where we have concluded that Patrick Brolly was injured. In his RMP statement,4 Private T recorded that the balcony was “almost directly above me ”, which would suggest a position towards the north end of the block.



55.344 In the end, it is our view that it was probably one of Private T’s shots that went through the bedroom window of the flat and caused Patrick Brolly’s injury. If we are wrong about this and the injury was caused by a rubber bullet, then in our view this is likely to have been fired by Private 013. In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 this soldier told us that he fired a number of rounds at windows in the Rossville Flats “as these were also good firing positions. I wanted to keep people away from the windows to prevent them shooting at us. I cannot now recall which windows I fired at. ” He was the only one of the soldiers in Mortar Platoon equipped with a baton gun to admit to firing it at windows in the Rossville Flats.



When Patrick Brolly was injured

55.345 According to Celine Brolly’s NICRA statement and her husband’s written statement to this Inquiry, Patrick Brolly was injured when Jackie Duddy was still lying in the car park attended by Fr Daly. We take the view that we should not, because of her later health problems, rely on the different account given by Celine Brolly in her evidence to us. Gearóid Ó hEára told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1 that it was only after he had seen Michael Bridge fall that he went into the flat in which he witnessed the incident in which Patrick Brolly was injured. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 he said that some time elapsed between the two incidents, possibly about five minutes. However, as we have pointed out above,3 we are of the view that Gearóid Ó hEára did not witness Patrick Brolly being injured. Thus all that we can say is that Patrick Brolly was injured after Jackie Duddy was shot but before he had been carried from the car park.



Where Patrick Brolly was taken

55.346 Patrick Brolly said in his written statement to this Inquiry1 that he was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital in the same ambulance as Alana Burke. In their statements made on 2nd February 1972,2 John Rafferty and Samuel Hughes, respectively the driver of that ambulance and the attendant, said that they carried a man with an injured forehead who came and sat in the ambulance. We are satisfied that this was Patrick Brolly.



Pius McCarron

55.347 Pius McCarron made no statement in 1972 and was unable through ill health to give evidence to this Inquiry. He died in 2004. We have no biographical details of him, save that James Deeney told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1 that Pius McCarron was about 30 years old on Bloody Sunday. We have no medical evidence either. His name does not appear on a list, submitted to the Widgery Inquiry on 2nd March 1972 by the Patients’ Services Officer at Altnagelvin Hospital, of the names of those who had been treated at the hospital for injuries sustained on Bloody Sunday.2



55.348 However, there is evidence that he was injured in the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats.

55.349 In his NICRA statement1Patrick Clarke described running along Chamberlain Street towards the Rossville Flats and seeing, when he reached the car park area, someone lying flat on his back being tended by two people. He continued:

“At this particular point I was able to see British soldiers in firing positions and shooting over the head of the priest at other people who were taking cover behind a low wall at the rear of the steps in the high flats. I made my way round to the passage at the lower intersection of the two blocks of High Flats and here I came upon a member of the Knights of Malta in attendance on another injured person. He asked for assistance. We were unable to determine there and then what was wrong with him as he did not seem to have any wounds. I knew the man to be Pius McCarran [sic]. Another fellow and myself started to carry him to one of the nearby houses, and while doing so some shots were also fired at us, hitting the wall above our heads.

When we got him into a house we found out that he had been hit in the head by a piece of masonry from a ricochet. This he told us himself when he recovered. In that same house was a young girl who had been hit by a Saracen and was in great pain from back injuries. ”



55.350 In his written evidence to this Inquiry,1Patrick Clarke told us that he had discovered Pius McCarron at the car park entrance to the small alleyway between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats. He said that he saw Pius McCarron lying on the ground. He thought that he had been shot dead. He stopped and looked for a bullet wound but could not see one. He saw the piece of masonry lying next to Pius McCarron. It was a piece of cladding from the wall of the Rossville Flats. He did not see a hole in the wall but saw a gash on Pius McCarron’s head. He and someone else carried him to a house in Joseph Place, on the other side of the Rossville Flats.



55.351 Patrick Clarke’s oral evidence1 was to the same effect, though he agreed, on being shown his NICRA statement, that it was likely that he had come across Pius McCarron in the passageway between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats.



55.352 In his written evidence to this Inquiry,1Eamonn Baker described running along Chamberlain Street to the Rossville Flats car park, where he saw the body of Jackie Duddy. He then decided to leave the car park through the passage between Blocks 2 and 3. He told us that he saw Michael Bradley shot and helped to get him round the corner into the passage:

“There was another lad in the gap between Block 2 and Block 3 who I knew, called Pius McCarron. He was rushing through the gap trying to escape with his back to a wall and the position where I think this wall was is marked with a C on the attached map (grid reference L18). I have a blurred feeling of shots being fired into this wall at just above head height. Just as the bullets struck the wall, Pius seemed to faint and he slumped to the ground. I am unable to say how many shots hit this wall, but there was more than one. ”



55.353 The position marked by Eamonn Baker was indeed on the concrete wall below Block 3 just by the passage between Blocks 2 and 3. During his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1he marked with a blue arrow on the following photograph the approximate position where he recalled the bullets striking.2This photograph was not taken on Bloody Sunday.

55.354 James Deeney also gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. In his written statement1he told us that as he ran for the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 he saw Pius McCarron, whom he knew, running ahead of him. “Before we made it through the gap there were, I think, two shots fired. At this point Pius fell in front of me and I thought he had been shot. However, the shots hit the masonry above us, and the dust from the masonry had got into his eyes and stunned him. ” In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, James Deeney said that he recalled Pius McCarron stumbling rather than actually falling: “he was able to go up and carry on, so I think he was okay. ”2He also marked on a photograph where he recalled the masonry had come from,3which was almost exactly the same spot as that marked by Eamonn Baker and shown above.4




Where Pius McCarron was injured

55.355 From the evidence examined above, we have no doubt that Pius McCarron was injured at the entrance to the passageway between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats.

What Pius McCarron was doing when he was injured

55.356 From the evidence of Eamonn Baker and James Deeney it seems clear to us that Pius McCarron was running away when he was injured. There is no evidence that before this he was doing anything that could have justified shots being fired towards him.

What injured Pius McCarron

55.357 Patrick Clarke recorded in his NICRA statement that Pius McCarron told him that he had been hit by a piece of masonry dislodged by a ricochet. From this and the other evidence examined above we are sure that he was hit on the head by masonry dislodged by a bullet or bullets striking the concrete wall in or near the position shown in the photographs marked by Eamonn Baker and James Deeney.1

1 In the Derry Journal newspaper of 29th January 2010 it was reported that Donna McElhinney (daughter of Pius McCarron) had said that her father had been grazed by a bullet on Bloody Sunday, and that this was the cause of a brain haemorrhage that developed a year and half later. At this stage of the Inquiry it is not possible to investigate whether the injury sustained by Pius McCarron on Bloody Sunday was causative of his later illness. In the light of the evidence to which we have referred above, we remain of the view that Pius McCarron was hit by masonry, and not by a bullet.

55.358 We should note at this point that it was submitted by the representatives of the majority of represented soldiers that a far more likely explanation is that Pius McCarron was “knocked unconscious by a blast from a bomb of some description ”.1We have found no evidence of any kind that to our minds supports this submission, which is inconsistent with the accounts that we have considered above.


55.359 According to their accounts Sergeant O, Private Q and Private R fired in total six rounds in the direction of the passageway between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats. According to their trajectory photographs, which we have considered earlier in this report,1these shots, unless they hit an intermediate target, would have hit the concrete wall in more or less the very place where Eamonn Baker and James Deeney recalled bullets striking. It is impossible to tell which bullet or bullets may have indirectly injured Pius McCarron. For reasons explained later,2we cannot eliminate the possibility that Private S fired one or more shots in this direction and thus he might have been responsible for the injury to Pius McCarron.



When Pius McCarron was injured

55.360 It seems to us from Patrick Clarke’s NICRA statement that he saw Jackie Duddy lying in the car park before he came across Pius McCarron. According to Eamonn Baker, it was after he had seen Jackie Duddy lying in the car park, and Michael Bradley injured, that he saw Pius McCarron slump to the ground. Eamonn Baker,1 Patrick Clarke2 and perhaps also James Deeney3 saw Jackie Duddy lying on the ground in the car park, and yet none said that he had seen Jackie Duddy lifted and carried away before he saw Pius McCarron. In our view it is likely that Pius McCarron was injured before Jackie Duddy was carried away, but after Michael Bradley was injured. The fact that Gilles Peress took no photographs of Pius McCarron is to our minds an indication that he was injured and helped away before Gilles Peress got to the low wall parallel to the side of Block 2 and took the photographs of the men below the high retaining wall beneath Block 3, to which we have referred4 when considering the wounding of Patrick McDaid. In our view, therefore, it is probable that Pius McCarron was injured before Patrick McDaid.






Where Pius McCarron was taken

55.361 In his NICRA statement1Joseph Doherty described going to the “maisonettes near the flats ”, where there were two men carrying Pius McCarron, “and I helped get him into a house. He was unconscious but only from a graze atop his head, he came around alright. ” It seems to us that the house to which Joseph Doherty referred must have been one of the maisonettes in Joseph Place, where Patrick Clarke said that he had taken Pius McCarron.


55.362 We have no evidence of Pius McCarron’s movements after he reached Joseph Place. He may simply have gone home.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 56




Chapter 56: The order and position of the known casualties in Sector 2

56.1 In the light of the evidence relating to the casualties in Sector 2 that we have considered above, it seems to us that the first person to be shot was Jackie Duddy, soon followed by Margaret Deery.

56.2 Patrick Brolly was injured after Jackie Duddy was shot but before the latter had been carried from the car park, as were Michael Bridge and Michael Bradley.

56.3 Pius McCarron was injured after Michael Bradley had been shot and was followed by Patrick McDaid.

56.4 We do not know how much time elapsed between the first and the last of the casualties, but our overall impression from our examination of the evidence relating to Sector 2 is that it could only have been a matter of a very few minutes.

56.5 From the evidence that we have considered above, it is possible to mark on a map the positions of these casualties when they were shot or otherwise injured.


56.6 As will have been seen from the photographs reproduced above,1anyone looking from the northern side of the car park must have seen Jackie Duddy’s body lying there, and also the group carrying his body away. Michael Bridge was on his own in the car park when he was shot and again must have been clearly visible to anyone looking from the north, as must Margaret Deery who was shot near the wall at the back of the houses at the Rossville Flats end of Chamberlain Street and then carried round the corner to 33 Chamberlain Street. Michael Bradley would not have been as clearly visible as a casualty, since he quickly moved back over the low wall that ran parallel to Block 2 of the Rossville Flats. Patrick Brolly probably could not have been seen by anyone in the car park area, while it may not have been apparent that either Pius McCarron or Patrick McDaid had been injured.



56.7 In these circumstances it is important to consider the evidence that the soldiers of Mortar Platoon gave about the known casualties from gunfire in Sector 2.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 57




Evidence from the soldiers concerning the known casualties
Chapter 57: Evidence from the soldiers concerning the known casualties




Lieutenant N

57.1 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 Lieutenant N said that he did not see a young boy fall dead in the area of the car park of the Rossville Flats.



57.2 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Lieutenant N said that he had no recollection of seeing the body of a boy in the car park or of seeing a group of men gathered around what might have been the body of a boy. He said that he had no recollection of seeing the scenes shown in Gilles Peress’s and Sam Gillespie’s photographs of Jackie Duddy and the group around him,2which we have reproduced above.3 He told us that he did not see anyone other than his own target shot in the leg in the area shown in Sam Gillespie’s photograph of Michael Bridge on his own in the car park,4which we have also reproduced above.5






57.3 Lieutenant N was asked1 how he had failed to see any of his soldiers shooting anyone, or to see anything of significance in the car park during a time when several people were shot, and said that he was very busy with the events in which he was directly involved.


Sergeant O

57.4 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Sergeant O said that he had no recollection of seeing a group including Fr Edward Daly around a body at any stage, or of the scene shown in Sam Gillespie’s photograph of the group round Jackie Duddy. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 he said that he had no recollection of seeing Fr Daly attending to a body on the ground. He completely missed the shooting of Jackie Duddy, and the group of people attending to him. His only explanation of this was that he had “tunnel vision ” while engaging his first two gunmen and was then concentrating on the location towards which Private S was firing. He said that he did not recall seeing the scene shown in Fulvio Grimaldi’s photograph3 of Jackie Duddy being carried out of the car park, or anything like it.4






57.5 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Sergeant O said that he did not remember a woman being shot in or around the car park.


57.6 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Sergeant O said that he did not remember a tall man being shot in the leg in the entrance to the car park. He accepted2 that he was probably the soldier shown standing at the rear of his Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) and marked with an arrow in Sam Gillespie’s photograph of Michael Bridge (shown again below)3 but said that he did not see Michael Bridge or the body that lay on the ground behind him, surrounded by a group of civilians that included a priest.





57.7 Sergeant O said1 that he did not see a man shot in front of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats either in the arm or in the chest. He was shown Larry Doherty’s photograph2 of Michael Bradley being taken away on a stretcher at a later stage, and said that so far as he was aware he had never seen his face before.



Corporal P

57.8 Corporal P did not describe seeing any of the known casualties in Sector 2.

Private Q

57.9 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Private Q said that he did not recall seeing a group of people around a body in the position shown in Fulvio Grimaldi’s photograph of Fr Daly and Charles Glenn attending to Jackie Duddy,2 nor did he see a group of people carrying a body out of the car park.




57.10 Private Q said1 that he did not see the shooting of Michael Bridge, nor did he see him being carried away towards Chamberlain Street.



57.11 Private Q said1 that he could give no assistance as to who might have shot Jackie Duddy, Michael Bridge or Michael Bradley.



Private R

57.12 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Private R said that he did not remember seeing any civilians shot in the car park other than the two at whom he fired, one of whom he might not have hit, and the gunman at whom he saw Sergeant O fire.


57.13 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Private R said that he had not seen the scene shown in Fulvio Grimaldi’s photograph2 of Jackie Duddy being carried out of the car park. He said3 that he had no recollection of seeing scenes such as those shown in Gilles Peress’s photograph of Jackie Duddy and the group around him,4 or Fulvio Grimaldi’s photograph of Fr Daly and Charles Glenn attending to Jackie Duddy,5 and that he did not see Jackie Duddy being carried out of the car park, as shown in the CBS film.6




57.14 Private R said1 that he did not see a man approaching Sergeant O’s APC from around a group surrounding a body in the southern part of the car park, nor did he see anyone shoot a man in the leg in the car park. He also said2 that he did not see anyone shot in the arms and chest near the low wall parallel to Block 2. So far as he was aware, he had not seen the man (Michael Bradley) shown being taken away on a stretcher in Larry Doherty’s photograph.3



Private S

57.15 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 Private S said that he had seen what he took to be a body lying on the ground in front of him, at a stage which he thought was after he had taken up his position at the back of 34 Chamberlain Street but before he had fired his first shots. He did not notice whether there was a priest near the body at any time. A lot of people were milling about in the car park even after he saw the body. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 Private S said that he had no recollection of seeing the body. None was prompted when he was shown some of the photographs of Jackie Duddy lying on the ground reproduced above.3 He said4 that he had no recollection of witnessing the scene shown in Fulvio Grimaldi’s photograph of Jackie Duddy’s body being carried away.5




57.16 Private S said1 that he did not recall seeing anyone fall, or anyone who had fallen, in the area where he was positioned at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses. He was certainly not aware of a woman being shot in the leg close to him. He said2 that he did not see a woman being shot by another soldier as he made his way along the back of the Chamberlain Street houses, and had no recollection of seeing a woman being carried away from that area.



57.17 Private S said,1 after being shown Sam Gillespie’s photograph of Michael Bridge standing on his own in the car park,2 that he did not recall seeing anyone being shot close to the mouth of the car park.



Private T and Private U

57.18 Neither of these soldiers gave any evidence of seeing any of the known casualties in Sector 2.

Lance Corporal V

57.19 In his RMP statement,1 Lance Corporal V recorded that when he fired a shot at a man who had thrown a bottle with a fuse attached to the end, the man was thrown to the ground. The crowd scattered but four or five people returned. Lance Corporal V saw them waving white handkerchiefs and attending to the man.



57.20 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry1 and in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,2 Lance Corporal V said that four or five male persons approached the body of the man whom he had shot, with their hands in the air, waving white handkerchiefs. He was asked3 whether one of these people had been a priest in clerical clothes, and said that he thought so.



57.21 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Lance Corporal V said that although he had no present recollection, it had been his impression at the time, possibly mistaken, that a group of people including a priest had attended to the man whom he had shot. He then said that he had seen a body on the ground being attended to by a priest, which he had taken to be the body of the man whom he had shot. However, he repeatedly rejected the suggestion2 that this man was Jackie Duddy, since he said that the man whom he shot had been wearing a white shirt and was hit in the centre of the body. Lance Corporal V said3 that he did not recognise the scene shown in Gilles Peress’s photograph of Jackie Duddy and the group around him,4 and5 that he could not explain how he had failed to see the body of Jackie Duddy lying on the ground. He said,6 after being shown Fulvio Grimaldi’s photograph of Jackie Duddy being carried,7 that he did not see that scene.




57.22 Lance Corporal V said1 that he did not see the shooting of Margaret Deery. He also said,2 after being shown Sam Gillespie’s photographs of Michael Bridge reproduced above,3 that he did not see a tall man shot in the leg in the car park. He said4 that he could not explain how he had failed to see Michael Bridge approaching his position, shouting and gesticulating, and said that he did not see the shooting of Michael Bridge.


4 Day 333/152-153


Private 006

57.23 Private 006 gave no evidence of seeing any of the known casualties in Sector 2.

Private 013

57.24 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Private 013 said that he did not remember seeing “anyone hit or anyone being shot ” in the car park, although he saw people falling over in the crowd.



Private 017

57.25 Private 017 gave no evidence of seeing any of the known casualties in Sector 2.

Private 019

57.26 Private 019 gave no evidence of seeing any of the known casualties in Sector 2. In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 he told us that he saw no bodies other than the three placed inside Lieutenant N’s vehicle, an incident that occurred later and to which we return in due course.2


Private 112

57.27 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Private 112 said that, as far as he could recall, while at the north-east corner of Block 1 he did not see anyone who had been injured. He said2 that he did not see any civilians lying on the ground, nor did he recollect seeing a group of people gathered around the body of a young man, or seeing a priest in the car park.



57.28 Corporal 162 gave no evidence of seeing any of the known casualties in Sector 2.



57.29 Lance Corporal INQ 768 gave no evidence of seeing any of the known casualties in Sector 2. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 he said that he did not at any time see any civilian fall to the ground.


57.30 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Private INQ 1579 said that he had no recollection of seeing the shooting of Jackie Duddy or of any of the other known casualties.



57.31 Private INQ 1918 gave no evidence of seeing any of the known casualties in Sector 2. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 he said that he had no idea when he first learned that civilians had been killed and wounded.



57.32 As we have observed earlier in this report,1 none of the soldiers has admitted shooting any of the gunfire casualties in Sector 2. With the exception, perhaps, of Private R, none admitted even the possibility that any of the gunfire casualties could have been hit by accident. When this is added to the fact that, while Lance Corporal V and Private S each said that he saw a body, none of the soldiers has admitted seeing any of the known gunfire casualties and many have asserted that they did not do so, our view, that the evidence of one or more of them must be inaccurate and incomplete, is reinforced. Some at least of them must have seen Jackie Duddy lying in the car park and then being carried away, Margaret Deery shot and being carried away and Michael Bridge out on his own facing the soldiers and then shot in the leg, if not Michael Bradley being shot as well.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 58



Other evidence of paramilitary gunmen in Sector 2
Chapter 58: Other evidence of paramilitary gunmen in Sector 2



58.1 We now turn to consider evidence from others (apart from the members of Mortar Platoon) of paramilitary gunmen in Sector 2.

The gunman described by Fr Daly

58.2 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, Fr Edward Daly, after describing giving Jackie Duddy the last rites and seeing Michael Bridge shot, recorded that he and the others there decided to try to carry Jackie Duddy to a position where he could receive medical aid.1 His statement continued:

“Just as we were about to get up and make a dash for Chamberlain a civilian gunman appeared at the gable of the last house in Chamberlain Street. I first of all saw the man move along the gable of the house. I thought his movements were strange and suddenly he produced a gun from his pocket … it was small hand gun and made a very different bang than the soldiers’ rifles … he fired two or three shots at the soldiers at the corner of the flats … I think they fired back although I am not sure. I shouted at him to go away or he would get us all killed. He looked round at us lying out in the middle of the car park and then he moved away. Alter lying for a few more moments, I got up on my knees and was just about to rise when the army opened fire again. We all dived to the ground again and lay there for another while. ”




58.3 Fr Daly gave a similar account in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry:1

“LORD WIDGERY: Is that the way you went?

A. That is the way we decided to go.

Q. We see this in the film?

A. There was an incident happened before that. Just as we were about to get up I saw a man with a brown jacket move along this gable here of this house here. He suddenly appeared on the corner of the house and moved along. I thought that his movements were rather strange and suddenly he produced a gun from his right hand pocket of his jacket, or it appeared in his right hand. It was a small gun, a hand gun and he fired two or three shots around this corner here at the soldiers. I think there were two soldiers; there certainly was one who stepped out from time to time. I remember the time he shot this boy here and he fired two or three shots at them.

We screamed at him to go away because again we were frightened the soldiers might think the fire was coming from where we were and he looked around and then he just faded out across here and I do not know where he went to; he must have gone into Chamberlain Street or somewhere. Then we decided to make a dash for it and we got up first of all on our knees and I waved this handkerchief and there was a burst of gunfire that came at the time. I remember we had to lie down again. ”




58.4 Fr Daly told the Widgery Inquiry that this was the only firearm that he saw that afternoon “outside of Army hands ”.1



58.5 Fr Daly gave similar accounts of this gunman in:

• an interview with Philip Jacobson and Peter Pringle of the Sunday Times Insight Team on 16th March 1972;1

• an interview with the journalist Tony Parker, published in the New Statesman and Society at the time of the 20th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in January 1992;2

• an interview in 1991 with the journalist Peter Taylor, who was carrying out research for the BBC television documentary Remember Bloody Sunday;3

• his written statement to this Inquiry;4

• an interview with Jimmy McGovern on 29th January 2001;5 and

• his oral evidence to this Inquiry.6



58.6 According to Fr Daly’s accounts, the gunman moved along the gable end at the southern end of Chamberlain Street and fired from the corner in the direction of the soldiers. That corner was at the end of the garden wall that extended westwards from the gable end of the last house (number 36) on the west side of Chamberlain Street. An enlargement of one of the photographs taken by Derrik Tucker Senior from Block 2 of the Rossville Flats on Bloody Sunday, reproduced below, shows this gable end and the wall extending from it. It will be noted that on the eastern side of Chamberlain Street there is also a gable end and a wall running eastwards that formed the southern wall of the garden of the last house (number 33) on that side of Chamberlain Street. Many of the witnesses described the wall along which Fr Daly (and others) told us the gunman moved as “the gable end ” or “the gable end wall ”. We use these expressions in this report, though, as will be seen, in some cases it is necessary to distinguish between the western and eastern gable ends and their adjoining walls.



58.7 Because this gunman was seen and described by Fr Daly, he has become known as “Fr Daly’s gunman ”.



58.8 OIRA 4 gave written evidence to this Inquiry in the form of two statements, one prepared by his solicitors and one taken by the Inquiry.1He was called to give oral evidence, but unfortunately fell ill soon after starting to do so and was unable for that reason to complete his evidence then or thereafter. As a result Counsel to the Inquiry could not finish his questioning of this witness, and the other interested parties were deprived of the opportunity to ask him any questions.



58.9 OIRA 4 told us that in 1972 he was a member of the Official IRA Command Staff in the north-west of Ireland, that he was based in Derry, and that he was the Adjutant and Finance Officer.1He told us that on Bloody Sunday he was carrying a .32in pistol “to protect myself from the security forces ”.2


58.10 According to his written accounts to this Inquiry,1OIRA 4 was nearly 34 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday. He had been near the rioting at Barrier 14. He went along Chamberlain Street when he thought the Army was about to come in. He told us that it was as he was running down Chamberlain Street that he heard shooting for the first time that day. When he reached the car park he went in a few yards and saw Fr Daly attending to a body that he afterwards learned was that of Jackie Duddy. He then realised that the soldiers were firing live rounds, and so he ran back to the gable wall at the end of Chamberlain Street and moved westwards along this wall. From this point he said that he could see a “Saracen ” which he recalled being near the north-east corner of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. His second account continued:2

“There seemed to be lots of shooting going on and I could see the paras firing but I cannot now recall exactly how many shots they fired because it all happened so quickly. I don’t know whether the paras I could see were firing all of the shots I could hear, but all the shots I could hear were high calibre, heavy duty fire and I took them all to be coming from the army.

I just lost my temper. The Brits were gunning down innocent civilians. I took my short weapon out of my pocket and fired two, possibly three, shots towards the Saracen at point D. I did it out of pure anger at what was happening around me. As I have said, my gun was a .32 calibre, a small, and looking back, pretty pathetic weapon, and I was probably well out of range to do any damage to the paras or their Saracen. I didn’t hear any pings or anything to suggest I hit the Saracen. Not only do I think I was out of range, I don’t even know if I fired well enough to hit it, but I was just firing out of pure frustration.

I never even thought about what was around the corner of the wall (northwards) because I was only concerned with firing at the Saracen and obviously not thinking straight. I wasn’t holding my gun around the corner shooting blindly northwards as has been suggested. I was shooting in a westerly direction towards the Saracen in front of me, and the paras near to the Saracen. I wasn’t aiming at anyone in particular, I was just firing towards where I could see the shooting coming from. Someone told me later

that at the end of the wall, around the corner where I couldn’t see, were a couple of paras and I know now that I was very lucky not to be seen and to have got out of the whole situation alive.

I don’t think the soldiers even noticed me. I have a vague feeling as I stood there that I could feel bullets going over my head, but this might be a false memory. If there were bullets going over my head I think they must have been getting fired at someone else rather than me. If those paras had seen me they wouldn’t have been firing over my head – I’d be dead now. They would have shot me to pieces. Even if I’d been caught with a weapon, let alone caught firing it, I would have been shot dead by the Brits. Of course, I didn’t think of any of this at the time; I was just so angry and firing out of frustration. At no time did I hear any shots coming from the area around me or above me from the Rossville Flats. Also, I have no recollection of any shots striking anywhere near me, so I could just be imagining this sensation. The only shooting I heard coming from our side that day was mine. I never heard any explosions that day at all.

The minute I had fired I was confronted by people shouting at me to stop. They were yelling at me words to the effect of ‘pack it in!’ or possibly ‘pack it in OIRA 4’ if they knew me. I can’t remember whether I knew any of the people who shouted to me, only that they wanted me to stop. Even Father Daly seemed to be shouting at me to stop from where he was attending to Jack Duddy. I was still mad as hell but these people brought me to my senses and I put my gun away in my coat pocket. It never left the pocket after that. ”




58.11 The “point D ” to which OIRA 4 referred in the second paragraph quoted above was, according to the map accompanying this statement, at about the north-east corner of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.1



58.12 OIRA 4 told us that just after he had fired he saw Michael Bridge shot. He then went back to try to get into 33 Chamberlain Street, saw a group of people outside wondering what to do, and after a while followed the photojournalist Fulvio Grimaldi and his assistant Susan North, who had been in this group, through the alleyway between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats. According to his account he then left the area and went back to the Creggan.1



58.13 The representatives of the majority of represented soldiers did not accept that OIRA 4 was Fr Daly’s gunman.1For reasons that we give below, we consider that he probably was.


58.14 There is no evidence from the soldiers that any or them saw or reacted to a gunman firing from the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street. In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1Fr Daly had said that he thought, but was not sure, that the soldiers had fired back, but in his evidence to this Inquiry he was more than doubtful that they had done so or that they had even seen the gunman.2



58.15 The first photograph reproduced below is an image of a photograph that was shown in a BBC documentary programme broadcast on 19th April 1972.1The reason why it is of poor quality is that the Inquiry does not have in its possession a print or negative of the original photograph. The image was produced from the 16mm film of the BBC programme by Alexis Slater of the Forensic Science Service, who also prepared two enlargements of sections of the photograph, which are reproduced beneath the complete image.2We set out and discuss later in this report3the evidence relating to the provenance of this photograph. For the reasons there set out we are of the view that the photograph was probably taken by Fulvio Grimaldi, despite his reluctance to admit that he had taken it. We are also of the view that this photograph probably does show Fr Daly’s gunman , again for reasons given below.

58.16 When he made his second statement to this Inquiry, OIRA 4 had been shown images of the photograph taken from a videotape of the BBC programme.1 These were similar to the images produced by Alexis Slater albeit of lesser quality. OIRA 4 told us that he did not “necessarily ” recognise himself, but he said: “I know it must be me because of the location. ”2



Robert Brady

58.17 Robert Brady died in 1996 and gave no evidence to this Inquiry, but he did give a statement to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in 1972.1 He gave a description of a gunman: “short, about 5´ 7Ë and he had black hair which just hung over his ears. He was wearing a black checked overcoat with a fur collar and black trousers. ” According to this account, the gunman fired two shots from the gable end of the last house in Chamberlain Street towards the waste ground, at a time when Fr Daly was assisting Jackie Duddy. Although OIRA 4 told us that he thought he was wearing a dark blue or black duffel coat,2 while Fr Daly described the man he saw as wearing a brown jacket,3 it seems to us that the man Robert Brady saw was probably the one seen by Fr Daly, since both describe a man firing from this position while Fr Daly was assisting Jackie Duddy. We return later in this report4 to consider a submission based on the fact that a number of witnesses gave different descriptions of the gunman that they said that they saw.




Gerard Grieve

58.18 We formed the same view of the evidence of Gerard Grieve1 who told us that as he went across the car park from Chamberlain Street to the gap between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats, he passed the group that included Fr Daly and looked back to see a civilian with a handgun walking along the gable end wall of Chamberlain Street: “All I can remember about this man is that he was approximately 5´ 6Ë, tall with grey hair and a grey moustache. I did not see him fire his gun. ”2




William Harley

58.19 William Harley told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1 that he watched events from 37 Donagh Place, which was on the top floor in the centre of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats. He stated:2

“One final recollection concerns a civilian gunman. I knew him from work but I will not name him. While I was standing at the balcony looking out on the Rossville Flats car park (before going inside my flat as I have described above) I noticed him at the gable end of Chamberlain Street at the south western corner of grid reference M15. His hair was black with a moustache and he wore a black coat and black trousers. I saw him before the armoured car reached point B described above. I remember him looking out around the western corner of the gable end in a northerly direction across the waste ground in Rossville Street. It was only a quick, furtive look after which he stepped back behind the gable end and took out a revolver with a 3" barrel from his right hand coat pocket. With his back to the gable end wall, the man reached out his right hand and bent his wrist around the corner of the wall and fired five or six shots without looking. From my vantage point in Block 2 of Rossville Flats, I watched the five or six shots simply fire into the ground. As far as I can recall, this all happened before I saw any soldiers on foot and before I saw or heard any gunfire from the

soldiers. I do not believe that the soldiers were aware of this man or his actions. I then watched the man turn and walk towards the southern end of Chamberlain Street in a south easterly direction. ”


58.20 The grid reference M15 refers to the area of the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street and point B is the position where, from other evidence discussed above, Sergeant O’s Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) stopped in the car park. William Harley gave this Inquiry the name of the gunman that he said he saw. This was the name of OIRA 4.1


58.21 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry1 William Harley corrected what he had stated about when this incident occurred:

“Q. You say that you saw this all happen before you saw any soldiers on foot and before you saw or heard any gunfire from the soldiers. Had you seen Jack Duddy’s body on the ground before this?

A. May I correct that statement, please?

Q. Yes, certainly.

A. That was a, an error on my part. The incident is exactly as I have described it, but the timing is completely wrong. The reason, at the time there were no soldiers anywhere near that gunman and that is what confused my thinking as to the time.
I know now that he fired round that corner while Jack Duddy’s body was lying on the ground. ”


58.22 It was submitted by the representatives of the majority of represented soldiers that this correction by William Harley of his written statement was “simply not credible ” and that he (apparently dishonestly) later altered his evidence “to fit in with the accepted explanation ”.1


58.23 We reject this submission. William Harley was in our view doing his best to assist this Inquiry and we do not find it surprising or suspicious that on reflection he changed his mind about when he saw the incident in question. In our view what he was recalling was a sighting of Fr Daly’s gunman.

Maureen Gerke

58.24 Maureen Gerke gave evidence to this Inquiry that “Quite late on ” she saw from Block 3 of the Rossville Flats someone flattened against the wall at the gable end of Chamberlain Street with his right hand poking something round the corner into Chamberlain Street.1 In her oral evidence to this Inquiry2 she told us that this was after Jackie Duddy had been taken from the car park. She said that she did not know whether the man had a gun, but did recall people shouting at him to go away.3

58.25 Since people were, according to Maureen Gerke, shouting at the man to go away, it is reasonable to infer that they may have seen that he was armed. In our view this man was probably OIRA 4, since on his own account he did not leave this area until he followed Fulvio Grimaldi and Susan North to the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats; and their evidence was that this was after Jackie Duddy had been taken along Chamberlain Street, and after Fulvio Grimaldi had photographed Margaret Deery and Michael Bridge in 33 Chamberlain Street.1Maureen Gerke did not suggest that she saw this man fire into Chamberlain Street. We return to her evidence below2after considering the accounts of those who suggested that a gunman fired up Chamberlain Street from its southern end.



Evidence of shots fired up Chamberlain Street

Bernard Gilmour

58.26 Bernard Gilmour, a brother of Hugh Gilmour who was killed on Bloody Sunday, told us in his written statement1that he saw a gunman near Chamberlain Street after Jackie Duddy had been shot. He stated that he knew who the gunman was, described him as “a big, tall fellow wearing a mask ” and stated that he saw him fire some shots up Chamberlain Street.



58.27 During his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Bernard Gilmour wrote down the name of this man.1It was the same man as William Harley had identified, namely OIRA 4. However, Bernard Gilmour also told us that he could have been mistaken in recalling that the man had fired up Chamberlain Street, and on being shown one of the images of the gunman taken from the videotape of the BBC programme, to which we have referred above, said:2

“Q … Anyway, you cannot specifically recall now whether he fired up Chamberlain Street or into the waste ground?

A. No. I still get the recollection it was up Chamberlain Street – well, maybe I was wrong, but I thought he was firing up Chamberlain Street. This photograph here, he was firing up towards the waste ground, is he not?

Q. Yes, undoubtedly, if that is the same man?

A. Well, there was only one man there at that wall at the time, so I assume he must have been firing at the waste ground. ”


58.28 Bernard Gilmour’s description of the gunman’s appearance does not fit OIRA 4’s evidence that he was not a big, tall man and never wore a mask.1 But the name matches OIRA 4, and in our view Bernard Gilmour probably saw OIRA 4 fire. It seems to us that his recollection of the description of the gunman may well have become distorted over the years. Again, we return to consider below2 his recollection that the gunman fired up Chamberlain Street.


58.29 In addition to Maureen Gerke and Bernard Gilmour, there are two other witnesses who gave evidence that a gunman fired up Chamberlain Street from its southern end.

Frank Lawton

58.30 Frank Lawton made a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) statement of which two typescript versions exist.1 The texts of the two versions of this statement are substantially identical. Frank Lawton then made a further statement, which was witnessed by a Londonderry solicitor.2 This statement is undated but was clearly made in 1972. In large part it reproduces the content of the NICRA statement but it contains some additional material. Frank Lawton also gave written and oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry.3

58.31 In all the written accounts that he gave in 1972 Frank Lawton said that he had seen no-one other than members of the security forces carrying guns. In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry he made no reference to, and was not asked about, any paramilitary gunman.1 However, in his interview for Praxis Films Ltd2 in 1991 he told Tony Stark that he had seen an elderly man wearing a long raincoat and a flat cap: “And he was running about and he fired a handgun, as far as I could see, along the street where the soldiers were coming down, and then he disappeared out of sight, I don’t know where he went after that, you know? ” This interview continued:

“Q: Where was he when he fired the gun?

A: He was running about in the middle of the – the car park at the back. In actual fact er – as far as I remember Father Daley at the time, he passed – he passed him on his way to the corner of the flats where they were running for cover, you know.

Q: And when he fired at the soldiers, when was this?

A: It was – it was – as I say, it was er – as they were bringing the body across the back of the square, he – he appeared from somewhere. Where he appeared from, I do not know, but he started firing a gun and he fired about five or six shots as far as I could see along the street, and then he disappeared. ”



58.32 The note made by Tony Stark’s colleague John Goddard concerning this witness1 included the following: “Gunman ran along wall, pulled out pistol, idiot, fired at troops, stopped by three people thrown against wall and ‘admonished’. Could have been .22 or even starting pistol. ”



58.33 Frank Lawton gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry. He said nothing in his written statement1 about the gunman, but he was asked about him during the course of his oral evidence.2 He told us that he did not know why he had not mentioned the gunman in his written evidence to this Inquiry. He said, “I may not have been asked that question. ”3 He initially told us that he did not know why he had not mentioned the gunman in the accounts that he gave in 1972,4 but said that “I just must have overlooked that particular piece; there was so much going on and there was so much I wanted to get down on that paper while it was still fresh in my mind that I must have just overlooked this particular incident. ”5 He told us that his recollection was that the gunman had fired up Chamberlain Street6 and, though later in his evidence he agreed that the gunman could in fact have fired from the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street towards the armoured vehicle,7 at the end of his evidence he again said that to the best of his recollection the man had fired round the corner of Chamberlain Street.8




Peter McLaughlin

58.34 Peter McLaughlin was watching events from 27 Garvan Place in Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, moving between one of the bedrooms overlooking the car park on the north side and the living room overlooking Joseph Place on the south side.1 He gave us the following account in his written statement to this Inquiry:2

“Between five and ten minutes after I first became aware of the shooting, I saw a civilian man armed with a gun inching his way west along the southern gable end of the houses on the eastern side of Chamberlain Street. He particularly stood out because when I first saw him there was a lull in the shooting. There was a group of people sheltering in the fenced play area to the east of the gable end and the gunman was within 60 feet of this group of people. There is attached to this statement marked Photo 3, a photograph of the south gable end of the houses on Chamberlain Street. I saw the gunman along the gable end indicated by the arrow and the fenced play area I have described is in the area marked by the asterisk.

The man seemed to be a fairly young, in his early twenties. I could not see the colour of his hair. He seemed to be wearing casual clothing. I cannot remember the colour of his clothes although he was not wearing anything bright that stood out. I cannot be more specific than that.

I remember seeing the man with a hand pistol in his right hand although I cannot be not certain [sic] about the exact nature of the gun; I do not have the necessary expertise to tell one weapon apart from another. The crowd in the fenced play area also seemed to be aware of him although, it appeared to me, that they had no reason to believe he was armed or any idea of what he was going to do.

As the man reached the south western corner of the gable end he stretched his right arm and wrist around the corner and pointed the gun in a northerly direction up Chamberlain Street. He then fired, to the best of my recollection, between three and five shots. The man did not take aim before he fired. In fact he couldn’t see what he was shooting at. The shots he fired were markedly different from those I had heard previously since they produced low velocity sounds rather than the high pitched crack of high velocity shots. He then put the gun away. I thought to myself, ‘how stupid,’ because this was clearly a danger to the people in the play area. I had a general sense of people in the play area and other people in the flats shouting their disapproval to him. No one moved or went near to him. It would have been dangerous in an open area to move towards a gunman.

I was afraid that soldiers were going to come from any direction towards the gunman and to the other people in the play ground, however, there was no response by the army. I have no recollection of where the man went. I only watched the scene for a couple of minutes. ”



58.35 On the photograph to which Peter McLaughlin referred, the gable wall is shown, consistently with his statement, as being the one on the eastern side of Chamberlain Street. As we have described earlier in this report,1 there was a fenced area to the east of this wall, as Peter McLaughlin stated.



58.36 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Peter McLaughlin’s attention was drawn to the evidence given by his father, Charles McLaughlin, who had been watching events from the same flat.1 Charles McLaughlin’s evidence was that he had seen a gunman move along the gable wall on the western side of Chamberlain Street and fire from the end of the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street into the waste ground.2 In other words, his account of this man’s movements was similar to that given by Fr Daly. When shown his father’s account, Peter McLaughlin agreed that it was possible that he had seen the same gunman as his father, and when asked how certain he was as to which gable wall the gunman was at, he said that he could not be absolutely certain, but that for 30 years it had been his recollection that the gunman was against the east gable wall.3




Joe Nicholas

58.37 We should note at this point that we have considered the evidence of Joe Nicholas, who told us that after he had seen Jackie Duddy lying in the car park and another person shot (in our view Michael Bridge) he saw a man at the south end of Chamberlain Street holding a handgun down by his side, but did not see him fire it or see where the man went.1 In our view this was probably OIRA 4, who on his own account was in that area at that time.



Assessment of the civilian evidence of a gunman firing up Chamberlain Street

58.38 There are thus four witnesses whose accounts can be said to support the suggestion that a gunman fired up Chamberlain Street, namely Maureen Gerke (though she did not say that she saw the gunman fire), Bernard Gilmour, Frank Lawton and Peter McLaughlin. However, for the following reasons we are not persuaded that there was, or even might have been, any shooting by a man with a handgun into Chamberlain Street from its southern end.

58.39 There is no doubt that a gunman fired from the end of the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street, as Fr Daly and others have described. Yet none of the four witnesses mentioned in the previous paragraph (nor indeed any other witnesses) suggested either that the gunman they said they saw fired from two different positions, or that one gunman fired from one position and another from a different position. It seems to us that had either of these things occurred, one or more of the witnesses would have been bound to have seen and remembered it. There is no obvious reason why any of the witnesses should have wished to conceal one incident while being prepared to tell us of the other. At the same time, apart from the position in which the four witnesses put the gunman, their accounts of him firing from a corner and of the reaction of the people near him are similar to the descriptions given by Fr Daly and others. Finally, none of the witnesses gave an account in 1972 of a gunman firing up Chamberlain Street. In the light of these matters it is our view that the four witnesses saw the same gunman as Fr Daly, firing from the western end of the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street as Fr Daly described, but that over the years their recollection of where he was has become faulty.

58.40 For these reasons we reject the submission made by the representatives of the majority of represented soldiers that OIRA 4 may have fired an additional shot or shots up Chamberlain Street. However, we should note that in addition to relying on the evidence of Maureen Gerke (who they mistakenly suggested gave evidence of seeing a man firing up Chamberlain Street), they also relied on some evidence given by the BBC cameraman Cyril Cave about a sound heard at a certain point in the soundtrack of his footage.1



Cyril Cave

58.41 In Cyril Cave’s oral evidence to this Inquiry1 he gave these answers:

“Q. Is there anything in the previous clips of film that you may be able to spot from them but that we cannot simply by looking at the film?

A. In this sequence?

Q. No, in the whole sequences that I have been showing you?

A. There is one sequence where the troops are running across ground where there is a zip of a bullet which could have been incoming fire. There is only the one zip, you can hear it very close and I would assume that in Father Daly’s statement, he saw a man fire a revolver and that would coincide with that particular sequence in my film. That could have been – I did not notice it until the Inquiry sent me out a clip of the film and I was running through it – because I never had a clip of the film and I was running it through and I noticed this, so I ran it very slowly and there is one, just zip and – as soldiers run across. We would assume the soldiers would not have been firing at their own men, somebody was firing at them. That is the only occasion I heard any or seen any incoming fire – I did not see it, I did not know it existed until I saw that clip.

Q. I wonder if we can identify whereabouts – what is the piece of film you are talking about. Have you seen that as we were looking through it?

A. Yes.

Q. I wonder if you could stop it when we get there.

A. The troops are running towards the camera.

Q. Let us run it forward, please.

(Video played)

A. There, that was the zip. You will have to run it back, it comes earlier in the sequence.

Q. It is just after the sequence with Father Daly. I for my part heard what could be called a zip on the film: that is not a defect in the soundtrack, is it?

A. (Witness shaking head). ”




58.42 A little later in his evidence,1 he was asked:

“Q. So we have the picture complete, Mr Cave: your understanding and your confirmation of the order of your film is that the whining shot we hear with the whine of the shot on the film, that of course takes place on the film and took place in your recollection of where the film was, after Father Daly is already escorting the body of the young man carried down Chamberlain Street? ”




58.43 Cyril Cave replied: “That is correct. ”

58.44 As for Cyril Cave himself, as noted, he said that he was not aware of the sound that he identified as an incoming shot until he was sent a copy of his footage by the Inquiry.1The evidence that he gave in 1972 contains no indication that he was aware of an incoming shot while he was standing in Eden Place filming the soldiers running towards him.2In his written evidence to this Inquiry he stated that while he was filming on the (Eden Place) waste ground he was only aware of shots fired by soldiers: “There was no incoming fire that I witnessed. ”3




58.45 We consider first the question of when this part of the film was taken.

58.46 Cyril Cave’s colleague John Bierman edited the BBC footage in 1972, and although the latter told us that he thought that it was in the correct sequence,1 it is clear that in fact the surviving material does not always follow the order in which the footage was filmed on Bloody Sunday. For example, after the section under discussion here, there are shots of soldiers taking an arrested civilian away towards William Street, at a time when APCs were parked in Rossville Street.2 By the time Cyril Cave came to film the soldiers running towards him in Eden Place, those vehicles had moved south to the area immediately north of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.



58.47 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Cyril Cave stated that he filmed events in the following order:

• He filmed Fr Daly leading the group carrying Jackie Duddy up Chamberlain Street and into Harvey Street.

• The BBC crew ran out of film and asked a lady in Harvey Street if they could change their magazines. This they did in her house, where they were also given a cup of tea. Cyril Cave estimated that they were in the house for five to eight minutes.

• They returned to Harvey Street and filmed some ambulances in the Eden Place and Chamberlain Street area.

• They filmed an Army ambulance with a red cross on it as it reversed along Rossville Street.

• He noticed, and then filmed, some prisoners who were being lined up against a wall at Kells Walk.

• Then they filmed “troops running across the waste ground on the east side of Rossville Street … more or less opposite where we were at Eden Place, towards us in Eden Place ”.2



58.48 It is in the last of these clips that the sound can be heard.

58.49 Cyril Cave told this Inquiry that in one respect he did not think that the sequence of events that he gave in 1972 was correct. He believed that he changed the magazine of his camera (and re-attached a filter to the lens) before taking the shots of Fr Daly.1 He told us2 that the filter on his lens became detached when he was in Columbcille Court, as a result of which he was unable to film properly, and that he was only able to fix it in the house of the lady in Harvey Street. He said in his oral evidence3 that without the filter he “could not have taken any pictures because colour bands from the pictures would have been all completely wrong ”, although he said4 that if something had been happening he might have filmed it anyway, “knowing basically that it probably was useless ”.

58.50 In our view Cyril Cave was right to correct the sequence of events he had given in 1972, and that the visit to the house in Harvey Street must have preceded the filming of Fr Daly and the group carrying Jackie Duddy, and of the soldiers coming across the waste ground. It seems highly unlikely that the crew would have spent any more time in the house than the minimum necessary to change the film and re-attach the filter if they had just seen Fr Daly with the group carrying Jackie Duddy, from which they would have known that a major news event was in progress. Finally, John Bierman, the reporter in the team (to whose evidence we refer below), told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1 that the crew went into the house of the lady in Harvey Street before they filmed Fr Daly. They spent about five minutes in the house, recovering from the effects of CS gas and having a cup of tea. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 John Bierman said repeatedly that they would not have spent time having tea with the lady if they had known that the soldiers had entered the Bogside and that live rounds were being fired, and that it was his “very clear recollection ” that they had gone to the house in Harvey Street before they saw Fr Daly with the group carrying Jackie Duddy.

58.51 According to Cyril Cave, it was before taking the portion of film under discussion that he saw and filmed two ambulances. According to his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 one of the ambulances was pointing up Chamberlain Street towards the Rossville Flats. This must have been the ambulance with registration number 4491 WZ in which Margaret Deery and Michael Bridge were taken from 33 Chamberlain Street. That registration number is faintly visible in the BBC footage2 which would appear to show the ambulance moving forward into Harvey Street after having reversed into Eden Place to turn. According to the second entry in the emergency calls log,3 that ambulance had reached the scene of the emergency at 4.27pm and arrived back at Altnagelvin Hospital at 4.50pm. According to the same statement, Cyril Cave saw the other ambulance moving from Eden Place across the waste ground and out of sight. This would seem to be the ambulance with registration number 7449 WZ shown entering the waste ground in the BBC footage.4 According to the fourth entry in the emergency calls log, that ambulance was called at 4.30pm to deal with two injured people in Rossville Street, and reached the scene of the emergency at 4.37pm. Hence if Cyril Cave was correct in saying that he filmed the ambulances before he filmed the soldiers coming across the waste ground, then the section of the soundtrack which it is suggested may record the sound of an incoming shot cannot have been recorded before about 4.35pm. We have found nothing to suggest that in this respect Cyril Cave’s sequence of events was incorrect.




Jim Deeney

58.52 Jim Deeney, the sound recordist who accompanied Cyril Cave throughout the day, made a written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, in which he too stated (in our view, for the reasons given above, mistakenly) that it was after seeing Fr Daly and the group carrying Jackie Duddy that the team went into the house in Harvey Street and were there for “about 10 minutes ”.1 He did not mention the sound under discussion in his written evidence to either Inquiry.2 He did not give oral evidence to us.


John Bierman

58.53 John Bierman, the reporter in the team, told the Widgery Inquiry that he could hear “sporadic ” rifle fire when they were filming from Eden Place, but did not say from which direction it came, and did not refer to hearing any pistol fire.1 John Bierman told the Widgery Inquiry2 that “Soon after ” filming Fr Daly “we moved down to the bottom of Eden Street. We looked across the open ground that f[ronts] the Rossville flats. There was still sporadic rifle fire. We filmed some more scenes from this position, as the film shows. ”

1 M6.5 2M6.5

58.54 In his written evidence to this Inquiry John Bierman stated that while they were at Eden Place, “we kept hearing the ‘crack, crack, crack ’ of live fire, although because we were still partially surrounded by the houses it was not possible to tell where it was coming from”.1 In his oral evidence, which was given earlier than Cyril Cave’s oral evidence, he said that once he moved on to the waste ground he formed an impression that the firing was coming from the direction from which the soldiers had deployed, and that he did not hear any shots going in the opposite direction at any stage.2 John Bierman gave the following evidence in relation to the portion of film that Cyril Cave believed recorded an incoming round:3

“Q. This is a shot of a whole lot of soldiers going down the back of Chamberlain Street to the south, which looks as if it was taken by your cameraman. Again, apart from what we can see for our own eyes on the film, is there anything you can add to what appeared to be going on at this stage?

A. Not really, no. ”


Private INQ 5

58.55 Private INQ 5, a signaller in 7 Platoon, C Company, identified himself as one of the soldiers running towards the camera in the BBC film footage.1 His evidence to this Inquiry was that he had moved on to the Eden Place waste ground after being ordered through Barrier 14, but was forced to take cover because of heavy incoming fire.2 We consider his evidence about this firing later in this report,3 where we conclude that he ran across the Eden Place waste ground at a late stage and did not come under fire.


The absence of stationary Army vehicles in Rossville Street

58.56 No stationary vehicles are present in the parts of Rossville Street shown on the relevant part of the film footage. Army vehicles can be seen moving north. This shows that by the time the events were filmed, Support Company had moved its vehicles to the northern end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.

Assessment of the evidence relating to the sound on the film clip

58.57 On the basis of the evidence to which we have referred above, we are of the view that this part of Cyril Cave’s film was taken after Fr Daly went along Chamberlain Street with Jackie Duddy; and indeed after all the casualties had been sustained in Sectors 2, 3, 4 and 5, which was before any ambulances arrived. As we describe later in this report,1 some minutes after these casualties had been shot, there was further shooting by soldiers in Sector 3 at a flat on the western side of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. On the soundtrack of the BBC film footage of the soldiers running towards Chamberlain Street, about a second after the sound that Cyril Cave believed might have been an incoming shot, a loud bang can be heard. In our view this bang was probably the sound of one of those shots.



58.58 There remains the question as to whether Cyril Cave was correct in his belief that the sound under consideration could have been that of an incoming round. As to this it is noteworthy that none of the BBC team, including Cyril Cave himself, said either in 1972 or in their evidence to this Inquiry that they had heard an incoming round. It seems to us that had the sound on the film clip been that of an incoming round, one or more of the team would have heard it and mentioned it in their evidence. Furthermore, by this stage soldiers of C Company, as we discuss later in this report,1 are likely to have reached the south end of Chamberlain Street and gone into number 33 where they made arrests. It seems to us unlikely that a paramilitary gunman would have fired from that area with soldiers close by. While we cannot exclude the possibility that the recording equipment did pick up the sound of an incoming round, it seems to us more likely, despite Cyril Cave’s denial, that this was a fault in the recording.



Summary of the civilian evidence of a gunman

58.59 We have already commented on the fact that witnesses have given differing descriptions of the gunman that they said they saw at or in the vicinity of the gable wall or garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street. These differing descriptions led to the submission that there may have been more than one gunman operating in the area of the Rossville Flats car park.1For reasons already given, it is our view that there was only one incident of firing, namely as Fr Daly had described, and not another incident of firing into Chamberlain Street from its southern end. However, it is convenient to bring together at this point the descriptions that the witnesses gave of the gunman that they said they saw. We include in this list not only descriptions given by witnesses whose evidence we have considered above but also accounts given by other witnesses which in our view clearly relate to a gunman or possible gunman at the gable wall or garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street.


Descriptions of the gunman

Fr Daly

58.60 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 Fr Daly said that the gunman was wearing a brown jacket. In his Sunday Times interview,2 Fr Daly said that he thought that the gunman was in his thirties and that he was wearing a brown car coat. In his interview with Peter Taylor,3 he said that the gunman was in his late twenties, early thirties or thereabouts. In his written statement to this Inquiry,4 he said that he could no longer remember the details of the gunman’s age and clothing. In his interview with Jimmy McGovern, he said that the gunman was wearing a brown coat,5 and that it was a three-quarter length brown jacket.6



Peter McLaughlin

58.61 In his written evidence to this Inquiry,1Peter McLaughlin told us that the gunman appeared to be in his early twenties and was wearing casual clothing.

Robert Brady

58.62 In his statement taken by the RUC,1 Robert Brady recorded that the gunman was about 5ft 7in tall, had black hair hanging just over his ears, and was wearing a black checked overcoat with a fur collar and black trousers.

Bernard Gilmour

58.63 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Bernard Gilmour said that the gunman was a big, tall man and that he was wearing a mask.

Gerard Grieve

58.64 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Gerard Grieve said that the gunman was approximately 5ft 6in tall, with grey hair and a grey moustache. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 Gerard Grieve confirmed that the gunman had grey hair and a grey moustache, and guessed that he may have been in his thirties.

William Harley

58.65 In his interview with Paul Mahon,1 William Harley said that the gunman had black hair and was wearing a black overcoat and black trousers. The overcoat was about knee length. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2 William Harley said that the gunman had black hair and a moustache, and was wearing a black coat and trousers.

Frank Lawton

58.66 In his interview with Tony Stark,1 Frank Lawton said that the gunman was an elderly man wearing a long raincoat and flat cap. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 he confirmed that this was his recollection of the gunman’s appearance.


Donal Deeney

58.67 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Donal Deeney told us that he seemed to recall that the gunman was wearing a jacket and slacks, which were “probably grey … although he was against a fairly grey background ”.

Francis Dunne

58.68 In his NICRA statement,1 Francis Dunne recorded that the gunman was wearing a black overcoat. In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,2 Francis Dunne said that he was under the impression that the gunman was “oldish ”. He would not swear to this but said that the gunman was “50-ish anyway ”. He was asked about the gunman’s clothing and said that he “would have put it as a dark-ish overcoat ”.3


58.69 According to John Goddard’s interview note,1 Francis Dunne told him that the gunman was a distinguished-looking man with white hair, and that he was wearing a black overcoat that reached almost to his knees.

58.70 In his interview with Paul Mahon,1 Francis Dunne said that the gunman was “very distinctive ”, that he had “whiteish hair, grey, iron grey hair ”, and that he was wearing a long black coat.



58.71 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Francis Dunne said that the gunman was aged about 50 years and that he was wearing a dark coat, which reached below his knees and was either a “crombie” or a raincoat. He also told us that the gunman had “distinguished, silvery grey hair ”. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 he said that the coat was not an anorak but a “proper overcoat ”, and that the gunman’s hair was “not silvery ” but “iron grey ”.3



John McCrudden

58.72 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 John McCrudden told us that he could not describe the gunman’s age or appearance, but thought that he had been wearing a jacket rather than an overcoat.



Charles McLaughlin

58.73 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Charles McLaughlin said that the gunman appeared to be about 40 years old and was wearing a dark overcoat.



Denis Mullan

58.74 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Denis Mullan told us that he saw a man in a duffel coat standing close to the south gable end wall of Chamberlain Street. He had the impression that the man had a weapon and was refusing to use it. Someone in the car park was accusing the man of being useless. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 Denis Mullan said that the coat shown in the photograph we have reproduced above3 looked like the duffel coat that he had seen the man at the gable end wearing.


Joe Nicholas

58.75 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Joe Nicholas said that the gunman whom he encountered at the south end of Chamberlain Street was a youngish man. Joe Nicholas could remember nothing about the gunman’s clothing but did not think that he had been wearing a hat or dark glasses.


James Norris

58.76 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 James Norris said that the gunman was wearing “some sort of brown trench coat ”. The coat reached just below the knee and was “double breasted with a belt and was fastened up ”. James Norris did not know how old the gunman was.


58.77 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 James Norris was asked whether the man shown in one of the images of the photograph of the gunman taken from the videotape of the BBC programme, to which we have referred above, looked like the gunman whom he had seen. He replied: “I could not be sure, but if it was taken – a photograph of the man at the back of the gable wearing a brown trenchcoat, yes. ”


Thomas Wilson

58.78 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Thomas Wilson, who at the time of Bloody Sunday was 34, described a man older than he, who was wearing a longish coat and who he thought had grey hair. He gave varying accounts to us of where this man was, but in his NICRA statement2 he had given the following description of what he had seen while looking from his flat on the top floor of Block 2:

“Just before Father Daly lifted the shot man to move him, a man out of a group of 3 or 4 along the facing wall took out a pistol. The others moved back. He shot at the soldiers – low velocity weapon, not more than 2.2. The other 3 stopped him probably fearing that if the soldiers saw him they would fire at all the people hiding in the corner. ”




Susan North

58.79 In her written statement to this Inquiry,1 Susan North told us that a man had caught her arm near the gable end of 33 Chamberlain Street and said that he had a pistol in his pocket. He was “a little stocky guy ” aged about 30 years with no distinguishing features that she could recall. The man had normal length dark hair, not long flowing hair, and was wearing a sports jacket and trousers with no overcoat. His clothes were not expensive. In her oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 Susan North said that this man was older and more heavily built than the typical young stone-thrower. In his second written statement to this Inquiry,3 OIRA 4 told us that he did not remember saying this to Susan North, but that he was likely to have been this man. As noted above,4 his evidence was that after he had gone back to the southern end of Chamberlain Street he followed Fulvio Grimaldi and Susan North from there towards the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats.


58.80 OIRA 4 told us that he was 5ft 5in tall, that at the time his hair was dark but not black, that he did not think that he had a moustache on Bloody Sunday, that he had not been wearing a flat cap or spectacles or a mask and that he thought, as we have noted above,1 that he had been wearing a dark blue or black duffel coat.2


Consideration of the evidence describing a gunman

58.81 If these various descriptions are taken at face value and in isolation from the rest of the evidence, it could be said that they indicate that the witnesses saw a number of different gunmen. But once the rest of the evidence of these witnesses is taken into account, together with the reasons we have given for concluding that those who thought that a gunman had fired or pointed a gun into Chamberlain Street were mistaken, we are left only with accounts that in our view show that the gunman seen by Fr Daly was probably the only gunman in the area of the gables at the end of Chamberlain Street. To our minds the explanation for the differing descriptions lies in the fact that people were trying to recall details that they had seen in the middle of fast-moving and frightening events.

58.82 We should add that we have considered the accounts relating to a gunman in Sector 2 given by Patrick Walsh,1 Gerard Doherty,2 Daniel McGowan3 and Joseph McKinney.4 All these seem to us to relate to the gunman seen by Fr Daly, but not to add materially to the evidence that we have discussed above on this topic.

58.83 In these circumstances we have concluded that the gunman seen by Fr Daly was probably OIRA 4.

58.84 According to Fr Daly, the gunman fired two or three shots after Michael Bridge had been injured and as Fr Daly and the others with him were about to stand up and carry Jackie Duddy away.1 According to OIRA 4, he fired two or possibly three shots before Michael Bridge had been injured.2 We have also considered the evidence of others as to the number of shots fired and when they were fired. Some gave accounts to the same effect as Fr Daly, though others gave differing accounts both with regard to the number of shots fired and when they were fired.3 We have considered all this evidence but have no doubt of the accuracy of Fr Daly’s evidence both as to the number of shots fired and when they were fired. OIRA 4’s evidence, unlike much of that given by Fr Daly, was only given many years after the event and in our view he was mistaken in his recollection that he fired before Michael Bridge was injured.



3 The latter witnesses were William Harley X4.12.29; AH36.6; Day 77/29; Day 77/63-64; X4.12.29; X4.12.35; AH36.6; Day 77/28-29; Maureen Gerke AG27.9


58.85 There is no evidence from any soldiers of Mortar Platoon that any of them saw a gunman approach the corner of the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street or fire from that position. This is understandable if, as OIRA 4 indicated was the case, he did not go beyond the corner, for although in the background of the first of the photographs shown above1 at least one soldier can be seen further along the back (western) wall of the gardens of the Chamberlain Street houses, OIRA 4 would have been out of that soldier’s sight so long as OIRA 4 remained around the corner of the wall.


58.86 We now turn to consider the provenance of this photograph.

58.87 On 19th April 1972, following the publication of the Widgery Report, the BBC broadcast a programme on Bloody Sunday as part of its 24 Hours documentary series. In the course of the programme, as we have explained above,1 a still photograph was displayed of a man said to be in possession of a handgun against the southern wall of the garden of 36 Chamberlain Street. The programme linked this man with the gunman seen by Fr Daly.

58.88 The Inquiry does not have a print or a negative of the original photograph. However, images of the photograph were produced for the Inquiry from the 16mm film of the BBC programme by Alexis Slater of the Forensic Science Service.1


58.89 For convenience we show again below one of the images derived from the 16mm film.1

58.90 None of the photographers who gave evidence to this Inquiry stated unambiguously that he was responsible for taking this photograph.

58.91 At the end of the BBC’s transcript of the 24 Hours documentary,1 a number of items are listed under the heading “OTHER COSTS ”, seemingly a record of organisations and individuals who provided services or material to the makers of the programme. The photographs used in the programme, identified by a brief description, are included in the list, with each attributed to a photographer, publication or agency. The only apparent match to the photograph under discussion is one described as “Gunman by wall ”. This is attributed, with others, to Fulvio Grimaldi:2

“Troops Fulvio Grimaldi

Gunman by wall " "

Bodies (4 pix) " "

Armoured car " "

Girl screaming " "

Troops running " " ”




58.92 This Inquiry obtained, principally from the records of the Widgery Inquiry and the archives of the Sunday Times,1 copies of several photographs known to have been taken by Fulvio Grimaldi. Some of these photographs were displayed in the BBC programme and appear to match the descriptions given in the list. However, the photograph described as “Gunman by wall ” was not among those obtained by the Inquiry.



58.93 The 24 Hours documentary was produced by David Mills. He recalled, in his evidence to this Inquiry, that Fulvio Grimaldi had taken his film to Dublin to be processed, in order to ensure that none of his material could be seized by the authorities in Northern Ireland. Although David Mills had in the course of his research for the documentary seen some of Fulvio Grimaldi’s photographs in Londonderry, he had thought that one or two might be missing. He had therefore visited the offices of RTÉ (Radio Telefís Éireann) in Dublin, where the photographs had been developed, and found there a copy of the photograph of the gunman, which he used in his documentary. David Mills recalled that he took the print, possibly the only one, and that he might have used it without speaking to Fulvio Grimaldi, who he feared would object to the photograph being broadcast. He could not recall what happened to the print afterwards, and neither the BBC nor RTÉ has been able to assist on this matter.1



58.94 David Mills’ evidence was that the photograph had been taken by Fulvio Grimaldi, who would have been paid a royalty.1



58.95 John Barry, the editor of the Sunday Times Insight Team, also gave evidence to this Inquiry that Fulvio Grimaldi had taken, but had then withheld, the photograph of a gunman at a gable end wall:1

“So far as I recall we found only one sequence of photographs showing an IRA gunman on that day. A pair of pictures showed a man holding a pistol while standing against a gable-wall abutting the car-park of the Rossville Flats. In the later of the images he appeared to be aiming the pistol round the gable-end. These came to light when we noticed photographs were missing from a sequence supplied to us by an Italian photographer named Fulvio Grimaldi. We demanded his contact sheets and identified the missing images. We had skilled photo-technicians work to enlarge and lighten these but they remained too murky to be reproduced in The Sunday Times. ”




58.96 During his oral evidence John Barry told us that he became aware of the missing photographs after he was told by another photographer that Fulvio Grimaldi had a photograph of a gunman that he had not published.1 John Barry remained confident that there were two photographs, the first being the one that appeared in the BBC documentary. He recalled that in the second the gunman had advanced towards the corner of the wall: “I recall you could see the pistol in profile jutting beyond the end of the gable wall; it was quite a striking image. ”2


58.97 Although the photographs were not used in the Sunday Times Insight article of 23rd April 1972, reference was made to them. The journalists quoted Fr Daly’s account of seeing a man firing with a revolver from the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street, and then wrote: “The photographer, Fulvio Grimaldi, also saw this gunman, and took a picture of the gunman. He also is certain that the gunman did not appear until after the Army had killed [Jackie] Duddy and wounded others. ”1 When asked how confident he was that his attribution of the photographs to Fulvio Grimaldi was correct, John Barry said that while he could have been mistaken, after 30 years, had he been relying solely on his memory, the text of the article made him sure that his team would not have made “so elementary an error so close to the time ”.2


58.98 Material from the Sunday Times archive suggests that John Barry’s colleague Peter Pringle interviewed Fulvio Grimaldi during their investigation.1 Peter Pringle himself recalled meeting him a few days after Bloody Sunday.2 The notes of the interview do not refer to a gunman at the wall of 36 Chamberlain Street, and make no reference to the existence of a picture or pictures of such a man.3 However, Peter Pringle did record that: “He [Fulvio Grimaldi] took many pix … The material is in Dublin and he cannot get at it before the weekend.”4 As well as being consistent with the evidence of David Mills, this would suggest that at this point the Sunday Times journalists had not seen Fulvio Grimaldi’s photographs, and it may be the case that they had not by then been told that Fulvio Grimaldi’s shots included one of a gunman.


58.99 Peter Pringle could not help this Inquiry as to why the Sunday Times article attributed the photograph of the gunman to Fulvio Grimaldi.1 Philip Jacobson, another of the Insight journalists, was similarly unable to assist further; he said that he did not realise that the attribution of the photograph had been questioned.2


58.100 There are, therefore, two pieces of documentary evidence dating from 1972 that attribute the photograph to Fulvio Grimaldi. The evidence to this Inquiry of David Mills and John Barry suggests that Fulvio Grimaldi took the photograph but wished to withhold it from publication. Indeed, John Barry’s evidence was that there was a second photograph, although his article only referred to “a picture ” in the singular, and David Mills apparently only found one. Peter Pringle’s interview notes provide circumstantial support for David Mills’ account of how he discovered the photograph in Dublin.

58.101 There are two further indications that Fulvio Grimaldi took a photograph of a gunman on Bloody Sunday. In his book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, which was published in 1997, Don Mullan wrote that Fulvio Grimaldi took a photograph of a man who fired a revolver from the gable end of Chamberlain Street. Susan North, who was with Fulvio Grimaldi on Bloody Sunday, told this Inquiry that she had seen, at the time of the Widgery Inquiry, a photograph taken by Fulvio Grimaldi, which she thought had shown a man with a pistol in his hand among a crowd of people. She was shown the photograph used in the 24 Hours documentary, but said that this was not the one that she had in mind as the gunman in the photograph that she recalled was not alone. She said that she had not seen the 24 Hours photograph until an image taken from the videotape of the programme was shown to her when she came to make her written statement to this Inquiry.1


58.102 In his evidence to this Inquiry, Fulvio Grimaldi said that he did not see a gunman in the Rossville Flats car park, and he did not know whether he had taken the photograph.1 He stated that if he had, in fact, taken that photograph it was not intended to be specifically of that man: “If I took that picture, I would liken it to taking a picture of an ant in a flowerbed. The photographer takes a picture of the flowerbed before him and on magnification, one can observe an ant. ”2 Fulvio Grimaldi said that he did not accept that the photograph, whoever took it, showed a gunman, and added that if he had been aware that he had photographed a gunman he would have said so in his statements.3 He denied that he had taken the photograph and then held it back.4


58.103 Fulvio Grimaldi accused the Sunday Times of “utter and total manipulation ” in attributing a photograph of a gunman to him.1 He also criticised the accuracy of Peter Pringle’s interview notes.2 He accepted that Susan North and Don Mullan had been told or had come to believe that he took a photograph showing a gunman, but denied again that he was aware of having done so.3


58.104 Despite his denials to this Inquiry, when he was interviewed by the researcher Paul Mahon on 5th July 1998, Fulvio Grimaldi had agreed that he had taken a photograph of a gunman at a wall.1 Paul Mahon told Fulvio Grimaldi that this photograph had “mysteriously gone missing from the public records office ”, but that he had a copy of it “taken off the television ”. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2 Paul Mahon confirmed that this was the photograph shown in the BBC documentary. He said that he believed that it had gone missing from the Public Record Office because a certain numbered photograph was “classed at the PRO as missing ”. It is true that the records of the Widgery Inquiry deposited in the Public Record Office included a set of photographs taken by Fulvio Grimaldi, numbered from 1 to 26, and that photograph 11 is recorded as missing. However, we do not know in what circumstances that photograph came to be missing, nor is there any proof that the missing photograph was the photograph of the gunman. Later in his interview of Fulvio Grimaldi, Paul Mahon referred again to the photograph of the gunman and asked Fulvio Grimaldi whether he had seen him fire. Fulvio Grimaldi said that he had not.3 The transcript of the interview continues:4

“Paul Mahon: Were you aware that he had a gun, is that why you took the photograph?

Fulvio Grimaldi: I don’t think so, I don’t remember.

Susan North: No, you wouldn’t have been.

Fulvio Grimaldi: But, I don’t think that I was aware, I only remember that people grabbed a person with a revolver.

Susan North: Mmm.

Fulvio Grimaldi: And said ‘you’re mad’, ‘you’re crazy’ and ‘fuck off’ and things like that.

Paul Mahon: Right, right so that’s why you took his picture?

Fulvio Grimaldi: No. I think this happened afterwards because he’s still moving undisturbed or as other people might have noticed that and they really grabbed him and…

Paul Mahon: Right.

Fulvio Grimaldi: … and shouted at him and…

Paul Mahon: Did you take that photograph before you took the photograph of Jack Duddy?

Fulvio Grimaldi: I don’t think so, I think that this picture was taken on the way after Jack Duddy and moved back towards…

Paul Mahon: Chamberlain Street?

Fulvio Grimaldi: No, uh yes, it could be that we moved back first to Chamberlain Street then we moved back to the back of the flats and that’s the time when I tried to climb the wall and she said ‘don’t, don’t’.

Paul Mahon: Yeah right. ”



58.105 Fulvio Grimaldi was not asked about this interview during his evidence to this Inquiry, as the Inquiry was not in possession of the recording of it at that time.

58.106 Later in this interview, Fulvio Grimaldi explained how he went to Dublin in order to process his photographs, before returning to Londonderry.1 This is consistent with the evidence of David Mills and the interview notes of Peter Pringle, to which we have referred above.


58.107 If Fulvio Grimaldi did not take the photograph used by 24 Hours it is not clear who did. Two other photographers were present in the Rossville Flats car park at the relevant time, Gilles Peress and Sam Gillespie. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the photograph should be attributed to either of these men. Gilles Peress told this Inquiry that he had never seen the photograph before,1 and both he and Sam Gillespie said that they were not aware of any gunman firing in the manner described by Fr Daly.2



58.108 In our view the evidence considered above establishes that Fulvio Grimaldi took the photograph; and that it was of a gunman at the garden wall at the end of Chamberlain Street. We have earlier concluded that the gunman was probably OIRA 4. It is possible that Fulvio Grimaldi also took another photograph or photographs of the gunman. We formed the impression from his evidence that he was anxious not to be associated with any photograph of paramilitary gunmen.

The gunman described by Monica Barr

58.109 In 1972 Monica Barr was living with her husband in the ground floor flat of 36 Chamberlain Street. As already noted, this is the house at the south-western end of that street.

58.110 Monica Barr gave a Keville interview.1 She also gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry.2



58.111 In her Keville interview, Monica Barr said that she had been standing by the landing window at the back of the house. She described seeing Army vehicles coming in and one parking “just behind our house ”.1 She then described seeing a soldier fire a baton round at a man in a doorway. In our view this was the incident involving Patrick Duffy, which we have discussed earlier in this report.2 Her account continued:3

“Well I did not see the man stepped back then whenever the soldier fired the bullet the man went right on back and I did not see the man come out again I took it that the bullet hit the man and the soldier he came away then. Then there was a couple of soldiers then came round the side of the personnel carrier towards just near the window where we were standing. One of them I saw lift a rifle and I said to my husband he’s going to shoot he’s going to shoot but at the same time I just kept hoping you know I was just imagining things and he lifted the rifle and fired and this was the first shot that I saw fired and then I heard a scream and I took it then that someone had been hurt then there was a few other shots fired then by the soldiers and there was a soldier then on the far side of the personnel carrier from me and he was more to the back of the personnel carrier and he looked up towards the flats and he fired three shots. Well then after this there was no one whatsoever at the windows and after this there was a couple more shots fired and we heard a lot of screams and he fired three shots. Well then after this there was no one whatsoever at the windows and after this there was a couple more shots fired and we heard a lot of screams and we just took it people were being hurt because normally a few times down there we

hear gunfire and people are that used to it they do not scream unless someone has been hurt. Then on the window above the eighth floor I saw a man at one of the windows and he had a gun in his hand and he fired down one shot and he had his hand back in the window and he went to lift his head back and one of the troops fired a shot which landed above his head up at the top of the window and then I happened to look around and there seemed to be a lot of troops around. Over opposite in the garage opposite there was troops lined along there and they had no protective helmets they had just on their berets with no other shots being fired towards them. ”


58.112 In her written statement to this Inquiry1 Monica Barr told us that she had a recollection of seeing a hand stick out of an open window on the eighth floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats: “I think the flat was approximately in the middle of Block 1 but I am unable to be more precise. ” She continued:

“The window, as I recall it, was tilted inwards at the top and outwards at the bottom. The hand which was holding a pistol appeared from over the top of the window pane and pointed downwards. I remember one shot being fired from the pistol. The shot had a ‘pop’ sound and was certainly different from the other shots I had heard earlier. Almost immediately I heard a ‘crack’ and saw the wood at the top of the window frame splinter where I presume a bullet fired by a soldier below the flats had hit. At around the same time the hand disappeared. I think there may have been net curtains over the window as I am unable to describe the face or shape of the individual who fired the shot from the Rossville Flats. ”



58.113 In her oral evidence to this Inquiry, Monica Barr gave a similar account of seeing this gunman, though she said that the gunman was on the ninth, not the eighth, floor.1 The difference is important, because on the eighth floor the windows were set back behind the balcony. In her Keville interview, Monica Barr had described the gunman as being “on the window above the eighth floor ”, which to our minds is likely to be a description of a window on the ninth floor.



58.114 Monica Barr was closely questioned by counsel for the majority of the families and wounded, who among other things suggested that what she had heard was the firing of a handgun much closer to where she was and that it would have been difficult for anyone to have fired over the top of one of the tilting windows of the Rossville Flats. Monica Barr maintained that she had seen a gunman fire from the position she had described:1

“Q. What you said, to be fair to you in your evidence today, was that you heard – this pop seemed to occur, it seemed to happen when the pistol came out of the window. When you say it ‘seemed’ to happen, can we take it from that that you are not sure that it did happen at the same time?

A. Well, it is how I remember it now.

Q. What I have to ask you is whether it is possible that you heard a pistol shot when you were looking out of your window; you saw a man in the upper flats, on the top floor of Rossville Flats, perhaps with a camera, perhaps with a bottle. You saw a soldier fire in that direction and you formed the mistaken impression that the man or the hand at the window was firing a gun when in fact it was a man just under your own window; is that possible?

A. No, it is not possible. I saw the man on the top floor with a gun and I heard the pop when he fired. ”




58.115 The representatives of the majority of the families and wounded submitted that Monica Barr could “only be mistaken in her recollection ”.1 They drew attention to the difficulty of firing over the top of the tilting window, and to the fact that no soldier in Mortar Platoon claimed to have seen or reacted to a gunman at the top of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.



58.116 Monica Barr’s original account was given soon after the event, when her recollection would have been fresh; and there is no doubt that she believed that she had seen a gunman fire one shot from the ninth floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. However, she also believed that a soldier had fired back almost immediately and hit the window. We have considered whether this could have been one of the shots fired by Private T, though he was not aiming at this window; but the difficulty with this possibility is that earlier in the account that Monica Barr gave in 1972, she described a soldier firing up at the flats, which might well have been Private T. It is the fact that no soldier of Mortar Platoon claimed to have seen or reacted to a gunman at the top of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats; and no soldier apart from Private T admitted firing up at Block 1. Had a soldier seen and fired at a gunman in this block he would in our view have reported that he had done so. It is of course possible that Monica Barr was mistaken in believing that a shot from a soldier had hit the window in question, but if she was so mistaken, this casts some doubt on the accuracy of her account as a whole.

58.117 In the end we are left in doubt as to whether Monica Barr did witness a gunman firing from Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. It is possible that she did so, but to our minds it is equally possible that she was mistaken.

58.118 If Monica Barr did see a gunman, it is clear from her 1972 account that the gunman only fired after the soldiers had opened fire in the car park area. On the basis of Monica Barr’s evidence there is thus no question of the shot fired by this gunman having precipitated what happened in that area.

58.119 No-one has admitted firing a shot from a window in Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, and no paramilitary organisation has accepted responsibility for the firing of such a shot.

The gunman described by Billy Gillespie

The Sunday Times notes

58.120 According to interview notes compiled by Peter Pringle of the Sunday Times Insight Team and dated 6th April 1972:1

“billy gillespie, 22. bro of above. 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. he threw some stones at the soldier on the corner of the flats and saw bridge shout at the army and get shot.

n.b. he also claims that he saw a gunman on the 5th floor of the flats with an M1 carbine. he says the gunman fired seven shots and had three shots returned at him by the army. he went up to see if there were any bullet marks where he had seen the man and there weren’t any. Story suspect and as yet unconfirmed but as far as i know we haven’t had statements from people who came out of chamberlain st. at that end as the army moved into the car park area. let’s face it no one in their right minds would have done. ”



58.121 “Bro of above ” indicated that the subject of this note was the brother of Daniel Gillespie, who sustained an injury in circumstances that we consider later in this report,1when discussing the events of Sector 4.


58.122 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1 Billy Gillespie told us that he had no recollection “at all ” of talking to journalists and denied both that he had seen a gunman on the fifth floor of the Rossville Flats and that he had told journalists that he had.


58.123 The evidence of Peter Pringle satisfies us that this note is an accurate record of what he was told by Billy Gillespie.1 This conclusion is supported by the fact that other details in the note, such as the reference to Billy Gillespie having helped to carry Margaret Deery into 33 Chamberlain Street, correspond with the evidence that Billy Gillespie gave to this Inquiry.


58.124 Peter Pringle was asked during the course of his oral evidence to this Inquiry why he thought at the time that the account of the gunman was suspect. His answer was:1

“Well, one of the reasons is that we had never heard a story like this, we did not hear another one like this. The second reason is that firing from flats was a very exposed position and I think I have a note on that. That is reflected in the last sentence here, ‘let us face it, no-one in their right minds would have done this’.”


58.125 Notwithstanding this, in the Insight article published by the Sunday Times on 23rd April 1972 there was the following passage:1

“… one civilian, whose name we agreed to withhold, told us that he did see someone with a carbine firing at the soldiers from the 5th floor of the flats. The man fired seven shots and three were returned at him. This gunman corresponds exactly with the man at whom Soldier O said he fired three shots and hit. ”


58.126 It seems to us that the civilian referred to in this passage must have been Billy Gillespie, since Peter Pringle told us that he heard the account from only one source.

58.127 As to the comment that the gunman corresponded exactly with the man at whom Sergeant O said he fired three shots, and whom he said he hit, there is nothing in Billy Gillespie’s account to indicate that the gunman was hit, nor anything in Sergeant O’s accounts to the effect that the gunman fired seven shots, though in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry he had said that the gunman was “triggering it off fairly fast ”.1 At the same time, it is noteworthy that, according to Sergeant O, the gunman at whom he fired three times after seeing the flash of his weapon was on the lower balcony of Block 3 of the Rossville Flats, which was on the same level as the fifth floor of Block 2. That level was also regarded as the fifth floor in Block 3, although because that block was built on higher ground it was in fact only the third level, as can be seen in the photograph below.2

58.128 There is therefore some correspondence between the account given by Sergeant O of seeing a man with a weapon like an M1 carbine or small rifle on the lower balcony of Block 3 and firing three shots at him, and the account given by Billy Gillespie to Peter Pringle.

58.129 The representatives of the majority of the families and wounded pointed out that no other civilian witness or journalist corroborated Billy Gillespie’s account, and that the gunman described in that account would have been in a very exposed position. They submitted that “The story as related to Peter Pringle bears all the hallmarks of an invented account, perhaps given to impress a journalist. ”1




58.130 It is true that the gunman would have been in a very exposed position, but the same could be said of the gunman seen by Fr Daly. It is also true that there is no other civilian or journalistic evidence to support what Billy Gillespie said, but we do not accept that this should necessarily lead us to reject it, though it leaves us, like Peter Pringle, less than certain of its accuracy. On his own account,1 Billy Gillespie was a rioter and witnessed some of the shootings in Sector 2, and to our minds, though possible, it is unlikely that he would have invented an account of seeing a paramilitary gunman firing at the Army.




58.131 In these circumstances we have concluded that Billy Gillespie probably did see a gunman firing from the lower balcony of Block 3; and that his account to Peter Pringle supports the evidence given by Sergeant O in this regard.

Whether Eileen Collins saw the body of a gunman

58.132 At this point it is convenient to deal with a submission made by the representatives of the majority of represented soldiers to the effect that Eileen Collins saw the body of this gunman.1




58.133 According to an article written by Tony Parker and published in the New Statesman and Society at the time of the 20th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in January 1992,1 Eileen Collins, using her maiden name Eileen Shiels, told him:

“Where we lived, my flat was on the first floor of the block, so I went round and up the back staircase to it. Inside the children were all safe: when he’d heard the shouting and shooting, the young boy looking after them’d made them all take shelter in the sort of boiler cupboard we had. All of them were wild with excitement, they wanted me to let them go out on the balcony and watch what was happening. I thought ‘Well I’ll look out of the windows first to see if it’s safe’. And still to this day I can’t tell what I saw without the horror of it coming back to me. Right there outside my window lying on the balcony was a dead man, crumpled up with blood all over him. I straight away pulled the curtains together and told the children they weren’t to open them: then I ran out of the door along the corridor, to go down and see if I could fetch someone to help. At the bottom of the staircase at the front was another body lying. I had to step over it to get out, and it was someone I recognised: it was young Tony Doherty’s father, who I knew. ”





58.134 Eileen Collins’ flat was 20 Garvan Place.1 This flat was in Block 2 of the Rossville Flats, on the first floor and right at the end nearest to Block 1.2




58.135 In her oral evidence to this Inquiry, Eileen Collins told us that she had no recollection of talking to Tony Parker and that what he had written about her seeing a dead man outside her window on the balcony was “lies ”: “… there was no body outside my apartment. ”1



58.136 In our view Eileen Collins was interviewed by Tony Parker and may well have given him an account of seeing a dead man outside her flat. However, we doubt the accuracy of this account, so far as the position of the body is concerned.

58.137 In her written evidence to this Inquiry1 Eileen Collins had told us that on her way into her flat she saw an injured man behind a door receiving attention from an Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer, but was unable to say whether he had been shot. In her oral evidence2 she said that she did not think that he had been shot, but was not sure.




58.138 As we discuss later in this report,1 one of the casualties in Sector 3 was Kevin McElhinney, and there is evidence to the effect that after being shot and mortally wounded in Rossville Street he was taken into the lobby at the south-west end of Block 1, and then carried up the stairs leading from that lobby by the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer James Norris and the photographer Liam Mailey.2




58.139 In order to reach her flat, Eileen Collins told us that she went up these stairs and crossed the walkway to Block 2.1 In none of her accounts did Eileen Collins suggest that she saw more than one casualty outside or near her flat.




58.140 There are two other considerations.

58.141 Firstly, as is explained more fully later in this report,1 following a ruling of the Tribunal dated 1st June 2001,2 the Inquiry sought and obtained access to a substantial quantity of intelligence material held by the RUC and other agencies in relation to witnesses or those who might become witnesses in the Inquiry. Relevant documents obtained in the course of this exercise were disclosed to the interested parties subject to such redactions as were necessary to comply with our obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998. A small amount of this material related directly to the events of Bloody Sunday but the great majority was relevant only to the extent that it contained information about the membership of paramilitary organisations in Londonderry at the time of Bloody Sunday and in the months thereafter. The nature of the material is such that we believe it to be highly likely that if a paramilitary gunman had been killed on Bloody Sunday some reference to his death would appear in it. However, there is no indication in any of the material provided to us that such an event occurred.




58.142 Secondly, we accept the evidence given by Fr Daly that it amounted to “offensive nonsense ” to suggest that there could have been secret burials of people killed by the Army on Bloody Sunday.1 We do not believe that the local community would have considered it desirable or acceptable to try to conceal such deaths, nor do we believe that it would have been possible to conceal them.




58.143 In these circumstances we are of the view that the body that Eileen Collins saw was that of Kevin McElhinney; and that what Tony Parker recorded may have been the result of misunderstanding by him or a degree of exaggeration by her, or a combination of both these things.

58.144 It remains to say that there is no evidence of any kind that suggests any link between the body Eileen Collins said that she saw near her flat, and the gunman that Sergeant O said that he had shot towards the south-west end of the lower balcony of Block 3 of the Rossville Flats, a location that was over 60 yards away, and four floors up, from Eileen Collins’ flat in Block 2.

The gunman described by Gunner 030

58.145 Gunner 030 was a soldier in 22 Lt AD Regt. According to his first Royal Military Police (RMP) statement, timed at 2343 hours on 2nd February 1972,1 he was on duty at the Platform on the City Walls. This Platform is shown on the following map and photograph.

58.146 In this statement Gunner 030 recorded that he was on duty with Sergeant 001. He stated that he heard the sound of baton rounds and gas cartridges being fired, which seemed to be coming from the area of Rossville Street/William Street: “By about 1620 hrs the crowd had built up to about 2–300 people situated around Rossville Flats. At this time the sound of baton guns being fired grew closer. ” Gunner 030’s statement continued:1

“Suddenly I heard one (1) low-velocity shot. I then heard a number of low-velocity shots. It was then I saw a youth standing firing a pistol. He was in between Blocks Nos 1 & 2 Rossville Flats. Taking cover slightly between Block No 2. There were about 10–15 people crowding around him, therefore I did not shoot for fear of hitting a member of the crowd. The gunman was wearing a brown jacket, faded blue jeans and he had long dark well kept hair.

At this time I saw a body lying on the floor by the telephone box, at the far end to the right of No 2 Block. I had heard no high velocity fire at this time. ”




58.147 Gunner 030 gave another account in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry.1

“Suddenly I heard one low velocity shot. I said to soldier 001 that this was not a baton round but a low velocity shot. Then I heard a number of low velocity shots and I could see a youth who was holding what I could clearly see was a pistol from which I could see puffs of smoke coming in the gaps between blocks 2 and 3 of Rossville Flats. I could not shoot him as there was a crowd of about 10 to 15 people gathered round him. I could see quite clearly that he was wearing a brown jacket, faded blue jeans and he had long dark well kept hair, he was about 75 yards from me and I had a good view of him from the platform. ”




58.148 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, there was the following passage:1

“Q. Then the low velocity shots – where did they appear to come from?

A. I could not say exactly where it came from.

Q. You cannot say right, left, or –

A. I believe it would be to my right.

Q. Did you observe its strike or not?

A. No, sir.

Q. After that shot did you hear any more?

A. Yes, sir, I heard a number of low velocity shots coming from my right.

Q. How long after the first ones?

A. Just a matter of seconds, sir.

Q. And how many more came?

A. I would say five or six rounds, sir, were fired.

Q. Could you see anyone who was firing?

A. Yes.

Q. Whom did you see?

A. It was a youth, sir.

Q. Where about?

A. Between Blocks 2 and 3, sir, of Rossville Flats.

LORD WIDGERY: You are seeing it from my side, are you not?

A. Yes.

LORD WIDGERY: Just show me where he was.

The WITNESS: I was about there, sir, and he was between there that he came through, from behind.

Mr. GIBBENS: The south-east corner.

LORD WIDGERY: Is he inside?

A. There is a small wall round there about three feet high and he was behind there, sir.

Mr. GIBBENS: What was he doing?

A. He was firing towards William Street.

Q. Was he firing up the side, parallel with Block 3 of Rossville Flats? I do not quite understand.

A. Something like that. If you are between Block 2 and 3 you can see William Street.

Q. I am afraid I do not quite understand. This is William Street here.

A. Yes, that is William Street. He was between here.

Q. Take the pointer and give us his line of fire.

A. His line of fire would be from about there across that way.

LORD WIDGERY: He was inside the courtyard, was he?

A. Yes, this small wall here. He was behind that wall kneeling down.

Q. You were looking at it through that alleyway between the two blocks?

A. Yes.

Mr. GIBBENS: That is behind the small wall inside the courtyard?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Could you see what he was using to fire with?

A. I seen a small pistol, sir, but what type it was I do not know.

Q. Could you see further into the courtyard, what he was firing at?

A. No, sir, but after I looked back I seen a body lying there. It was a civilian, but whether he had been shot or not I do not know.

Q. Was it the same man lying, a body there, or was the man still upright?

A. He was lying down there.

Q. The body was lying down, but what happened to the man with the pistol?

A. Well, I was going to shoot, but there was too many round him, you know. In case I hit a civilian, an ordinary person, I did not shoot. After that I turned round and he was gone.

Q. Had you seen him before he went or after he went?

A. This was before he went, sir.

Q. You saw the body before he went?

A. Yes, sir. ”




58.149 Later in his oral evidence Gunner 030 told the Widgery Inquiry that he had heard self-loading rifle (SLR) fire “after the first set of pistol shots ”, coming from what he described as “the back end ”, by which he said that he meant the area of William Street and Little James Street.1

“Q. Did you hear any SLR fire from right inside the area of the forecourt of the flats?

A. No.

Q. You didn’t?

A. I couldn’t see.

Q. You could not identify any as coming from that area?

A. No.

Q. How far away would you be from the corner of blocks 2 and 3?

A. To there?

Q. Yes. About 30 yards?

A. Forty to fifty yards.

Q. I think the measurement has been given before as thirty metres, but would it be around forty metres?

A. Yes sir.

Q. You were forty metres, or so, from the corners of the inter-section of blocks 2 and 3?

A. Yes.

Q. And at no stage did you identify SLR fire coming from that area?

A. It was coming from the back end.”



58.150 Gunner 030 told the Widgery Inquiry that he was within shouting distance of an Army Observation Post (OP) which was equipped with a radio,1but that at the time neither he nor Sergeant 001 shouted any report of seeing the man with the gun. He said that this was because he and the sergeant were too busy looking at other places, but agreed that there could hardly be anything more important than reporting gunmen at the time they were supposed to be present. He said that he had reported seeing the gunman to his officer later on, at a time when ambulances had arrived. Gunner 030 also told the Widgery Inquiry that he did not know that soldiers had come down Rossville Street and were in the area; and that the first soldiers he saw were in Glenfada Park North.2




58.151 Gunner 030 gave written and oral evidence to this Inquiry.1In our view he had little clear recollection of events. He told us himself that he might have mixed up events that had occurred on Bloody Sunday with other things that had happened when he was in Northern Ireland.2In view of this, we consider that his evidence to us, where it differed from the accounts that he gave in 1972, is unreliable, though, as we point out below, there are significant difficulties with those accounts. He did say to us, however, that he stood by the accounts that he had given in 1972.3



58.152 From his vantage point on the Platform, Gunner 030 would have had a limited view through the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats, and would have been able to see a portion of the low wall running parallel to the northern side of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats and a small portion of the car park. This can be demonstrated from stills taken from the Channel 4 Secret History documentary Bloody Sunday, which was made by Praxis Films Ltd and first broadcast on 5th December 1991. By the time this documentary was made, the Rossville Flats had been demolished, and so the makers used archive footage, from which the two stills reproduced below have been taken. The date on which this footage was filmed is not known, but the physical features shown in it appear to be as they were on Bloody Sunday.

58.153 Since Gunner 030 would not have been able to see the gap between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats from his vantage point, it seems that his reference to this gap in his RMP statement must have been an error for the gap between Blocks 2 and 3, which, as can be seen, he corrected in his evidence to the Widgery Inquiry.

58.154 According to his RMP statement, it was “at this time ” that Gunner 030 saw a body lying “on the floor ” by the telephone box.1This must be a reference to the telephone box that was situated at the southern end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. There was a body in that position, that of Bernard McGuigan, who was shot dead in Sector 5. In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,2Gunner 030 recorded that he had been shown photographs of the body of Bernard McGuigan lying near the telephone box, and he confirmed that this was the body that he had seen. Representatives of some of the soldiers suggested that this identification might not be reliable,3but we see no good reason for doubting it. However, as will be seen later in this report,4this shooting took place after all or virtually all the events of Sector 2. Nevertheless, on an examination of the whole of the evidence that he gave in 1972, we consider it possible that Gunner 030 may not have intended to say that he saw this body at exactly the same time as he saw the gunman. It must be borne in mind that all the events of Sectors 2 to 5 took place within a few minutes.


58.155 It was submitted on behalf of the majority of the families and wounded that we should reject the account Gunner 030 gave of seeing, through the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats, a man firing a pistol in the direction of William Street.1



58.156 There are significant difficulties with the evidence that Gunner 030 gave in 1972. He did not report seeing the “pistol man ” at the time. His sergeant, Sergeant 001, who was near him on the Platform, made no mention of seeing this pistol man, or that Gunner 030 told him that he had seen one. Lieutenant 227, who was stationed at Charlie OP,1gave no evidence of any report and did not recall him being on the Platform.2Major 159, the Battery Commander, gave no evidence of a report being made to him. In his RMP statement, Gunner 030 described the pistol man as standing between the blocks of the Rossville Flats; while in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry he said that the pistol man was kneeling behind a low wall, which would appear to be the low wall running along the side of Block 2. Gunner 030 does not appear to have heard any high velocity firing in Sector 2, of which there was on any view a large amount, though this may be explicable on the basis that the Rossville Flats might have dampened the sound of high velocity fire and made it harder to recognise or appear to come from further away. He gave accounts of hearing and seeing Thompson sub-machine gun fire in Glenfada Park North, which we consider later in this report,3but which in our view cannot be correct for the reasons we give there. He gave no account of seeing or hearing military firing from the south-east corner of Glenfada Park North, of which, as we explain later,4there was a considerable amount, even though this was more or less directly in front of his position.


58.157 In these circumstances we have grave doubts about the reliability of Gunner 030’s accounts of seeing a pistol man firing in Sector 2. Had he done so, we consider that he would have immediately reported what he had seen, but he made no report. We return to the evidence of Gunner 030 when considering the events of Sector 5,1where we express the view that Gunner 030 (and Sergeant 001) were probably keeping their heads down most of the time, but were loath to admit this was what they had done; or, or as well, were simply wholly muddled and confused about what they saw and heard. We should add that we have considered the possibility that Gunner 030 saw the same gunman as Fr Daly, firing from the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street. However, since his accounts are not consistent with the other evidence of that incident, which we have discussed above, and since we are satisfied that he would not have been able to see the garden wall from his vantage point, this possibility can be rejected. We should also note that the possibility exists that Gunner 030 saw the gunman that, according to Susan North, Fulvio Grimaldi may have photographed, with a pistol in his hand among a crowd of people, as we have discussed above, but this is no more than speculation.


58.158 We have concluded that it would be unwise to rely on the accounts given by Gunner 030 of seeing a pistol man firing. It remains to note that Sergeant O’s evidence was that he had seen a man firing a pistol from behind a car, not from behind a low wall and not surrounded by other people; and no other soldier who was deployed in Sector 2 gave evidence of seeing a man with a handgun in a crowd as described by Gunner 030.

The evidence of Patrick Gerard Doherty

58.159 Finally, we have considered the account given by Patrick Gerard Doherty, who told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1that on seeing the APCs come in, he had run from the waste ground, through the Eden Place alleyway, down to the southern end of Chamberlain Street. There he saw someone carrying a woman who he afterwards learned was Margaret Deery. He then ran to the area beneath Block 3 of the Rossville Flats. From there he saw soldiers firing rubber bullets into the crowd in the car park. He told us that at this stage, which according to his account was before Jackie Duddy had been shot and before live rounds had been fired:

“There were two other boys standing in between the walls with me. Suddenly, one of them shouted ‘look, there’s a sticky bastard and he’s got a short’. By this he meant that there was a member of the Official IRA carrying a handgun. I immediately started looking into the crowd in the middle of the car park, particularly at peoples hands but I couldn’t see anyone carrying a gun. The boy who had shouted was hysterical and moved to climb over the wall into the car park – I remember the other boy grabbed his collar to restrain him. ”


58.160 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Patrick Gerard Doherty told us that the boy had not indicated where he had seen the man with the handgun.1



58.161 In our view Patrick Gerard Doherty was mistaken in his recollection of the order of events, as he acknowledged might be the case.1For the reasons we have given earlier in this report,2we are of the view that Margaret Deery was shot soon after Jackie Duddy, so that at least two live rounds had been fired by the time Patrick Gerard Doherty saw her. Thus we reject the submission of the representatives of a number of soldiers that his account indicates that there was a man in the car park holding a handgun at a stage before Jackie Duddy was shot.3In our view, given the other evidence that we have considered above, Patrick Gerard Doherty probably heard someone drawing attention to OIRA 4, the gunman seen by Fr Daly, at or about the time when OIRA 4 was moving along the garden wall of 36 Chamberlain Street after the shooting of Margaret Deery.


The man seen in Gilles Peress’s photograph

58.162 We have earlier in this report shown the photograph taken by Gilles Peress of the group round the body of Jackie Duddy. We reproduce below an enhanced copy and enhanced detail of this photograph, prepared by Alexis Slater.1

58.163 It was submitted on behalf of the majority of represented soldiers that the crouching man was holding “what may well be a firearm ”.1 Billy Gillespie and Donal Deeney identified this man as Brown, and OIRA 4 told us that he was quite sure that Patrick Brown would never have had a gun.2 Patrick Brown made a written statement to this Inquiry,3 in which he expressed the view that the crouching figure may have been him. He was not asked whether he had anything in his hand.4 Patrick Brown gave no oral evidence to this Inquiry. He was due to do so in February 2001 but was too ill to attend. He died on 3rd May 2001. These representatives submitted that the man was “clearly removing something, and the probability is that it was a weapon, the only thing that would need removing ”.5 Representatives of other soldiers submitted that the photograph raised the probability that a weapon of some kind was held by the man in the photograph, and that it is at least a realistic possibility that the weapon being held was a firearm.6




58.164 While it appears that Patrick Brown might have been holding something, we are not persuaded either that it was a firearm or that he was trying to remove something. In our view it is unlikely that anyone would be handling a firearm in full view of soldiers only a few yards away.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 59




When the Support Company vehicles moved forward
Chapter 59: When the Support Company vehicles moved forward

59.1 It is convenient to deal at this point with the question of when Support Company vehicles moved from Rossville Street to the area at the northern end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. As we have explained above,1this question is relevant to the issue of the time at which the portion of the soundtrack of the BBC footage was filmed on which Cyril Cave thought that an incoming round was audible.



59.2 In the BBC footage of the soldiers running across the waste ground towards Eden Place, two Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) can be seen in the background travelling north up Rossville Street.1These in our view were probably the two empty APCs of Machine Gun Platoon, which were sent by Major Loden to retrieve members of that platoon from Abbey Taxis.2Although it is not clear from his evidence when these vehicles were moved back, it seems to us from his account that this was after he had ordered his vehicle to be moved from Rossville Street to the area of the north end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.



59.3 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, Major Loden gave this account:1

“As soon as we came under fire, the situation changed and the priority shifted from making arrests, to taking cover and defending ourselves from the attack of the gunmen and bombers ... I returned to my vehicle with my crew and ordered the driver to move the vehicle forward to a position of cover against the Northern Wall of Block 1 Rossville Flats. For a period of about 10 minutes, during which the majority of the firing occurred, the Platoon Commanders were unable to report, as they themselves were actively engaged in repelling the attacks made against them. ”




59.4 As we have discussed elsewhere in this report,1according to Major Loden this was soon after he had arrived in Rossville Street and had come under low velocity automatic gunfire, though for the reasons given, we are of the view that he was mistaken about coming under fire.



59.5 In his supplementary statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1Major Loden described stopping at the junction of Pilot Row and Rossville Street. He did not refer in that statement to any later movement of his vehicle but did say,2 “During the time I was in the Rossville Flats area I saw no identifiable gunmen firing but of course my concern is with the control of the company rather than for observing for possible attackers. In any event from my position by the north wall of the Rossville Flats I had very limited observation.”



59.6 This again suggests that his vehicle was moved to the north end of Block 1 before the shooting had finished, although he drew no distinction between shooting in Sector 2 and shooting in Sectors 3, 4 and 5.

59.7 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, Major Loden said that he moved his vehicle forward to the cover of Block 1 after hearing about 15 rounds of low velocity fire. According to him shooting then continued for about another ten minutes. He said that soldiers were firing into the “funnel ” of the Rossville Flats (between his position and Chamberlain Street) during that time. He went on to describe seeing a body in the car park and regarded that body as a casualty of the soldiers’ firing.1He also referred to hearing firing which, he thought, had come from the Rossville Flats, although the time at which this is said to have occurred was not explicitly stated.2



59.8 In his written evidence to this Inquiry, Major Loden again stated that he ordered his driver to move the vehicle after hearing a burst of low velocity automatic fire. There was then a heavy exchange of fire, which lasted about ten minutes. He saw Mortar Platoon soldiers firing into the Rossville Flats car park and thought that they were under fire from the area of the Rossville Flats.1



59.9 This again suggests that firing continued in Sector 2 after Major Loden’s vehicle had moved to the cover of Block 1.

59.10 In the course of his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Major Loden was shown a number of photographs and pieces of film footage taken when his command vehicle was still in Rossville Street. He agreed that certain arrested civilians were probably taken away before any incoming fire started. He also agreed that by the time his vehicle was moved, soldiers must have moved to Kells Walk and around the low walls of the ramp at the south end of that block, civilians were no longer visible at the rubble barricade, and Michael Kelly had probably been shot behind the rubble barricade.1He also said that he had a vague recollection of talking to Warrant Officer Class II Lewis before the vehicle was moved.2Warrant Officer Class II Lewis’s evidence was that, while the command vehicle was on Rossville Street, he reported to Major Loden firing by soldiers of the Anti-Tank Platoon from Kells Walk towards the rubble barricade. He said that this occurred within about the first 20 minutes of deployment.3



59.11 We have already shown the following photograph earlier in this report and expressed our view that it was taken very shortly before Michael Bridge was shot. As can be seen, Major Loden’s vehicle was still in Rossville Street when the photograph was taken. It follows that it was there when Jackie Duddy and Margaret Deery were shot.

59.12 The ITN film footage shows Major Loden’s vehicle moving towards the north end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. Sergeant O’s APC can be seen in the car park but there is no visible activity in the area. It seems to us that Jackie Duddy’s body had been moved by the time that this footage was taken, as it is not visible on the film.1



59.13 Firing is recorded on the soundtrack of the ITN film at a time after Major Loden’s vehicle had moved to the north end of Block 1.1It is not possible from the film to tell from where the firing was coming. Major Loden, in his oral evidence to this Inquiry, said that he thought that the shots were self-loading rifle fire.2Warrant Officer Class II Lewis gave similar evidence.3It seems to us that this was probably firing in Sectors 4 or 5, all of which we describe in detail later in this report.


59.14 This evidence establishes in our view that there was a substantially greater lapse of time between Major Loden’s arrival in Rossville Street and the moving of his vehicle to the north end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats than Major Loden’s evidence to the Widgery Inquiry suggested. It also establishes in our view that there was a substantial amount of shooting by the soldiers before the vehicle was moved, in both Sector 2 and Sector 3. Counsel for the Inquiry put to Major Loden that his evidence to the Widgery Inquiry of seeing a number of soldiers firing into the car park after he had arrived at the north end of Block 1 was not consistent with the other evidence, which suggested that most of the shooting in Sector 2 must have occurred before this time. Major Loden said that his memory was no longer good enough to assist.1



59.15 Our assessment of the evidence leads us to conclude that the shooting incidents in Sector 2 had finished or virtually finished, as had much of the firing in Sector 3 (other than that described in Chapter 123), before Major Loden’s vehicle moved forward. In this regard we have no reason to doubt Sergeant O’s recollection that the shooting incidents in Sector 2 lasted only some three to four, or four to five minutes.1



59.16 It follows that in our view the evidence given by Major Loden in 1972 about when his command vehicle moved from Rossville Street to the north end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats was incorrect.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 60




The question of unidentified casualties
Chapter 60: The question of unidentified casualties



Consideration of the submissions on unidentified casualties 60.46

60.1 We have considered earlier in this report1the submission made by the representatives of the majority of represented soldiers, that Eileen Collins saw the body of the gunman that Sergeant O said he had shot towards the south-west end of the lower balcony of Block 3 of the Rossville Flats. For the reasons we gave, we rejected this submission. In our view the body that Eileen Collins saw was that of Kevin McElhinney, one of those shot and killed in Sector 3.



60.2 The representatives of the majority of represented soldiers submitted that there were other unidentified casualties in Sector 2.

Evidence of an unidentified casualty in the car park of the Rossville Flats

The evidence of Eamonn Baker

60.3 These representatives submitted that the evidence of Eamonn Baker supported the evidence of Sergeant O and Private R that there was a gunman behind a red Cortina on the south-east side of the car park. They submit that the casualty whom Eamonn Baker saw was that gunman.1



60.4 In his written statement to this Inquiry, Eamonn Baker told us that he had seen the body of Jackie Duddy and had sought to get away from the area by running towards the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats. A man running in front of him gasped “‘I’m hit, I’m hit ’”, and fell to the ground. This occurred at a point to the north of the gap between Blocks 2 and 3 but south of the low wall that ran parallel with Block 2. The man was wearing a big, dark-coloured coat. Eamonn Baker attempted to put a tourniquet around the man’s left shoulder but was unable to do so. He thought that the man had been hit in the back. Eamonn Baker’s evidence was that the man’s name was Michael Bradley.1


60.5 The representatives of the majority of the represented soldiers submitted that Eamonn Baker was wrong in his identification of this casualty as Michael Bradley. They pointed out that the casualty seen by Eamonn Baker was in a different place from that where Michael Bradley was shot, was wearing different clothes from those worn by Michael Bradley and, unlike Michael Bradley, had been shot in the back. They also submitted that the casualty cannot have been Patrick McDaid because Patrick McDaid was not shot by a 7.62mm lead bullet.1


60.6 The representatives of the majority of the families submitted that the casualty seen by Eamonn Baker was Patrick McDaid, who believed (along with everybody else at the time, including the doctor who subsequently examined him) that he had been hit by a lead bullet. Patrick McDaid was hit in the back, as was the man seen by Eamonn Baker.1


60.7 Eamonn Baker told us1 that the man he saw was running in front of him, on the south side of the low wall parallel to Block 2, towards the passage between Blocks 2 and 3. Eamonn Baker “did not have a sense of a bullet hitting him ” but heard the man gasp that he was hit, and slump to the ground as though running out of energy. Eamonn Baker tried unsuccessfully to put a handkerchief around the man’s shoulder as a tourniquet, and helped him around the corner. That is substantially consistent with the movements of Michael Bradley after he was shot, but not with those of Patrick McDaid, who approached the passage between Blocks 2 and 3 from a different direction and was injured as he jumped or prepared to jump over the low wall or down the steps. Eamonn Baker said that he thought that the man had been wearing “a big dark coloured coat ”. Gilles Peress’s photographs2 suggest that both Michael Bradley and Patrick McDaid were wearing dark coats, and that Michael Bradley’s was longer than Patrick McDaid’s. It is the case that Eamonn Baker said in his oral evidence to this Inquiry that he had thought at the time that the man had been hit “in the back at the top left-hand shoulder ”, which fits Patrick McDaid’s injury more nearly than Michael Bradley’s injuries, but in our view on this aspect it is possible that Eamonn Baker’s recollection was at fault.



60.8 In these circumstances we are of the view that the casualty seen by Eamonn Baker was not Patrick McDaid. We have considered whether this person could have been an unknown casualty, but in the end we concluded that Eamonn Baker was correct in identifying him as Michael Bradley.

Evidence of an unidentified casualty in the area of the stairwell at the south end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats

60.9 The representatives of the soldiers submitted that there was a casualty, in addition to Kevin McElhinney, in the area of the southern stairwell of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. These representatives rely on the evidence of the civilian witnesses whose accounts are summarised below in support of the proposition that there was more than one casualty in the area.1



The evidence of John Casey

60.10 In his Keville interview, John Casey described seeing young men being shot in Rossville Street. He said that he then “went a way on and, the way up the back of the wee flats up near the Bogside … and it must have been … a couple of shots were fired down from the wall like, and then there was two young fellas lying up at Colmbcille Court and a whole lot of men had to go over with their hands in the air to get near them. And there was – they got the other young fellas and they went back up – rushing back up to the flats again and ... and there was a young fella lying dead on the second floor. ” 1



60.11 Later in his Keville interview John Casey said that there was a priest with the dead man.1


60.12 The reference to the “the second floor ” in this Keville interview seems to be to the second floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, since John Casey described “rushing back up to the flats again ”. He had earlier told Kathleen Keville that he had run from his flat into Rossville Street. That flat was 29 Mura Place, on the fourth floor of Block 2.1 The obvious way of getting to and from Rossville Street would be to use the walkway on the second floor and the stairs leading to the entrance from Block 1 into Rossville Street.2



60.13 The Inquiry was unable to trace John Casey.

60.14 It was submitted by the representatives of some of the soldiers that the reference to a “young fella ” lying dead on the second floor does not tally with the preponderance of the evidence to the effect that Kevin McElhinney was carried only as far as the first landing below the first floor.1



The evidence of Donal Deeney

60.15 In his first supplementary written statement to this Inquiry, Donal Deeney told us that he and Sean McCallion entered Block 1 of the Rossville Flats from Rossville Street and that he saw someone who had been shot, lying inside the doorway. People were attending to the casualty.1



60.16 He went on to tell us that as he and Sean McCallion made their way up the stairs, he saw someone who had been shot and was being attended to by some young women. He added: “I do not know who the person was that had been shot but I think he may have been the same person who was shot at the main door several minutes earlier. ”1



60.17 In his first written statement to this Inquiry, Donal Deeney had recorded that he had gone “back into ” the stairs to join Sean McCallion.1 The latter told this Inquiry2 that he had been with Donal Deeney during the day but that they had become separated at times. In our view it is likely that he and Donal Deeney had been separated at the relevant time. Sean McCallion did not refer to seeing any casualties on the stairwell.



60.18 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Donal Deeney said that he thought that the casualty was called McElhinney, but he was not sure of this.1



60.19 It was submitted by the representatives of the majority of represented soldiers that the person being attended to by young women was an unidentified casualty. Those representatives asserted that the casualty seen by Donal Deeney had fair hair and that Kevin McElhinney had dark hair.1In fact Donal Deeney did not describe this casualty as having fair hair.2



The evidence of Alan Harkens

60.20 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Alan Harkens told us that as he went down the stairs at the southern end of Block 1 he saw two bodies. One was on the first half-landing that he reached. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry he said that he had reached the stairwell along the “first floor balcony ” of Block 1.2 There was no first floor balcony, so it is likely that Alan Harkens meant the balcony on the second floor, so that the half-landing would have been at first floor level or between the second and first floors.3



60.21 Alan Harkens described the casualty on the half-landing as a young man in his teens, with longish, black hair. A coat had been placed over the body and there was a pair of Oxford-style shoes next to the body.1



60.22 Alan Harkens told us that he then went to the full landing on the ground floor and saw a second body, again of a young man. The young man’s boots had been removed and placed next to him. One of the two casualties was wearing a white T-shirt. Alan Harkens saw no sign of blood or injury on either casualty.1



60.23 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Alan Harkens said that there had been nobody with the body on the half-landing. He thought that there might have been a few people with the second body. He said that when referring to the “full landing ” at ground floor level, he meant the foyer at the entrance to the flats.1 He was certain that the body he had seen at ground floor level was inside the entrance hall and not out of doors.2



60.24 The representatives of some of the soldiers submitted that one of the bodies seen by Alan Harkens must have been that of Kevin McElhinney, but that the identity of the second casualty is unknown. It was acknowledged that Alan Harkens is the only witness to have described seeing two bodies in the area of the stairwell; however, reliance was placed on the evidence of other witnesses (namely James Norris, Alex Morrison and John Casey) as indicating that there was a body whose location and description did not match Kevin McElhinney.1 The representatives of the majority of the represented soldiers relied in particular on Alan Harkens’ certainty, expressed when he gave oral evidence to this Inquiry, that he had not confused the body on the ground floor with that of Hugh Gilmour (another of those shot and killed in Sector 3) whose body was outside the flats.2



60.25 The representatives of the majority of the families submitted that it is clear that Alan Harkens had a confused recollection of events and that the body that he thought that he saw in the stairwell was that of Hugh Gilmour.1 They accepted that Alan Harkens refused to acknowledge in his oral evidence to this Inquiry that he might be wrong, but they pointed out that he conceded that he was in a state of shock at the time and that he broke down when he reached home. They also observed that he did not make a statement in 1972 and therefore was unable to rely on any account given at that time when recalling events for this Inquiry.2



The evidence of Alex Morrison

60.26 In his Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) statement Alex Morrison recorded that he was with Kevin McElhinney immediately before the latter was shot. He stated that the two of them crouched and ran towards the main door of the Rossville Flats and that, as he entered the flats, he heard Kevin McElhinney shouting “‘I’m hit’ ”. Alex Morrison stated that he continued up the stairs but, on realising that Kevin McElhinney was not behind him, returned and saw Kevin McElhinney lying dead just inside the entrance to the flats. He also stated that Kevin McElhinney’s body was then taken upstairs.1 Alex Morrison gave an essentially similar account to Philip Jacobson of the Sunday Times Insight Team; the principal difference was that he said that, on returning downstairs, he did not initially recognise the body as being that of Kevin McElhinney. He said that it was only when someone took a rubber bullet from a pocket of the casualty that he realised who the casualty was (he having seen a rubber bullet protruding from Kevin McElhinney’s pocket at an earlier stage). He told Philip Jacobson that a man from the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps and a cameraman were present with the body.2



60.27 In his interview with Paul Mahon,1 Alex Morrison said that he had thought that Kevin McElhinney was beside him when he dived through the entrance doors and ran upstairs. He then said that he had returned down the stairs and seen Kevin McElhinney somewhere on the stairs; he thought that Kevin McElhinney had been lifted upstairs by others. He added, however, that he had not recognised Kevin McElhinney and that it was not until the following day that he had realised who the casualty was or that he learned that Kevin McElhinney had been shot.



60.28 In his written statement to this Inquiry, Alex Morrison explained that Kevin McElhinney was a friend of his whom he had met on the march. He again gave a very similar account of having been with Kevin McElhinney in the moments before Kevin McElhinney was shot. He said that he had “a fleeting memory ” of Kevin McElhinney picking up a rubber bullet somewhere in the vicinity of the rubble barricade. He told us that, after live shooting had started, he had run to the entrance of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, assuming that Kevin McElhinney was behind him. He had run upstairs and, on returning, had seen a body on the first floor landing. There had been people around the body. He had not initially recognised the casualty but had then realised that the body was that of Kevin McElhinney.1



60.29 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Alex Morrison said that Kevin McElhinney had picked up a rubber bullet before the two of them turned to run towards the entrance to the Rossville Flats.1 He said that he had seen Kevin McElhinney’s body on the stairs, or on a half-landing between flights of stairs, and agreed that he had not recognised Kevin McElhinney immediately but had done so “subsequently ”.2



60.30 The representatives of some of the represented soldiers submitted that the casualty seen by Alex Morrison might not have been Kevin McElhinney. They referred to the inconsistencies in his accounts about whether he heard Kevin McElhinney shout “‘I’m hit’ ” and whether he saw Kevin McElhinney’s body on the ground floor or only after the body had been taken upstairs. They accepted that these discrepancies may be regarded as minor; they relied more heavily on Alex Morrison’s account to Paul Mahon, in which he said that he had not recognised Kevin McElhinney at the time, but had only realised on the following day that the body that he had seen must have been that of Kevin McElhinney. Since Alex Morrison and Kevin McElhinney were friends, the representatives submitted that it would be very surprising for Alex Morrison to have failed to recognise the body of his friend. They also submitted that support for the proposition that the body seen by Alex Morrison was not that of Kevin McElhinney can be found in Alex Morrison’s account of a rubber bullet being found on the body; and that the evidence of Fr Kieran O’Doherty1 and Liam Mailey2 suggests that no such bullet was found on Kevin McElhinney.



60.31 These representatives accepted that it is possible either that Alex Morrison was mistaken in 1972 about a rubber bullet having been found on the body, or that Liam Mailey and Fr O’Doherty were mistaken. However, they submitted that an alternative possibility is that the body was not that of Kevin McElhinney.1


The evidence of Denis Mullan

60.32 In his written statement to this Inquiry, Denis Mullan told us that he saw a man lying on the half-landing of the southern set of stairs leading to the second level of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats (three flights up from the ground floor). The man’s upper body was against the wall of the landing. Denis Mullan described the man as being about 19 years old, with longish dark hair and a thin face being “the colour of skimmed milk ”.1 The man was wearing a shirt with a droopy collar and a shiny V-necked jumper. He appeared to have an injury to his stomach, which was covered with a field dressing. The man was being attended to by a member of the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps and by Fr Denis Bradley. Denis Mullan is likely to have mistaken another priest for Fr Bradley, since the latter has never said that he attended to a casualty on the stairs in Block 1. The Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer James Norris told us2 that he was present when Fr Irwin gave the last rites to Kevin McElhinney. In our view Fr Irwin was the priest seen by Denis Mullan.



60.33 Denis Mullan told us that he heard the people around the man saying that no pulse could be detected.1 This is consistent with the evidence of the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps volunteer James Norris, who said in 1972 that, on his return to the casualty whom he later believed to be Kevin McElhinney, he was told by a photographer that there was no pulse, and was himself unable to find a pulse.2



60.34 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Denis Mullan said that he assumed that the man was dying, because of the nature of the wound, the man’s colour and the inability of the “medical orderly ” to find a pulse. He added that it was obvious that the man was dying.1


60.35 The representatives of the majority of the represented soldiers submitted that the casualty seen by Denis Mullan was three flights up from the ground floor and therefore cannot have been Kevin McElhinney. They supported this submission that the casualty was an unknown one by pointing out that the casualty was wearing a V-necked jumper, while Kevin McElhinney was wearing a roll-necked one.1



The evidence of James Norris

60.36 In a handwritten statement,1 undated but clearly written in 1972, since the statement gives the witness’s age as 18, which it then was, James Norris recorded that, while he was treating the man who had been hit by a gas canister, a man came in and said that “a man was shot just at the door of the flats ”. James Norris ran down the stairs to go to the man’s aid and, as he reached the bottom stair, “a youth fell in the doorway ”. There was blood pumping from the youth’s left side. With the aid of a photographer, he carried the youth upstairs. He pulled away the youth’s jacket and shirt and saw a three-inch wound in the youth’s side. James Norris said that he left the wounded youth with the photographer in order to look for a man who was reported to have been shot in the head. He found that one of his colleagues was attending to this man,2 and when he returned to the photographer and the injured youth he discovered that the youth was dead. An old man lent James Norris a coat with which to cover the youth.


60.37 In a handwritten report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps dated 7th February 1972,1 James Norris described being in one of the flats and treating a man who had been hit in the face with a gas canister. This is likely to have been Hugh Hegarty.2 James Norris recorded that he had left the man and gone down the stairs at the south end of Block 1. As he went downstairs, someone told him that a man had been shot and had fallen around the corner from the doorway of the flats. As he reached the ground floor he saw a boy aged 16 to 20 fall “in the doorway ”. The boy was bleeding profusely. James Norris and a cameraman carried the boy upstairs for shelter. The boy’s face was yellow-white in colour and James Norris knew that the boy was dying. James Norris described ripping away the boy’s coat and shirt, turning the boy onto his stomach and seeing a three-inch wound in the boy’s side. James Norris left the boy with the cameraman and went to attend to other casualties. On his return, he discovered that the boy had just died. Those present covered the body with a blanket. When an ambulance arrived, he and the cameraman carried the boy (whom James Norris named as Kevin McElhinney) to the ambulance.



60.38 In his written statement to this Inquiry, James Norris described taking a man who had been hit by a gas canister to a flat on the fourth floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. He told us that he left the flat in order to look for a doctor. When he reached the ground floor, the lobby area was deserted. However, as he stood there, a man crashed through the doors and collapsed. James Norris caught the man and lowered him to the ground. There was blood on the man’s left side. The man was wearing a bottle green suit and a white collared shirt. James Norris recalled wondering why the man, on a cold day, was wearing a suit and shirt with no vest or T-shirt. James Norris examined the man where he caught him. The man died within about a minute of coming through the door. Another man came into the lobby. James Norris now knew that this was Liam Mailey. He left Liam Mailey with the body and went upstairs.1


60.39 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, James Norris said that he was certain that the casualty was wearing a green suit. He did not recall the casualty wearing a pullover but remembered that he was wearing a white shirt. James Norris said that he did not recall finding a rubber bullet in the casualty’s pocket. He also said that he did not know the names of the casualties on the day, but learned them later.1He also said that he believed that the cameraman to whom he had referred in his report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps was Liam Mailey.2



60.40 The representatives of some of the soldiers submitted that the man treated by James Norris might not have been Kevin McElhinney.1 They relied on two aspects of James Norris’s written and oral accounts to this Inquiry:

1. James Norris described the casualty as wearing a green suit and no pullover. Kevin McElhinney was wearing a brown suit, pink shirt and brown/green pullover.

2. James Norris described treating the casualty on the ground floor of the flats. Kevin McElhinney was treated on the small landing below the first floor.



60.41 These representatives acknowledged that in the accounts that he gave in 1972, James Norris stated that the casualty was carried upstairs, and that the injury described by James Norris is consistent with that known to have been suffered by Kevin McElhinney. They submitted, however, that it is possible that the casualty whom James Norris described to this Inquiry was not Kevin McElhinney, and they pointed out that the position of the body described by James Norris corresponds closely to the position of the second body described by Alan Harkens.

60.42 These representatives also relied on the fact that in his evidence to this Inquiry James Norris described the casualty whom he treated as having crashed through the doors of Block 1. They submitted that the weight of the evidence indicates that Kevin McElhinney crawled to the flats and was probably dragged through the doors.

60.43 The representatives of the majority of the families submitted that the youth treated by James Norris was clearly Kevin McElhinney. They submitted that James Norris was wrong in his recollection that the youth “crashed ” through the doors and that his 1972 accounts of the youth falling in the doorway are more reliable. They also submitted that his recollection of the youth’s clothing was wrong and that he may have mistaken the handkerchief around Kevin McElhinney’s neck for a white collared shirt. They pointed out that James Norris described the casualty’s left side as being covered in blood, as Kevin McElhinney’s was, and that he recalled Liam Mailey as having been present in the lobby of Block 1 when the casualty entered. It was submitted that on his own evidence to this Inquiry, Liam Mailey was present when Kevin McElhinney came into the lobby.1In fact, in both his written and oral evidence to this Inquiry, James Norris said that Liam Mailey arrived after the injured man had come through the door; though his report to the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps suggests that Liam Mailey was at the scene when the injured man came in.2



The evidence of Liam Mailey

60.44 The representatives of the majority of represented soldiers referred to the evidence of Liam Mailey, to the effect that he was brought downstairs to the entrance to Block 1 by the news that someone had been shot, and that he was there when Kevin McElhinney was shot.1 These representatives submitted that the news that someone had been shot could not refer to Hugh Gilmour, since there was a photograph that shows that Liam Mailey was already downstairs when Hugh Gilmour ran past the doorway.2



60.45 In relation to this photograph,1 although Liam Mailey told the Widgery Inquiry2 that he was the man shown with his hand on the door, he told this Inquiry3 that he had been persuaded of this by others and now did not believe that it was correct, particularly since someone else had claimed to be the person shown in the photograph with his hand on the door, and this man had said that Liam Mailey was behind him. In his interview with Stephen Gargan,4 Liam Mailey suggested that he had gone upstairs at least as far as the first landing when the photograph was taken. His comment later in his oral evidence to this Inquiry,5 that the photograph “positions me there ”, read in the context of his earlier evidence to this Inquiry and his account to Stephen Gargan, does not to our minds undermine his correction of what he told the Widgery Inquiry, a correction that we accept.




Consideration of the submissions on unidentified casualties

60.46 We reject the submission that the evidence considered above shows or suggests that there was another casualty in the area of the southern stairwell of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, in addition to Kevin McElhinney. In our view, as was submitted by the representatives of the majority of the families, a number of witnesses had acquired confused recollections, and the shocking nature of events, combined with the speed with which the events occurred, had affected the ability of witnesses to assimilate accurate and detailed recollections. We also accept the submission of those representatives that to suggest that an additional body was lying in the area of the stairwell involves alleging that there was a widespread conspiracy of silence among a sizeable group of what the submission described as “ordinary people ”, who would have had no reason to take part in such a conspiracy.1 We have found no evidence of any such conspiracy.



60.47 In addition to this general point, it appears to be accepted by the soldiers’ representatives that the evidence on which they rely cannot be taken entirely at face value, for if it were, there would not have been one unidentified casualty in the stairwell (which is what they suggested), but several on different floors, attended to by different people.

63.48 There are in addition the two matters to which we referred when considering earlier in this report the submission that Eileen Collins saw an unidentified casualty. These were the absence of any record in the intelligence material disclosed to the Inquiry by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and other agencies of the death on Bloody Sunday of any person other than the known casualties; and Fr Edward Daly’s rejection (which we accept) of the suggestion that there could have been secret burials of unidentified casualties killed by the Army on that day.

60.49 In these circumstances it is our view that there were no unidentified casualties of Army gunfire in Sector 2.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 61




Firing by a soldier in Sector 2 observed by Corporal INQ 444
Chapter 61: Firing by a soldier in Sector 2 observed by Corporal INQ 444

61.1 We now turn to another topic, namely the evidence from Corporal INQ 444 about a soldier firing in Sector 2.

61.2 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Corporal INQ 444, who was on Bloody Sunday a member of C Company, 1 PARA, told us that he saw a soldier firing from about the point marked “E ” on the plan attached to his statement2 (ie near the west end of the fence to the north of the entrance to the car park). The soldier was “standing up ”, holding his rifle under his arm between his shoulder and his waist, and firing in the direction of Blocks 2 and 3 “at an angle of 30 to 40 degrees ”. Corporal INQ 444 stated that he thought that the soldier had fired more than ten rounds and fewer than 20. In his opinion, the soldier was frightened and had “‘lost the plot’ ”. He told us that he believed that this soldier was “Lance Corporal H ”, but that there was “a good chance ” that he had only learned the identity of the soldier after the event.



61.3 We return to the evidence of Corporal INQ 444 later in this report,1 when we consider the accounts of the day given by members of C Company, but it should be noted here that when he gave oral evidence to this Inquiry, Corporal INQ 444 repeated his uncertainty about the identification of the soldier and told us that he was also uncertain about where the soldier was and the direction of his fire.



61.4 It was submitted by the representatives of the majority of the families that the soldier whom Corporal INQ 444 saw was a member of Mortar Platoon.1 For the reasons we give later in this report,2 when dealing further with the evidence of Corporal INQ 444, we consider it unlikely that the soldier was any of those who had been engaged in the Eden Place waste ground or the car park of the Rossville Flats. Whether it was Corporal P, who asserted that he had fired three rounds over the heads of people he said were advancing over the rubble barricade in Rossville Street, is a matter we consider later in this report.3 Whether the firing, which we are sure Corporal INQ 444 observed, was by Private H, as was submitted on behalf of Private H,4 is a matter we also consider later in this report.5 There is no evidence to suggest that this firing resulted in any casualties.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 62




The shooting posture of the soldiers who fired in Sector 2
Chapter 62: The shooting posture of the soldiers who fired in Sector 2


Lance Corporal V 62.38

62.1 We now set out the evidence that the soldiers of Mortar Platoon gave as to whether they were standing or kneeling when they fired their rifles. With the exception of Lieutenant N and his first three shots aimed over the heads of people in the Eden Place alleyway, all the soldiers of this platoon have maintained that they fired shots aimed at individuals. None of the firing soldiers has admitted to firing from the hip.

Lieutenant N

62.2 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1and in his written statement to this Inquiry,2Lieutenant N stated that he was standing when he fired his final shot from a position on the Eden Place waste ground. We accept this part of the evidence of Lieutenant N.



Sergeant O

62.3 In his first Royal Military Police (RMP) statement,1 Sergeant O recorded that he was positioned by the rear of his Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) when the incoming fire began. He went on to describe the three shooting incidents in which he was involved, without giving further details of his own position or saying whether he was standing or kneeling when he fired his rifle.



62.4 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Sergeant O recorded that he and three of his men were “grouped at the pig ” when he saw his first gunman. He then described his first and second engagements, and stated that at the time when he saw his second gunman he was “Still by the front end of the pig, behind the mudguard ”. Sergeant O said that when Private T was splashed with acid, he (Sergeant O) was just behind him, and that after hearing Private T fire two shots, he “moved round to the front of the pig ” before he saw his third gunman. Sergeant O did not in this statement record whether he was standing or kneeling when he fired his rifle.



62.5 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, Sergeant O said1that his firing position when he engaged his first gunman was “the forward left wing of my position ”, presumably meaning the nearside wing of his APC. Having described his first engagement, he said that he stayed where he was “at the front of the pig ”, and while in that position saw and engaged his second gunman.2He said that he then went to the rear of the vehicle. After the incident in which Private T fired at an acid bomber, Sergeant O “came back round to the front of the vehicle ” and engaged his third gunman.3He did not in this evidence say whether he was standing or kneeling when he fired his rifle.



62.6 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1Sergeant O told us that he was standing next to the nearside front wheel of his APC before his first and second engagements took place. He recorded nothing to suggest that he had moved from that position or was no longer standing when he opened fire. Sergeant O told us2that he was somewhere near the mudguard of the nearside front wheel of his APC when he engaged his third gunman, but he did not state whether he was standing or kneeling.



62.7 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1Sergeant O said that he was standing “in front of the Pig, at the front edge of the Pig ” when he fired at his first and second gunmen. He said that he was at the nearside front mudguard of the APC when he fired at his first two gunmen,2and that he was standing at the nearside front door of the vehicle when he fired at his first gunman.3He said that he was at the front of the vehicle when he fired at his third gunman,4but did not say whether he was standing or kneeling.




Private R’s evidence about Sergeant O

62.8 In his second RMP statement1 and in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,2 Private R recorded that after he had been hit by two acid bombs thrown from Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, he saw a man firing a pistol towards the soldiers from behind a maroon Cortina in the car park. He stated that Sergeant O fired at the gunman, who fell and was dragged away. In each statement, Private R said that Sergeant O was “standing beside ” him when he fired at the gunman. In his RMP account, Private R seemed to say that his own position when Sergeant O fired was between Block 1 and Sergeant O’s APC; while in his statement for the Widgery Inquiry, Private R seemed to say that he had been beside the “right hand back door ” of the APC when the first acid bomb was thrown, and that he had then “stepped back ” by the time Sergeant O fired. Private R also recorded in that statement that after the gunman had been dragged away, Sergeant O “went to the back somewhere ”. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3 Private R said that by this he had probably meant that Sergeant O went “back behind the vehicles, further along ” rather than merely to the rear of his own vehicle.


62.9 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, Private R said that he was standing behind Sergeant O’s APC when he saw Sergeant O fire,1 and that he was at that time “stood next ” to Sergeant O.2 He said that he presumed that after the gunman had been taken away, Sergeant O “went behind ” in order to count heads and make sure that none of his men had been injured.3 Private R did not in this evidence say whether Sergeant O was standing or kneeling when he fired his weapon.


62.10 Private R also described this incident in his written statement to this Inquiry,1 but did not say where Sergeant O had been when he fired or whether he had been standing or kneeling. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Private R initially said that he did not now recall how close he had been to Sergeant O when this firing took place.2 Later in his evidence,3 he said that Sergeant O was probably only four or five feet away. Private R said that he believed that he had been at the back of the APC, but was not sure whether Sergeant O had been at the back or the front. He accepted that Sergeant O might well have been at the nearside passenger door. Private R said that his present recollection was that he saw Sergeant O firing before he, Private R, was hit by acid bombs.4




62.11 Private R did not describe the other two shooting incidents in which Sergeant O was involved.

Private S’s evidence about Sergeant O

62.12 In his second RMP statement,1 Private S recorded that Sergeant O fired from the nearside of his APC at a gunman who was firing from a window on the ground floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,2 and in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,3Private S told the Widgery Inquiry that he had seen Sergeant O fire one or two shots from the forward nearside of his APC towards the south-east corner of the car park. Private S stated that he could not see Sergeant O’s target, as the target was behind the wall against which Private S was standing. Private S said that Sergeant O did not appear to fire “in an elevated position ” but that he “would not say it was exactly sort of level ”.4In his written statement to this Inquiry,5Private S said that he remembered seeing Sergeant O apparently engaging a target. Sergeant O had been at the front nearside of his vehicle. Private S said that he thought that Sergeant O had been near the passenger door. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,6Private S said that this Inquiry should not rely on the account given in his second RMP statement of seeing a gunman, but he stood by his evidence of seeing Sergeant O firing from the nearside of his APC. He conceded that the account of seeing a gunman given in his second RMP statement was untrue.7Private S said that when he saw Sergeant O firing, Sergeant O was “standing ” at the nearside of his APC.8





Private T’s evidence about Sergeant O

62.13 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1Private T said that at one point Sergeant O shouted “‘There’s one over there behind the wall’ ” and fired across the car park. Private T thought that Sergeant O had fired two or three shots. He did not say where Sergeant O was when he fired, or whether he was standing or kneeling. In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,2Private T gave a similar account. He said that Sergeant O fired two or possibly three shots in the direction of the flats. He said that he did not know where Sergeant O meant by “‘over there’ ”. Private T said that he could not see into the car park. He told the Widgery Inquiry that when Sergeant O fired, he (Sergeant O) was standing at the back of his APC about three feet away from Private T.



62.14 In our view, based on the evidence of Private T, it is likely that Sergeant O was standing when he fired his shots.

Private Q

62.15 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 Private Q said that he was kneeling when he fired his shot from a position near the north-east corner of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.


62.16 Private Q told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1 that he could not recall whether he had been kneeling or standing when he fired his shot, but he said in his oral evidence to this Inquiry2 that his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry on this point was likely to be accurate.


62.17 In our view Private Q was probably kneeling when he fired.

Private R

62.18 In his first RMP statement,1 Private R recorded that he had “reached the Humber ” before he fired his first shot at a man holding a fizzing object in the car park of the Rossville Flats, although the accompanying RMP map2 shows Private R’s position as having been at the north-east corner of Block 1. Neither the statement nor the map suggests that Private R moved to a different position before firing his three shots at what he described as a man firing a pistol from the passage between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats.


62.19 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Private R recorded that when he fired his first shot, he was beside the “right hand back door ” of Sergeant O’s APC. He stated that he had “stepped back ” from that position when the first acid bomb was thrown, but did not say that he had moved any further by the time he fired his three shots at the man he described as firing a pistol from the passage between Blocks 2 and 3. He described his position during both engagements as being “in the same area as T and O ”.2



62.20 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 Private R said that he was “just coming round this corner … to get back to the vehicle ” when he saw the man holding the smoking object. He said that after he had fired at the man, acid bombs were thrown and he took cover behind the APC. Private R did not describe any further movement before he engaged what he described as the man with the pistol.



62.21 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Private R told us that he was positioned at the back of the APC when he fired at the man holding the smoking object and that he took cover behind the APC after being splashed by acid. He did not refer to any further movement before he fired at the man with the pistol.



62.22 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Private R said that it was possible that he had seen the man with the smoking object before he reached Sergeant O’s vehicle,1 but that he was “at the right-hand side of the Pig ” when he fired his first shot at this man.2 He said that he
was standing when he fired his final shot from a position on the Eden Place waste ground. We accept this part of the evidence of Lieutenant N.

62.23 Private R did not in any of his evidence say whether he fired his shots from a standing or a kneeling position.

Private 005’s evidence about Private R

62.24 In his RMP statement,1Private 005 (the driver of one of the APCs of Machine Gun Platoon) recorded that Private R fired three rounds at a man who was firing a pistol from “the first floor veranda which runs between block one and block two of the flats ”. He said that Private R was “standing ” at the nearside wing of an APC when he fired.



62.25 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1Private 005 told us that he saw a soldier firing towards the Rossville Flats. He stated that he thought that it had been Private R but could not rule out the possibility that it had been Private T. The soldier was “in a standing position ”. Private 005 told us that he thought that the soldier had fired three shots, and that it seemed to him that the soldier was firing “into the first floor of the flats because he looked to have his gun more or less on a level rather than raised ”. Private 005 stated that he could see “puffs of smoke ” rising from the ground where the soldier was standing. This and the soldier’s firing led Private 005, according to this statement, to believe that acid bombs or something similar were being thrown at the soldier, but he stated that he did not see any acid being thrown. Private 005 told us that he had a vague memory of seeing a man on either the ground floor or the first floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, with his arm back as if about to throw something, and with an object, possibly a nail bomb or petrol bomb, in his hand. However, Private 005 stated that he did not remember seeing the man throw anything, and was concerned that his memory might be wrong. He stated2that he did not now remember seeing a man with a pistol, although he recalled hearing pistol fire at about the time when he saw the soldier firing.



62.26 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Private 005 said that Private R was “just standing and firing ”1and that Private R was “standing at the side of the Pig ”.2Private 005 admitted that he had seen neither a gunman nor a man with his arm in a throwing position.3He said that he recalled seeing Private R fire only one shot towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2, and denied that he had told the RMP that he had seen him fire three shots.4Private 005 was asked5what made him think that Private R was having something thrown at him, and replied that it was “Just the way the stuff was splashing about ”.




62.27 In view of the doubts we have earlier expressed about Private 005’s account of the firing by Private R, we remain uncertain whether Private R was standing or kneeling when he fired.

Private S

62.28 Private S did not in any of his evidence say whether he was standing or kneeling when he fired his shots from beside the wall at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses.

Sergeant O’s evidence about Private S

62.29 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 Sergeant O said that he saw Private S “standing ” at the back wall of 32 or 34 Chamberlain Street and firing towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats.


62.30 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1 Sergeant O told us that he saw Private S aiming his rifle at a gunman in the passage between Blocks 1 and 2, and that at some stage after Private S’s engagement was over, he looked back and saw that Private S was “still standing ”.



62.31 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry, Sergeant O did not say whether Private S was standing or kneeling when he opened fire.

Lance Corporal V’s evidence about Private S

62.32 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Lance Corporal V recorded that he saw Private S “standing at the corner of the buildings at the end of Chamberlain Street ” and firing towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2 of the Rossville Flats. In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,2 Lance Corporal V said that he saw Private S fire approximately four shots and that so far as he could recall Private S had fired these shots from a standing position. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3 Lance Corporal V said that he now had no recollection of Private S firing.

62.33 In our view Private S was probably standing when he fired.

Private T

62.34 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1 Private T said that after hearing incoming fire he had moved to the rear of Sergeant O’s APC on the offside. He said that he fired his first shot from a standing position at the rear of the APC.2He then described firing his second shot shortly afterwards, and did not suggest that he had changed his position before doing so. He said that he was standing on the “William Street side ” of the APC during a period that appears to cover the firing of his shots.3




Private Q’s evidence about Private T

62.35 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1 Private Q said that he saw a soldier fire from beside Sergeant O’s APC at the “western ” (in our view a mistake for “eastern ”) side of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. He confirmed this in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry.2 He did not say whether this soldier was standing or kneeling at the time of firing. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3 Private Q said that he did not remember seeing Private T fire, and could not say whether this firing had occurred at the same time as acid bombs were thrown from Block 1 or at a later time.



Private R’s evidence about Private T

62.36 Private R did not in his evidence about Private T’s firing1say whether Private T fired from a standing or a kneeling position.



62.37 In our view Private T fired from a standing position.

Lance Corporal V

62.38 Lance Corporal V did not in any of his evidence say whether he was standing or kneeling when he fired his shot from what he described as a position north of the entrance to the car park of the Rossville Flats. In these circumstances we remain in doubt whether he was standing or kneeling when he fired.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 63

Civilian evidence relating to the position on the ground of the soldiers who shot those hit by gunfire
63.1 We now turn to consider the evidence given by civilians relating to which soldier shot those hit by gunfire in Sector 2.

63.2 A large number of civilians gave evidence about the events of Sector 2. Their evidence about the positions of the soldiers who shot particular casualties was conflicting, often inconsistent with other evidence we have considered above, and in many cases confused. We are not surprised that this should be so. As we have observed elsewhere in this report, it is often the case that people witnessing the same event give very different accounts of it. The circumstances were terrifying and fast-moving, and often more than one soldier was firing at or about the same time. Furthermore, when giving evidence to us, the witnesses were trying to recall events that had happened decades earlier. Nevertheless, when later in this report1we seek to determine which soldier shot which casualty, we take into account the evidence to which we now turn as one of the matters to be borne in mind.



Civilian evidence relating to the position of the soldier who shot Jackie Duddy

A soldier at the north-east corner of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats

Cathleen Bell

63.3 Cathleen Bell, now Cathleen O’Donnell, lived with her parents at 57 Donagh Place,1the third flat from the south-west end of Block 3 of the Rossville Flats, on the seventh floor.2In her written statement to this Inquiry,3she described seeing two soldiers near the north-east corner of Block 1 as she crawled towards Block 3 along the balcony on the eighth floor of Block 2. One of the soldiers, a black man, was standing.4The other, a white man, was kneeling. The standing soldier had a gun at his waist and was firing it around the car park into the air. The kneeling soldier was firing a weapon from his shoulder. Cathleen O’Donnell told us that she reached a position on the balcony on the eighth floor of Block 3 near the entrance to her parents’ flat, from where she looked down and saw a young boy shot as he ran across the car park. She later learned that this was Jackie Duddy. In her oral evidence to this Inquiry,5she confirmed that both soldiers had rifles. She said6that she heard shots from the general direction of the two soldiers when she saw Jackie Duddy fall. She accepted7that she could not say that she had seen the soldiers firing, but said that they were aiming their weapons. She did not see any other soldiers.






Donal Deeney

63.4 Donal Deeney told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was running through the car park of the Rossville Flats a short distance behind Jackie Duddy. Donal Deeney saw Jackie Duddy fall but did not recall hearing the shot that hit him. Donal Deeney stated that he then saw Michael Bridge run towards the soldier who Donal Deeney thought had probably shot Jackie Duddy. This soldier was standing at the point marked “G” on the plan attached to the statement2(the north-east corner of Block 1). In a supplementary written statement to this Inquiry,3Donal Deeney told us that this soldier “could have been ” the one who shot Jackie Duddy and that he was holding his rifle “just under his armpit ”. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,4Donal Deeney said that the soldier had his rifle “raised at sort of waist level ”. He thought that Jackie Duddy had been shot in the chest and hence believed that this soldier was the “obvious culprit ”.




Brian Doherty

63.5 Brian Doherty told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was running towards the passage between Blocks 2 and 3 of the Rossville Flats but stopped and looked back when he reached the low wall parallel to Block 2. A young man came into view, running towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2. The man fell at about the point marked “B” on the plan attached to Brian Doherty’s statement2(in the car park between the western gable end of Chamberlain Street and the north-west end of Block 2). At the same time, Brian Doherty heard the sound of a shot, which seemed to him to have come from a soldier who was standing upright at the north-east corner of Block 1. He also saw this soldier’s rifle apparently recoiling as if he had just fired. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3Brian Doherty said that more than one shot had been fired and that he had heard something “more like a volley ”. He remained “fairly confident ” that the soldier whose rifle had appeared to recoil was the soldier at the north-east corner of Block 1.




Noel Doherty

63.6 Noel Doherty told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that as he ran across the car park of the Rossville Flats towards the passage between Blocks 2 and 3, he looked round and saw a soldier standing at the north-east corner of Block 1 “holding up his rifle just under his armpit and aiming through his sights ”. The soldier was firing in the direction of the passage between Blocks 2 and 3. Noel Doherty noticed that a young man had fallen to his right. At first, Noel Doherty thought that the young man had tripped, and he carried on running, but he subsequently returned to him and found that he had been shot. He told us that he now believed that the young man was Jackie Duddy. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2Noel Doherty said that the soldier had his rifle at shoulder level and seemed to be firing directly at those who were fleeing across the car park. He said that he thought that Jackie Duddy was directly in the soldier’s line of fire.3




Isabella Duffy

63.7 Isabella Duffy was on the balcony outside her brother’s maisonette in Block 2 of the Rossville Flats.1We have earlier in this report2concluded that this maisonette was 19 Garvan Place, on the second floor of Block 2 at its north-western end.3In her written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,4Isabella Duffy said that three Army vehicles came across the waste ground and stopped near the north end of Block 1. Soldiers jumped out. One of the soldiers went down on his knee and fired his rifle, and a boy who had been running away from the soldiers “pitched forward ”. In her oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,5Isabella Duffy said that she only saw soldiers jump out of the leading vehicle. The kneeling soldier fired a shot that missed before the shot was fired that hit the boy. She now knew that the boy was Jackie Duddy. In her written statement to this Inquiry,6Isabella Duffy told us that she saw two soldiers, both kneeling on one knee close to the wall at the north-east corner of Block 1 and holding their rifles at their waists. She said that she heard a shot that she believed had been fired by one of the two soldiers, although at the time she thought that it was a baton round. Then she heard a second shot and Jackie Duddy pitched forward and fell on his face.




Angela Fleming

63.8 Angela Fleming, now Angela Copp, was watching events from a bedroom window of 65 Mura Place, a maisonette occupied by the family of her friend Maureen Barr, now Maureen Gerke, on the sixth floor of Block 3 of the Rossville Flats.1This maisonette was the third from the north end of that block.2In her written statement to this Inquiry,3Angela Fleming told us that she saw a soldier kneeling on one knee at the point marked “B” on the plan attached to her statement4(the north-east corner of Block 1). The soldier was facing towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2. She saw the soldier lift his rifle, heard a bang and saw a boy fall. The boy seemed to have come running from Rossville Street and to have been trying to reach the passage between Blocks 1 and 2. She stated that she now knew that his name was Jackie Duddy. In her oral evidence to this Inquiry,5she said that she remembered seeing the soldier going down on his knee and bringing his rifle to shoulder height, hearing the bang and seeing the boy fall at the same time, although she did not remember seeing the recoil of the weapon. She resisted the suggestion6that she had merely made an assumption that the soldier had shot Jackie Duddy.




A soldier on the offside of Sergeant O’s Armoured
Personnel Carrier

William McDonagh

63.9 William McDonagh said that he was on the balcony on the second floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats outside 4 Garvan Place, the second maisonette from the north end of that block.1In his NICRA statement,2he recorded that two soldiers jumped out of the vehicle that entered the car park. One of them grabbed an elderly man, threw him against a wall at the back of Chamberlain Street, and began hitting him with the butt of his rifle.3Two youths attempted unsuccessfully to free the man. As they were retreating, the second soldier fired two or three shots indiscriminately, hitting one of the youths. More soldiers then disembarked from the vehicle. In his written statement to this Inquiry,4William McDonagh told us that the soldier who fired did so from a position on the west side of the vehicle, and that he was aiming his rifle from the shoulder towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2. William McDonagh stated that he was not sure whether this soldier was one of those who had held the elderly man or whether he had just disembarked from the vehicle. The youth fell almost simultaneously with the firing. William McDonagh assumed that the youth had been shot. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,5he said that the soldier did not aim his rifle but fired indiscriminately from the waist or midriff. He said6that he was not sure that the youth who fell was one of those who had been trying to rescue the elderly man, and he thought that the NICRA statement taker had misunderstood him on this point. He was not sure that the soldier who fired was one of those who had held the elderly man, but thought that he probably was. William McDonagh said7that the soldier had fired from the west side of the vehicle.




A soldier on the nearside of Sergeant O’s Armoured
Personnel Carrier

Kevin McDaid

63.10 Kevin McDaid told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he ran into the car park of the Rossville Flats from the south end of Chamberlain Street. He stated that he heard two or three shots fired on his right and saw two soldiers on the nearside of an Army vehicle in the entrance to the car park. The soldier nearer to him was crouching and holding his rifle at about chest height but not aiming it. Kevin McDaid told us that as he heard the shots, he saw someone stumble and fall forward. He now knew that this was Jackie Duddy. He thought that the soldier who had shot him was the crouching soldier “as the shooting definitely came from that direction ”. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2Kevin McDaid said that the reason why he thought that this soldier had shot Jackie Duddy was that he could only see two soldiers, and the nearer soldier was the only one who was pointing his rifle.



Derrik Tucker Senior

63.11 Derrik Tucker Senior told us that he was watching events from his bedroom window at 31 Garvan Place, the third maisonette from the south-east end of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats on the second and third floors.1In his NICRA statement,2he recorded that two Army vehicles turned into the car park. Soldiers disembarked and one of them took up a firing position at the nearside front wheel of one of the vehicles. The soldier started firing and a man fell to the ground. In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,3Derrik Tucker Senior told the Widgery Inquiry that the soldier had his rifle to his shoulder, and that Fr Edward Daly attended to the man who had fallen, who was Jackie Duddy. In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, Derrik Tucker Senior said that the soldier was on the nearside of the “leading ” vehicle4and that he was leaning across the front of the vehicle with his rifle supported on it.5In a deposition taken for the inquest into the death of Jackie Duddy,6Derrik Tucker Senior said that the soldier fired “towards the ground ”.


Martin Tucker

63.12 Derrik Tucker Senior’s son Martin Tucker told us that he was also watching from 31 Garvan Place.1In his NICRA statement,2Martin Tucker recorded that the first person he saw hit was a young boy in denims who was then attended to by a priest, but he did not describe the position of the soldier who shot the boy. In his written statement to this Inquiry,3Martin Tucker told us that two soldiers disembarked from an Army vehicle that had entered the car park of the Rossville Flats. The soldiers moved to the front of the vehicle and one of them stood by the “offside door ”. Martin Tucker was not sure whether the other soldier had gone to the other side of the vehicle, but recalled that they were both quite close together, and that the “one that moved closest to Block 1 ” was leaning on the front of the vehicle. Within seconds, at least one of the soldiers, and probably both, had opened fire. Martin Tucker saw the soldier by the “offside door ” aiming his rifle from his shoulder. He heard a crack and saw a man fall. He told us that he now knew that this was Jackie Duddy. However, in his oral evidence to this Inquiry,4Martin Tucker said that by “‘off-side door’ ” he had meant the passenger (ie nearside) door. He said that he had a particular recollection of the soldier at that door aiming his rifle before Jackie Duddy fell, and that his recollection in relation to the other soldier was much less clear. Later in his evidence he appeared to be saying5that both soldiers had moved to the passenger side of the vehicle when they disembarked.


A soldier who had jumped out of Sergeant O’s Armoured Personnel Carrier

Mary Bonner

63.13 Mary Bonner made a NICRA statement1jointly with her brother Bernard Gilmour and his wife. In that statement, the three witnesses recorded that they were looking out across the car park of the Rossville Flats from a bedroom in 23 Garvan Place, the third maisonette from the north-west end of Block 2 on the second and third floors.2According to this statement, a soldier standing “in the waste ground ” fired at a man who fell on his face in the car park and was then given the last rites by Fr Daly. However, in her written statement to this Inquiry,3Mary Bonner explained that by the time Jackie Duddy had been shot, she had left her mother’s maisonette at 23 Garvan Place and was observing events from the balcony on the second floor of Block 2 outside her own maisonette at 34 Garvan Place, the second from the south-east end of that block.4That is consistent with what Mary Bonner said in a number of accounts given in 1972.5In those accounts, she stated that the soldier who shot Jackie Duddy had jumped out of one of two vehicles that had entered the car park. In her written statement to this Inquiry,6she told us that the vehicle had pulled up beside the stairs at the north end of Block 1, and that the soldier had fired from close to the back door of the vehicle, although it was her recollection that the back door was facing into the car park. She could not tell from where the shot that hit Jackie Duddy had come, but she connected it in her mind with the soldier who fired when he disembarked from the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC). She said in a number of her accounts either that the soldier fired from the hip,7or that he fired from the waist.8In her oral evidence to this Inquiry,9Mary Bonner said that she did not see any movement of the gun but believed that the soldier had fired because she heard the sound of a shot from his direction. Jackie Duddy fell at the same time as she heard the shot. She said10that she could not remember in which direction the APC had been facing.



A soldier at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses

Elizabeth Dunleavy

63.14 Elizabeth Dunleavy told us that she was standing in the doorway of her maisonette at 5 Garvan Place, the third from the north end on the second floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.1According to her NICRA statement,2she saw a soldier “in the middle of the car park ” kneel and take aim at a boy who was running towards “the gap between the flats ”. The soldier fired. The boy “twirled round ” and fell on his back. The soldier swung round and pointed his gun at Elizabeth Dunleavy, who then went inside and upstairs, from where she saw Fr Daly and others carry the boy away. In her written statement to this Inquiry,3Elizabeth Dunleavy told us that she now knew that the boy was Jackie Duddy. She stated that the soldier who shot him was kneeling at the point marked “C” on the plan attached to her statement4(near the back of 34 Chamberlain Street). In her oral evidence to this Inquiry,5she said that this was the position that she had intended to describe when she used the phrase “‘in the middle of the car park ’” in her NICRA statement.




A soldier at the back of a vehicle at Eden Place

James McKinney

63.15 James McKinney recorded in his NICRA statement1that he ran down Chamberlain Street “into the waste ground – car park behind the flats ”. He saw a soldier take up a position at the back of an Army vehicle. The soldier took aim at an unarmed civilian and shot him in the back. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2James McKinney told us that he was at about the point marked “D” on the plan attached to his statement3(near the centre of the car park) when he saw an Army vehicle at about the point marked “E” (the south side of the junction of Eden Place and Rossville Street) facing towards Free Derry Corner. A soldier appeared at about the point marked “F” (the nearside rear of the vehicle) and fired an aimed shot from the shoulder. A man immediately fell in the car park and rolled along the ground. This man was clean-shaven, aged between 17 and 20 years, about 5ft 10in tall, of medium build, and had short, dark hair. James McKinney thought that the man was wearing a red jumper. The man lay motionless on his back and James McKinney realised that he must be dead. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,4James McKinney said that he now knew that the man was Jackie Duddy. He said initially5that there had been no Army vehicle in the entrance to the car park when he looked into the waste ground from point D. Later in his evidence,6he said that there might have been a vehicle in the entrance to the car park, but he still recalled that the vehicle from beside which the soldier fired had been further away.




A soldier on the waste ground

Bernard Gilmour

63.16 As noted above, Bernard Gilmour made a NICRA statement1jointly with his wife and his sister Mary Bonner, in which the three witnesses recorded that they were looking out across the car park of the Rossville Flats from a window in Block 2, and attributed the shooting of Jackie Duddy to a soldier standing “in the waste ground ”. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2and in his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3Bernard Gilmour said that he did not see who had shot Jackie Duddy, although he assumed that it was one of a group of three or four soldiers who were near the back of 36 Chamberlain Street, who were the only soldiers he had seen at that time. However, he said4that it was possible that what he had said in his NICRA statement about the position of the soldier was more accurate. Bernard Gilmour’s wife did not give evidence to this Inquiry.


Civilian evidence relating to the position and appearance of the soldier who shot Margaret Deery

A soldier with a red hat or red hair firing from close range

Margaret Deery’s accounts

63.17 For reasons given earlier in this report1we are of the view that at the time of her shooting, Margaret Deery was near the corner of the garden of 36 Chamberlain Street, probably a matter of feet to the north or north-east of that corner. In her statement to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),2Margaret Deery recorded that the soldier who shot her was in front of her, but did not describe his position in any more detail. In her statement for the Widgery Inquiry dated 29th February 1972,3she recorded that the soldier was only about 20ft away from her. According to Philip Jacobson’s note of the same date,4Margaret Deery told him that she saw “a soldier with the red para hat come up from the pig that was near us ”, and take aim either at her or the man standing next to her. As she moved towards the man for protection, she felt a thump in her leg but did not hear a bang. The soldier was not more than 25 yards away. Philip Jacobson noted that Margaret Deery had told him that the soldier 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 ”. In the note of her recollections dated 25th January 1983,5Margaret Deery is recorded as having said that the soldier who shot her fired from a range of less than 10ft.



63.18 Margaret Deery’s daughter Helen Deery told us, in her written statement to this Inquiry,1and in her oral evidence to this Inquiry,2that her mother had told her that she had been shot at close range by a soldier with red hair. She said the same in an interview with Stephen Gargan.3



63.19 Margaret Deery’s son Owen Deery told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that his mother had told him that she had been shot by a soldier with red hair who fired from a few yards away.



63.20 Another of Margaret Deery’s sons, Tony Deery, told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that his mother had said that the soldier who shot her was tall with red hair.


63.21 We should note at this point that in his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1Lieutenant N said that he had never had reddish hair. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2Lance Corporal V said that he had brown hair at the time of Bloody Sunday. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3Private S said that his own hair was a “Light mousey ” colour and that he could not recall whether any other member of the platoon had red or reddish hair. We have no evidence of the colour of the hair of other members of Mortar Platoon at the time of Bloody Sunday.




A soldier at the front of an Armoured Personnel Carrier

Leo Deehan

63.22 In an undated statement,1Leo Deehan described a soldier who raised his rifle, but did not indicate the position of the soldier, nor did he clearly say that the soldier had shot Margaret Deery. In his later draft chapter for a book,2having referred to an Army vehicle pulling up behind him and to a confrontation between an older man and a soldier, Leo Deehan said: “Suddenly I was almost pushed off my feet when a wee woman running up behind me shouted as she pushed me ‘Jesus you’re going to be shot look there’ I didn’t see the soldier who has cocked his rifle on the front of the sarachon [sic] and taking aim – BANG – I jumped in the air, I must have traveled 50 feet before I got my senses back, I was running harder than I ever remember, now I looked back and was shocked once again, this time to see that little woman lying on the ground. ”


63.23 Leo Deehan’s daughter Maria Nelson told us in her written statement to this Inquiry1 that her father had told her that the soldier about whom Margaret Deery shouted the warning was not the soldier who was beating the elderly man but another soldier “further along Chamberlain Street ”.


Civilian evidence relating to the position of the soldier who shot Michael Bridge

Michael Bridge’s own accounts

63.24 Michael Bridge said in his interview with Kathleen Keville1that at the time of his shooting he was facing a soldier who was holding up his rifle. He did not believe that this soldier had shot him because he was hit in the side of his leg. He was “nearly sure it was the soldier at the side of the flats ” who shot him.



63.25 In his RUC statement taken by Detective Constable Gillanders,1Michael Bridge recorded that a soldier was holding his rifle to his shoulder and aiming at him. However, this soldier “could not have shot me but I was aware of another soldier at the bottom of Rossville Flats and to my left ”.


63.26 In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,1Michael Bridge recorded that just before he was shot, he had noticed a soldier kneeling “at the corner of the Rossville Street flats ” with his rifle aimed into the car park. There was another soldier standing a few feet from the rear wall of one of the houses in Chamberlain Street, who had his rifle in his shoulder in an aiming position. Michael Bridge expressed no view as to which, if either, of these soldiers had shot him.



63.27 In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,1Michael Bridge again referred to the two soldiers but said that he did not know which one had shot him.


63.28 In his interview for BBC Radio Foyle, a recording of which was played during his interview with Paul Mahon,1Michael Bridge said that he was shot by a soldier “along a w[a]ll ” at whom he had been throwing stones.



63.29 In his interview with Don Mullan,1Michael Bridge said that he had walked or run towards the soldier who he thought had shot Jackie Duddy, shouting at him, and had then been shot by that soldier.



63.30 In his written statement to this Inquiry,1Michael Bridge described a soldier kneeling at the north-east corner of Block 1 and another soldier standing near the corner of the back yard of 36 Chamberlain Street. He stated that, although he was not certain, it was his strong belief that he had been shot by the second of these soldiers. He told us that at the time he had believed that this soldier was responsible for the shooting of Jackie Duddy, probably because this soldier was the closest to Michael Bridge.



63.31 In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,1Michael Bridge said that he did not see, or did not recall having seen, who shot him. However, he expressed2a belief that he had been shot by Lieutenant N, which he said3was based on evidence that he had heard and read in the course of this Inquiry.


A soldier at the north-east corner of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats

Deirdre Barr

63.32 Deirdre Barr told us that she was looking out of a bedroom window in 65 Mura Place, on the sixth floor of Block 3 of the Rossville Flats.1This maisonette was the third from the north end of that block.2In her written statement to this Inquiry,3she told us that she saw a man in the car park, jumping up and down, waving his arms and shouting. A soldier kneeling on one knee at the north-east corner of Block 1 raised his weapon to his shoulder, pointed it at the man and fired. Deirdre Barr thought that the soldier had hit the man in his left thigh. She did not see a muzzle flash or any recoil of the weapon, but she heard the shot.



Patrick Brown

63.33 Patrick Brown told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was in the car park near the body of Jackie Duddy, when he saw a tall soldier standing at the north-east corner of Block 1 shoot Michael Bridge from the hip.



Fr Edward Daly

63.34 Fr Daly recorded in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry1that he had just finished giving the last rites to Jackie Duddy when a young man dashed out towards the soldiers and danced up and down shouting, with his hands stretched up above his head. A soldier “at the corner of the flats ” took aim and fired at him. Fr Daly was certain that the man was hit and thought that his name was Bridge. In his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,2Fr Daly said that the soldier had stepped out and gone down on one knee before firing. In his written statement to this Inquiry,3Fr Daly told us that the soldier who shot Michael Bridge had stepped out from the north-east corner of Block 1. In his interview with Jimmy McGovern,4Fr Daly said that the soldier stepped out from the corner of the flats and either went down on one knee or crouched. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,5Fr Daly said that he had an absolutely clear recollection of the soldier stepping out and firing at Michael Bridge. He was asked6whether it was possible that another soldier had fired the shot that hit Michael Bridge, and said that he thought it very unlikely. Although in his interview with Philip Jacobson and Peter Pringle7he had said that his view of the incident was to some extent limited, Fr Daly said, in his oral evidence to this Inquiry,8that he had had a clear view of the soldier.



Donal Deeney

63.35 Donal Deeney told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1that he was near the body of Jackie Duddy in the car park of the Rossville Flats when he saw Michael Bridge run towards a soldier standing at the point marked “G” on the plan attached to the statement2(the north-east corner of Block 1). He stated that Michael Bridge moved to the point marked “M” on the plan (described in the statement as “within 3 yards of the soldier ” but shown on the plan as about 20 yards from him) and Donal Deeney moved close to Michael Bridge, who was shouting at the soldier with his hands forward of his body. The soldier then shot Michael Bridge. Donal Deeney thought that this shot hit Michael Bridge in the leg. Michael Bridge seemed to be in a lot of pain, and someone tried to drag him away, but he moved forward again to “have another go at the soldier ”. Donal Deeney recalled that the soldier had then fired another shot that hit Michael Bridge in the stomach, but he accepted in his oral evidence to this Inquiry3that this recollection was wrong. In a supplementary written statement to this Inquiry,4Donal Deeney told us that the soldier was holding his rifle “just under his armpit ” when he fired at Michael Bridge. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,5Donal Deeney said that he was not certain that this soldier had shot Michael Bridge. That had been an assumption on his part, and he accepted that a soldier on the other side of the entrance to the car park could have been responsible.




Gerard Doherty

63.36 Gerard Doherty told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was in the car park of the Rossville Flats about 10ft away from Michael Bridge, who was facing north and had his fists in the air. Michael Bridge flinched and hopped back, holding his right thigh. Shooting had been going on before this happened, but it was only when Michael Bridge flinched that Gerard Doherty realised that shots were being fired into the car park. He then instinctively looked in the direction in which Michael Bridge was looking, and saw a soldier leaning against the wall of Block 1 at its northern end. This soldier was aiming his rifle directly at Michael Bridge and was “the only one there ”. Gerard Doherty stated that he considered that this was the only soldier who could have shot Michael Bridge. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2Gerard Doherty said that it was his recollection that Michael Bridge had been closer to the south end of Chamberlain Street when he was shot than the position in which he is shown in the second of the two photographs taken by Sam Gillespie which are reproduced earlier in this report.3On that basis, Gerard Doherty said4that he did not think that Michael Bridge could have been shot by a soldier at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses. However, he accepted that Michael Bridge could have been shot by a soldier beside Sergeant O’s APC and also accepted that his recollection of Michael Bridge’s position at the time of the shooting could be wrong.



Billy Gillespie

63.37 Billy Gillespie told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was standing next to Michael Bridge when the latter was shot. He stated that Michael Bridge was shot by a soldier standing at the north-east corner of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. Before he was shot, Michael Bridge had shouted something like “‘Shoot me you b******’ ” at the soldier, and had thrown half a brick at him. Billy Gillespie confirmed this recollection in his oral evidence to this Inquiry.2


Bernard Gilmour

63.38 Bernard Gilmour made a NICRA statement1jointly with his wife and his sister Mary Bonner. In that statement, the three witnesses recorded that they were looking out across the car park of the Rossville Flats from a bedroom in 23 Garvan Place, the third maisonette from the north-west end of Block 2 on the second and third floors.2They stated that Michael Bridge was shot by a soldier who was “kneeling at the back stairs of the flats ”. In his written statement to this Inquiry,3Bernard Gilmour told us that the soldier was standing at the north-east corner of Block 1 and that he fired from the waist. Bernard Gilmour stated that he knew that this soldier had shot Michael Bridge, because he saw the recoil of the weapon. He said the same in his oral evidence to this Inquiry.4He also said5that the description of the soldier in the joint NICRA statement as kneeling was “a total mistake ”. The soldier had been standing and Michael Bridge had been confronting him. In her oral evidence to this Inquiry,6Mary Bonner said that she could not associate the shot that hit Michael Bridge with a particular soldier, although she thought that it had come “from the Saracen ”. Bernard Gilmour’s wife did not give evidence to this Inquiry.

Joe Nicholas

63.39 Joe Nicholas told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he entered the car park of the Rossville Flats from Chamberlain Street. He saw a soldier taking cover in the doorway at the north end of Block 1, and a second soldier more in the open at the point marked “E” on the plan attached to his statement2(near the north-east corner of Block 1). Joe Nicholas thought that the soldier in the doorway was standing and that the second soldier was kneeling. Both were in firing positions. A man came running across the car park and was shot in the thigh. Joe Nicholas told us that he found out later that this was Michael Bridge; and that he did not see who fired the shot, but he heard the shot and formed the impression that it had come from the soldier who was kneeling at the point marked “E”. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3Joe Nicholas said that he could not recall why he formed the impression that this soldier had fired rather than the soldier in the doorway, but that he thought that the kneeling soldier had been aiming his rifle, whereas he did not recall that the soldier in the doorway had been doing so. He accepted4that he was “not in a position to say ” who shot Michael Bridge.

Brian Ward

63.40 Brian Ward told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that from behind the wall parallel to Block 2 of the Rossville Flats he saw Michael Bridge shouting “‘Shoot me you bastards, shoot me’ ” at a group of about six or seven soldiers who were standing along the east wall of Block 1 at the points marked “K”, “L” and “M” on the plan attached to the statement2(towards the north end of that wall). Brian Ward told us that he saw one of these soldiers go down on one knee, bring his rifle to his shoulder and fire. He then saw Michael Bridge fall, having been hit in the left thigh. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3he said that he could not be more precise about the position of the soldier other than to say that he was one of this group.



63.41 OIRA 8 told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was standing next to Michael Bridge in the car park of the Rossville Flats. Michael Bridge shouted “‘Shoot us, you bastards’ ” at a soldier who was kneeling at the north end of Block 1. The soldier then aimed his rifle at Michael Bridge and OIRA 8. A shot rang out. OIRA 8 told us that he thought that it had been fired by the soldier who was kneeling at the north end of Block 1. Michael Bridge fell and OIRA 8 saw that he had been hit in the leg. OIRA 8 was sure that Michael Bridge had been shot by the soldier at the north end of Block 1. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2OIRA 8 said that he could not be sure that he had seen the soldier’s rifle move, and he had only assumed that this soldier had fired the shot that hit Michael Bridge because he had seen the soldier turn and aim his rifle when Michael Bridge shouted at him.


A soldier on the offside of Sergeant O’s Armoured
Personnel Carrier

Denis Mullan

63.42 Denis Mullan told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was observing events from the balcony on the second floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats from about the point marked “A” on the plan attached to his statement2(north of the centre of that block). He stated that he saw two soldiers disembark from the back of a vehicle after it had stopped at the point marked “B” on the plan (in the entrance to the car park) with its front facing towards Chamberlain Street. Both soldiers immediately took up firing positions. One was facing south at the point marked “C” on the plan (on the offside of the vehicle). He was standing with his rifle in his shoulder. The other soldier was covering him from the point marked “D” (behind the first soldier). Denis Mullan saw a man jumping about as if incandescent with rage, saying something like “‘here I am, shoot me’ ”. He later found out that this was Michael Bridge. Denis Mullan stated that the soldier at point C shot Michael Bridge in his left leg from a range of 12 to 15ft; and that he thought that the soldier had deliberately inclined his rifle downwards in order to strike Michael Bridge in the leg rather than the upper body. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3Denis Mullan said that the soldier who fired was on the offside of the vehicle, slightly forward of the rear doors. He said he knew that this soldier had fired because he saw the recoil of the weapon, heard a high velocity crack, and saw the result.




A soldier on the nearside of Sergeant O’s Armoured
Personnel Carrier

Hugh Barbour

63.43 Hugh Barbour told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was watching from a position about two-thirds of the way from the north to the south end of the balcony on the second floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. According to this statement, Michael Bridge “made a go ” for a soldier on the nearside of an APC parked in the entrance to the car park. This soldier shot him. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2Hugh Barbour said that the soldier who shot Michael Bridge was standing in a firing position about 2ft from the rear doors of the APC.




William Harley

63.44 William Harley told us that he was looking out of a window of his flat at 37 Donagh Place, which was in the centre of the top floor of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats.1In his NICRA statement,2he recorded that a youth walked with his hands raised above his head towards an Army vehicle that had entered the car park. A soldier “came around from behind the car ”, raised his rifle and shot the youth, who turned and limped away, holding his leg. In his interview with Paul Mahon,3William Harley said that the soldier came around the offside of the vehicle. However, in his written statement to this Inquiry4and in his oral evidence to this Inquiry,5he told us that the soldier fired his rifle from the nearside of the vehicle, and that he may have been leaning on the bonnet. William Harley said he knew that the soldier had fired because he saw a small jolt of his rifle.



Mitchel McLaughlin

63.45 Mitchel McLaughlin recorded in his NICRA statement1that he was running across the car park of the Rossville Flats towards a boy who was lying on his back with his face covered in blood. He saw Michael Bridge shouting to people to come over towards him “as the paratroopers were taking up position in the waste ground, covering the square ”. Michael Bridge was shot in the leg by “one of these three soldiers ”. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2Mitchel McLaughlin told us that an Army vehicle had stopped at the point marked “D” on the plan attached to his statement3(in the entrance to the car park) and that three soldiers were standing in the positions marked “E”, “F” and “G” (between the vehicle and the back of the Chamberlain Street houses). Michael Bridge began to run towards the soldiers. He was shouting and swearing at the soldiers, and also at a group of men at the western gable wall of Chamberlain Street for hiding from the soldiers and not helping Jackie Duddy. When Michael Bridge shouted “‘Shoot me – shoot me’ ”, the soldier in the group of three who was closest to the vehicle casually lifted his gun to his shoulder and shot Michael Bridge. Mitchel McLaughlin stated that he was looking directly at the soldier when this happened. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,4Mitchel McLaughlin confirmed his belief that Michael Bridge had been shot by one of the soldiers in the group of three, and said that although he had always believed that the soldier who shot Michael Bridge was the closest of that group to the vehicle, he could not swear to this.


Hugh McMonagle

63.46 Hugh McMonagle told us in his written statement to this Inquiry1that he was standing within about 3 yards of Michael Bridge who was walking towards an Army vehicle parked at Eden Place shouting words like “‘You murdering bastards, you shot the young lad. Come on, come on, shoot me’. ” A second Army vehicle appeared and stopped in the position indicated by a rectangle on the plan attached to Hugh McMonagle’s statement2(north of the entrance to the car park of the Rossville Flats), pointing towards Chamberlain Street. A soldier disembarked and moved in front of this vehicle on the nearside. The soldier knelt, raised his rifle to his shoulder and looked through the sight. Hugh McMonagle stated that he heard a shot; and that Michael Bridge shouted that he had been hit in the leg. Hugh McMonagle did not see which soldier had fired, but assumed that it had been the soldier at the front of the second vehicle because that soldier was the only one Hugh McMonagle could see. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3Hugh McMonagle said that the second vehicle had been further north than had been indicated in his statement, and he marked its position with an arrow on a plan4(on the waste ground at Pilot Row). He said that he did not see a vehicle in the entrance to the car park.




Martin Tucker

63.47 As we have noted earlier in this chapter, Martin Tucker was watching from 31 Garvan Place, the third maisonette from the south-east end of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats on the second and third floors.1In his NICRA statement,2Martin Tucker referred to a young boy who seemed to have lost his head and was running and waving his arms, while a priest was attending to a boy who had already been shot. Martin Tucker recorded that “the soldiers ” shot the boy who was waving his arms, but he gave no details. In his written statement to this Inquiry,3Martin Tucker told us that two soldiers disembarked from an Army vehicle that had entered the car park of the Rossville Flats. The soldiers moved to the front of the vehicle and one of them stood by the “offside door ”. Martin Tucker was not sure whether the other soldier had gone to the other side of the vehicle, but recalled that they were both quite close together, and that the “one that moved closest to Block 1 ” was leaning on the front of the vehicle. According to this statement, within seconds at least one of the soldiers, and probably both, had opened fire. Martin Tucker told us that he saw the soldier by the “offside door ” aiming his rifle. He heard a crack and saw Jackie Duddy fall. After Fr Daly had come to the assistance of Jackie Duddy, Martin Tucker stated that he saw a man with his arms extended walking towards “the soldier standing at the offside ” of the vehicle and shouting. The soldier aimed his rifle at the man. Martin Tucker heard a shot. The man clutched at his right hip and fell. Martin Tucker told us he now knew that this was Michael Bridge. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,4however, Martin Tucker said that by “‘off-side door’ ” he had meant the passenger (ie nearside) door. He confirmed5that it was towards a soldier on that side of the vehicle that he had seen Michael Bridge walking. He attributed the shooting of Michael Bridge to the soldier who had been aiming his rifle at Michael Bridge, and ultimately appeared to be saying that this soldier was one of two who had disembarked and moved to the front of the vehicle on the passenger side.6




A soldier who had jumped out of Sergeant O’s Armoured Personnel Carrier

Sean O’Neill

63.48 Sean O’Neill told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that an Army vehicle was parked at the point marked “12” on the plan attached to his statement2(in the entrance to the car park of the Rossville Flats close to the back of the Chamberlain Street houses). He stated that he thought that the vehicle was facing south but was not certain about this. Sean O’Neill also stated that he ran past the western gable end of Chamberlain Street, heading towards the north-east corner of the car park. As he ran, he looked back and saw Michael Bridge standing nearby, swearing at soldiers near the vehicle and waving his arms. A tall soldier “swung out of the right hand side back door ” of the vehicle. This soldier aimed his rifle at Michael Bridge and fired. Michael Bridge fell backwards. Sean O’Neill told us that he thought that Michael Bridge had been shot in the left leg. Sean O’Neill did not give oral evidence to this Inquiry.



A soldier at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses

Brian Baker

63.49 Brian Baker told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was in Block 3 of the Rossville Flats, on the balcony marked with a circle on a photograph attached to his statement2(the fifth floor balcony). He stated that he saw a man with dirty fair hair move to the corner of the back yard of 36 Chamberlain Street. The man shouted several times in the direction of the waste ground something like “‘Shoot me too, you bastards’ ”. A shot rang out and the man clutched his leg. Brian Baker told us that he thought that the soldier who had shot him was positioned “in the lane at the back of Chamberlain Street ”. He stated that he now knew that the man was Michael Bridge. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3Brian Baker said that from his position he could not see whether there were soldiers in the lane but that it was “obvious from, you know, subsequent events ” that there were.




Michael Bridge

63.50 Michael Bridge (not the Michael Bridge who was injured but his cousin) told us that he lived at 4 Garvan Place.1The front door of this maisonette, which was the second from the north end of the block, opened onto the balcony on the second floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.2Michael Bridge told us in his statement to this Inquiry3that he came out of that door and saw a man with his arms in the air facing an isolated soldier who was standing at about the point marked “C” on the plan attached to the statement4(a few yards from the wall of the back yard of 34 Chamberlain Street). The soldier was holding his rifle at shoulder level and pointing it at the man. Michael Bridge told us that he saw the soldier shoot the man whose arms were in the air. He stated that he did not recall seeing a muzzle flash or the recoil of the weapon, but heard a bang and saw the man react. He told us that he now knew that this man was his cousin Michael Bridge. He confirmed this account in his oral evidence to this Inquiry.5




Charlie Downey

63.51 Charlie Downey told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that as he ran through the car park of the Rossville Flats towards the passage between Blocks 1 and 2, he saw Michael Bridge facing a soldier who was standing at the corner of the back yard of 36 Chamberlain Street. According to this statement, Michael Bridge was waving his arms, jumping in the air and shouting “‘shoot me, shoot me you bastards’ ” as Charlie Downey ran past him. Charlie Downey stopped briefly and turned to look at Michael Bridge. Charlie Downey then heard a single loud bang and saw Michael Bridge fall. He assumed, but did not know, that the bang had come from the soldier at the corner of the back yard of 36 Chamberlain Street. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2Charlie Downey said that he made this assumption because Michael Bridge had been walking towards that soldier.



Francis Duddy

63.52 Francis Duddy told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was standing at the western gable end of Chamberlain Street while Fr Daly moved forward to try to assist a boy who was lying in a pool of blood in the car park of the Rossville Flats. Francis Duddy told us that he now knew that the boy was Jackie Duddy. A soldier arrived at the point marked “H” on the plan attached to Francis Duddy’s statement2(the western corner of the southern entrance to Chamberlain Street). According to this statement the soldier began to fire live rounds between Fr Daly and Jackie Duddy in an apparent attempt to prevent Fr Daly from assisting Jackie Duddy. Michael Bridge became angry and told the soldier that he was shooting at a priest. The soldier said that if Michael Bridge did not move back he would shoot him, to which Michael Bridge replied “‘well shoot me then’ ”. The soldier then shot Michael Bridge in the leg. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,3Francis Duddy said that the soldier was not at point H and appeared to place him somewhere further west along or beyond the gable wall. Francis Duddy said4that he did not see the soldier fire, but heard the shot.





Francis Dunne

63.53 Francis Dunne recorded in his NICRA statement1that as he was running through the car park of the Rossville Flats he paused, looked back and saw three soldiers along the wall at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses. The soldier at the front of the group was firing from the hip towards the passage between Blocks 2 and 3. Francis Dunne recorded that he saw a boy fall, and then saw a taller man standing in the middle of the car park with his hands up and spread wide, shouting “‘They are shooting, they are killing’ ”. This man also went down. In another NICRA statement,2Francis Dunne recorded that he did not know whether the taller man had been hit, but “The soldier ” certainly fired at him. In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry3and in his oral evidence to the Widgery Inquiry,4Francis Dunne said that the soldier who fired at a tallish youth was the soldier at the front of the group, at the corner of the wall at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses, and that he fired from the hip. According to John Goddard’s interview note,5Francis Dunne told him that there was an Army vehicle by the back entrance of Block 1, and that Michael Bridge was shot as he advanced towards that vehicle by a soldier facing him from behind it. In his interview with Paul Mahon,6Francis Dunne said that the vehicle was at the north-east corner of Block 1 and that the man with his hands in the air was shouting at a soldier who was standing at that corner. He said that he “would have been talking about the man at Rossville Flats ” when, in his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry, he described the soldier who fired at the tallish youth, although in fact in that statement he put the soldier at the wall at the back of the Chamberlain Street houses.7In his written statement to this Inquiry,8Francis Dunne told us that the vehicle was at the point marked “G” on the plan attached to the statement9(near the north-east corner of Block 1) and that three soldiers were standing approximately in the positions marked “1”, “2” and “3” on that plan (in front of the vehicle in a line across the entrance to the car park). The westernmost soldier was leaning against the wall of Block 1, holding his rifle at hip level. Francis Dunne had the impression that this soldier fired and that the tall man then fell, although he could not say that he had seen this soldier fire or that it was his shot that hit the tall man, and he did not notice the soldier’s rifle recoiling. He told us that he believed that the tall man was Michael Bridge. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,10Francis Dunne accepted that over the years his memory had transposed the three soldiers from the back of the Chamberlain Street houses to the positions described in his written statement to this Inquiry, and said that he would be much happier with the accounts that he gave at the time. He confirmed this in later questioning.11




Joseph Ernest Moore

63.54 Joseph Ernest Moore recorded in his NICRA statement1that he looked back as he was running through the car park of the Rossville Flats and saw two soldiers beating an elderly, grey-haired man. Two other soldiers were in the same area, aiming their rifles from the shoulder. Joseph Ernest Moore saw “a person with his two hands above his head – like a challenge, calling to come to the assistance of the man ”. One of the soldiers moved forward to a “steady position ”, pointed his rifle at “the youth ” and fired. Joseph Ernest Moore recorded that he saw “the person’s leg go out ” and the person fell. In his written statement for the Widgery Inquiry,2Joseph Ernest Moore recorded that the youth emerged “from behind a house near Chamberlain Street ”, waving and shouting at the soldiers with his hands above his head. He was shot in the leg from a range of no more than 10 yards by one of two soldiers who were in a firing position “near the fence in the car park ”. In his Praxis interview note,3Tony Stark stated that Joseph Ernest Moore had witnessed the shooting of Michael Bridge, but did not record Joseph Ernest Moore’s recollection of the position of the soldier who shot Michael Bridge. In his interview with Paul Mahon,4Joseph Ernest Moore appeared to be uncertain of the position of the soldier. In his written statement to this Inquiry,5Joseph Ernest Moore told us that a “fella … in his twenties” who had “come across the car park ” was shot by one of “two soldiers close to the gable end of the western side of Chamberlain Street ”. He stated that the soldier fired after going down on one knee and aiming his rifle, and that he saw the recoil of the rifle. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,6Joseph Ernest Moore said that the man who was shot had approached from somewhere on the waste ground, around the back of the Chamberlain Street houses, rather than from the car park. The soldier who fired was facing up towards the point marked “D” on the plan attached to Joseph Ernest Moore’s statement to this Inquiry,7or slightly to the right of that point (north-east along the back of the Chamberlain Street houses). He said he now knew that this man was Michael Bridge. He was asked8whether he still had an image in his mind of the soldier going down on one knee and aiming at Michael Bridge, and replied: “No, I would say it is dependent on my statement, you know, honestly. ”




Civilian evidence relating to the position of the soldier who shot Michael Bradley

Michael Bradley’s own accounts

63.55 Michael Bradley is recorded, in an account published in Fulvio Grimaldi and Susan North’s book Blood in the Street, as having said that he did not know which soldier had shot him. In his interview with Don Mullan,1he said that he did not see “the exact soldier ” and could not say in which direction the bullet had come. He had thought that he had been shot by “the boy right in front of me kneeling at the front of the Saracen ”, but now presumed that he had been shot from somewhere around “the angle of the flats, you know the corner of the Rossville Flats where I was standing ”. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2Michael Bradley told us that he did not know who had shot him, although he remembered seeing a soldier leaning over the mudguard of an Army vehicle. Earlier in his statement3he had given a more detailed description of this soldier, which suggested that he was leaning over the offside mudguard of Sergeant O’s vehicle with his rifle apparently aimed at Michael Bradley, and of another soldier on the nearside of the vehicle. However, in his oral evidence to this Inquiry,4Michael Bradley withdrew that description and said that all that he could clearly recall was that there were two soldiers at the front of the vehicle and that they both looked in his direction. He said that he could not say who had shot him.5The two soldiers at the front of the vehicle had been looking towards him, and he had presumed that it must have been one of them, but it was quite possible that it was a soldier at the north end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, and it “could have been any one of them ”. In his interview with Jimmy McGovern,6Michael Bradley expressed the view that he was shot by Private Q or Private R, but said that he did not know from where the shot had come.7




A soldier on the offside of Sergeant O’s Armoured
Personnel Carrier

Hugh Barbour

63.56 Hugh Barbour told us, in his written statement to this Inquiry,1that he was watching from a position about two-thirds of the way from the north to the south end of the balcony on the second floor of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. He described a soldier who had disembarked from an APC parked in the entrance to the car park and moved towards the offside front of the vehicle. He stated that this soldier fired four or five rounds in quick succession from the hip towards a crowd in front of Block 2. A man seemed to stagger and fall back towards Block 2. Hugh Barbour then heard someone shout that Michael Bradley had been shot. Hugh Barbour told us that he saw Michael Bradley, who was his neighbour, lying on the ground clutching the right side of his body; and that he had “clearly ” been shot by the soldier on the offside of the vehicle. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,2Hugh Barbour resisted the suggestion that the person whom he had seen fall might have been someone other than Michael Bradley.



A soldier beside Sergeant O’s Armoured Personnel Carrier

Danny Deehan

63.57 Danny Deehan recorded in his NICRA statement1that he had run into the car park of the Rossville Flats and jumped over the wall that ran parallel to Block 2. Another man, who had gone over the wall in front of him, turned to look at the soldiers and was shot in the arm by soldiers who were firing “from the side of the saracen ” in the entrance to the car park. In his written statement to this Inquiry,2Danny Deehan told us that he now knew that this was Michael Bradley, but that his current recollection was that he saw him for the first time when Michael Bradley was behind the wall, struggling to stand up with his arm shaking and trembling. Nevertheless, Danny Deehan stated that he believed the account given in his NICRA statement to be true, as it was made when events were fresh in his mind. He could not now say who shot whom. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry3Danny Deehan confirmed that he saw Michael Bradley on the ground after he had been shot, and that he remembered this “more clearly ” than seeing the shooting itself.




Martin Tucker

63.58 As we have already mentioned, Martin Tucker was watching from his family’s home at 31 Garvan Place. This was the third maisonette from the south-east end of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats on the second and third floors.1In his NICRA statement,2Martin Tucker recorded that a man wearing a red pullover and denims and a black jacket was shot in the stomach by “a soldier who was standing beside a Saracen ”. In his written statement to this Inquiry,3Martin Tucker told us that he saw a man in a red jumper shot in the upper body or shoulder, and that he thought that this may have been Michael Bradley. However, he could not link this shooting with any particular soldier. In his oral evidence to this Inquiry,4Martin Tucker said that it was possible that he had seen the red pullover worn by Jackie Duddy and transposed this recollection to his description of Michael Bradley.

Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
- Volume IV - Chapter 64




The soldiers responsible for the Sector 2 casualties
Chapter 64: The soldiers responsible for the Sector 2 casualties


Summary 64.96

64.1 It is important at this stage to bear in mind a number of matters that we have dealt with in detail earlier in this report,1 where we have given our reasons for reaching certain conclusions.



64.2 In the first place, we are satisfied that the known casualties in Sector 2 were the only casualties of Army gunfire in that sector. It follows that the soldiers did not shoot any gunmen or bombers in Sector 2.

64.3 In the second place, we are satisfied that none of the casualties was doing anything that could have justified any of them being shot.

64.4 In the third place, we are satisfied that no soldier other than Lieutenant N, Sergeant O, Lance Corporal V, Private Q, Private R, Private S and Private T, all of Mortar Platoon, could have been responsible for any of the casualties in Sector 2.

64.5 In the fourth place, we consider that it is improbable that, apart from “Fr Daly’s gunman ” (OIRA 4), there were any gunmen at ground level in the car park of the Rossville Flats or its surrounding area who deployed or attempted to deploy their guns. We are sure that no-one threw or attempted to throw a nail or petrol bomb. It is probable that there was a gunman who fired from the lower balcony of Block 3 of the Rossville Flats and also possible that a man with a handgun fired a single shot from a window high up in Block 1.

64.6 In the fifth place, none of the soldiers admitted shooting any of the Sector 2 casualties nor (with the possible exception of Private R) even the possibility that he had hit any of them by accident while aiming at another target. All of them (except for Lieutenant N in respect of the shots that he fired up the Eden Place alleyway, which caused no casualties) insisted that they had fired only at men who were deploying or seeking to deploy firearms or bombs, and that those they hit were their intended targets.

64.7 Furthermore, with the possible exception of Lance Corporal V and Private S, none of the soldiers of Mortar Platoon admitted seeing any of the Sector 2 casualties after they were shot,1 despite the fact that those who sustained gunshot wounds were in the car park only a short distance from the soldiers and would have been in full view of anyone looking into the car park. In particular, as will have been seen,2 Jackie Duddy lay on the ground long enough to be photographed several times before he was picked up, and was photographed again as he was carried across the car park to Chamberlain Street. Patrick McDaid and Pius McCarron were indirectly injured as the result of firing by soldiers in this sector, but we accept that the soldiers might not have been aware of this. We also accept that the soldiers were unlikely to have been aware that Patrick Brolly had been hit, since he was in Kathleen Cunningham’s flat.



64.8 We have already pointed out that according to the accounts of these soldiers, they had between them shot three nail or blast bombers, one petrol bomber, one man with a pistol and two or three men with rifles or carbines, which makes a total of seven or eight gunmen or bombers. They had fired 32 shots, three fired by Lieutenant N up the Eden Place alleyway (which did not result in any casualties) and the remainder in the area of the Rossville Flats car park.

64.9 We have earlier provided a map1 on which we have marked the position of the targets at which the soldiers said that they had fired. It is convenient to reproduce that map here.

64.10 It follows from the conclusions stated above1 that these soldiers must, between them, have been responsible for shooting Jackie Duddy, Margaret Deery, Michael Bridge and Michael Bradley and for the shots that caused injury to Patrick Brolly, Patrick McDaid and Pius McCarron. We consider below2 whether any of the soldiers mistakenly believed that he was justified in firing.



64.11 In short, the soldiers insisted that they had shot gunmen and bombers, which in our view they had not; and denied, or did not admit, that they had shot the known casualties in Sector 2, which in our view they had. As we have already observed,1 to our minds it inevitably follows that this materially undermines the credibility of the accounts given by the soldiers who fired. The evidence of one or more of them must be significantly inaccurate and incomplete.


64.12 For ease of reference, we show again the map on which we have marked the positions of the casualties in Sector 2 when they were shot or otherwise injured.

64.14 We have found no evidence that suggests to us that Jackie Duddy, Michael Bridge or Michael Bradley was shot by accident. Apart from the soldiers’ evidence that this had not happened, the short distances between the soldiers and these casualties, and the fact that in our view no-one in the car park of the Rossville Flats other than OIRA 4, whom none of the soldiers saw, was using or about to use a firearm or bomb, lead us to conclude that the shots that hit these three casualties were aimed at them. The same might be true of the shot that hit Margaret Deery, though we consider that she was probably more likely to have been the victim of a shot fired at someone close to her. However, we are of the view that there was no-one close to her who was using or about to use a firearm or bomb. OIRA 4 did not approach the wall of 36 Chamberlain Street until after Margaret Deery had been shot. There is no evidence that any of the firing in Sector 2 was accidental, in the sense of soldiers discharging their rifles by mistake, not intending to fire.

64.15 In the light of the evidence we have considered in detail earlier in this report,1 and the views we have expressed on that evidence, as well as the conclusions we have stated above, we now turn to consider the firing by the soldiers in Sector 2 to see whether it is possible, firstly, to determine which casualty was shot by which soldier and, secondly, to ascertain whether or not each of the soldiers concerned believed (albeit mistakenly) that he had identified as his target someone who was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury.



64.16 We appreciate that soldiers on internal security duties, facing a situation in which they or their colleagues might at any moment come under attack, may have little time to decide whether they have identified, and so are justified in firing at, a person posing a threat of causing death or serious injury; and may have to make the decision in a state of tension or fear. As we observed when discussing the events of Sector 1,1it is a well-known phenomenon that, particularly when under stress or when events are moving fast, people often erroneously come to believe that they are or might be hearing or seeing what they were expecting to hear or see. We have borne this in mind when assessing the credibility of the evidence given by soldiers. We have also borne in mind that the fact that a soldier afterwards lied about what had happened does not necessarily entail that he fired without believing that he had identified a person posing a threat of causing death or serious injury, since it is possible that he was convinced at the time that he had identified someone posing such a threat, but later invented details in an attempt to bolster his account and make it more credible to others.


Lieutenant N

64.17 In our view Lieutenant N could not have been responsible for the shooting of Jackie Duddy or Margaret Deery. After the incident at the Eden Place alleyway, he returned to his APC and did not start towards the car park until after William John Doherty, arrested by Sergeant O, had been brought back to Lieutenant N’s APC. By this stage we are sure that Jackie Duddy and Margaret Deery had already been shot. We have found nothing that suggests to us that Lieutenant N might have shot Michael Bradley.

64.18 In our view Lieutenant N probably shot Michael Bridge. This casualty was shot after Fr Daly had gone to the aid of Jackie Duddy and after Margaret Deery had been shot. This shooting would correspond in time with the period after Lieutenant N had gone towards the car park from his APC. Lieutenant N believed that he had hit his target in the thigh, and that the person he shot then staggered away. Michael Bridge was shot in the thigh and staggered away. On Lieutenant N’s trajectory photograph, the line from the point marked “x ” to the point marked “3 ” is intended to show the trajectory of his final shot. Extending this line suggests that the shot would have passed to the south-east of where we believe Michael Bridge was shot, but only by a short distance. We set out below Lieutenant N’s trajectory photograph and a map depicting Lieutenant N’s position, the line of his shot as shown on the trajectory photograph, and the position where we believe Michael Bridge was when he was shot.