Families of Bloody Sunday victims celebrate report
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry, also known as the Saville Inquiry or the Saville Report after its chairman, Lord Saville of Newdigate, was established in 1998 by Prime Minister Tony Blair after campaigns for a second inquiry by families of those killed and injured in Derry on Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972). It was published 15 June 2010.
The long-awaited report turned the disgraceful Widgery report (19 April 1972) on its head by exonerating the victims and delivering a damning account of the conduct of soldiers.
It concluded soldiers had fired more than 100 rifle rounds, killed 14 people and injured more without justification. The report's key findings were:
"The firing by soldiers of 1 Para caused the deaths of 13 people and injury to a similar number, none of whom was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury." This also applied to the 14th victim, who died later from injuries. The report added: "We found no instances where it appeared to us that soldiers either were or might have been justified in firing";
"Despite the contrary evidence given by soldiers, we have concluded that none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers." The report added that no one threw, or threatened to throw, nail or petrol bombs at soldiers;
The explanations given by soldiers were rejected, with a number said to have "knowingly put forward false accounts";
Members of the so-called Official IRA fired a shot at troops, but missed their target, though crucially it was concluded it was the paratroopers who shot first on Bloody Sunday;
The report recounts how some soldiers had their weapons cocked in contravention of guidelines, and that no warnings were issued by Paratroopers who opened fire;
Speculation that unknown IRA gunmen had been wounded or killed by troops, and their bodies spirited away, is also dismissed. There was no evidence to support it, and it would surely have come to light, the report said.
Saville said British soldiers should not have been ordered to enter the Bogside area as "Colonel Wilford either deliberately disobeyed Brigadier MacLellan’s order or failed for no good reason to appreciate the clear limits on what he had been authorised to do". The report stated five British soldiers aimed shots at civilians they knew did not pose a threat and two other British soldiers shot at civilians "in the belief that they might have identified gunmen, but without being certain that this was the case".
