</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (scout @ July 02 2002,17:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">edit: redstar: sorry didnt see your post.
i read on the news something a week ago, saying there was new found evidence that showed the british troops were fired upon? could you relate to this?<span id='postcolor'>
Actually this is old news from week 2 of the Bloody Sunday Tribunal that has been running for 60 weeks now but anyway
4.2 THE PRESENCE OF GUNMEN
Mr Clarke said that some gunmen were around and either used or brandished weapons on some occasions. The following is a summary of the accounts from both civilians and journalist evidence.
4.2.1 A shot in Columbcille Court
There is civilian evidence of a shot being fired from a flat in Columbcille Court in a northerly direction. Dennis Bradley was a curate in a Derry parish at the time. He was in Columbcille Court when someone told him there had been a gunman in the area. The gunman was described as a 'Stickie' (a member of the Official IRA) and the Provisionals had sent him away.
The Sunday Times archive includes notes of an interview with a man called Joe Carlin. Mr Carlin describes being with two people at the march when he saw a boy matching the description of Damien Donaghy shot.
'While we were standing there a small boy by our side was hit. He just gave this cry or scream and fell to the ground….He was about 14 years of age, very young looking, wearing jeans and the usual garb, I think. He seemed to have been wounded in the leg. It was bleeding pretty heavily.'
The interview records that three men picked the boy up and carried him to Kells Walk. Damien Donaghy was taken inside a house in the northern most block of Columbcille Court. Mr Carlin said that 'immediately afterwards' he heard a shot from an upstairs window.
Another Sunday Times interview records a similar witness statement. Tony Martin was in a friend's flat at the top floor of Kells Walk. He said that when he came out of the flat he heard two high velocity shots from the direction of the Richardsons Factory or the Presbyterian Church.
'A few seconds later I distinctly heard the thump of a .303. Right beside us on the corner of Columbcille Court was fired - one round.'
He said that he saw an argument between the gunman (who he later learned was an Official) and some Provisionals.
'The Provos were trying to get the gun from the Official and stop him firing because of the crowd.'
Mr Clarke returned to Reg Tester's evidence. Mr Tester claimed that two weapons, a pistol and a .303 rifle were missing from the Official's arsenal. He said that he later learned that a member of the Official IRA had fired one shot in return for the shot which wounded and later killed John Johnstone. He could not confirm whether this account was true.
4.2.2 A man seen with a rifle that was not fired
There is evidence that a man was seen with a rifle, which was not fired, at the north of the Kells Walk building. Eamonn Gallagher described how the man had been circled by a group of men who took the rifle off him and either broke it or dismantled it,
'I remember that one man said 'there will be no shooting here today.' There were no shots fired by the person holding the gun. There had been no shots at all up to that point.'
4.2.3 The taxi office in William Street
Anna O'Donnell said that a man with a rifle appeared after the British Army had shot a youth (presumably Damien Donaghy). She saw the man appear with an old rifle from behind the taxi office on William Street. He fired one shot, which did not hit anything, and he obeyed bystanders' instructions to put the gun away.
4.2.4 A man with a pistol firing from the crowd either near Columbcille Court or from opposite Tanners Row
David Capper of the BBC was asked by some people to look at the two people who had been injured. He was taken to Columbcille Court via William Street. At the entrance of the flats he heard a 'very large report' fired from close to him. He did not see who had fired it but he thought it had been fired from amongst the crowd. In his statement to the BSI Mr Capper said,
'I then saw a short man of about 30 to 40 years of age wearing, I think, a brown overcoat, fire one round from a pistol toward some soldiers who were in the derelict building near the Presbyterian church on the other side of William Street. After the pistol was fired the man placed the pistol into his coat pocket and ran off.'
Similar but not identical evidence has been taken from Ciaran Donnelly of the Irish Times. He saw a crowd stoning a house on the north side of William Street near Tanners Row. He heard one shot, which he believed to be fired from a revolver. He did not see anyone with a weapon. Mr Donnelly records seeing a man aged between 40 and 50 fire a shot at a derelict house. He recalls 15 to 20 people telling the man to go away. He said that this is the only shot he saw fired by a civilian that day.
4.2.5 City Cab's Office
Simon Winchester of the Guardian and Nigel Wade of the Daily Telegraph both gave evidence saying that they heard what sounded like high velocity fire, when they were standing outside the city cab's office. Mr Winchester noted the time of this shot at 45pm which would have been after Damien Donaghey and John Johnston had been shot. Mr Winchester believed it was a rifle shot and had come from the direction of the Little Diamond.
4.2.6 'Father Daly's Gunman'
After Jack Duddy was shot Father Daly saw a gunman at the western gable end at the south of Chamberlain Street, who fired two or three shots. Father Daly recounts that the man took out a small handgun and fired two or three shots at the soldiers. He screamed at the gunman to go away.
Photographer, Fulvio Grimaldi took a photograph of a gunman at the gable end of Chamberlain Street.
An Insight article claims that this gunman was a member of the Official IRA. Journalist, Eamonn McCann, spoke to this gunman later. The man said he had taken the gun on the march for his own personal protection, but lost his temper when the Paras started shooting. He had fired one shot in anger.
4.2.7 Sightings of Miscellaneous Gunmen
A number of witnesses speak of seeing or hearing individual members of the IRA on that day.
John Leo Clifford saw 40 people, against the southern gable wall of the eastern block of Glenfada Park North, being lined up and frisked by soldiers carrying rifles and batons. He then noticed a civilian carrying a .303 rifle running from the south-west corner of Glenfada Park South towards the north-east corner. Mr Clifford's nephew believed that the man was a member of the Official IRA.
James Donal Deeney recalls running across a road to St Columbs Wells and seeing a wounded man being helped by a woman and child. A car appeared and took the wounded man away. After half an hour passed he saw a few members of the Official IRA coming out of a house. Mr Deeney said that he saw one man hiding a rifle under his coat.
Father O'Gara said that after 30 seconds to a minute of soldiers opening fire he saw a young man fire three pistol shots from a walll at the cathedral side of Kells Walk. He said that the man was possibly aiming at the Saracen that was parked on Rossville Street.
Nell McCafferty of the Irish Times said that she saw two teenage boys appear out of a stairwell in the flats opposite the Bogside Inn. They were carrying two rifles. She told them to put the rifles away and the boys disappeared back into the stairwell.
4.2.8 Billy Gillespie's Account
The Insight team recorded that Billy Gillespie saw a gunman fire seven shots from the fifth floor of the Rossville Flats. Mr Gillespie has told the BSI that this is untrue, as he did not see any civilian gunmen that day.
4.2.9 Protestant Gunman
Nigel Wade said that he had heard three shots by Long Tower Catholic Church at a late stage in the afternoon. He saw a man with a rifle standing by the church wall. The families inside the church told him that the gunman was a Protestant from the Fountain Street area.
4.2.10 Gunmen coming down from the Creggan at the end of the day
Mr Clarke said there is little doubt that after the shooting by the soldiers in Rossville Street was either over or substantially over, a body of IRA men came down from the Creggan to Westland Street. The Officials and the Provisionals arrived seperately.
4.2.11 The Arrival of the Provisionals
Evidence refers to their arrival in Westland Street and deploying to the flats to the north of that street and firing in the direction of the north where the soldiers were.
Leslie Bedell said he saw some cars pull up in Westland Street and men with rifles or automatics piling out. He claims that the men dispersed into the flats to the north of the street and start firing. The men were then pulled back and ran to a community hall on the other side of the street.
Michael Havord recalls that he saw a car screech down Westland Street and four boys jumped out, carrying Enfield .303s. He said that this was 30 minutes after the first shots.
Ivan Cooper has rejected a Sunday Times document purporting to be a record of a discussion with him. The document suggests that someone told Mr Cooper that the Provisionals had been sent for and that Martin McGuinness and others were trapped in a house in William Street. Mr Cooper said that the document is factually inaccurate and 'smacks of British security intelligence operating.'
4.2.12 The Arrival of the Officials
Reg Tester who was driving the car carrying the Officials weapons around the Creggan claims that once he got word of events in the Bogside he drove to Westland Street. He claims that he took out a brand new M1 carbine and tried to fire it but it jammed.
So in short there was
1 OIRA .303 rifle that fired 1 round after John Johnstone was murdered
2 .303 rifles that were not fired
1 man with a revolver firing 2 shots after 2 people had been injured in williams st
1 M1 carbine that jammed before firing
1 Protestant gunman that fired a rifle at catholics and not the army.
The Paras have always said that they came under fire by a high velocity shot that hit a drainpipe before the march had taken place. What is interesting is that another regiment (Royal Anglian Regiment) was stationed on the city walls who also fired shots in derry and among the 29 rifles that were until recently held by the MoD was a sniper rifle. Make you think
The BSI sent the MOD the list of serial numbers of rifles from the DIFS examination. One of the rifles was a sniper rifle rather than a SLR. Five of the weapons were held at a depot in Donnington, 14 had been destroyed, two were sold and a company that is currently under a MOD police investigation is holding the remaining eight.
2.7.1 The Destruction of Weapons
Of the 14 weapons, which have been destroyed, eleven were destroyed after the BSI's first letter of 15 April 1998 and two were destroyed after the letter of 1 September 1999.
On 15 December 1999 the BSI wrote to the MOD asking for the preservation of the remaining rifles and asked why rifles had been destroyed as recently as September 1999 when the MOD had known about the BSI since April 1998.
The MOD claimed that they were unable to preserve the rifles until the BSI sent them the serial numbers of the weapons, which they had not done until September 1999. Even at that date the MOD said that the serial numbers which the BSI had sent was not sufficient for them to be able to check the 34,000 SLRs still in existence.
However when the MOD carried out further investigations they were able to account for all 29 rifles by the 29 September 1999. This was only five days after two of the rifles were destroyed. The eight rifles sent to the company under police investigation have been sold and the five rifles held at Donnington remain at that depot. The MOD said that they did not realise that the two rifles destroyed on 24 September were Bloody Sunday rifles.
By the middle of February 2000 it is clear that of the five weapons held at Donnington depot, two were subsequently destroyed. 14 weapons had been disposed of for destruction between 26 January 1998 and either 22 or 24 September 1999. Two rifles had been sold in1995 and eight had been sold more recently.
2.7.2 Police Investigation
The researches of the police team investigating the whereabouts of the rifles discovered that the BSI had been working on a mistaken assumption that the serial numbers they had for each rifle was unique. Mr Clarke said that he believed at least one officer in the Border Master General's Department and possibly more knew this. The police are currently investigating whether the MOD 's Donnington depot also knew this and whether this information reached the BSI's contacts at the MOD.
The BSI had mistakenly been working off partial serial numbers. This means that even if the BSI could identify which year the rifle was manufactured there could be a similar rifle with the same partial serial number. There were two factories at Birmingham and Enfield manufacturing these rifles. The maximum number of matching partial serial numbers for each rifle is four. The police investigation team has identified nine of what is thought to be Bloody Sunday rifles as having unique serial numbers. Of this nine, six have been destroyed, two have been sold abroad and one is being held by the police.
Mr Clarke said that the police investigation into the whereabouts of the rifles is continuing. He said it was a matter of 'considerable concern' that rifles had been destroyed when the BSI had twice sought assurances that they not be destroyed. Preliminary investigations suggest that a fault in the computer system meant that a warning not to destroy weapons only flagged up once the weapon had been destroyed. Mr Clarke said that reports that the MOD believed it was free to destroy weapons until the BSI formally requested them were incorrect.
There are 50 rifles that correspond with the partial serial numbers given to the MOD by the BSI. Of those 50, nine were unique numbers and so can definitely be said to have been used on Bloody Sunday. Mr Clarke said that it remains to be seen whether the remaining rifles can be shown to have been used on Bloody Sunday.
2.8 EVIDENCE DERIVED FROM THE RIFLES
Mr Clarke said the forensic significance of the rifles would depend on whether they have been rebarrelled since 1972. In 1972 it was possible to match the bullets lodged in Michael Kelly and Gerard Donaghey with the rifles of soldiers F and G. No other whole bullets were lodged in the other people who were killed or wounded on Bloody Sunday.
2.9 MODIFIED WEAPONS
Evidence exists which shows that Army weapons were modified to make them more lethal. Photographs of a baton (truncheon) with lead in the wood and a rubber bullet with a nail inserted in the middle were shown. A witness statement records the effect of a rubber bullet which had broken glass inserted in it. Mr Clarke will cover the evidence that Bernard McGuigan was shot by a modified bullet when he discusses events in sector 4.
2.4.2 Magilligan Internment Camp
A new internment camp had opened at Magilligan, ten miles outside Derry. It had taken its first group of internees on Monday 17 January. A demonstration took place outside the camp on Saturday 22 January where reporters saw Paras club demonstrators and fire rubber bullets at point blank range. Nigel Wade from the Sunday Telegraph said that he had seen soldiers drive the marchers into the sea and that the Regiments NCOs had used riot sticks to try to control their own soldiers.
2.4.9 The Paras
1 Para were normally stationed in Belfast and had been to Derry once before for an operation in July 1971, which had been aborted. Notes from the Sunday Times Insight team describe a discussion with Captain Jackson about this operation:
'He confirmed that the idea was to get the yobbos and gunmen into the streets by provocative searches, but that the IRA would not play and went on R&R (rest and recreation). Jackson said that the bloody thing never got off the ground and that since then the 1st Battalion had always wanted to sweep through the 'no-go' areas of Derry.'
In a statement for the BSI, General Jackson said that he could not recall saying this although he remembers the feeling of frustration that they had travelled all the way to Derry and returned 'for nothing.' He said that 1 Para had an
'…unequalled experience and record in Belfast…(they were) 'prepared to go in hard and ready. The idea was to inflict casualties, never to receive them, and this was possible due to the Battalion's aggressive posture in always seizing the initiative. He felt that the 1st Battalion had helped to ensure that there were no 'no-go' areas in Belfast, and that a certain contempt was felt for such areas existing elsewhere in the Province.'
1 Para had a reputation for brutality and other army units had complained about the damage they had on community relations. Colonel Wilford was asked about the reports of brutality at the Magilligan demonstration, the week before the Derry march. He admitted that one of his soldiers had kicked a man on the ground 'but the circumstances were such that he might easily and justifiably have lost his temper.'
A senior officer in the Ardoyne area of Belfast told a member of the Insight team that one visit by the Paras 'takes us six weeks to repair the damage to community relations.'
3.2 DISPLAYS OF TRIUPHALISM
Mr Clarke discussed evidence that possibly provides insight into the mindset of some of the Paras at the time of the march.
Photographs and witness statements show graffiti applauding the Paras for the deaths and injuries. Mr Porter took a photograph of a door in William Street on 31 January. It said 'Paras were here T.E., and they fucking hammered fuck out of you.' Six coffins and six crosses were drawn next to the writing. It is signed I Para and dated 30 January.
