by Peter Taylor
After the interview was shown, I received several letters from people in Derry saying how much they appreciated his honesty and courage in breaking what they saw as the ‘party line’. Where requested, I passed the letters on to him. Lieutenant-Colonel Wilford, too, had regrets about the effect of that day, and it was clear it had had a profound personal impact on him. After ‘Bloody Sunday’, Derek Wilford became an army officer with a brilliant future behind him. He had been hoping to follow in Kitson’s academic footsteps and go to Oxford to write a thesis but the opportunity never materialized. He retired from the army in 1981, a disillusioned man, and returned to painting on canvas after a series of MOD desk jobs which had taken him from Whitehall to Nigeria. ‘There has to be a scapegoat and I was the one,’ he said. ‘I’m not bitter about it. The only good thing about being a scapegoat is that you protect other people. I adored my soldiers and I protected them because I believed they were right.’ I asked if he was still protecting them. ‘I suppose so,’ he said.
In 1998, as part of the confidence-building measures on the republican side that were necessary to bring the Republican Movement into the peace process, Prime Minister Tony Blair announced a further inquiry into the events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ in an attempt to get at the truth. The previous inquiry conducted by the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Widgery, in 1972 in the immediate aftermath of the shootings and published barely three months afterwards, was dismissed by nationalists as a ‘whitewash’ and a cover-up because his report largely exonerated the soldiers. When Prime Minister Heath met Lord Widgery at Downing Street the day after ‘Bloody Sunday’, he advised him that ‘it had to be remembered that we are in Northern Ireland fighting not only a military war but a propaganda war’.19 Although at one stage Widgery admitted that some soldiers’ firing ‘bordered on the reckless’,20 his broad conclusions were pro-Para.
Civilian, as well as army, evidence made it clear that there was a substantial number of civilians in the area who were armed with firearms. I would not be surprised if in the relevant half hour as many rounds were fired at the troops as were fired by them. The soldiers escaped injury by reason of their field-craft and training … in general the accounts given by the soldiers of the circumstances in which they fired and the reasons why they did so were, in my opinion, truthful.21
To the bereaved families of Derry, the hurt caused by the Widgery Report further compounded that caused by the killing of their loved ones. Since then they have fought for what they see as ‘justice’. On 29 January 1998, Tony Blair told the House of Commons that there would be a new, full-scale judicial inquiry into ‘Bloody Sunday’, chaired by an English Law Lord, Lord Saville of Newdigate, accompanied by two Commonwealth appeal court judges, Sir Edward Somers from New Zealand and William Hoyt from Canada. No expense was spared, witnesses were given immunity from prosecution, and all Government and army records, secret and otherwise, were to be revealed. The timescale was open-ended. The purpose, the Prime Minister concluded, ‘is simply to establish the truth and to close this painful chapter once and for all … I believe that it is in everyone’s interest that the truth be established and told.’22
After two years of gathering evidence at a cost of £15 million, the inquiry’s formal hearings began on 27 March 2000 in the historic surroundings of Derry’s Guildhall, ironically the marchers’ original destination on ‘Bloody Sunday’. Twenty-eight years later, they got there. It is estimated that, unlike Widgery’s twenty-one-day hearings and report delivered in less than three months after the event, the Saville Inquiry could last up to four years and cost up to £100 million pounds, with senior counsels’ fees running at around £1,500 a day and their juniors’ at £750.23 It often seems that there are more lawyers in the Guildhall than spectators, and there are plenty of those. If any truly independent body can get at the truth of what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’, it seems that Lord Saville and his colleagues have a good chance of doing so. In his opening address, the Tribunal’s counsel, Christopher Clarke QC, set out the Inquiry’s position.
What happened – whatever the truth of the matter – was a tragedy, the pain of which has endured down the passage of years. The Tribunal’s task is to discover as far as humanly possible in the circumstances, the truth, pure and simple, painful or unacceptable to whoever that truth may be.24
Certainly, by the time the formal hearings began, it appeared that the Tribunal was going to let nothing stand in its way, and that included threatening journalists, including myself, with legal action for refusing to reveal the names of their sources. Whether the Tribunal delivers the ‘justice’ the families are looking for, remains to be seen.
By the summer of the year 2000, there had been two dramatic developments in the Inquiry. One of Lord Saville’s two judicial colleagues, Sir Edward Somers, resigned ‘for personal reasons’ and ‘after much soul-searching’. It was thought that the long and arduous journey from New Zealand to Derry was proving too much for the 72-year-old judge. Sir Edward’s place on the bench was taken by the Honourable John Toohey, a former Australian High Court judge.25
The second development was even more dramatic. On 18 August 2000, it was revealed that the Inquiry had negotiated financial terms under which a key Para witness, known as ‘Private 027’, would give evidence. He was tantamount to a ‘whistleblower’. The Company Sergeant-Major of Support Company had been startlingly honest when he first suggested in his television interview that all was not well but Private 027 had gone much further. To guarantee his personal safety, the Government agreed to pay him the following out of public funds: £1,400 a month in lieu of earnings for twelve months or until such time as the Inquiry no longer required his services; a ‘loan’ of £20,000 at a commercial rate of interest towards buying at house; £6,000 to buy a car; £100 a month to buy life insurance; and all travel costs incurred in co-operating with the Inquiry. In return for this, Private 027 agreed to make a statement and give oral evidence to the Inquiry. The Tribunal said that his evidence was likely to be ‘of the utmost importance.’26
Private 027 was a radio operator with the Anti-Tank Platoon on ‘Bloody Sunday’ and had clearly been deeply troubled by what happened. He kept a diary at the time which in 1975 he formulated into a statement, apparently for his own personal use and not intended for publication. When his written recollections eventually came to light in an article in the Dublin newspaper Sunday Business Post on 16 March 1997, they created a sensation. He described an informal briefing on the eve of ‘Bloody Sunday’ when the Lieutenant in charge of Private 027’s section (just over half a dozen soldiers) came in and told them they were going into Derry the following day.
As I looked at my friends I could see that after all the abuse and nights without sleep [in Belfast], frustrations and tensions, this is what they had been waiting for. We were all in high spirits and when our Officer said, ‘Let’s teach these buggers a lesson. We want some kills tomorrow,’ to the mentality of the blokes to whom he was speaking, this was tantamount to an order – i.e. an exoneration of all responsibility.
He went on to describe being deployed into the Bogside and his horror at what he saw happening as he took up position along a low garden wall in Kells Walk opposite a rubble barricade and a crowd of demonstrators.
At this point approximately a 100 yards short of the crowd, [a Corporal in the section] went into the kneeling position and fired at the centre of the crowd … [Another soldier] immediately jumped down beside him and also opened fire … Just beyond the wall on the pavement [a third soldier] also commenced firing. Looking at the centre of the barricade, I saw two bodies fall. I raised my rifle and aimed but on tracking across the people in front of me, could … see no one with a weapon, so I lowered my rifle … I remember thinking looking at my friends … do they know something I don’t know? What are they firing at?
He then described pursuing the fleeing crowd into Glenfada Park.
A group of some 40 civilians were there running in an effort to get away. [Another sold
ier] fired from the hip at a range of 20 yards. The bullet passed through one man and into another and they both fell, one dead and one wounded … [Private 027 then describes the killing of the wounded man and the shooting of two other men.] A Catholic priest ran across to the bodies shouting about giving the last rites. He was clubbed down with rifle butts… I probably naively as I think now was filled with an overwhelming desire that the truth should be known … I remember thinking illogically as it turned out that no one would ever know about it.
He said that ‘several of the blokes’ had fired their own personal supply of ‘dum dum’ bullets, with the tips filed down to cause even greater destruction to whatever or whomever they hit. He also said that when the shooting was over and they were parked in their vehicle by Rossville Flats, a ‘civilian’ (presumably army) got in and said, ‘You will need some public relations work around here after this.’ ‘We all laughed, feeling very pleased with ourselves.’ Private 027’s final dramatic allegation was that his statement to the Widgery Tribunal was falsified and ‘bore no relation to fact’. He said he had originally ‘rattled off’ everything he had seen and heard and had done, only omitting soldiers’ names and the manner in which people had been shot. Apart from that, he said he had told the truth.
Then to my utter surprise, one of these doddering gentlemen [presumably taking witness statements for the Widgery Tribunal] said, ‘You make it sound as if shots were being fired at the crowd. We can’t have that, can we?’ And then proceeded to tear up my statement. He left the room and returned ten minutes later with another statement which bore no relation to fact and was told with a smile that this is the statement I would use when going on the stand.
Private 027 said he was appalled. ‘What a situation. The Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain, the symbol of all moral standings and justice, having his minions suppress and twist evidence, with or without his knowledge. Who can tell? I was amazed.’
His astonishing allegations became public as a result of a letter he wrote anonymously to the Belfast Newsletter around the time of the twenty-fifth anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ when John Hume was demanding a public inquiry into the killings. He wrote:
1 Para, true to its Regimental ethos, went into the Bogside as though it were the opening clash of a rugby match … In the tension of the moment, a few hot heads opened fire with no justification. This sanctioned similar behaviour by others almost as a knee-jerk reaction to the gunfire …
The Widgery Report stated that the firing of some soldiers ‘bordered on the reckless’ but it is not the appropriate word for the gunning down of unarmed civilians, some of whom were shot at a range of 20 feet. It was shameful behaviour which in no way can be condoned … The thought that so much suffering and turmoil over so many years largely stems from the mindless actions of a handful of cowboys is a tragedy indeed.
Following his letter, ITV’s Channel Four News tracked the author down and interviewed him. Dublin’s Sunday Business Post subsequently passed on his 1975 statement to the Dublin Government who used it as powerful evidence in its submission to the British Government that there was a strong case to re-investigate what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’. As a result, the Saville Inquiry was born. The Inquiry finally located Private 027 and reached the financial deal under which he would give written and oral evidence. Some felt that the evidence might be tainted because it was being given as a result of a financial incentive but the Inquiry was prepared to live with that, so critical did it believe his evidence to be. After the deal was done, Private 027 made a long statement that confirmed much of what he had written in his 1975 summary, with a few minor changes and clarifications. Significantly, he is understood to have pointed out that the remark made by the Lieutenant on the eve of going into Derry about wanting ‘some kills’ was in the context of a general conversation not a formal briefing and referred to a likely encounter with IRA gunmen. However sensational his revelations continued to be, there was no suggestion in his statement to the Saville Inquiry that there were orders from on high to go into Derry and kill civilians. In other words, it did not provide any evidence of a state conspiracy.
In thirty years of conflict, Northern Ireland has seen many watersheds, but, because of its momentous repercussions, ‘Bloody Sunday’ remains the biggest watershed of all and is the pivotal event of the thirty-year ‘war’ against the IRA. Besides giving the Provisional IRA a boost in support and recruits it had never dreamed of when it was formed barely two years before, it also gave, in its eyes, its Volunteers an even greater moral authority to kill. The impact on the ‘Brits’ was equally momentous. Frank Steele, who was with the UK Representative, Howard Smith, on ‘Bloody Sunday’ waiting for the reports of the march to come in, was horrified when they did. ‘We just found it very difficult to believe when three, then five and then seven deaths came in,’ he told me. ‘I think when we got to seven, Howard and I looked at each other and said, “Right. That means Direct Rule.” Of course, when it got to thirteen, Direct Rule was inevitable.’ On 28 March 1972, almost two months to the day after ‘Bloody Sunday’, the Stormont parliament was suspended and Direct Rule from Westminster was introduced. Britain could no longer say it was not her problem. The day was a profound watershed too for the army. Jamie, the young officer who had flown into Belfast as the city burned after internment, had no doubts about the military significance of ‘Bloody Sunday’.
I suspect for the majority of soldiers at my level in those days, it was the realization that probably we were not going to win by just a military solution alone. Indeed at that time we thought we were still winning. But certainly I think with the outcry of ‘Bloody Sunday’, with the deaths of so many civilians, and the international storm of protest that that caused, we realized, I think, that a solution by military means alone was no longer possible, even if it was desirable in the first instance.
That meant that if the security forces could not effectively counter the IRA in conventional military terms, they would have to find other means of doing so. ‘Bloody Sunday’ was the turning point.
Chapter Nine
The ‘Funny People’
March 1972
To Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister, Brian Faulkner, Direct Rule was a savage blow and the final implementation of what unionists had been desperately hoping to avoid since 1969. It meant the loss of their Stormont parliament and the end of the political and ethnic hegemony they had enjoyed in the province for fifty years. In the immediate aftermath of ‘Bloody Sunday’, many unionists were ‘cock a hoop’ that the ‘Brits’ had finally got tough. ‘I know it’s a horrible thing to say,’ Frank Steele remarked, ‘but although it did us the most enormous harm with the Catholic community, it did us quite a lot of good with the more bloody-minded of the Protestant community. The only good thing that came out of it was that it enabled Direct Rule to be brought in.’ At the time, few unionists envisaged that ‘Bloody Sunday’ would signal the end of all they had clung to.
When the enormity of what had happened dawned in nationalist areas all over the province, the rush to join the IRA was so great that people had to be turned away. Most were young and eager to get revenge rather than embrace republican ideology. Awash with recruits and with money now pouring in from America, both wings of the IRA made it brutally clear that the ‘Brits’ were not going to get away with what they had done. On 22 February 1972, the Official IRA planted a bomb near the Officers’ Mess at the Headquarters of the Parachute Regiment in Aldershot, killing not a single soldier but five women working in the kitchen, a gardener and a Catholic army padre. It was the first IRA attack in England since the 1940s. The Officials made much of the target but were not too keen to dwell on the victims. Five dinner ladies and a gardener hardly represented a blow against the might of the state. Three days later, they almost succeeded in assassinating John Taylor, the Stormont Minister for Home Affairs, as he got into his car in Armagh.1
The Provisionals too exacted their revenge, killing ten soldiers, one policeman
and five civilians in a bloody six-week period after ‘Bloody Sunday’. Two of the civilians, both women, died in a horrific bomb blast on 4 March 1972 at the Abercorn Restaurant in the centre of Belfast at tea-time on a busy Saturday. More than a hundred people were injured.2
A week later, on 11 March, the Provisionals began a three-day cease-fire, in part a reaction to public outrage at the Abercorn atrocity, in part because they felt they were winning and the ‘Brits’ might be ready to talk. In Dublin, the Provisional leadership declared that for the cease-fire to last, the British would have to withdraw their forces, give an amnesty to their prisoners and abolish Stormont.3 At this stage, Heath was in no mood to talk since to have done so would have been seen as a sign of weakness and caused ructions in the Conservative and Unionist Party at Westminster but the Leader of the Opposition, Harold Wilson, felt otherwise. He had already told the House of Commons the previous November that in the long term he believed the solution was a united Ireland. Wilson told Heath that he proposed to hold secret talks with the IRA and Heath raised no objections. At least it was a way of finding out at first hand what the IRA leaders were like and if there was a way of persuading them to stop, without, of course, granting them their demands. To the IRA, Wilson was probably a preferred interlocutor anyway given his public stance on Ireland. If its leaders could not talk to the Government itself, the Leader of the Opposition was the next best thing.
On 13 March, the final day of the IRA’s cease-fire, Wilson and Labour’s shadow Northern Ireland spokesman, Merlyn Rees, flew to Dublin for a clandestine meeting with three of the Provisional IRA’s top leaders, two from the North and one from the South: Joe Cahill, the IRA’s Belfast Brigade Commander, John Kelly, a Northerner on the IRA’s General Headquarters Staff (GHQ), and David O’Connell, a Dubliner and the leading political strategist on the IRA’s Army Council. It was the first ever contact between British politicians and the Provisionals. The meeting took place in Phoenix Park at the house of Dr John O’Connell, one of the intermediaries who had made the encounter possible.