Republican News · Thursday 28 February 2002

Pontius Pilate Taylor

BY FERN LANE

"We are going to shoot it out with them, it's as simple as that."

John Taylor, London Times, February 1971, commenting on rioting in the Clonard area

 

"I would defend without hesitation the action taken by the Army authorities in Derry against subversives during the past week or so when it was necessary in the end to actually shoot to kill. I feel that it may be necessary to shoot even more in the forthcoming months."

John Taylor, on RTE, 11 July 1971, when asked about the killings of unarmed civilians Seamus Cusack and Desmond Beattie

 

"There was no question of shooting people to achieve riot control."

John Taylor, Statement to the Saville Inquiry, February 2002

 

"There was never any suggestion that I heard of allowing the Army under any circumstances to shoot at unarmed civilians."

John Taylor, Statement to the Saville Inquiry, February 2002

 

"...if the JSC [Stormont Joint Security Committee] had been consulted about such an option, I would have been horrified."

John Taylor, Statement to the Saville Inquiry, February 2002, in relation to General Ford's view that it might be necessary to shoot "selective ringleaders" of the "Derry Young Hooligans".

 

Former Ulster Unionist MP John Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney, is expected to attempt to distance himself from any involvement in the decision-making process undertaken by the British government and Unionist administration, of which he was a member, with regard to security matters in the months leading up to Bloody Sunday when he gives evidence to the Saville Inquiry.

In a written statement submitted to the inquiry, Taylor recalls that between 1970 and early 1972 he was a Junior Minister at Home Affairs Minister under James Chichester-Clark and afterwards a Minister of State at Home Affairs in Stormont under Brian Faulkner, as well as a member of the Joint Security Committee (JSC) of Stormont.

Taylor - notoriously a hard-liner whose statement records his belief that the then British prime minister Edward Heath was "prepared to compromise with terrorism" - claims that security was "outside the ambit" of his "normal responsibilities" and that the JSC "certainly made no decisions in relation to the role of the police or the army in relation to security and policing matter", adding that "the army had the lead role and was answerable to the Westminster government". Lawyers for the soldiers are expected to challenge his repeated claims that JSC was not involved in high-level decision making on security matters. On what the committee did actually do, Taylor is vague; he says he cannot "accurately provide a definition of the JSC's remit"

In his statement, Taylor repeatedly asserts that he has no recollection of meetings - some of which he actually chaired - which were held to discuss the deteriorating situation in the Six Counties, including those at which the possibility of the shooting of civilians is believed to have been considered. Despite their many recorded meetings, Taylor says that he has "no recollection" at all of Major General Ford, that he "cannot visualise him" and "does not have any recollection" of Ford attending meetings of JSC.

He further claims to have no recollection of Brigadier McClelland, the most senior British Army officer in Derry at the time, and insists that he was not aware of Major General Ford's infamous memo to British GOC General Harry Tuzo (referred to by Taylor as the "top dog") in early January 1972 which postulated shooting "selected ringleaders" of the so-called "Derry Young Hooligans" - a term with which Taylor denies ever having heard.

However, with a certainty uncharacteristic of the rest of his statement, he claims that there "was no question of shooting people to achieve riot control" and that that he would have been "horrified" at the suggestion had he known of it. This assertion is in marked contrast to his speech on 14 September 1971, when he called for the British Army to be given the means "to deal effectively with incidents such as stone throwing".

Taylor's apparent amnesia regarding his period in office also extends to the introduction of internment. He is expected to tell the inquiry that, despite his position in the Stormont administration and repeated public statements for more stringent security measures by British state forces, including internment, he was both unaware of the army's opposition to the move, and "had no idea" that internment was about to be introduced when he departed for holiday in August 1971. With sophistry which would do credit to the Jesuits of his nightmares, he insists that that he was not consulted about its "imminent" introduction before leaving for Spain. In his statement, he comments that the Unionist cabinet at Stormont, headed by Faulkner, "hardly ever discussed security".

On 9 August that year, the day internment began, he was, fortuitously, in Spain. He statement says that he only became aware of its introduction on his return as he was "driving up from Dublin airport past Newry and seeing the black smoke of tyres being burned". He does not explain why such a sight should necessarily be exclusively associated with internment.

Taylor states that whilst he was "certainly a supporter of the introduction of internment" because he felt that "the loyalist community had reached a stage of breaking point" and that it was "therefore essential to bring republican violence under control to avoid the real possibility of civil war developing in Northern Ireland", he had no direct input, or even meaningful influence, with regard to security policy and, indeed, that he "had the feeling that I was not being given the full picture of what was going on" by the security forces. It is expected that this claim will be challenged by lawyers.

Taylor's unremitting hostility to the civil rights movement is revealed in his statement. He details his belief that NICRA was merely a "purported" civil rights association, saying that he "did not consider NICRA to be a genuine civil rights organisation". He regarded civil rights marches as "provocative" and NICRA to have been "infiltrated by the republican movement with the IRA using it as a front to gain agitation and violence on the streets".

When the Joint Security Committee received reports about the events of 30 January, Taylor says he "assumed the army had been shot at and that they had returned fire, consistently with policy and the yellow card." He comments that, "When we were assured by the army that they had been shot at, I accepted their word. I still do so unless it is proved differently".

In the concluding comments to his statement, Taylor says that he recognises the "strength of Irish nationalist and republican feeling" about Bloody Sunday, adding that "their propaganda has shown its durability for the last 30 years" and warning that Saville Inquiry itself "could be influenced by Irish nationalist propaganda".