Republican News · Thursday 7 November 2002

One is extremely sad, but not responsible - General Ford

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry

BY FERN LANE

General Robert Ford has continued to give evidence to the Bloody Sunday inquiry. He said on Monday that, although "one is extremely sad about the deaths of people" and there was "certainly nothing to be proud of on Bloody Sunday", he would not accept any responsibility for the failures in British Army planning that led to those deaths, despite acknowledging that he personally had ordered the use of the Parachute Regiment on the day. Detailed orders, he said, were "really a matter for commanders below my level". He denied counsel's accusation that the change of plan and the failure to give detailed orders to soldiers on the ground was "a shambles".

During Monday and Tuesday, the inquiry heard that the original plan had been for paratroopers to enter the Bogside via the Presbyterian Church grounds and Barrier 14 in order to "trap" rioters. However, there were difficulties with access and instead a "frontal attack" was launched down Rossville Street with armoured vehicles "charging into a fleeing crowd".

Under questioning from Arthur Harvey QC on Monday and Tuesday, Ford accepted that his detailed plans did not include the physical separation of rioters and marchers. Ford's subsequent claim that the APCs were deployed only after there had been clear separation between the 'rioters' and the 'innocent crowd' had been "grafted on" afterwards, Harvey said.

Ford denied that there had been a cover up and said that the omission was simply because such separation would be "obvious". He claimed that there had never been any intention to arrest marchers, simply to identify the "ringleaders", photograph them and bring legal proceedings later.

Harvey pointed out that in a document Ford produced for the Widgery Tribunal, he had suggested that "illegal marchers" as well as rioters could be arrested. "Does it not look curious, General," he asked, "that there is not one mention of one of the essentials to the launching of an arrest operation in it?"

The exchange between Harvy and General Ford centred on the most innocuous of words; the inclusion of the word "and" in one of Ford's planning points. In his report Ford had written that one of several factors he had considered when making his plan was "the requirement for identifying and if possible arresting those marching illegally and the possible arrest of any hooligan element".

Harvey inquired: "Where is the separation [between rioters and marchers] there, General Ford?" Ford responded that "it is in the word 'and'. The wording is: 'The requirement for identifying and if possible arresting those marching illegally' - Then we come to the second bit: 'and the possible arrest of any hooligan element' - dealt with entirely separately."

But, said Mr Harvey, it was not dealt with separately. "The use of the word 'and' is conjunctive; that is it combines two separate aspects. What it is combining here is an arrest operation which envisages the arrest of illegal marchers and the arrest, possibly, of those responsible for riotous or hooligan activity. Far from it involving separation, what it would convey to any arrest force is you just scoop up whoever happens to be there because they are either illegal marchers who can be identified or they are a hooligan element, both breaking the law."

Also giving evidence this week was a former British Army photographer, identified as INQ2030, then a sergeant in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps. In his statement, the soldier claimed that on Bloody Sunday the helicopter from which he was filming using a cine camera was fired on twice. "One could hear the crack of the round passing the helicopter. I believe we started off flying at 500 feet but after this shooting incident we went up to 1,000 feet, probably as a result of a direct order," he said.

However, under questioning from Lord Saville, INQ2030 said he could not in fact be certain that the incident had occurred on Bloody Sunday at all and conceded that it may well have been on one of the many other occasions in which he flew in a helicopter.

The inquiry also heard that the crucial moments after the Parachute Regiment had entered the Bogside were missing from the film he took. Under questioning from Barry MacDonald QC for the families, Soldier INQ2030 said he could not explain how the gap had arisen.

"Your mission had been to take maximum photographic coverage of the march and all associated incidents," said McDonald, "and you did not see any of this or film any of this shooting, which means that either you failed miserably in your task, or the film that you did take was cut; there are really only two options there, are there not?" When asked which of these options he thought it was, INQ2030 replied: "I have no idea."

The former soldier also couldn't explain why he did not hand his films to his superior officer, Colin Wallace, and instead handed them over to a more senior officer. He said he had no recollection of the incident and could not recall to whom had passed the films.

Also giving evidence was INQ3, a former major in the Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police. He told the inquiry that the way in which SIB statement taking was carried out encouraged soldiers to "fabricate" accounts when they were accused of misdemeanours, not only on Bloody Sunday but also more generally. He admitted that soldiers' accounts of incidents were not questioned or tested and that if a soldier did volunteer information that might incriminate him, the interview was stopped.

He agreed with MacDonald that "soldiers tended to close ranks when they were being questioned about the possibility of either themselves or other soldiers committing criminal acts" and that the entire purpose of the policy he had described was to ensure that the conduct of soldiers could be protected from scrutiny.