Republican News · Thursday rr September 2001

Protecting the witness

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry

BY FERN LANE

Heath: "I just ask one thing of you: some 30 years after all this occurred could we not please deal with the present situation and how to deal with it, rather than spend our time looking at the past, which, in so many cases, can be condemned?"

Ms McDermott: "Well, it is uncomfortable to look at the past sometimes, is that not right?"

Heath: "I could not agree more."

Ms McDermott: "And it is uncomfortable in this particular situation?"

Heath: "But what good does it do us?"

Ms McDermott: "That is the business of the Tribunal and of the government which set it up... But is that what you are saying you would rather do? Not look at it too closely and move on?"

Heath: "Well, please think about it."

Ms McDermott: "It does not bear being looked at too closely from the British government's point of view, does it?"

Lord Saville: "I am not sure that a question posed in that manner is really going to help us."

At first, it seemed like deference, but as the questioning of Edward Heath has continued at the Bloody Sunday inquiry, Lord Saville's repeated interventions, his treatment of Michael Lavery QC and his continuous indulgence of Heath's repeated refusal to answer questions have begun to appear like something altogether more sinister; protection.

Saville has consistently aided and abetted Heath in the latter's efforts to avoid answering questions he has declared "hypothetical" but which in truth are too politically difficult for him to face.

Time after time, when Heath has been asked such a question Saville has intervened, either dismissing it or demanding that Lavery address his questions in a more "focused" way. Even after Lavery protested about the Chairman's "latitude" last Tuesday, the interruptions have continued. Repeatedly, when Heath has given a rambling, meandering non-answer to a straightforward but politically awkward question, the Chairman has responded, not by instructing Heath to answer, but by telling Counsel that he, Lord Saville, does not understand the question being posed and that it should be framed in a different and, as it happens, more amenable way.

One example - of many - of this intervention at crucial moments occurred on Wednesday last week as Lavery sought to establish with Heath that he had known almost immediately that innocent civilians had been killed, was keen that the circumstances of their deaths be covered up and, following on, that the British government therefore had a self-evidently partisan interest in the outcome of the Widgery Tribunal; the exoneration of the soldiers involved. "Was it not in [the government's] interest to ensure that the enemy was not advanced in its propaganda war as a result of this Inquiry?" he asked. "Was it not in your interests to establish, if you could, that British soldiers had not been guilty of any improper behaviour at this Tribunal?"

Heath, predictably, denied it. Lavery then asked Heath what the consequences would have been for the government "if they had not been exonerated but had been found guilty of murder". Heath responded that the question was "not relevant to this discussion" Lavery, however, persisted: "Would you like again to answer my question, whether you consider it relevant or not?" he said. Again, Heath said that he did not answer "irrelevant questions".

"If it is irrelevant, I will be prevented from asking it, Sir Edward," said Lavery. At this point Saville intervened, telling Lavery that he was "slightly puzzled as to the relevance" of the point. Counsel was then obliged to enter into a lengthy and entirely unnecessary explanation, allowing Heath again to avoid the question.

Heath went on to deny "browbeating" Widgery and claimed that the reason he had met with him prior to his tribunal was only because "every Prime Minister has certain manners". He also told the inquiry that he had reminded Widgery to remember that the British government was fighting a "propaganda as well as a military war" because "it was polite to remind him - we like to be polite". The claim was met with laughter in the public gallery, particularly by those who have witnessed Heath's astounding rudeness over the course of his giving evidence.

Also on Wednesday, the inquiry was shown a recently discovered note of the Gen47 Committee of 28 February 1972 - a separate document to the official minutes. In it, the Cabinet Secretary records that Heath asked "How is Widgery going?" The Attorney General replies; "According to plan. Army Counsel alert to do justice to our case." When confronted with this exchange, Heath claimed that it referred merely to the timing of the inquiry, not to the substance of it. Lavery observed that, after 30 years, Heath had "no difficulty about interpreting this document" which he was seeing for the first time; a pertinent point given that during his time as a witness, Heath has claimed endless - rather convenient - memory lapses, at times apparently even forgetting his own government's policies.

At the conclusion of his questioning of Heath on Monday, Lavery pointed out to the tribunal that the so-called "hypothetical" questions that Heath had repeatedly referred to were no such thing, but rather were specifically "directed to obtaining the state of Sir Edward's mind and that of the British establishment at that time". That, he continued, is not hypothetical, "it is at the very centre of this inquiry".

There was also an odd but rather revealing exchange between Heath and Christine McDermott QC during which Lord Saville again made a crucial intervention, seemingly to protect him. After having discussed how Heath, in his biography, had written in detail of the rampant discrimination of the Unionist government but yet had, according to his own evidence, nevertheless handed over complete responsibility for the British Army's activities to an administration desperate to introduce ever more draconian security measures, McDermott suggested to Heath that "you gave them the British Army to do with as they would". Heath did not accept that and then said: "I just ask one thing of you: some 30 years after all this occurred, and politics, which has taken up 65 years of my life, could we not please deal with the present situation and how to deal with it, rather than spend our time looking at the past, which, in so many cases, can be condemned?"

"Well, it is uncomfortable to look at the past sometimes, is that not right?" asked McDermott. Heath: "I could not agree more". McDermott: "And it is uncomfortable in this particular situation?" Heath: "But what good does it do us?" McDermott: "That is the business of the Tribunal and of the government which set it up. But is that what you are saying you would rather do? Not look at it too closely and move on?" Heath: "Well, please think about it." McDermott: "It does not bear being looked at too closely from the British government's point of view, does it?"

Here, perhaps before Heath said something really incriminating, Lord Saville interrupted to put an end to the exchange, telling Counsel that "I am not sure that a question posed in that manner is really going to help us".

Under questioning from Michael Mansfield QC, Heath admitted to the inquiry that "there were actions taken by the military which we learnt of long afterwards, which were never approved by those responsible". He declined to expand on what those actions might have been.

Mansfield also put it to Heath that he had never offered an apology to the families of those shot on Bloody Sunday. Heath said he had, in effect, apologised "by expressing my regret to them that it could ever have happened". "Would you like to apologise now?" asked Mansfield. Heath refused. "I have made my apology and I am not going to be influenced by this approach from you" he replied.