Inquiry hears of 'killing policy' claim

Thirteen civilians were killed on Bloody Sunday

A lawyer has told the Bloody Sunday inquiry that the government in 1972 knew that the personalities in control in Londonderry were likely to opt for a policy of killing people in order to produce a moral effect.

The lawyer representing most of the bereaved families, Arthur Harvey QC, also said the second highest-ranking British Army officer in Northern Ireland at the time concluded that a shoot-to-kill policy against rioters was the only way to restore order to Derry.

This was about three weeks before the civil rights march which ended in the deaths of fourteen people, the Saville Inquiry was told on Tuesday.

Mr Harvey said the approach of General Robert Ford in January 1972, contrasted with that of the commanding general in the province, Sir Harry Tuzo, who believed in softening security with political change.

Mr Harvey spoke of the tensions among the military top brass and the Westminster and Stormont governments as the IRA continued to maintain Derry's Catholic Bogside and Creggan districts as "no-go" zones for the British authorities.

Build-up

Continuing his opening submission, he gave an analysis of a series of official documents already before the tribunal.

These, he said, demonstrated the build-up to the events of 30 January 1972 when the 14 men were shot during a civil rights demonstration in the Bogside.

He went on: "When one puts into this melange all of the different tensions, when one goes through the documents, one eventually sees that by mid-January, General Ford had come to the conclusion that the stage had then been reached where the only solution was to shoot and to shoot-to-kill those persons who were involved in rioting."

Mr Harvey also showed the minute of a meeting of the joint security committee at Stormont three days before Bloody Sunday, chaired by local Home Affairs Minister John Taylor - now deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, which indicated that the march in Derry "could end up in a shooting war".

"Again that document simply is truncated as far as any discussion goes," said Mr Harvey.

Shooting war

"I respectfully submit it is inconceivable that any political body or security committee responsible for the safety and wellbeing of its citizens could receive with equanimity, the expression that the civil rights march on Sunday 30 January could end up in a shooting war and no comment be made."

Mr Harvey added: "When one looks at the broad swathe of documents, the interpretation I submit which one places upon them, is not the one which has been offered by Counsel to the Tribunal, that Bloody Sunday basically is not something that was envisaged or foreseen.

"But I respectfully suggest when one comes to look at it, it ought to have been foreseen by the Westminster Government.

"It ought to have been foreseen by the Stormont regime - and in fact was - and the personalities who were left in charge of that were the personalities most likely to bring about a policy of killing people in order to produce a moral effect."