Woman recalls brother's last words

Scene of shootings: The Bogside as it looks nowadays

The sister of a teenager shot dead on Bloody Sunday has told how he gave their mother money for her birthday and promised to return with a gift, but never came back.

Mary Bonner was giving evidence to the Saville Inquiry, set up to investigate the events of 30 January 1972 when soldiers shot dead 13 people after a civil rights march in Londonderry.

Another man died later.

Ms Bonner's brother, Hugh Gilmour, 17, was among those killed.

She told the inquiry on Monday that she had witnessed other shootings from her home in the Rossville Flats.

She said as she looked down from a window she saw the feet and legs of her dead or dying brother, unaware of who he was because the rest of his body was obscured.

All of a sudden I saw blood running out from underneath him

Cathleen O'Donnell, witness

At the hearing in the Guildhall, Derry, she recalled having Sunday lunch with her parents, a sister and Hugh before he left for the march with some of his friends.

Mrs Bonner, who gave evidence to the original Widgery Inquiry into the shootings 29 years ago claimed the questioning she underwent then about her brother was "extremely unfair" and she denied that he was arrested for rioting and attacking troops in October 1970.

She added: "He was an ordinary young man. His abiding interest was football, particularly Kenny Daglish and Liverpool.

"I can remember that as he left the house he gave mother 50p for her birthday and said that he would give her something else when he came back. He never did."

Mrs Bonner was one of four witnesses who took the stand on Monday.

They described the killing of Jackie Duddy, 17 - the first person to die on Bloody Sunday - as he ran away from troops coming into the area.

Another witness was Cathleen O'Donnell, who said her parents hid her shoes on Bloody Sunday to prevent her from attending the march.

Mrs O'Donnell, who was a teenager at the time, eventually found a pair of red wooden sandals and slipped out the flat - also in the Rossville complex.

'Fear on face'

She lost them as she fled the army gunfire.

She said she was almost back home and on the veranda outside when "the door to my flat opened and my father looked out".

She added: "He was on his hands and knees shouting at me, he swore and shouted, lie down, stay where you are, lie still!' The fear on his face was awful."

She said she then saw Mr Duddy shot in the car park beneath her and the then Fr Edward Daly - later Bishop of Derry - going to his aid waving a white handkerchief.

"He (Mr Duddy) looked happy. He had nothing in his hands. I remember at one stage he looked around and then ran on. I do not think he saw the soldiers.

"People were shouting at him to lie down. I was shouting at him too, Jesus, lie down!'

"Suddenly I saw his arms go up above his head in a "v" shape and he fell flat to the ground. At that time it did not register with me that he had been shot. Then all of a sudden I saw blood running out from underneath him."

The inquiry is set to resume on Tuesday.