Witness tells of being shot

Mural depicting Bloody Sunday in Londonderry

A man who was shot in the back on Bloody Sunday claimed he would have been killed had he not been bending down when he was hit.

Patrick McDaid told the Saville Inquiry on Wednesday he was running from troops in Londonderry's Bogside, in the shadow of the Rossville Flats, when a bullet struck him.

The inquiry is looking at the circumstances surrounding the killing of 13 men by British soldiers during a civil rights march in the city on 30 January 1972.

Mr McDaid said he was unaware of the injury until it was pointed out.

Mr McDaid said he believed the shot must have come from the far side of the car park where Paratroopers had got off a bus minutes earlier.

Dash to escape

Edmund Lawson QC, acting for most of the soldiers, raised the possibility that Mr McDaid may have been shot from much closer range, and a spot where troops allege they saw a "civilian" gunman open fire that day.

Mr McDaid was 24 on Bloody Sunday and described making a dash across the car park to escape the scene through a gap between two blocks of the flats.

"From my position I could see the people who had run across to the gap yelling to me: 'Come one, come on, make a run for it!'

"As I ran I had nothing in my hands. I saw a low wall in front of me which looked as if it might provide me with cover. As I was running I saw the wall and bent down to dive over the wall. I landed on the ground.

Lord Saville is chairing the tribunal hearing evidence

"As I hit the ground someone else landed behind me, slightly to my left-hand side. He said to me: 'I think you're shot in the back'.

"I said: 'No, they've missed'. I did not feel as though I had been shot.

"The man then put his hand on my back and showed me my blood on his hand."

Mr McDaid suffered a "glancing" wound to his shoulder in the shooting, according to medical documentation from the time.

Later he added: "Looking back on it afterwards, if I had not bent down when I had, just before I dived for the wall, I would have been killed.

Close-range discharge

"As I dived over the wall, whoever shot at me must have thought they had got me because I went straight down. It must have looked like they had a direct hit.

"I obviously did not see the shot because I did not realise until later that I had been hit. Looking back on it now, from the angle of the shot, it must have come from somewhere over my right shoulder."

However, Mr Lawson showed the inquiry a consultant surgeon's note from the time that Mr McDaid's wound was black-edged with carbon particles, suggesting a fairly close-range discharge - not the far side of the car park.

He asked Mr McDaid: "Do you think it is possible that you were in fact shot by somebody who was somewhere near the gap between blocks two and three?"

Mr McDaid replied: "No, I could not say who shot me."