Army 'changed before Bloody Sunday'

Witness says "unionist pressure changed British Army policy"

A former chairman of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association has said he noticed an "obvious" change in British Army policy on the eve of Bloody Sunday.

Jimmy Doris said the conduct of troops at a demonstration in County Tyrone on 29 January 1972 showed that a conscious decision seemed to have been taken to prevent marches taking place at all.

He said he assumed it was a result of unionist pressure being applied at the time by the Joint Security Committee - chaired by Ulster Unionist deputy leader John Taylor two days earlier.

Mr Doris was giving evidence on Tuesday to the Inquiry into the shooting dead of 13 men during a military operation at an anti-internment parade in Londonderry on Sunday 30 January 1972.

Another man died later from his injuries.

Organisers

I have never been a republican, never belonged to any republican organisation, nor have I every supported any republican organisation

Jimmy Doris

Mr Doris told the tribunal in the Guildhall, Derry, that no blame should be attached to either NICRA or the Derry Civil Rights Association for what happened on Bloody Sunday.

He said he did not believe the organisers had sought assurances from the IRA that the march would be trouble-free.

"It is something I would have disagreed with completely. I disagree with paramilitarism.

"If one had approached them it would have been attempting to give them status within the community," he said.

However, his claims were in contrast to those of another leading NICRA figure Kevin Boyle, who told the Inquiry on Monday he believed assurances had been sought and received from the IRA.

Blocked

Mr Doris did not attend the Bloody Sunday march but was on the ground when a Tyrone Civil Resistance march was to have taken place from Dungannon to Coalisland in County Tyrone.

Army "took names and photographs"

He said: "The route of the march was blocked off by the security forces. In view of this the march made its way onto disused land, I believe an old railway line, but the march was blocked again by the RUC.

He said the "march was different from any march I had been on before".

"It seemed obvious to me that there had been a change in policy on the part of the Army.

"Before marches had been allowed but names and photographs were taken of the marchers such as in Belfast where numerous NICRA organisers were prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment."

The witness also rejected the contents of an RUC special branch assessment which described 11 of the 14 NICRA executive members, including himself, as "republican".

Heads low

"I have never been a republican, never belonged to any republican organisation, nor have I every supported any republican organisation," he said.

The same document also noted that a branch of the SDLP - currently led by John Hume - had been formed in Newtownards, County Down with a committee "dominated by republican sympathisers".

Mr Doris said: "Newtownards is a very unionist area. Catholics there keep their heads low, never mind republicans."

The Bloody Sunday inquiry was established in 1998, is chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate and is expected to run for another two years.