Bloody Sunday shootings recalled

Thirteen people died in Bloody Sunday shootings

A man has described how a father was wounded and fell to his knees as he went to the rescue of his fatally-injured son on Bloody Sunday.

Ronnie Ballard was giving evidence to the Saville Inquiry which resumed in Londonderry's Guildhall on Monday after the summer recess.

Lord Saville of Newdigate is heading the inquiry to examine the events of 30 January 1972.

Thirteen Catholic men were shot dead by British soldiers during a civil rights march in the city that day. A 14th person died later.

Mr Ballard said that he saw Alexander Nash collapse to face his 19-year-old son William, one of the 13 men shot dead.

The man fell to his knees facing the young guy who had collapsed on to the other side of the rubble barricade

Ronnie Ballard

He said he saw William Nash running up Rossville Street after Paratroopers moved into the area, heard a couple of shots and saw him collapse face-down on the rubble barricade straddling the road.

Mr Ballard, who was 30 on the day of the shootings, said he saw William's father calling out and shouting, running towards the barricade.

In a written statement to the inquiry, Mr Ballard said: "The man had his arms up and his palms open.

"The man may have been shouting something like `Don't shoot' but I cannot be sure.

"The man was facing north along Rossville Street when I heard about six shots.

'Sack of coal'

"The man fell to his knees facing the young guy who had collapsed on to the other side of the rubble barricade a short time before."

Later, Michael Mansfield QC, for the Nash family, said William Nash's relatives believed he had reached the barricade from another direction and suggested that the youth Mr Ballard saw might not have been Mr Nash.

Another witness later described Paratroopers "flinging" the bodies of up to three young men into a military vehicle "like a sack of coal".

Lord Saville: Heading inquiry

George McGinley, who was 14-years-old on Bloody Sunday, told the hearing he watched troops dismount from a Saracen at the barricade where the bodies of William Nash, John Young, 17, and Michael McDaid, 20, lay.

Mr McGinley said he witnessed events from the shelter of a house.

"One of the paras tried to drag one of the bodies over the rubble barricade towards the Saracen," he said.

"I think the para placed his arms beneath those of the body and tried to lift it.

Military evidence

"The body must have been too heavy for him as another para then had to help. The two paras took one arm and one leg each, and threw the body into the back of the Saracen like a sack of coal."

He added: "The scene at the rubble barricade really scared me.

"Others who were watching from the window of a house also saw the bodies thrown into the Saracen and some of the women began crying."

The inquiry has been sitting in public in Derry since March 2000.

Military personnel are expected to begin giving evidence to the inquiry early next year.

In August, the inquiry team ruled that British soldiers must go to Londonderry to give their evidence.