On 30 January 1972 (Bloody Sunday) 13 men were shot dead and a further 15 wounded in the vicinity of a protest march and a riot on the streets of the Bogside in Derry. No guns or bombs were recovered from the dead and wounded and no photographic or video evidence was produced to show that they were in possession of guns or bombs when shot. It was alleged that the soldiers had shot 28 unarmed civilians in circumstances where there was no immediate threat to life of any of the soldiers concerned. These were the most serious allegations ever to have been made against the British Army in peace times since the enactment of the Army Act in 1881. If it transpired that there was any basis for them at all, swift and decisive action would be required from the British Government and the criminal justice system in order to preserve and restore public confidence in the integrity of British democracy and the rule of law.
A Tribunal was appointed under the Tribunals and Inquiries
(Evidence)
Act 1921 to investigate the allegations under the sole
chairmanship of Lord
Chief Justice Widgery. Its primary tasks were to:
establish the truth about what happened on Bloody Sunday;
satisfy the public that the full facts had been established;
and
generally help restore public confidence in the integrity of
government.
Ever since the Tribunal published its Report in April 1972 there have been very substantial grounds to believe that it has not managed to achieve any of these objectives. In the summer of 1996, primarily as a result of efforts by the solicitors for the deceased and the Director of British Irish Rights Watch, a whole body of documents connected with the Tribunal were released for public inspection for the first time by the Public Records Office in London. The Tribunal proceedings and Report have been interpreted in the light of these newly released documents and the results deal a devastating blow not just to the credibility of the Tribunal's findings but also to the whole manner in which they were reached.
The documents reveal that for almost every soldier who fired one or more shots on Bloody Sunday there are substantial material discrepancies between the account offered in the statement made on the night of 30/31 January and the version given in evidence to the Tribunal. The nature and extent of these discrepancies are such that they not only render the soldiers' evidence unreliable, but they also give grounds for charges of murder or attempted murder against some of the soldiers concerned. Even more disturbing perhaps is the fact that the soldiers' original statements were available to counsel for the Tribunal and Lord Widgery himslef (but not counsel for the deceased). It beggars belief, therefore, that the Tribunal should proceed to base its findings so heavily on the premise that the evidence given by the soldiers at the Tribunal was honest and reliable. The immediate and inevitable result of this approach is totally to discredit the bulk of the findings of the Widgery Tribunal. They are based on evidence which is fundamentally flawed.
The Tribunal's approach to the Army evidence also raises some very profound questions about the legality of its own performance. The very fact that it ignored the fatal flaws in the soldiers' self- serving testimony and preferred it even to conflicting testimony from reliable and independent sources, raises the suspicion that the the Tribunal was biased in favour of clearing the Army of any serious wrongdoing. The documents released by the Public Records Office provide compelling and disturbing support for this suspicion of bias. They reveal that the prime minister and the lord chancellor met privately with Lord Widgery before he embarked upon the Inquiry. The confidential memo of this meeting clearly reveals the prime minster attempting to influence the location of the Tribunal sittings and the whole approach of the Tribunal in a direction sympathetic to the concerns of the Army. Further documents reveal the Secretary to the Tribunal, a senior civil servant, not only drafting whole sections of the Report but also seeking to have key parts of the Report written in a manner sympathetic to the Army. Most disturbing of all is the fact that they portray Lord Widgery himself as being prepared to play down evidence favourable to the deceased and amplify evidence favourable to the Army.
These factors are sufficient in themselves to create a very strong suspicion that the Tribunal was in fact biased in favour of the Army. It must be remembered, however, that there are many other factors which have always cast the suspicion of bias over the Tribunal, its proceedings and its Report. These include: the composition of the Tribunal; the choice of location; the choice of Treasury Solicitor to service the Tribunal; the conduct of the proceedings as an unequal adversarial contest; the inappropriate haste with which the processings were conducted; the narrow interpretation of the terms of reference; the failure to call any of the witnesses who gave 700 statements to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association; the elevation of "who fired first" into the most important single issue that had to be determined; the failure to examine all the shots fired by each soldier; and the style in which the evidence and findings were presented in the Report. When these factors are added to the suspicion of bias emerging from the newly released documents, the only credible conclusion is that the Tribunal's report is so infected with the appearance of bias that it lacks any credibility.
Then there is the issue of the grave matters which the Tribunal effectively ignored: the shootings which did not result in death; the political contribution to the events that resulted in the deaths and injuries; and the measures that would need to be taken to avoid a repeat of these horrific events. Surely, answers to these fundamental issues are essential if the public are to be satisfied that the full facts have been established, those responsible have been clearly identified and that any steps which need to be taken will be taken to ensure that the government and the Army act only in accordance with the rule of law.
The fundamental purpose in appointing a Tribunal under the Tribunals and Inquries (Evidence) Act 1921 is, of course, to establish the facts in a matter of grave public concern and satisfy the public that the full facts have been so determined. There has been no greater challenge to the basic foundations of our democracy and the rule of law than the charges that were levelled at the British Army and the British government 25 years ago in the wake of Bloody Sunday. The Widgery Tribunal had to rise to that challenge and restore confidence where it had been lost. The only conclusion that can be reached on the basis of the analysis in this paper is that it has failed. In the light of its excessive reliance on flawed evidence, the extent to which its Report is infected with the appearance of bias and its failure to address some of the fundamental questions posed by the days events, it cannot be realistically be suggested that the Widgery Tribunal has discharged its obligations. It follows that, twenty five years later, the events of Bloody Sunday have yet to be fully and failry investigated by a Tribunal appointed under the 1921 Act. The needs of truth, justice and the rule of law have yet to be served.
January 1997
the full 96 page report has been published today (30 January 1997) by the newly established Bloody Sunday Trust.
Email: Bloody Sunday Trust