The third day of the oral hearings of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in Derry has heard the former commander of the Royal Anglican Regiment in Derry in 1972 expressed his surprise at the time at the decision to have the Parachute Regiment on standby in the city on Bloody Sunday to mount an arrest operation. The officer said that he had been surprised at the decision because the Parachute Regiment did not know the area and they had a reputation for tough action. When he expressed these concerns to his military superiors he was told the decision had been taken at the highest level, which he presumed meant, it had been ordered by the British Government.
The Inquiry also heard that the RUC Chief Constable in 1972 rejected a suggestion by his Commander in Derry that the ill-fated Civil Rights March should be allowed to proceed to the city centre unhindered. Sir Graham Shillington the RUC Chief Constable rejected the assessment of his Divisional Commander in Derry, Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan, and wanted the march to be stopped. In a letter read to the inquiry, Sir Graham is quoted as saying, "I believed that, if this march was allowed to happen, it would encourage other marches to be organised in its wake. The fact that it had been allowed would bring the law into disrepute and it would not guarantee that the march passed off peacefully".
Earlier, Counsel for the Inquiry Christopher Clarke, revealed that the Commander of the British Army units in Derry at the time had claimed that the RUC Chief in the city wanted the security forces to avoid confronting the Civil Rights marchers. He had claimed that this was because the RUC Commander's sympathies lay entirely with the Catholic community. Brigadier Patrick MacLellan said that Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan's proposal to let the Civil Rights march proceed unhampered was patently a gesture or umbrella to maintain his position with his own people. The Brigadier's claims were contained in a letter to the Commander of British Land Forces in the North General Robert Ford in March 1972.
In relation to the disagreement between the RUC Chief Constable and his Divisional Commander in Derry, Counsel for the inquiry, Christopher Clarke, told the inquiry, "it appears that Mr Lagan thought that if the march was stopped, sporadic outbreaks of marching might occur over the course of the next few days throughout the city, but that if it was allowed to go to the Guildhall they would go through and make their point".
The inquiry has also heard how British Army Commanders expected the IRA to use the Civil Rights march on January 30th 1972, to launch an attack on the security forces and on property in Derry. Details of Operation Forecast, the military plan to deal with the Civil Rights march, revealed that British Army Commanders agreed the parade should be stopped at William Street, confined to the Bogside, and prevented from entering Derry city centre.
Documents revealed today show that military chiefs did not plan to take any action against the marchers unless the British Army lines were breached. The papers also reveal however that the security forces believed violence around the march was inevitable. They expected intensified hooligan activity and IRA snipers and petrol and nail bombers to be active. The British Army plan to deploy its own riflemen in an anti-sniping role and eight rubber bullet guns were to positioned at each army barrier and the weapons were to be fired in salvos, four at a time.
The hearing had to be adjourned for twenty minutes this morning when a fault occurred in the hi-tech computer equipment being used to screen the evidence. The computer monitor of Sir Edward Somers, one of the three judges at the Tribunal, went blank and Lord Saville, the inquiry Chairman, called an adjournment. The proceedings have since resumed.
