The arrest operation launched by paratroops into the Bogside on Bloody Sunday was much larger and penetrated much farther than seemed to have been sanctioned according to headquarters records, the inquiry heard yesterday.
It also emerged that, on the basis of the radio messages sent back to the command centre during the afternoon, senior officers may have had an incomplete picture of what units on the ground were doing.
In a further detailed examination of the orders communicated and the tactics employed at the beginning of the operation, Mr Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the tribunal, explored a number of inconsistencies and conflicts in the evidence gathered so far from army and other sources.
The inquiry also heard a tape-recording of British army radio communications made on the day by Derry radio enthusiast Mr James Porter, and was told that a number of witnesses will attempt to identify the voices heard on it.
Mr Clarke referred to a note that appears in the log kept at brigade headquarters in Ebrington Barracks on Bloody Sunday. It noted that orders were given to 1 Para (1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment) at 16.07 hours "to do scoop-up operation through Barrier 14. Not (underlined) to conduct running battle down Rossville Street."
Counsel said that while this suggested the order was confined to the sending in of one company through barrier 14, the brigade major (Lieut Col Steele), who instructed the log-keepers on the day, has told the tribunal that this was not so.
Major Steele (as he is now ranked), in a statement to the tribunal, says that while his order is recorded in the log, the entry had missed the order for 1 Para to mount the whole arrest operation.
He continues: "I can only assume that the log-keeper's note was incomplete, or a mistake was made during the compilation stage of the final brigade log. I am absolutely clear that in the discussion between Brig MacLellan and myself, and in the order I gave to 1 Para, no limitation was placed on the number of companies to be used in the arrest operation . . . "
Mr Clarke pointed out, however, that in an interview recorded by Peter Taylor for a BBC documentary on Bloody Sunday in 1992, the commanding officer of 1 Para, Col Derek Wilford, was asked why he deployed two companies when the order as logged told him to deploy one.
Col Wilford replied: "Well I only deployed one company initially, the second company then was brought in. I was obliged to bring that in in order to protect my flank. That was a decision which was entirely mine and in my view absolutely necessary . . . "
Counsel noted that the second half of the order was "not to conduct a running battle". He added: "The next question that arises is what was meant by the limitation on the order not to conduct a running battle down Rossville Street and who was told of that limitation." He said it would have to be considered whether what happened was that, "without the brigade either ordering it or understanding what was going on, the original plan of a pincer movement on foot . . . along the periphery of the Bogside changed to a frontal assault in vehicles . . . together with what amounted to a running battle down Rossville Street."
Mr Clarke said it was noticeable that there seemed to be nothing in the radio communications to indicate to brigade headquarters that 1 Para would go, or had gone, to the end of the Rossville flats, or indeed that they had gone into the Bogside in vehicles.
The question also arose as to whether it was appropriate to launch the operation at all if, as some of the evidence tended to suggest, the riot was practically ending.