The most prominent senior counsel representing British soldiers at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry has been paid well over £2.1 million in fees to date by the Ministry of Defence, it was revealed in the House of Commons this week.
Mr Edwin Glasgow QC is the highest earner in a list of payments made to barristers and teams of solicitors representing various groups of soldiers and the British Ministry of Defence at the inquiry, which was set up by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, in January, 1998, and began its main oral hearings in Derry in March, 2000.
The payments were revealed in a written answer to a parliamentary question tabled by Mr Kevin McNamara, Labour MP, who asked the Defence Secretary how much public funding had been provided to the legal representatives of his Department and of the British armed forces.The several hundred soldiers who were on duty in Derry on January 30th, 1972, are represented by four teams of lawyers, because of conflicts of interest between various individuals, and another team represents the Ministry of Defence.
Payments to Mr Glasgow, up to February of this year, amounted to £2,155,288. Another QC who is prominent at the inquiry, Mr Gerard Elias, has been paid £747,171 between July 2000 and February 2002.
Sir Allan Green QC was paid £693,733 between March 1999 and February 2002, and Mr Edmund Lawson QC, who has now left the inquiry, earned £693,127.
The highest earning junior counsel listed are Mr Nicholas Griffin, at £653,366, Mr Michael Bools, £649,447 and David Bradly £542,648. The figures include fees, expenses and VAT, where payable. The inquiry has cost almost £70 million so far and it is expected to continue for up to two more years. It moves to London in September to begin hearing soldiers' evidence.