There appears to have been no investigation by the British army into allegations of brutal treatment of civilian prisoners on Bloody Sunday, despite a written undertaking given to a priest by the army GOC, Gen Sir Harry Tuzo, the inquiry was told.
Father Terence O'Keeffe, Dean of the School of Humanities at the University of Ulster, had written at considerable length to Gen Tuzo, making a formal complaint about the violence inflicted on civilian prisoners by the soldiers.
Father O'Keeffe, who was among those arrested and held for several hours at Fort George base, described in his letter how he and other civilians were forced to run a gauntlet of soldiers "striking us with rifles and screaming the most foul abuse".
He wrote that they were forced alternately to hold barbed wire, hold their hands above their heads, or to stand in search positions against the wall over long periods of time.
". . . I witnessed conduct that was both sickeningly brutal and a disgrace to any uniform," he wrote. "Assaults were committed in a sadistic manner on a number of people, particularly youths aged from about 15 to 19 years."
Gen Tuzo's reply to Father O'Keeffe, read to the inquiry yesterday, said: "You can be sure that the allegations you make will be very fully investigated. But I certainly do not intend to make any public announcement until the Widgery tribunal is over . . . I very much hope that I will be able to rely on you and others to assist in such investigation since my experience in connection with other accusations of this kind has been that the complainants refuse to co-operate . . . This leads inevitably to the belief that they are more interested in propaganda than the redress of grievance."
Counsel said he was not aware of details of any investigation that followed after the conclusion of the Widgery tribunal. Certainly there had not been any produced to the inquiry.