BRITISH AND NI GOVERNMENT ROLE:NEITHER THE British nor Northern Ireland governments at the time, led by Edward Heath and Brian Faulkner respectively, can be held directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths and injuries on Bloody Sunday, the Saville inquiry has found.
The inquiry was responding to allegations that political leaders at Westminster and Stormont, as well as the British army, had planned to use the parachute regiment “for the purpose of carrying out some action which they knew would involve the deliberate use of unwarranted lethal force”.
The inquiry team said they carried out a detailed examination of the plans and preparations by the civil and military authorities in the weeks and months before Bloody Sunday as well as on the day itself.
“We found no evidence to substantiate these allegations. So far as the United Kingdom government was concerned, what the evidence did establish was that in the months before Bloody Sunday, genuine and serious attempts were being made at the highest level to work towards a peaceful political settlement in Northern Ireland,” the report states.
“So far as the Northern Ireland government was concerned, although it had been pressing the United Kingdom government and the army to step up their efforts to counter republican paramilitaries and to deal with banned marches, we found no evidence that suggested to us that it advocated the use of unwarranted lethal force or was indifferent to its use on the occasion of the march.”
The report also rejects a further submission that the British army had illegally taken control over the policing of security situations from the police. “The army and the police worked together in deciding how to deal with matters of security.”
