THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY: Two journalists, who face possible contempt charges for refusing to reveal the identities of soldiers present on Bloody Sunday, said yesterday they were prepared to go to jail to protect their sources.
Alex Thomson and Lena Ferguson were told by tribunal chairman Lord Saville they would not have long to wait to discover if they will be reported to the High Court.
The pair, who worked on a series of Channel 4 news reports to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, were threatened with criminal proceedings almost two years ago for refusing to disclose confidential sources. They were recalled to the inquiry in Derry today to face more questions.
Outside Derry's Guildhall, where the inquiry is sitting, the two journalists said they were disappointed the contempt issue had not been sorted out.
Ms Ferguson, a former producer at Channel 4 and now head of political programmes at BBC Northern Ireland, said: "We have had the threat of contempt hanging over us for two years and we were hoping it would be resolved today.
"Lord Saville has reinforced the fact that the contempt charge is still there and with it the possibility of a prison sentence.
"We are still prepared to go to jail. We are still prepared to deal with the contempt issue," she added.
Ms Ferguson said it would be ironic if two people not even present on Bloody Sunday could end up in prison.
"I think it would be ludicrous in the extreme, and everybody recognises that, if two people who weren't even in Derry on the day of Bloody Sunday end up going to jail." Mr Thomson, Channel 4 news chief correspondent, said the issue was not about journalism: "It's about protecting people, ordinary people who can't protect themselves.
"On Wednesday of this week we will get the Hutton Report and we all know what happened to Dr David Kelly.
"When the institutions of the British state decide to play fast and loose with people's identity, as happened in that case - and certainly they are trying to put pressure on in this case - then people can get hurt, badly hurt." The pair had faced the prospect of prison after refusing to reveal the identities of five soldiers interviewed in a series of programmes on Bloody Sunday in 1997 and 1998.
On May 2nd, 2002, the two journalists were warned by Lord Saville that he would have no option but to certify them for contempt to the High Court if they continued to withhold the names of their sources.