The Bloody Sunday Inquiry/DAY 201: The Saville tribunal is facing the prospect of a legal battle with a major broadcasting company after opposing counsel jointly urged it to order Channel 4 News journalists to disclose the identities of soldiers who gave them inside information on the Bloody Sunday shootings. Lawyers for both the victims' families and British soldiers asked for such an order.
Mr Christopher Clarke QC, the tribunal counsel, submitted that the paramount public interest lay in disclosure of the journalists' sources and interview notes.
A series of Channel 4 reports in 1997 prepared by Alex Thompson and his producer, Lena Ferguson, quoted a number of soldiers in relation to shots fired from Derry's walls by units other than the Parachute Regiment. Some soldiers interviewed for the programmes on condition of strict anonymity also claimed there was unjustified and reckless firing and shameful and disgraceful actions by their colleagues on the day.
He said, however, that what appeared on the Channel 4 broadcasts was "short, tantalisingly incomplete, in parts unclear or unspecific and unexamined". Without more detail and further examination it was of very limited use, "a small and rather soft sound-bite of history". However, with examination, it might transform everyone's understanding of what had happened on Bloody Sunday.
He said it was profoundly unsatisfactory that the sole information publicly available about this should be "the snippets" which appeared on Channel 4 News.
In a hearing of earlier submissions on this matter in October 1999 the tribunal concluded that it was necessary in the interests of justice that the soldiers' identities be disclosed to it (all soldier witnesses are entitled to anonymity except to tribunal legal staff).
However, yesterday, before Ms Ferguson was called in evidence, Mr Clarke said only one of the five soldiers had waived the guarantee of confidentiality given by the journalists, and there was no realistic prospect of the others coming forward voluntarily.
Reviewing the law on contempt of court versus journalistic confidentiality and human rights legislation, Mr Clarke suggested that the public interest involved in the inquiry's search for the whole truth on Bloody Sunday was significantly greater than the public interest considerations involved in the Channel 4 investigation; the information in the broadcast was known to be incomplete, unidentified and unexamined.
Mr Clarke disputed a submission by Mr Andrew Caldecott QC, counsel for the journalists and for ITN, which makes Channel 4 News. The argument was that, if disclosure was ordered, then a journalist could not in the future guarantee confidentiality in like circumstances, with the result that information exposing the gravest misconduct by government agencies would never emerge.
Mr Clarke said the law did not give a guarantee against the disclosure of sources. The law required a balance to be cast and that each case should be looked at on its facts and after the event in question, "that is to say, after the information has been obtained by the journalist in question".
He said the circumstances of this particular case were unique. Firstly, the public importance of discovering the whole truth was very great, as evidenced by the resolution of parliament setting up the inquiry. In evidence, Ms Ferguson said she had worked on newspapers in Belfast before specialising in investigative journalism and joining Ulster Television. She had worked on many programmes requiring secrecy and protection of sources, involving RUC members, paramilitaries, informers and investigating suspicious killings.
"Talking to people whose lives are at risk is an integral part of a journalist's job in Northern Ireland," she said. "Persuading those people to tell their stories on TV and devising ways of protecting them has been a major part of my work for the past nine years."
In 1994 she moved to ITN in London to work on Channel 4 News, where she got involved in the Bloody Sunday programmes.
She made contact with a number of former soldiers who gave her information under promise of confidentiality. She did not wish to obstruct the inquiry, she said, but she believed that if the tribunal made an order for disclosure, "it would seriously inhibit my ability to continue working in Northern Ireland . . . and I believe it could have serious ramifications for my personal safety".
In the course of questioning the witness, Lord Gifford QC, for some victims' families, and Mr Edwin Glasgow QC, for a large number of soldiers, both asked the tribunal to order that the names of the soldiers be disclosed to it.