BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY: The officer commanding the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, whose members shot dead 13 unarmed civilians and wounded 13 others in the Bogside area of Derry on Bloody Sunday in January 1972, said yesterday that he neither saw nor heard any of the 108 shots fired by his men on the day of the killings.
Lieut Col Derek Wilford (69), who ordered and accompanied the paratroopers into the Bogside to effect a widespread arrest operation during an illegal civil rights march, also told the Saville inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings yesterday that the soldiers under his command on the day had acted in "a professional way" and that their behaviour was "not out of control".
Among those listening to Lieut Col Wilford's evidence in the Methodist Hall in Westminster were relatives of the Bloody Sunday victims. Also in the public gallery were the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, and the party's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness who on Bloody Sunday was second-in-command of the Provisional IRA in Derry and who is due to give his evidence to the inquiry next autumn.
The former Parachute Regiment officer, whose evidence is expected to take up to two weeks to complete, told the inquiry's three judges that before he joined the regiment in 1969 he had been a member of the SAS and had also served with the United States Special Forces.
He said that two days before Bloody Sunday he took part in a reconnaissance operation in Derry. On the day of the march he was based in a building on the periphery of the Bogside. As the marchers walked past his position, he unsuccessfully asked his superiors on three occasions for permission to launch a pincer movement aimed at arresting rioters.
"Eventually permission was given to launch the operation and I moved C and Support companies in," he said.
"I expected my companies to arrest using standard procedures which would involve getting behind the crowd and arresting them. There was nothing in the orders to say that we could not go into Rossville Street at all. I had no intention of conducting a running battle chasing the rioters wherever they went, and this did not happen.
"Whilst I cannot therefore remember the detailed terms of the order, I can say that there was nothing surprising in it and nothing limiting the way I was intending to act which might have justified the need to go back to Brigade," he added.
The witness said the arrest operation continued until his soldiers came under hostile fire. He said as he moved from his position into the Bogside he heard two explosions which he believed were nail- or blast-bombs. He also heard incoming fire and when in the Bogside he heard further incoming fire.
"This time I felt they were personal in the sense that they were aimed at me and came very close to me. Other than the fact that they were coming towards me, I cannot say where the shots were coming from," he said.
Lieut Col Wilford said he ran to take cover behind a low wall. He said he had no recollection of the army firing in the Bogside, nor did he hear heavy high-velocity fire in Glenfada Park where four civilians were killed and where the behaviour of his men was described as "bordering on the reckless" by the 1972 Widgery inquiry.
He said he did not see his soldiers acting in a manner which suggested they were "out of control" and added: "I saw nothing that afternoon in my soldiers' conduct that caused me concern."
The witness said he neither saw nor heard anything which led him to believe that there was "an absence of command and control at any stage, nor did I see any shameful and disgraceful acts".
His evidence continues today.