THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY/Day 303: A British soldier on duty in Derry on Bloody Sunday, when paratroopers shot dead 13 unarmed civilians and wounded 13 others, said yesterday that the paratroopers involved in the shootings "had lost it and had just gone crazy and fired indiscriminately".
The former rifleman in the Royal Green Jackets told the Saville Inquiry into the January 1972 killings that the first shots he heard on Bloody Sunday were fired immediately after members of the Parachute Regiment had been deployed in the Bogside.
The witness, known to the hearing as Inquiry 1002, told the hearing he was on duty at an army barrier at William Street, about 300 yards from the scene of the shootings. He said his regiment had regular experience of dealing with riot situations in the Bogside, whereas the paratroopers were new to the area.
"As the paras turned down Rossville Street, I suddenly heard a lot of shooting. That was the first shooting I heard that day. I can categorically state that there was no shooting before then," he said.
"In fact I could not understand why these soldiers were firing because they were not under fire themselves. As far as we were concerned, we had control of the area and we could not understand why these soldiers went in shooting.
"The rioting that day was no different to any other day and the crowd had already been dispersed by the time the paras went in," he told the three judges.
The former rifleman said when he and other members of his regiment returned to base after the shootings, they were shocked by the death toll. "No one could believe it and we were all wondering what on earth had happened. As far as we were concerned, the situation had been under control.
"My feeling at the time was that the paras had lost it and had just gone crazy and fired indiscriminately," he said.
"As I have said, everyone seemed to think the paras had totally lost control of the situation. We thought perhaps something had spooked them, for example, we all knew that kids often threw planks down on the ground just to provoke you.
"The sound of a plank hitting the ground can sound like a gun- shot in a small area, but we had all been in Londonderry for such a long time that we knew where civilians were likely to take a pot shot at us if they were going to," he said. A soldier who was a gunner in the Light Air Defence Regiment, and who was also on duty on Bloody Sunday, told the inquiry that whoever planned the army's operation was a "deadhead", but he dismissed suggestions of a conspiracy theory among the soldiers. ... - (PA)