A British soldier on duty in Derry on Bloody Sunday admitted today 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 into the Bogside.
The witness, known to the hearing as Inquiry 1002, told the hearing that he was on duty at an army barrier at William Street, about three hundred 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 said.
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 of 13.
"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," he said.
The inquiry was adjourned until Monday.