THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY: Official documents recording the orders given to the Bloody Sunday paratroopers to enter the Bogside do not match the events on the ground, the Saville Inquiry heard yesterday.
A Lieut Col who was a watchkeeper at an operations room at Ebrington Barracks on Bloody Sunday said any verbal orders would immediately have been written out precisely.
The soldier, identified only as INQ 2091, was involved in making a log of radio communications on January 30th, 1972, when 13 unarmed marchers were shot dead by British paratroopers in Derry.
The inquiry, sitting in London, was told that an order was given verbally at 4.07 p.m. on a secure network, called a Bid 150, for 1 Para to go into Bogside.
They were to go through Barrier 14 at William Street and were not to engage in a running battle down Rossville St. But three units of 1 Para, including some in armoured vehicles, went into the scene at different sites. The verbal order would have been passed on to a watchkeeper who would have written it down with absolute clarity in the army log, the inquiry was told.
"Whatever he told you to write down, you would write down," INQ 2091 said, adding that he doubted the barracks had the equipment for a secure link.
"If you had that specific instruction you would clear it with him, you would write and say 'is that all right, boss'? and he would agree it."
No entry recording the order to send several units of 1 Para appears on the log.
INQ 2091 said that although he doubted the barracks had the capability to operate a secure link it was possible that such a network was placed in the Brigade Major or the Commander's offices.
Also at yesterday's hearing, Maj Gen Marston Tickell, who was the Brigadier and Chief of Staff in HQ Northern Ireland on Bloody Sunday, said the killings had been the result of "wholesale failure of discipline and command".
Mr Arthur Harvey QC, counsel for most of the bereaved families, told him: "If there were 27 acts of indiscipline which actually led to innocent people being shot, as well as 108 shots being discharged without justification, that would mean there would have been a wholesale failure not just in individual discipline but of command?"
He added: "The real concern from the army's point of view was that if people were fired at while running away, that could only be due to a total failure of planning and command across a hierarchical structure?"
The Maj Gen dismissed this claim, saying it simply was not part of the army's thinking.
His job was to inform the Ministry of Defence of what happened but he was not in the chain of operational command.
He said there was intelligence the IRA was going to hijack the march.
He believes he read a "reliable intelligence report" - circulated a week before Bloody Sunday - about possible IRA activity, he told the inquiry.
The intelligence implied a "definite intention" by the IRA to use the crowd and hooligan tactics for an attack on the security forces.
He said: "There was some talk at HQNI that intelligence information had been received to the effect that the IRA would hijack the march.
It was thought that if the IRA hijacked the march there would be serious trouble."
The hearing was adjourned until today.