THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY/Day 207: The former state pathologist for Northern Ireland agreed yesterday that X-rays indicated a number of metal fragments in the head of one of the Bloody Sunday victims, but said he did not think these were significant when he carried out a post-mortem examination of the body.
Prof Thomas Marshall was questioned repeatedly by counsel for the victims' families about his original post-mortem report on Barney McGuigan.
Mr McGuigan was killed by a high-velocity bullet through the head as British paratroopers fired on civilians after an anti-internment civil rights march in Derry on January 30th, 1972.
Prof Marshall told Mr Michael Mansfield, for the McGuigan family, that he had described in his report the predominant feature that he observed during the post-mortem, and that was the presence of a host of bone fragments in the brain.
Light-boxes were used at the inquiry in Derry's Guildhall to display X-ray pictures taken at the time, and the witness agreed that he saw the picture "now in a better light" and that some spots clearly indicated metal fragments.
But in his view these fragments were "so small as to be useless in telling us anything, apart from the fact that they probably came from the bullet".
Counsel asked why he had not had any of these pieces removed for metallurgical examination, and the witness replied: "Because 30 years ago in Ulster, in a near-war situation with shootings happening every week, that was a refinement, should I say, that we did not undertake".
Mr Peter Clarke QC, for a number of soldiers, askd Prof Marshall about a suggestion that had been made that the round that hit Mr McGuigan was a dumdum bullet, "in other words it deliberately had been tampered with so that it would explode on impact".
The witness said he did not know if the bullet had been tampered with or not. It did not require a tampered bullet to cause the very severe injuries he had found.
The inquiry continues today with the evidence of a number of former police officers, the majority of whom have sought and been granted the facility of being screened from the public during their testimony.