An English journalist told the inquiry yesterday that he and his colleagues were briefed by senior British army officers that "something rather special" was going to happen in Derry on Bloody Sunday.
Mr Brian Cashinella, who was a reporter with the London Times, said that from advance briefings at army headquarters in Lisburn it was clear that the army had "mapped out" something for Derry, "that they were going to deal with people who were giving them a bad time up there".
Mr Cashinella told Mr Arthur Harvey QC, counsel for a number of victims' families, that he did not see any gun or bomb attacks on the soldiers.
He indicated that he stood over the views he expressed in a published interview 10 years ago that soldiers "just totally over-reacted" and went "completely over the top" on Bloody Sunday, and that "they did not set out to murder civilians, but that is exactly what they did".
However, Mr Edwin Glasgow, counsel for a large number of soldiers, suggested to the witness: "You are a journalist who exaggerates very considerably, according to who you are trying to please, when you are making statements."
Earlier, in a sworn statement, Mr Cashinella said that in the week before Bloody Sunday his colleague, the late John Chartres, had mentioned that they should go to Derry to cover the NICRA march planned for January 30th, 1972, as "something big was going to happen".
He said that Mr Chartres was at that time a colonel in the Territorial Army and had excellent contacts at the army's headquarters in Lisburn.
On the day, he was with some colleagues behind the army's Barrier 14 in William Street. As paratroopers advanced past the barrier on foot, followed by armoured troop carriers, he noticed Gen Robert Ford (Commander of Land Forces) standing nearby and heard him say: "Go on the Paras, go and get them."
After the firing stopped, Gen Ford and Col Wilford (OC, 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment) held an impromptu press conference in William Street and Col Wilford said his troops had killed two snipers.
Gen Ford said the army had launched a "three-pronged arrest operation" which had been intended to net around 200-300 arrests, but he said that a technical hitch had caused a delay and that they had only been able to make between 60-70 arrests.
In his direct evidence, Mr Cashinella agreed that the senior officers he had off-the-record discussions with in the mess at Lisburn before Bloody Sunday would have included Gen Ford, Brig Frank Kitson and Gen Harry Tuzo, the army's GOC in Northern Ireland.
It was indicated that the situation in "Free Derry" had become politically unacceptable to the British government. "I think basically it was generally acknowledged throughout the army that the thing was not on any more, that they had to do something about it," the witness said. "It had been written about in the national press, it had been spoken about in parliament . . . they had to solve the problem and solve it very quickly."
The operation planned for Bloody Sunday "was quite clearly going to be a precursor to reclaiming what was known as `Free Derry' ".
The witness said he believed the paratroopers had been "hyped up" for the huge arrest operation planned for Bloody Sunday "rather like a manager would hype up his football team". These were normal tactics - "exactly what they have done in the Falklands, and they have done it everywhere else".
Mr Cashinella said that, after Bloody Sunday, the reaction from political figures and members of the government in London was "one of shock, horror - they did not anticipate anything like this at all, they really did not, and they were amazed and very saddened by it."
Mr Robert Heatley, who was a leading member of the Belfast Civil Rights Association, described how he went to Belfast Airport on Bloody Sunday to meet Lord Fenner Brockway, the campaigning civil liberties peer, who had agreed to speak at the meeting planned for Derry. He asked Lord Brockway whether he was happy to be coming to Derry for the march and the peer replied that he had spoken that morning to Lord Windlesham, a junior minister at the Home Office, "who had assured him it was fine for him to come".
After Lord Brockway and his secretary, Ms Joan Hymans, had been helped up on to the speakers' platform at "Free Derry Corner", the witness said he heard "zinging noises", which he identified as bullets.
"I decided I had to get Lord Brockway out of there," the witness said. "He was helped down from the platform and he walked with Joan Hymans and myself up the hill to a house in the Creggan. Even though he must have been 90, he was still fit . . . wanted to make a telephone call to London. He was angry, disappointed and let down."
Up to two hours later, the witness said, he decided to return to the Bogside. As he headed down the hill, he saw five young men wearing anoraks and carrying rifles. It seemed to him that they had been gathered together rather hastily in reaction to what had happened.
"There was a feeling even several hours after the shootings that the army was going to try to come into the Creggan and take control of the no-go area. It seemed to me that these young lads gathered together to resist such an attempt by the army."
Mr Heatley, a veteran civil rights activist, said he grew up in Belfast and came from the Protestant side of the community. He had taken part in many demonstrations in London, particularly anti-nuclear ones. The worst that had happened to him was being arrested and spending a night in a cell with other people, including the playwright John Osborne, and being fined £10.
Returning from London, it was a culture shock to experience what had happened to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association when it tried to hold what he regarded as legitimate demonstrations.
The inquiry continues today.