THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY/Day 308: A former British soldier told the Saville Inquiry yesterday how he checked to see if a wounded mother of 14 was armed during the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry 31 years ago.
Mrs Peggy Deery, one of 13 civilians wounded by paratroopers in the Bogside, was shot in a car park behind the Rossville Street flats complex just yards from her home. A number of civilians carried her into a house in nearby Chamberlain Street and when she was being cared for there a paratrooper walked into the house.
This paratrooper, who was a corporal in the Parachute Regiment's first battalion, yesterday told the inquiry into the killings of 13 unarmed civilians that he went into the house after he had seen a group of people standing outside the building.
"I told the soldier closest to the house to cover me as I went in. Before I entered the house I slung by SLR rifle over my shoulder. I was carrying my baton gun for protection", he told the inquiry's three judges.
"The house was very quiet. In the passageway, I could see a door to my right, which I opened. The room behind was full of people and I could see that a priest was sitting behind the door to the right, comforting a wounded woman.
"I asked the priest what the problem was and he told me that the woman had been shot. I noticed that the woman did not appear to be in any great pain and was conscious and calm. I walked into the room to take a closer look at the woman and I assume that I did this to check she was not concealing a weapon. On closer inspection, I could see that she had been shot in the buttocks", he added.
The casualty, Mrs Deery, died in 1988, aged 54.
The former paratrooper also told the inquiry that before he entered the house he had been fired at twice as he moved along Chamberlain Street towards the Bogside with members of his platoon.
"I heard loud crack and thump sounds and through my training and experience I knew that the crack was the sound of a bullet passing close to me", he said.
"We must have presented an easy target for the gunman, as we had been advancing down the street in line", he said.
The inquiry continues.