Teacher `hurt' by claim he left out statement about civilian gunman

A teacher told the inquiry yesterday he felt his integrity had been impugned because of "unsubstantiated and untrue" assertions…

A teacher told the inquiry yesterday he felt his integrity had been impugned because of "unsubstantiated and untrue" assertions made during evidence by a witness last month.

Mr William Smyth, who is head of mathematics at Thornhill College, Derry, insisted he was conscientious and meticulous when voluntarily recording witness statements in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday.

These statements have given rise to frequent acrimony at the inquiry, as lawyers for British soldiers attempted to point up differences between them and contemporary statements by the same witnesses.

Giving evidence last month, Mrs Teresa Bradley claimed parts of her account of events had been omitted from a statement she gave to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1972.

READ MORE

In particular, she said she recalled mentioning that she had seen a civilian gunman fire shots on Bloody Sunday and that she had later seen boys beside a car containing guns.

Mr Smyth was sought by the inquiry because his signature was appended as a witness to Mrs Bradley's 1972 statement. Yesterday he told the hearing Mrs Bradley's allegation that he had omitted important facts from her statement had been hurtful to him and his family.

He said he totally rejected any such allegation. He could not recall Mrs Bradley or the other people from whom he took statements at the time, but if she had mentioned any detail in relation to a gunman he would, in duty and conscience, have included it in her statement as he wrote it down at the time.

He said if the two events in question had been described to him at the time, they would have been etched in his memory and he would remember them. "I am positive that Mrs Bradley did not mention either of these two matters to me," he said. "I wrote down everything that she told me, faithfully and without question whatsoever."

Mr Smyth said he was not a member of the NICRA or any political party at the time of Bloody Sunday or indeed today.

He said he viewed what had happened to him in regard to these allegations as "a minor contretemps which is negligible and insignificant in comparison with the awful events of Bloody Sunday . . . where 14 decent, innocent people, lost their lives".