A senior British Army officer was “very, very annoyed” when he learned that paratroopers were being sent into the Bogside on Bloody Sunday and urged his superiors to think again, he told the Saville Inquiry today.

The senior army officer who was the army’s helicopter observer on Bloody Sunday today said he only had a limited view of events - and that he had lobbied to handle the march differently.

The officer commanding the British Army’s operation in Derry on Bloody Sunday today insisted that he gave the order to launch the arrest of stone-throwing hooligans which ultimately led to the deaths of 13 unarmed civilians.