Bloody Sunday tribunal a waste of money, says police chief

NORTHERN Ireland Chief Constable Hugh Orde was under fire yesterday after claiming the Saville Tribunal into the Bloody Sunday killings was a waste of money.

With eventual costs estimated to be £155 million, relatives of some of the people shot dead in Derry in January, 1972, demanded an apology. Mr Orde was quoted in yesterday's Financial Times saying: "Apart from making lawyers millionaires, will it satisfy the families? I don't think so."

The tribunal, which is due to resume in London next week, has already met for almost 300 days, but it will be the middle of next year at the earliest before Lord Saville is due to complete his report into the shootings which left 13 people dead. A 14th victim died later. Mickey McKinney, 51, whose brother William was killed said: "Once this tribunal begins getting the truth and I think it is getting at some of it the only battering ram the critics have is the costs.