Bloody Sunday soldiers repeatedly assaulted paramedic

British troops assaulted a paramedic who had been tending to victims of the Bloody Sunday shootings three times, the Saville Inquiry heard today.

Glenn Charles, who was 19 on the day of the killings on January 30, 1972, said he was arrested by paratroopers after returning from carrying the dying Jackie Duddy to safety in the group led by then Fr Edward Daly.

He said he was hit in the chest with a rifle butt when he intervened to prevent a soldier striking an elderly man over the head with the barrel of his gun.

Later, he was stripped, spreadeagled against a wall, kicked between the legs and hit across the foot, he said, adding that he had lost a toenail because of the incident.

He was also forced to run a gauntlet of troops hitting prisoners with their rifle butts upon arrival at Derry's Fort George military base.