'It’s a bad business' soldier told Bloody Sunday priest

Bloody Sunday was described as a ‘‘bad day’s work’’ by a soldier in Londonderry in the hours after the killings, the Saville Inquiry heard today.

The remark was alleged to have been made by a squaddie who stopped people leaving Londonderry’s Bogside on January 30 1972 following the killing of 13 men during a Parachute Regiment operation there, retired school principal Francis Dunne said.

Giving evidence at the city’s Guildhall, Mr Dunne said he was halted along with another man and ordered to stand against a wall, hands raised, by members of another regiment after the Paratroopers withdrew.

He said: ‘‘While we were standing there a priest came along but I do not know from where. He was very angry and started shouting at the soldiers.

‘‘One of the soldiers said it had been a ‘bad day’s work, bad business’. He could have been humouring the priest, but I think he was genuine.’’

Mr Dunne’s evidence came on day 90 of public sittings of the inquiry, which was established three years ago with Lord Saville of Newdigate in the chair to conduct a fresh probe o the killings.

Mr Dunne said he saw one of the wounded, Michael Bridge, shot in the leg in the car park of the Rossville Flats while shouting at troops.

Later on he said he watched more of the action from a maisonette further south and saw ‘‘at least’’ three people lying on the rubble barricade across Rossville Street and Alexander Nash, the father of one of William Nash who died there, fall as he moved out towards his son.

‘‘He was keeping low and was probably on his hands and knees,’’ he said.

‘‘However I saw him put up his hands to show that he was not armed ... He was ab a third to halfway across the rubble barricade when I saw him get down on the ground.’’

Mr Dunne was also among the witnesses who spotted a ‘‘civilian’’ gunman with a pistol in the Rossville Flats car park, a figure already described by retired Bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly.

But he denied that troops in the car park were in any danger and said: ‘‘The only civilian I saw with any weapons that day was the man I have mentioned in the Rossville Flats car park at the gable end of Chamberlain Street.

‘‘I did not hear or see any nail bombs or petrol bombs. I definitely did not see any acid bombs missiles thrown. I was in there for about three to four minutes altogether and at no stage did I fell threatened by anything being thrown from the flats.

‘‘Apart from the shooting I have described as coming from the soldiers, there was no shooting coming over my head from behind me.

‘‘I would not describe the shooting I heard in the Rossville Flats car park as a gun battle; definitely not. It was not a gun fight at the OK Corral.’’