Bloody Sunday paras 'may have had post-traumatic stress'

Paratroopers who opened fire killing 13 civilians on Bloody Sunday may have been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, a journalist who spent time with them beforehand claimed today.

Michael Stark, chief reporter on a newspaper in the Parachute Regiment’s home base of Aldershot in 1972, told the Saville Inquiry of a weekend visit to the Ist Battalion of the Paras in December 1971 when he witnessed ‘‘manic’’ behaviour.

He said he was not an expert about post traumatic stress disorder, but had discussed his views with a consultant psychiatrist who said his opinions were ‘‘valid’’.

He said of his visit to the regiment ahead of Bloody Sunday: ‘‘I got the impression that there was an instability in the regiment that, again, might have contributed to the events of what was to become Bloody Sunday.’’

Weeks after his visit to Northern Ireland for the Aldershot News he started a job on the Army’s in-house magazine The Soldier. He said while working there he gained experience that ‘‘units would from time to time go through highs and lows for a number of reasons as the men in command changed’’.

He said just before Bloody Sunday the Ist Para had got a new commander - Lieutenant-Colonel Derek Wilford - who was a very different character to his predecessor.

‘‘It struck me that I Para were going through a low at that time.’’

Based at Palace Barracks in Holywood, Co Down they were the support battalion to the rest of the Army in Northern Ireland at the time, he said.

They were the ‘‘assault troops, the ones at the sharp end, constantly expecting to be at the sharp end,’’ he told the inquiry.

‘‘This meant they would invariably be called out to any incident that was going ‘pear shaped’ and would assist the unit who were in difficulties there.

‘‘They were therefore mainly assigned to trouble spots which, in itself, I believe is significant,’’ he claimed.

Mr Stark said there were few places the soldiers could go while off duty and said in his view it was ‘‘another source of tension in the lead up to Bloody Sunday.’’

He recounted going out on patrol in an armoured vehicle in Belfast with a Para unit under the command of a lieutenant who suddenly decided a car in front of them was a threat and ordered his driver to first follow and then ram it.

The officer was in ‘‘an apparent frenzy’’ and ‘‘a fury’’. The car was halted, the occupants checked and allowed to proceed. Mr Stark said it had been ‘‘a manic action’’.

‘‘It seemed to me to be a sense of stress and grave anxiety rather than anything malicious.’’

The officer, identified as Lieutenant N to the inquiry has denied to the inquiry in a statement that the incident took place and his driver said that he had no recollection of it, the inquiry heard. Mr Stark said he was ‘‘absolutely certain’’ it had.

Lieutenant N was involved in Bloody Sunday weeks later and was the only officer of his rank to give evidence to the 1972 Widgery Inquiry into the shootings.

Mr Stark told how the lieutenant played ‘‘an extraordinary drinking game’’ in the officers’ mess in the evenings. It involved large glasses of Cornbread and Brandy, lighting them, mixing them, putting out the flames and drinking them down together before immediately ordering more to repeat the ritual.

‘‘It was not the actions of what I would call a social drinker; it was more detached and manic than that. It was as if he was in a cocoon, drinking on his own, even though there were comrades around.’’

:: Lord Saville announced today that the RUC commander in Derry at the time of Bloody Sunday would not be called to give oral evidence because of his state of health.

Retired Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan was in overall control of policing in the area but not of the military operation on Bloody Sunday.

During security force planning meetings for the civil rights march on January 30 1972 he had advised that the march should be allowed to go through from the Bogside to the city centre Guildhall as the participants proposed and not be diverted by the security forces as happened.