Bloody Sunday: Northern PM 'didn't believe army'

The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland at the time of Bloody Sunday did not believe Army claims immediately afterwards that they had shot dead terrorists on the civil rights march in Derry, it was disclosed today.

Brian Faulkner had questioned the Army version of events with the comment: ‘‘When were a dozen gunmen ever killed in a crowd situation, and with no civilian casualties?’’ his former principal private secretary Dr Robert Ramsay told the Saville inquiry.

The Prime Minister’s private comments were in stark contrast to a public statement he issued hours after the shootings.

In it he said: ‘‘Those who organised this march must bear a terrible responsibility for having urged people to lawlessness and for having provided the IRA with the opportunity of again bringing death to our streets.’’

In the aftermath of the events of January 30, 1972 Mr Faulkner had been ‘‘appalled’’ at the loss of life, said Dr Ramsay.

He told the inquiry in Derry's Guildhall: ‘‘When I told him on the telephone that the first reports were that the army had returned fire against terrorists, he replied that he could not believe that all, or even most, of the victims had been terrorists.’’

Mr Faulkner - who died in 1977 - had also reflected ruefully on the political implications of the tragedy. ‘‘This is London’s disaster, but they will use it against us,’’ he said.

Just weeks later in March 1972 the Stormont parliament was closed down by the government of Edward Heath and direct rule imposed.

Dr Ramsay said that in the run up to Bloody Sunday Mr Faulkner would like to have believed Mr Heath’s repeated personal assurances that he would support him and the Northern Ireland government all the way in their fight against terrorism.

‘‘The full extent of Heath’s duplicity would only be revealed some weeks later,’’ said Dr Ramsay.

However, he said, Mr Faulkner was already receiving information, leaked by friends in Whitehall, which indicated that ministers in London had for sometime been planning to prorogue Stormont.

Dr Ramsay told the inquiry into the deaths of 13 Catholic civilians shot dead by paratroopers on the civil rights march that the Joint Security Committee which was chaired by Mr Faulkner had no specific intelligence ahead of Bloody Sunday in relation to a special IRA threat at the march.

But a risk of terrorist involvement was always taken for granted.

While the proposed march was essentially one more in a series there was ‘‘a certain amount of general foreboding about it,’’ said Dr Ramsay.

Mr Faulkner himself, after a call from a personal friend whom Dr Ramsay thought was a police officer in the north west of the province, had ‘‘unusual feelings of foreboding’’.

‘‘I did not monitor the call, but after it Faulkner said ‘I hope that doesn’t come true. It was a strong message that the IRA are planning a spectacular under cloak of the march’.’’

Dr Ramsay said he would stress that before almost every demonstration in those days there was a similar forecast, but because of the source Mr Faulkner ‘‘took this warning more seriously than any previous one’’.

But there was no advance thinking the march would be a ‘‘watershed’’ or a test of the government and security forces.

He denied any suggestion of a deal being done with the Rev Ian Paisley to have called off a loyalist counter-demonstration due to have been held outside the Guildhall in Derry on January 30, 1972.

He said Mr Faulkner did not speak to Dr Paisley ahead of the march.

There was a policy of not having dialogue with him outside the forum of parliament ‘‘because the Prime Minister thought Paisley had a rather idiosyncratic concept of the truth’’.

Under cross-examination Dr Ramsay insisted the Northern Ireland government had no say in the decision to send paratroopers to Derry ahead of the Bloody Sunday march.

He said it was a matter for the British Ministry of Defence and the army GOC who was in overall charge of security matters.

He was asked by Arthur Harvey QC, representing relatives of those who died, whether the administration had been aware that if proper control was not exercised over the use of troops trained in lethal force on the streets of Derry the risks to human life were substantial.

Dr Ramsay said everyone knew that. With the army on the streets, whatever the overall policy or law ‘‘you were at the mercy at the end of the day of a 19-year-old squaddie with a lethal weapon in his hand and on his interpretation as to whether his life was in danger or not.’’

He rejected the suggestion that the Stormont government had been ‘‘putting enormous pressure’’ on army chiefs to ‘‘take more extreme measures than they might themselves have considered’’ in dealing with banned marches.

And he denied Mr Harvey’s assertion the administration had washed its hands of its responsibility for the control of the army on the streets.

The inquiry adjourned until tomorrow.