Tests on Bloody Sunday bodies 'worthless', inquiry told

Forensic results which linked some of those killed on Bloody Sunday to the use of firearms were “worthless”, the Bloody Sunday Tribunal heard today.

Dr John Lloyd, an independent expert commissioned by the Saville Inquiry to examine tests carried out at the time, was critical of many of the original scientific findings.

In a report submitted to the Saville Inquiry, Dr Lloyd claimed lead traces found on the hands or clothing of some of the 13 civilian civil rights marchers killed on January 30, 1972 should not have raised a “strong suspicion” that they had used or were close to those using guns.

Dr Lloyd appeared at the Guildhall in Derry today after inspecting the original laboratory files compiled by Dr John Martin and Alan Hall in the wake of Bloody Sunday.

He accepted that Dr Martin detected particles of lead on the hands or clothing of some of the deceased. However, he insisted that apart from firearms residue, “lead occurs widely in many different items”.

These included car exhausts, plumbing, paintwork, glazing and fishing tackle, he added.

Dr Lloyd did accept that some of the particles detected by Dr Martin would have been “firearms-derived”.

However, he added: “The overall distributions of the particles on the deceased cannot be accounted for on an assumption that they had been using firearms.”

In a complex report, Dr Lloyd said there was a number of possible sources of contamination by lead particles on Bloody Sunday.

These included bullet fragmentation, irrespective of who fired them, contact with contaminated surfaces or people at the scene, the handling of the bodies by military personnel, the transport of three of the bodies in an armoured personnel carrier and the handling of the bodies in the mortuary.

Dr Lloyd was critical of Dr Martin’s failure to use adequate controls during forensic tests, branding them as “unacceptable”.

“The absence of control testing nullifies any evidential significance that Dr Martin’s results might have had,” he said.

“The absence of any control samples also nullifies any possibilities there might have been of obtaining meaningful results from a re-analysis of the samples that have been retained.”

Dr Lloyd’s evidence followed that given by Dr Martin himself yesterday who admitted it was “very likely” his findings were contaminated.

The now retired Dr John Martin told the Widgery Tribunal in 1972 that there was a “strong suspicion” that some of those killed on Bloody Sunday had used weapons or had been standing close to those using weapons.

However, he told the Bloody Sunday Tribunal in Derry yesterday that it was “very likely that all the findings that I got on hands and clothing were due to contamination”.

Dr Martin, who was a Principal Scientific Officer at the Department of Industrial and Forensic Science (DIFS) in 1972, faced an entire day of questioning from barristers representing the inquiry and the families of the deceased and wounded yesterday.