Officer tells inquiry of 'nail bomb find'

A police officer who allegedly discovered a nail bomb in the pocket of one of the Bloody Sunday victims was unaware three other devices were said to have been found on the body at the time, the Saville Inquiry heard today.

Sampson Trotter, who was stationed at a detention centre close to the Craigavon Bridge on January 30, 1972, claimed he found a number of nails bound by black tape in the right hand pocket of Gerard Donaghy’s jeans.

Mr Donaghy, who had just turned the age of 17, was the youngest of the 13 civilian civil rights marchers shot dead on Bloody Sunday and it has been claimed nail bombs were planted on his body after he was killed.

Mr Trotter is one of a number of police officers who have claimed they alerted their superiors after they found a nail bomb on Mr Donaghy, although he said he knew nothing of rumours suggesting devices had been planted on the body.

When questioned by Christopher Clarke QC, counsel for the inquiry, why he did not note in his report at the time that he was “the first to discover that there may have been a nail bomb on Gerard Donaghy’s body”, Mr Trotter said: “Well, I cannot recollect 30 years later why I put that down there, but I can say that it was probably expedient to cut it short.”

In a statement submitted to the Saville Inquiry only last week, Mr Trotter said he was called from a hut in the compound to identify Mr Donaghy’s body and had no knowledge that there “may be nail bombs on the body”.

“What attracted my attention, however, was that there was a bulge in his right hand trouser pocket. However, I did not know what it was,” he said.

“Whereas I would not normally search someone’s trousers for identification, I therefore rapped his pocket to see what was in it.”

Mr Trotter said he then leaned in and pulled Mr Donaghy’s right hand pocket to one side.

“In doing this and stretching the entrance to the pocket, I could see quite clearly that there was a bunch of nails with black tape around them.”

He added: “Whilst I suspected that this might be a nail bomb, I wasn’t sure what it was. All I could see were the nails and the black tape.”

At that point, Mr Trotter said he reported to a Sergeant McGoldrick that he had seen “what could be a nail bomb in the youth’s pocket”.

“I did not see the car or the youth again after that, though I do recall hearing some 30 to 60 minutes later a small explosion from where I was in the hut,” he said.

“I believe Sergeant McTeggart told me that was probably the Army exploding the nail bomb.”

Mr Trotter said that when he had been shown a picture of a nail bomb in Mr Donaghy’s pocket, it was “not what he saw” when he looked into the vehicle.

He added: “I understand from what I have read of Sergeant McTeggart’s evidence to this inquiry that four nail bombs were found on the youth.

“I was only ever aware of one and did not know that there were four until I read such evidence recently.”

Meanwhile, the second highest ranking police officer in Derry on Bloody Sunday later took the stand.

Patrick McCullagh’s evidence will be continued on day 232 of the inquiry.