Heath rejects Bloody Sunday was planned

Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath today rejected suggestions that the British government planned the events of Bloody Sunday when paratroopers shot dead 13 men as "absurd".

Amid tight security the former Conservative leader, who was Prime Minister when the killings occurred on January 30 1972 during a Derry civil rights march, was beginning his evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in central London.

Heath, 86, is only the second Prime Minister to appear before a government-appointed inquiry to answer questions on Downing Street policy while they were in power.

Baroness Thatcher appeared before an inquiry into the arms-for-Iraq affair in December 1993.