Bloody Sunday officer 'can't recall' civilian plan

The officer commanding paratroopers on Bloody Sunday said today he could not recall if any thought was given to the danger to innocent bystanders if shooting broke out.

Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford said he believed concern for civilians was built into army plans delivered before he sent troops into the nationalist Bogside area of Derry.

Thirteen civil rights marchers were shot dead by soldiers on January 30, 1972. A 14th man died later.

Arthur Harvey QC, representing most of the families of the dead and injured, asked: “Colonel, was there any consideration given at the co-ordinating conference, in a structured way, to the danger that might occur to innocent bystanders if shooting developed?”

Col Wilford replied: “I do not recall that there was.”

Mr Harvey asked if the consideration that innocent bystanders could be shot was not structurally built into army plans, but left to the discretion of soldiers on the ground.

“Oh, I believe it was built in,” replied Col Wilford.

“I think this word which has been bandied around a lot is ’separation’. I mean, it is not a word that I use, but it was absolutely normal that you actually separated the riot from what broadly could be described as ’innocent bystanders’. That was always an element.”

Mr Harvey referred to an interview Col Wilford gave to journalists in which he said the greatest regret of his life was that he did not pursue the question of what should happen if there was shooting.

But Col Wilford described this today as a foolish and loose statement to make.

In his seventh day of testimony at Methodist Central Hall in London, he said: “I do not really know now why I said that. Obviously, I was reflecting back over all those years.”

Mr Harvey asked: “In the response that you were making to journalists, were you not also indicating that there had been a failure to take into account the risk that would occur to shooting of individual persons who were not party to any violence?”

Col Wilford replied: “No, this is not what I am saying. I regret saying that, of course, because I believe now that it was rather a foolish and rather a loose statement to make.

“I did not have, at that particular time, I did not have my Widgery evidence in front of me, I was speaking on the hoof, as it were, and it was, of course, a reflection of all those years.”

Col Wilford, 69, has told the Saville Inquiry he could not identify any flaws in his soldiers’ actions in Derry.

He said he had never considered over the past 31 years whether he or his men could have done anything better on Bloody Sunday.

He said it was always his intention to arrest as many rioters as possible by sending troops through two crowd control barriers and surrounding troublemakers in a pincer movement.

Col Wilford was the officer in charge of the first battalion of the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday and went into the nationalist Bogside area through a crowd control barrier with his men.