Para joined UDA and was jailed, Inquiry told

A former paratrooper who joined the Ulster Defence Association after Bloody Sunday told the Saville Inquiry today that he served a sentence in the high security Maze Prison for firearms offences.

Soldier 203, who gave his evidence from behind a screen at Central Hall in Westminster, said he joined the loyalist paramilitary group after leaving the British army in 1975 – three years after Bloody Sunday.

He confirmed he was imprisoned in 1977 after wounding a member of the rival Ulster Volunteer Force in a UDA social club.

When police raided his home, they found a pistol and ammunition.

“I pleaded guilty to the offences. I served the first period of my sentence in the Maze Prison but became disillusioned with the strategy of the UDA and resolved to have no further involvement with paramilitary organisations,” he said.

The former soldier, who was an arms storeman for the Parachute Regiment in 1972, denied stealing or attempting to obtain arms and ammunition on behalf of any terror group.

“Whilst I accept that it would have been possible from a practical point of view for me to have removed arms or ammunition whilst I was the storeman, it would have been discovered very quickly," he added.

He told the inquiry that in the summer of 1971 he had been asked by his father-in-law if he could get hold of weapons.

“When I refused there was a row which involved my wife and children. A senior NCO wanted to interview me about this, I wanted to rescue my children and I struck the NCO, which resulted in my receiving 28 days detention,” he said.

The inquiry is investigating the events of January 30, 1972, when 13 civilians were shot dead during a civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry.

Soldier 203 , who was born in Northern Ireland, denied he felt any hatred towards the nationalist community during Bloody Sunday and said he was not sympathetic to the UDA in 1972.

“During my service in Northern Ireland, I was called upon to act in the protection of both loyalist and republican communities. I did so without any discrimination at all. My involvement with the UDA did not begin until I had left the (British) Army in 1975 and it ended in 1978,” he added.