Ex-Para tells of 'threats' after Bloody Sunday programme

A former paratrooper who worked on a television programme highly critical of the British army on Bloody Sunday believed soldiers were behind a series of threatening phone calls made to him after it was broadcast, he revealed today.

Neil Davies who left the regiment three years before Bloody Sunday, said he thought the anonymous calls were either from soldiers he had interviewed or others unhappy with contents of the Channel 4 documentary broadcast in 1991.

He told the Saville Inquiry he was sure the calls, which threatened violence against him, were connected to the Bloody Sunday programme.

“I could not think what else I had done to upset them so much,” he said.

The 55-year-old film-maker told the Inquiry that paratroopers he interviewed for the programme had insisted that their identities remained a secret.

He said they were worried about the consequences from the Parachute Regiment of discussing the details of Bloody Sunday.

They were also concerned they would be breaking the Official Secrets Act and feared the reaction of colleagues to claims that some soldiers had behaved in an extremely inappropriate way on the day.

“Many of the soldiers I spoke to told me that they were extremely fearful of the repercussions if their identities became public,” he added.

Mr Davies also told the Inquiry he travelled to Derry in 1990 to interview local residents about the events of January 30, 1972 when 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by soldiers in the city’s Bogside area.

He said he felt that from the interviews of military and civilian witnesses they had established that the Widgery Inquiry held soon after the deaths had not got to the bottom of what had taken place.

“A number of soldiers and local residents had told me that they believed that initially firing had come from unknown persons on the Derry City walls.

“There had then been a great deal of confusion, residents and soldiers alike told me that they had felt threatened by fire from the walls and that events then escalated. In contrast, the Widgery Inquiry had not referred to any suggestion of fire initially coming from the city walls,” he added.

Before the start of his testimony, Mr Davies’s barrister said his client was keen to assist the Inquiry but felt morally and professionally bound not to disclose the identities of those he had interviewed.

Inquiry chairman Lord Saville said that any issue of a breach of the Contempt of Court Act would be considered at the end of today’s evidence.