Saville Inquiry drops action against journalist

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry has dropped a British High Court action against a journalist who refused to reveal his sources, it was confirmed today.

Daily Telegraph correspondent Toby Harnden could have been jailed for resisting pressure to disclose the identity of a soldier who admitted opening fire on the day 13 civil rights marchers were shot dead in Derry.

Harnden told the hearing, chaired by Lord Saville, he had destroyed interview notes with two former paratroopers in a bid to protect their anonymity.

Although one of the pair identified himself to the inquiry, the journalist kept his pledge to the other.

With contempt of court proceedings hanging over him, Harnden faced a heavy fined or even up to two years imprisonment.

But a spokesman for the six-year inquiry into the January 1972 shootings confirmed the case had been abandoned as the soldier’s identity had been established through other means.

He said: “The Tribunal decided earlier this year not to report other journalists and, having finally confirmed the identity of the remaining source in the last few months, they also decided not to pursue the existing case against Mr Harnden.”

Harnden, the newspaper’s former Ireland Correspondent now posted in the Middle East, interviewed Soldiers X and Y for a story published in the Daily Telegraph in May 1999.

The ex-troops told him they would withhold evidence from the hearing as they feared for their lives because witnesses were not allowed to testify anonymously.

That ruling was later overturned, much to the anger of victims’ families, to protect the identity of military witnesses.

The inquiry spokesman said negotiations were continuing over payment of Hamden's costs.

Harnden told today how he stood his ground after being sworn to secrecy.

In an article published in the Daily Telegraph, he recalled how Soldier X seemed almost physically sick at the prospect of testifying.

“Although he didn’t giver me his name, he made me promise that I would never reveal his identity,” the journalist said.

He added: “After countless hours spent attending hearings, consulting lawyers and poring over arcane documents, and some time spent reassuring my mother that it was only a small possibility I would go to prison, I no longer have that threat hanging over me.”