Bloody Sunday families hit out at report delay

A report into the events of Bloody Sunday when 14 people were killed by British troops need not have been delayed until after the General Election, bereaved relatives claimed today.

This came after an announcement that the report compiled by Mark Saville following a £200m (€228.4m) public inquiry could not be published before the end of the parliamentary session, despite hopes it would have been released by now.

Over the last two weeks Northern Ireland Secretary of State Shaun Woodward has had experts carrying out a legal check of the document prior to its publication, but after it emerged no changes were recommended to the text, relatives claimed the delay was unnecessary. This has been denied by the Northern Ireland Office (NIO).

Relatives of those killed and injured in the events of January 1972, when paratroopers opened fire on civil rights marchers in Derry, said publication of the report must be a priority for the next British government.

Mr Woodward had previously said that he was obliged to carry out legal checks on the report, but John Kelly, whose 17-year-old brother Michael was killed on Bloody Sunday, said: "We were so close to receiving the report, almost at the finishing line, and now we will be made to wait even longer.

"The finger must be pointed at Secretary of State Shaun Woodward for the most recent delay as he insisted on these security checks - checks which we believed were totally unnecessary in the first place.

"In the aftermath of these security checks we have been informed that there were no redactions made to the report and that no information relating to national security was removed.

"We have been told that this means that the report will remain intact and families will see it as Lord Saville wrote it.

"However it also reinforces the fact that these security checks were a complete and utter waste of time."

He added: "The next government should make the publication of the report an immediate priority. Families have waited long enough and it is time to let the world see the report and set the truth free."

The legal checks were carried out with the co-operation of Lord Saville, who will now retain the report until a new government is elected. Mr Woodward said he had hoped to publish the report before an election being called, but had warned a delay was possible.

A Northern Ireland Office (NIO) spokesman defended Mr Woodward's handling of the issue: "The Secretary of State had no choice other than to comply with the law which obliged him to ensure that the final report was Article 2 (Right to Life) compliant.

"The Secretary of State is pleased that this process has confirmed that no redactions will have to be made to any of Lord Saville's report.

"Therefore the Secretary of State has fulfilled his commitment that all of the Saville report will be able to be published as soon as is practicable after the General Election."

Mr Kelly said: "We will be insisting that Lord Saville retains full possession of the report until the day it is published by the new government. This way he can ensure no possibility of leakage of information contained within the report. We also insist that any new government honour any agreements that the families have reached with the current Secretary of State."