Moment of truth for Bloody Sunday families

Families of the Bloody Sunday dead hope today their epic campaign to clear the names of their loved ones will finally end with the release of the long-awaited Saville Report.

After more than a decade and 30 million words of testimony, the longest and most expensive inquiry in British legal history will culminate in the publication of its findings in Derry.

An air of anxious expectation has descended on the city as it awaits the outcome of the investigation into the killings of 14 unarmed civilians on January 30, 1972 by British soldiers.

Mickey McKinney, whose 27-year-old brother Willie was shot dead on the day, said families of victims were hopeful but tense ahead of the publication.

"I think people are becoming very anxious, I think they're getting a bit nervous," he said.

"It's been a long time but it's here now and we just want to see it."

Relatives will form a silent procession in the morning from Derry's Bogside along the intended route of the ill-fated civil rights march to the city's Guildhall.

There, two family members for each of those killed and injured will be given advance access under strict security arrangements, as will soldiers involved on the day and some MPs and peers in Britain.

Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson has already received a copy.

The full report, expected to contain 5,000 pages and which runs to 10 volumes, will be fully published at 3.30pm as Prime Minister David Cameron makes a statement in the House of Commons.

The report will simultaneously be released in London and Dublin.

In Derry, thousands of people are expected to march from the scene of the killings in the nationalist Bogside to the Guildhall in the afternoon ahead of Mr Cameron's address.

A large screen was erected outdoors in the Guildhall Square to relay the statement to those gathered.

When she is handed the report, Kay Duddy, 63, whose teenage brother was the first person shot dead, will grip a handkerchief that became the enduring image from the day.

The blood-stained hanky was waved aloft by the then Fr Edward Daly as he tried to guide a small group of men carrying 17-year-old Jackie Duddy out of gunfire to medical help.

"We'll all need the handkerchief," said his sister, who was 26 years old at the time.

Ms Duddy gifted the piece of cloth to a small museum last year after nearly losing it to a would-be mugger but asked for it back temporarily as a "comfort blanket" to see her through the report.

She will also carry with her a letter posted to her brother 10 days before his death from the British Merchant Navy, which shows he had applied to be a seaman, like his father before him.

"He wanted to see the world, I suppose," she said.

The Navy turned him down on account of his being three months over the age of 17 - the upper limit for the junior ranks - but asked him to a meeting to discuss his future on February 4.

He was buried on February 2.

Only an outright exoneration for the 14 dead will allow Ms Duddy and, she says, the rest of the city to move on from one of the most pivotal events of the Troubles.

"I used to say that I've become synonymous with Bloody Sunday," she said.

"Now I want to become anonymous with the publication of this report."

Mr McKinney insisted the Army and the Government must be held to account for the shootings.

"We want the truth - a declaration of innocence and a recommendation that those responsible are prosecuted," he said.

"I think the worst-case scenario would be that (Lord Saville) wouldn't leave the blame with the Parachute Regiment and the Government, but I don't think that will happen.

"People should be held to account, that's what must happen."

A controversial inquiry by then lord chief justice John Widgery, published on April 19 1972, effectively absolved the soldiers of any blame and claimed many of the dead had been armed.

The report has long been considered a complete whitewash by the victims' families.

A subsequent campaign, alongside political developments in the peace process and pressure from the Irish government, eventually led then British Prime Minister Tony Blair to order the Saville Inquiry, which was set up in 1998.

Sitting in the Guildhall, Derry, and Central Hall at Westminster in London, to accommodate military witnesses, the inquiry has cost £190.3m (€229.8m) up to February this year.

Around 2,500 people gave testimony, with 922 of these called to give oral evidence, including 505 civilians, nine experts and forensic scientists, 49 journalists, 245 military, 35 paramilitaries or former paramilitaries, 39 politicians and civil servants, seven priests and 33 Royal Ulster Constabulary officers.

Evidence ran to 160 volumes of data with an estimated 30 million words, 13 volumes of photographs, 121 audio tapes and 10 video tapes.