Bloody Sunday shootings ‘unjustified and gratuitous’, Soldier F murder trial told

LAST UPDATE | 19 hrs ago

The SHOOTING OF civilians on Bloody Sunday by a former paratrooper and his platoon mates were “unjustified”, “unnecessary” and “gratuitous”, the veteran’s murder trial has heard.

Soldier F, who cannot be identified, is accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney on January 30 1972 – the day when members of the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 civil rights protesters on the streets of Derry.

He is also charged with five attempted murders during the incident in Derry’s Bogside area, namely of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon, Patrick O’Donnell and a person unknown.

He has pleaded not guilty to the seven counts.

Earlier, the Wray and McKinney families are expected to be joined by a large group of supporters as they walk together to the court on Monday morning.

Soldier F, who cannot be identified, is accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney when members of the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 civil rights protesters on the streets of Derry on 30 January 1972.

He is also charged with five attempted murders during the incident in Derry’s Bogside area – namely of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon, Patrick O’Donnell and a person unknown.

He has pleaded not guilty to the seven counts.

The non-jury case is being heard by judge Patrick Lynch.

Before the trial began, the veteran was brought into the courtroom in the absence of the public and press and placed in a part of the dock surrounded by curtains.

A short time later, prosecution barrister Louis Mably commenced proceedings by setting out the Crown’s opening statement.

He said the events of Bloody Sunday had a “long-lasting and profound effect” on Northern Ireland.

He made clear the trial would have a “specific and narrow focus” on the shootings in a courtyard in Glenfada Park North.

“The defendant was part of a small group of soldiers who moved west from Rossville Street into that courtyard,” Mably said.

At the far end were civilians who were fearful of the approach of the soldiers, Mably continued, adding that they began running across the courtyard towards a gap at one of the corners in order to escape.

“As they did so, soldiers acting together, and therefore with joint responsibility, opened fire with their self-loading rifles shooting at the civilians as they ran away. And the result was the casualties that I’ve described: two deaths and four men wounded,” the prosecution barrister said.

The civilians in the courtyard did not pose a threat to the soldiers and nor could the soldiers have believed that they did. The civilians were unarmed and they were simply shot as they ran away or, in one case, as he was simply in the square, either taking shelter or trying to evade the soldiers.

Mably said the shooting was “unnecessary” and “gratuitous”, and that given the weapon involved, it was allegedly with an “intent to kill and, in any event, at the least with an intent to cause really serious harm”.

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Family speaking before the trial

Ahead of the trial commencing, William McKinney’s brother Mickey summed up his feelings.

“We’re here now, at last, after all this time,” he told the PA news agency.

“It’s not nervousness, it’s anticipation more so.

“I’m not even sure that it’s really sunk in yet that we’re here now.”

Bloody Sunday was one of the darkest days in the history of the Troubles.

Thirteen people were killed on the day and another man shot by paratroopers died four months later.

Many consider him the 14th victim of Bloody Sunday but his death was formally attributed to an inoperable brain tumour.

Police in the North launched a murder investigation after the landmark Saville Inquiry, which reported in 2010, found there was no justification for shooting any of those killed or wounded.

At the time of the inquiry’s publication, then-British prime minister David Cameron issued a public apology, saying the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable”.

The Saville report overturned the long-disputed findings of the 1972 Widgery Tribunal which concluded that the soldiers had been shot at first, and returned fire in self-defence.

In 2019, Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) announced that one former paratrooper – Soldier F – would face prosecution for two murders and five counts of attempted murder.

However, two years later, the PPS halted the prosecution, citing concerns the case could collapse if it went to trial.

That move followed the collapse of a different legacy trial of two other veterans accused of murder during the Troubles.

The trial of Soldier A and Soldier C for the 1972 shooting of Official IRA leader Joe McCann in Belfast ended in April 2021 after a judge ruled that key evidence due to be relied upon by the prosecution was inadmissible.

The inadmissible evidence was statements given by the soldiers to the Royal Military Police (RMP) in the aftermath of the shooting.

The case against Soldier F also involves RMP statement evidence, from other soldiers who were on the ground in the Bogside during the shootings, and the outcome of the McCann case prompted the PPS to review the prosecution and, ultimately, discontinue it.

But this decision was then successfully challenged in court by the family of McKinney, with judges in Belfast quashing the PPS’s decision.

The prosecution was subsequently resumed by the PPS and it has now reached crown court trial.