16/06/2010

Some of the Paratroopers who served in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday have come to the defence of a senior officer who was criticised in the Saville Report.

Speaking on BBC Ireland’s Spotlight programme, the six, none of whom fired shots at the victims, rejected criticism of Lt Col Derek Wilford and said the report’s authors had to place blame on a senior officer.

Col Wilford, who commanded First Parachute Regiment (1 Para) on Bloody Sunday, has always maintained that his soldiers were fired on first and were merely doing their duty.

However, the Saville Report criticises the officer for his actions on the day, saying he should not have launched an incursion into the Bogside area of Londonderry.

In the report, Col Wilford is accused of ignoring orders from his brigadier that he should not order troops beyond a barrier deeper into the Bogside area.

The report also says that the decision to send troops in was flawed as they would have had no viable means of picking the rioters out from the crowd.

It said he was also wrong to send soldiers into an unfamiliar area where there was risk of attack from republican paramilitaries, in circumstances where the soldiers' response would risk civilians being killed or injured by army gunfire.

The inquiry also placed blame on Major General Robert Ford, who at the time was second in command to the operation in Northern Ireland.

He is singled out by Saville for deploying paratroops to the city in the first place.

The report states: "1 Para was a force with a reputation for using excessive physical violence, which thus ran the risk of exacerbating the tensions between the army and nationalists in Londonderry."

The operation was "not a justifiable response to a lethal attack by republican paramilitaries but instead soldiers opening fire unjustifiably," it added.

Following the publication of the report, Prime Minister David Cameron said what happened on Bloody Sunday was wrong and that he was "deeply sorry".

The report’s findings have paved the way for the possible prosecution of soldiers present on the day.

The decision whether to pursue this route now lies with Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service (PPS), who will review the findings and decide whether the decision to prosecute would be in the public interest.