Soldier from The Royal Regiment of Scotland killed in Afghanistan
A Military Operations news article
29 Jun 08
It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that a British soldier from B Company 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland died while on operations in Afghanistan yesterday, Saturday 28 June 2008.
At 11.00hrs local time the soldier was part of a vehicle checkpoint patrol operating in the Lashkar Gar area when they received a report of an Rocket Propelled Grenade attack on a civilian aircraft at Bost airfield in Lashkar Gar.
When investigating this they dismounted their vehicles and what is believed to have been a legacy Anti-Personnel mine detonated, killing the soldier instantly.
The soldiers'next of kin have been informed and have requested a period of grace before further details are released.
British soldier killed in vehicle accident in Afghanistan
A Military Operations news article
28 Jun 08
It is with deep regret that the Ministry Of Defence must confirm that a British soldier from 13 Air Assault Support Regiment Royal Logistic Corps died in a vehicle accident in Afghanistan yesterday Friday 27 June 2008.
A further two soldiers from the same Regiment were injured in the same incident which occurred at 21.10hrs local time.
The soldiers were patrolling in the central area Helmand when the vehicle they were traveling in rolled over.
The medical incident response team was called in and evacuated the casualties to the ISAF medical facilities at Camp Bastion. Sadly, despite the best efforts of the medical team one soldier died of his wounds. The remaining two casualties are receiving treatment for their injuries which are not life threatening.
The vehicle had been part of a patrol, conducting force protection when the incident occurred. The incident was not combat-related.
The soldiers'next of kin have been informed and have requested a period of grace before further details are released.
British soldier from 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment killed in Afghanistan
A Military Operations news article
24 Jun 08
It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that a British soldier from 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment has been killed in southern Afghanistan today, Tuesday 24 June 2008.
The soldier was killed this morning during a firefight in Helmand province. He was on a deliberate operation against the Taliban in the Upper Sangin Valley when he was fatally wounded.
Next of kin have been informed and have asked for a 24hour period of grace before further details are released.
Soldier from 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment killed in Afghanistan on 24 June
A Military Operations news article
25 Jun 08
It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of a British soldier from 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan yesterday, Tuesday 24 June 2008.
At approx 1500 hours the soldier, who was attached to 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was dismounted from his vehicle checking for mines in the Upper Sangin Valley when he was killed by a suspected IED explosion. No one else was injured in the incident.
The soldier's next of kin have been informed and have requested a 24 hour period of grace before further details are released.
Four British soldiers killed in Afghanistan on 17 June
A Military Operations news article
18 Jun 08
It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the deaths of one Intelligence Corps soldier and three other British soldiers in Afghanistan yesterday.
The soldiers were taking part in a deliberate operation east of Lashkar Gah when the vehicle in which they were travelling was caught in an explosion at approximately 1540hrs on Tuesday 17 June 2008.
Tragically three soldiers were killed in the incident and a further two wounded. The Medical Emergency Response Team were mobilised and evacuated all casualties to the ISAF medical facility at Camp Bastion. Sadly one of the two injured soldiers was pronounced dead on arrival. The fifth soldier is receiving treatment for his wounds and is in a stable condition.
Next of kin have been informed and have requested a period of grace before further details are released.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has threatened to send troops over the border into Pakistan to confront militants based there.
He said that when militants crossed over from Pakistan to kill Afghans and coalition troops, his nation had the right to retaliate in "self-defence".
Mr Karzai's remarks came two days after Taleban fighters attacked an Afghan jail, freeing hundreds of prisoners.
Pakistan warned it would not tolerate outside interference in its affairs.
Yusuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, said the border between their two countries was too long to police.
Destabilise
"Neither do we interfere in anyone else's matters, nor will we allow anyone to interfere in our territorial limits and our affairs," he told the Associated Press news agency.
"We want a stable Afghanistan. It is in our interest. How can we go to destabilise our brotherly country?"
Mr Karzai has long pleaded for Pakistan and international forces to confront militants in Pakistan but has never before threatened to send troops over the border.
The BBC's Quil Lawrence in Kabul says it is the strongest language yet from Mr Karzai on his neighbour.
Mr Karzai's news conference had been intended to focus on this week's Afghan donors' conference in Paris, where world powers pledged $20bn (£10bn) to help re-build his country.
But instead, it was dominated by the prison break that led to the escape of some 900 inmates, including 350 Taleban members, and Afghanistan's response to militant attacks.
Mr Karzai said: "Afghanistan has the right of self-defence. When they cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and to kill coalition troops it exactly gives us the right to go back and do the same."
'Two-way road'
He warned that he was prepared to seek out Taleban leaders wherever they were, specifically naming Baitullah Mehsud, who is based in South Waziristan, Pakistan.
"Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house," Mr Karzai said, adding that Taleban leader Mullah Omar could expect the same.
He went on: "This is a two-way road in this case and Afghans are good in the two-way road journey."
The BBC's Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says Mr Karzai's warning comes amid concerns over the new Pakistani government's dialogue with militants.
US and Afghan officials say this approach will lower pressure on the militants and further embolden them to launch attacks in Afghanistan, as well as allowing al-Qaeda a sanctuary from which to attacks Western interests worldwide.
Some 20 escapees from Kandahar prison have been recaptured in the manhunt by Afghan and international troops, according to Afghan officials.
Nato said at least 17 insurgents had been killed but did not confirm whether any fugitives from the jail were among the dead.
A former Taleban stronghold, Kandahar is one of the key battlegrounds in the insurgency against President Karzai and troops from Nato and a US-led coalition.
Gordon Brown pulls rank to stop General Sir Richard Dannatt heading forces
Michael Smith
Gordon Brown has blocked General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, from being promoted to lead the armed forces because of his repeated calls for better pay and conditions for servicemen, senior Whitehall sources have disclosed.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the current chief of the defence staff, will now have his tenure extended for a year, ensuring there is no vacancy for Dannatt before his retirement.
Despite repeated attempts to rein him in, the general complained 10 days ago that troops fighting in Afghanistan are paid less than traffic wardens while their families in Britain are living in “appalling” housing. The criticisms forced Brown to say he would look again at forces’ pay.
“It was Gordon’s decision,” said one Whitehall source. “Dannatt has made a lot of enemies among the senior reaches of the Labour party.
“They want him gone sooner rather than later.”
Dannatt was appointed chief of the general staff in August 2006, so his standard three-year stint in charge of the army will end in August next year. Stirrup was due to leave next April before the order came to extend his term for a year.
An alternative was to promote Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy to the top post next April, but that is seen as unlikely. Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, the first sea lord, has also spoken out over cuts to the navy’s ships, warning that “if [the fleet] turns into the Belgian navy, then I’m gone”, so is not seen as an option.
There have been suggestions that Stirrup is fed up with inter-service bickering over the increasingly stretched defence budget and is looking for a post in industry.
Ministry of Defence officials, however, want Stirrup to stay on so that all the current service chiefs have been replaced by the time he has finished his term.
“By cleaning house and putting a new team under Stirrup, the PM gets a new group of senior officers who will be too busy trying to climb the greasy pole to rock the boat,” said one senior army officer.
Dannatt has expressed concern that underfunding and the two continuing operations will “break the army”. Nearly 1,500 officers left in the 12 months to April, 50% more than joined. Those leaving included Lieutenant Colonel Rick Williams, commanding officer of the SAS, and Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Tootal, who had just returned from commanding 3rd battalion, the Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan. They were followed by Brigadier Ed Butler, who left after being passed over for the post of director of special forces after criticism of Whitehall.
Dannatt has caused problems for government from the start. Within weeks of taking over, he said that British troops needed to leave Iraq “sometime soon” because their presence was exac-erbating the situation. Although Blair publicly backed Dannatt’s comments, privately cabinet ministers were furious.
“It is not his job to criticise government policy,” one said. “He needs to get back in his box and shut up. His next mistake will be his last.”
Dannatt, however, continued to lobby hard for better funding for troops, whom he described as being “devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue”.
Even before these comments, there were suggestions that Dannatt might be forced to retire a year early this August, but that was deemed too obvious.
Recently Dannatt complained, about the poor money paid to soldiers fighting the Taliban. That forced Brown to say ministers would “do everything in our power . . . to try to reward our armed forces for the dedication and commitment they show”.
He is expected to be succeeded by General Sir David Richards, the head of land command.
The MoD said: “No firm decisions have been made on the end date for the chief of defence staff, so it would not be appropriate to comment.”
Soldiers can wear their uniforms with pride at gay parade, says MoD
Damian Barr and Lucy Bannerman
Combat trousers and dog tags have long been in fashion at London’s annual Gay Pride parade. However, this year, for the first time, real soldiers will be allowed to wear the military uniform alongside the rainbow flags and banners.
After issuing strict edicts last year forbidding army personnel from attending the parade in uniform, the Army has finally bowed to pressure to lift the ban.
The move brings it in line with the more relaxed approach of the RAF and the Royal Navy, which gave approval for gay sailors to march in uniform last June.
Individuals from all three Services will now be able to celebrate their profession and sexuality at the same time on July 5 without fear of facing disciplinary action.
An MoD spokesman confirmed the ban had been relaxed: “Personnel from all three Services can attend this year’s gay pride march in uniform. The individual services have reached their own decisions about the wearing of uniform at the event, having given the issue due consideration.
“The Armed Forces are committed to establishing a culture and climate where every individual’s contribution is respected and valued regardless of sexual orientation, race, ethnic origin, religion, gender or social background.”
New orders state that Service dress may be worn by members of the march. But parade paraphernalia, such as banners or whistles, are not allowed – the intended tone is military, not militant.
“During the march, proper military discipline is to be maintained. Arms are to be swung above waist height throughout, eyes front, and with no acknowledgement to the public.”
A defence source told The Times: “Observers at last year’s Pride were satisfied uniformed personnel can maintain the integrity of the military Services, especially with regards to respect for the dead as they pass the Cenotaph. To ensure this no uniformed personnel will attend the carnival afterwards.”
The source added that the new orders were part of a wider recruitment drive. “These people have made a commitment to the military. This is our commitment to them. Gays and lesbians are already serving with honour and we are actively recruiting more.”
Lieutenant-Commander Craig Jones, MBE, the most senior openly gay member of the military and lead consultant for the gay community in the Armed Forces, was among the 20 sailors in bell-bottoms who attended London Pride last year.
He said: “Men and women from the Armed Forces look and behave exactly like men and women from the Armed Forces. We are the front line of the Armed Forces, not the lineup of the Village People.”Referring to last year’s march, he said: “The Forces are all about integrity and it felt good to be honest. It was a great day and the sky didn’t fall in.”
General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, provoked criticism last year, when he told all men and women in the Service that they could not wear anything identifying them as soldiers if they attended the march.
He pointed to Queen’s Regulations which stipulate that service personnel should not appear in uniform at political events.
However, his stance conflicted with that of Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, the First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, who authorised the attendance of uniformed sailors. The RAF compromised, with Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy allowing airmen to march in RAF polo shirts.
Derek Munn, Stonewall’s director of public affairs, welcomed the move, saying: “This is the latest in a series of strides made by the Forces to embrace lesbian and gay people in recent years. It shows there’s no part of society that cannot tackle homophobia, if there’s a will to do so.”
The Ministry of Defence issued an open apology last year to all servicemen and servicewomen who suffered persecution and discrimination before the ban on homosexuality was lifted eight years ago. Until then, men and women of the Armed Forces were dismissed if it was discovered that they were gay or lesbian.
Britain sends 200 extra troops to Afghanistan
By James Kirkup
Last Updated: 7:43AM BST 14/06/2008
More British troops are to be sent to Afghanistan, the Government will announce next week.
The Daily Telegraph has learned that reinforcements are being deployed as British forces face fierce resistance from the Taliban and doubts grow about the West's strategy in Afghanistan.
Five men from the Parachute Regiment have been killed in Afghanistan this week, taking the British death toll in the country to 102.
Britain has 7,800 troops in Afghanistan and Des Browne, the defence secretary, will tell MPs on Monday that at least 200 more are being deployed.
The increase will take British numbers in Afghanistan above 8,000 for the first time.
The reinforcement may add to fears that Britain is being sucked into an unwinnable fight in southern Afghanistan.
Earlier this week, the Daily Telegraph revealed that British diplomats have warned Gordon Brown in confidential briefing documents that the Afghan drug trade and the corruption of the country's government will prolong the insurgency against UK forces.
Ministers reject suggestions that the British mission lacks a clear strategy, and many British troops in Afghanistan are frustrated that their tactical victories over the Taliban are not fully appreciated in the UK.
Mr Browne is expected to tell MPs on Monday that progress is being made in Afghanistan, with
But he is unlikely to be able to give any indication about when British numbers in the country will start to decline, and there are signs that the mission could last for many years to come.
Last month, Britain agreed to take on full command of NATO troops in southern Afghanistan for a 12 month period starting next November.
Previously, command of the region rotated between NATO members every nine months.
The 200-man reinforcement to be announced next week is smaller than that first recommended by an MoD review of British force levels in Afghanistan.
At a cabinet sub-committee meeting in March, ministers had agreed to send as many as 450 extra troops.
Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP and former Army commander, said that ministers are only starting to realise the scale of the military challenge in Afghanistan.
He said: "I think you have got to take a gentle glance at British history and Soviet history with the Afghans to know that when they start fighting, they fight.
"I think there has been a corporate intake of breath at the Ministry of Defence which has been used, since the Korean War, to relatively bloodless fights.
"Now we are going back to the battles our fathers and grandfathers experienced."
Britain needs more troops, says Army chief General Sir Richard Dannatt
By John Bingham
Last Updated: 2:16PM BST 13/06/2008
The head of the Army has ordered plans to be drawn up for a new corps of specialist troops capable of both fighting and conducting aid operations in unstable states.
Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, disclosed he had called for a feasibility study into setting up "permanent cadres" able to work alongside with local forces overseas using experience gained from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But, setting out his ideas on how the Army should develop by 2018, he rejected the idea that the future lay solely in combating insurgency and called for a halt to the process of shrinking Britain's forces.
While accepting the Army would always be subject to budget pressures he insisted: "We cannot get any smaller and I would argue strongly that we need to be bigger."
In a wide ranging speech delivered at the Royal United Services Institute in London, he said the Army should be ready for both combat operations and stabilisation efforts - often at the same time.
He told an international audience that the future lay in "liberal interventionism" and said the Army had to adapt to the wishes of the Government.
Drawing from experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, where small teams of British forces are already working alongside local police and armed forces as mentors, he said it was now time to create a complementary force to specialise in what he called "Military Assistance, Security and Development" jobs.
"These small units would specialise in the training and mentoring of indigenous forces ... but I see these organisations as being far more," Sir Richard said.
He called for a separate career path for officers entering the new bodies, routinely spending time on attachments with foreign police and armies or even local councils in Britain.
"I can envisage a multi-disciplined and inter-agency organisation that would be capable of both fighting alongside local forces, and delivering reconstruction and development tasks in areas where the civil agencies cannot operate," he told the conference.
But Sir Richard insisted military planners should not forget the lessons of the past by concentrating solely on combating insurgency while forgetting about the need to prepare for old-style military combat between opposing nations.
He poured scorn on the popular idea that there had been a "paradigm shift" away from the notions of inter-state conflict common in the Cold War, saying: "Life is not so straightforward."
Following criticism in a series of high-profile military inquests, he also acknowledged the Army had a "legal and moral duty" to provide soldiers going into action with the best equipment possible.
A special report on the Bloody Sunday inquiry
Philip Jacobson
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry has taken eight years and has already cost you £400m. Most of the money went to the lawyers. No wonder Tony Blair kept quiet
As Liam Wray is showing me around the Museum of Free Derry in the heart of the Bogside, we arrive at a glass case containing a rumpled brown corduroy jacket. Wray’s older brother, Jim, 22, was wearing it at the civil-rights march on January 30, 1972, when he was among the 13 unarmed Catholic demonstrators killed by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment. He was running for his life when a high-velocity rifle round smashed into his spine, knocking him down. One eyewitness recalled seeing Wray raise his head, then say: “Help me, I can’t move my legs.” Another told him: “Don’t move. Pretend you’re dead.” Moments later he was shot again at close range, the bullet entering his back before tearing through his thorax.
The jacket was returned to the Wray family after a postmortem, and it became a treasured possession, produced occasionally for inspection by journalists writing about Bloody Sunday and its aftermath. After Tony Blair’s announcement in 1998 that there would be a new inquiry – chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, with two senior Commonwealth judges assisting him – the family handed the jacket over for forensic examination. It was subsequently donated to the newly opened museum, still bearing the bright yellow tags attached by inquiry staff to mark the bullets’ entry points.
“What you are looking at is evidence of the murder of a British citizen by a British soldier in a British city,” says Liam Wray, a lean, articulate man in his mid-fifties who has been closely involved with the long and often painful campaign by families of the Bloody Sunday dead to secure justice for their loved ones. “My view has always been that Jim was a human being and as such had a right to live. If nobody is ever held to account for killing him, that tells me the law considers my brother as something less than human, whose death was of no significance.”
As we talked, a party of students from Hungary came into the museum, some flinching as a recording made during the march broadcast the screams of panicking demonstrators and the unmistakable crash of gunfire. There were gasps as they read the label on a case containing the bloodstained Babygro with which a frantic woman had tried to staunch the stomach wound that killed 17-year-old Michael Kelly.
Closure is not a word Wray much likes, but as he points out, without Saville’s inquiry, the only historical verdict on how Derry’s sons, fathers and husbands died would have been the hasty and demonstrably flawed investigation carried out a few weeks later by Lord Widgery, then Britain’s lord chief justice. Suddenly animated, he tells me: “That man took less than three months to clear all the Paras by ruling that they had opened fire only after coming under attack by IRA gunmen. His report ran to just 36 pages, and we’ve been waiting 36 years for the truth.”
From day one of the public hearings held in Derry’s ornate Victorian Guildhall, the Bloody Sunday inquiry has served as a cash cow for the army of solicitors and barristers involved. Official figures show that legal costs have swallowed more than half of the £181m spent up to the end of last year. The senior QCs alone have pocketed well over £20m, and the gravy train is still rolling. The final bill for Saville’s seemingly interminable investigation – which heard its last witness three years ago but continues to cost around £500,000 per month – seems certain to exceed £250m and could reach £400m, according to government sources, after the last of the lawyers’ invoices are settled.
Number-crunchers in the Tory party seized gleefully on the top end of the estimates, claiming that this kind of money would pay for an extra 5,000 nurses, 600 doctors, 11,000 police officers or a dozen Apache helicopter gunships in Afghanistan. The head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Orde, may have had this in mind when describing the inquiry as “a huge money-sucking venture” (though he later “clarified” his remarks). The widely respected former ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Dr Maurice Hayes, believes the vast amounts spent on an inquiry unlikely to unearth “the essential truth” of what happened could have been put to much better use for the bereaved families. Derry’s firebrand political activist Eamonn McCann, who helped to organise the civil-rights march in 1972 and is now chairman of the Bloody Sunday Trust, is particularly scathing about the “legal feeding frenzy”. “It’s obscene that taxpayers may be funding some wealthy lawyer’s new yacht or buying him a better holiday home,” he told The Sunday Times Magazine. Yet McCann still backs Saville in his quest, “however long that may take him and whatever it costs”.
What makes Saville’s inquiry unique, McCann argues, is that unlike so many of the sectarian atrocities committed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland – assassinations on lonely back roads, bombs in crowded bars – the killings occurred in a public place in broad daylight before a huge crowd. “Every shooting was witnessed by scores of people, many of whom knew the victims personally. That’s why the inquiry has taken this long: there were so many witnesses who wanted to be heard but had been ignored by Widgery.”
When I asked Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff and invaluable point man in Northern Ireland, about the huge expense of the inquiry his former boss set up, he grimaced theatrically. At the time, nobody dreamt it was going to drag on for years, he said. “Labour had been out of government for so long, there was nobody around with much experience of public inquiries. We’d forgotten how rarely they actually resolved deep-rooted problems, and how often they came back to bite you.”
As it became clear that costs were running out of control, alarm bells had started ringing in 10 Downing Street: shovelling government money into the bank accounts of prosperous lawyers was not what new Labour was about. “There were times when we looked at each other and thought, ‘What in hell have we got ourselves into here?’ ” said Powell. Blair mentioned the inquiry so rarely in public during his last years in power that his press office could not track down any reference for me.
According to Powell, the appointment of a new inquiry was by no means top of the agenda for the Sinn Fein delegation, led by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, during the tough negotiations that produced the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement. “They certainly didn’t give the impression that this was a potential deal-buster,” he said. “Their main focus was firmly on prisoner releases, policing and the terms for decommissioning IRA weapons.” The most sustained pressure for reopening the case had come from the Irish government in Dublin, with strong backing from Mo Mowlam (then Blair’s Northern Ireland minister). “Mo was always nagging me to look at the Widgery report, because I would then understand why the families had been campaigning for so long.”
Powell concluded that Widgery’s “complete and utter whitewash” of the Paras greatly strengthened the case for a new inquiry. “We knew Dublin was preparing a report on the killings that trashed Widgery and would soon be made public. Tony and I both felt that a formal apology for Bloody Sunday from the British government would be enough to keep Sinn Fein on side, but the Irish wouldn’t budge. So we reluctantly shifted our position to demonstrate that this government had nothing to hide.”
Yet within a few days of the Saville inquiry being announced, Powell was having second thoughts, confiding ruefully to his diary that “we had not thought the issue through”. While hardline Ulster Unionists were grumbling about rewarding terrorism, Sinn Fein had already begun to agitate for the soldiers involved in the shooting to be punished – something that Saville’s terms of reference explicitly ruled out. “I told Tony that we might live to rue the day we took the decision to go ahead.”
It was not until some years later that Powell learnt, to his extreme mortification, that Sinn Fein had all along shared his and Blair’s view that a full apology for the killings would suffice. “Martin McGuinness said to me in a bantering way during a meeting at No 10 that he had never understood why we agreed to a new inquiry,” he said. McGuinness cheerfully confirms Powell’s account: “I told him and Tony Blair that all it needed was for the British government to come out with its hands up and admit the truth of Bloody Sunday.”
The decision to appoint Saville, a law lord, had raised eyebrows among the tightknit legal community in London, where he had made his name as a commercial contract specialist. In some quarters he was regarded as a plodder who had served as a High Court judge without particular distinction. “He had no background in criminal law, which is where good barristers get a feel for the grittier side of life,” one legal insider said. “Bloody Sunday was going to be a whole new experience, and I just couldn’t picture him ploughing through gruesome postmortem reports and ballistics tests, let alone roughing up difficult witnesses. It’s a long way from the House of Lords to the Bogside.”
Although Powell could not recall how Saville’s name had come up, he thought it might have been put forward by the then lord chancellor, Derry Irvine (formerly Blair’s head of chambers). “Nothing surprising about that,” says the barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, one of Britain’s top human-rights advocates. “There’s a tradition of making safety-first appointments for major public inquiries – just look at Hutton on the Iraq war. But experience shows that judges are actually the worst people to run them. We’d be much better off with our version of America’s special prosecutors, who can put the fear of God into politicians with something to hide.”
Robertson believes the cost and duration of Saville’s inquiry have “permanently, perhaps fatally, damaged” the institution of public inquiries as a means to establish the truth behind events of great national importance. Citing Blair’s refusal to appoint one to investigate the terrorist bombings in London in July 2007, Robertson argues that the job was handed to the police because the government was “terrified of another Bloody Sunday marathon”.
Another leading lawyer, who asked not to be identified, also saw Irvine’s influence behind the choice of Sir Christopher Clarke QC – another safe pair of hands – for the pivotal position of counsel to the inquiry. “The job description was to keep the inquiry moving along briskly towards its conclusions. But Christopher made a 42-day opening speech, which set a rather unfortunate precedent. If you read the transcripts, days went by without any real progress being made because all the lawyers felt they must have their say. At times the proceedings were paralysingly boring.”
As a member of the Sunday Times Insight team who had spent three months in Derry on an investigation into the events of Bloody Sunday that challenged Widgery’s central findings, I was among the journalists “invited” to testify before Saville (with the threat of a subpoena left dangling). Waiting for my turn to appear, while other witnesses gave evidence, it was clear that with the passage of time, memories had become unreliable. Some people belatedly remembered things they did not include in their original inquiry statements; others had difficulty recalling the details of dramatic incidents they originally claimed to have seen. During my own brief but uncomfortable appearance in the box, I lost count of the times I had to answer questions with: “I don’t remember.” One of the barristers politely trying to work me over joked later that Saville must have heard this so often, he probably muttered the words in his sleep.
The opening of the hearings in Derry brought a welcome injection of serious money into the local economy, then suffering from chronically high unemployment – the jobless talked about being on the “bru”, a contraction of Social Security Bureau – and generally low wages. The city council was an immediate beneficiary, renting out the Guildhall for £500,000 a month. The four-star City hotel on the banks of the broad River Foyle also cashed in gratefully with extended block bookings for the inquiry’s team of counsels and back-up staff. Journalists helped to keep the hotel’s tills ringing. Saville chose to lodge at the more homely Beech Hill hotel, where he reportedly had a running machine installed, possibly to offset the effects of cholesterol-laden Ulster fried breakfasts.
The influx of well-paid lawyers from England provided a further boost for Derry. A businessman whose company provided services to the inquiry recalls how one young barrister had asked him if it was safe to go out for a drink at night: “Most of those boys had never set foot in Northern Ireland before, and they seemed surprised there weren’t soldiers on every street corner and bombs going off. But when I took your man to the Clarendon, he enjoyed the craic so much, he was back the next night with a bunch of colleagues, and it soon became their local.”
The visitors also adopted Marie McCarron’s tiny Meet To Eat cafe, close to the Guildhall, as the lunchtime spot of choice. Saville himself dropped by soon after the hearings began, and it was not uncommon to see pinstripe-suited types helping to clear tables when the place was busy. “They may be earning a fortune, but they have to queue up like everybody else,” McCarron assured the Derry Journal. When the inquiry was moved to London for security reasons to hear testimony from soldiers, her fan club suggested she should open a branch there.
As time passed, some of the English lawyers considered buying their own place to stay in during the hearings. Local property prices were certainly tempting: a new three-bedroom apartment beside the promenade overlooking the Foyle cost peanuts by London standards. “Those guys could have bought somewhere great for what they were making in a few months,” said a Derry estate agent. “I got some feelers but nothing worked out. It would actually have been a pretty good investment, because prices here have risen considerably.”
The administrative staff and technicians attached to the inquiry soon discovered Derry’s lively nightlife, and were discovered in turn by so-called “Bacardi bandits” – local girls out for a good time in clubs like Sandino, the Nerve Centre and the Basement.
A city-centre publican says that media reports about the money swilling around the inquiry also tempted a few prostitutes over from Belfast. “One showed up in my bar wearing hot pants and stiletto heels, which was something you didn’t see in Derry every day.”
With inquiry regulars cooped up in the Guildhall and rubbing shoulders after hours, it was hardly surprising that clandestine affairs developed. A local solicitor recalls arriving for a meal at a lakeside hotel in Donegal, just across the border with the Irish Republic, to find someone he had last seen on his feet in the Guildhall checking in with an attractive woman who he knew was not his wife. “I pretended I hadn’t seen them.”
Although Tony Blair stated about 10 years ago that all those killed and wounded by the Paras “should be regarded as innocent of any allegation that they were shot while handling firearms or explosives”, the families want Saville to go a lot further than that. Despite the fact that witnesses at the Bloody Sunday inquiry were guaranteed immunity from prosecution on matters arising from their own evidence, they have pinned their hopes on seeing soldiers facing criminal charges.
Liam Wray no longer cares much what happens to the Para he holds responsible for his brother’s death, provided that he is formally accused of murder and convicted in open court. “It wouldn’t bother me if he then walked free, because there’s really no point in locking him up now,” he told me in a Bogside pub. “I really need to get my own life back after being immersed in the inquiry for so long. It was like an addiction, following the hearings every day and poring over the transcripts afterwards. Believe me, that grinds you down.”
To judge by the accounts that they gave to Eamonn McCann for his moving book about the families and the Bloody Sunday inquiry, most of them now share Wray’s desire for justice rather than revenge. Jimmy Duddy, whose 17-year-old brother, Jack, was the first person to be shot dead – an iconic photograph shows his body being borne away while a Catholic priest, Father Edward Daly, frantically waves a bloodstained white hankie – says his feelings have changed with the passage of time. “If there could be convictions, it wouldn’t matter at all to me whether anyone served a single day in jail.”
John Kelly, brother of Michael Kelly, whose blood had stained that Babygro in the museum, is adamant that if Saville falls short of recommending criminal prosecutions, he will continue the fight. Kelly is convinced that the Para known as Soldier “F” murdered Billy in cold blood; ballistics tests on his rifle also linked him to three other killings. When “F” appeared before the inquiry in London, 130 members of the extended Kelly family travelled over to hear him testify.
“When he’s giving evidence, I’m saying, ‘Mickey, give me strength to get through this,’ because it’s hard to be in the same room as the man you know murdered your brother.”
Where the money went
Junior barristers: £750 a day plus preparation fees of £100 an hour and £62.50 an hour for travelling time
Senior barristers: £1500 a day. They could also claim up to £200 an hour for preparation work, plus £125 an hour for travelling time to and from Derry. A round trip from Belfast, 75 miles away, was worth £500
QCs: £1750 a day. Following a court application by lawyers representing some of the victims’ families, it was decided that QCs would be paid £1,750 a day, plus £250 an hour for two hours of preparation work
Total expenditure £400m
Who got what
£4.5m: SIR CHRISTOPHER CLARKE (representing the inquiry)
£4m: EDWIN GLASGOW (representing the military witnesses)
£2.7m: ALAN ROXBURGH (representing the inquiry)
£2.1m: CATHRYN MCGAHEY (representing the military witnesses)
£1.8m: GERARD ELIAS (representing the military witnesses)
£743,000: MICHAEL MANSFIELD (representing the families)
More than 20 other barristers representing the families or the armed forces received payments of at least £500,000, and often more. They included Lord Gifford and Sir Louis Blom-Cooper
