NI: Bloody Sunday documents missing (feature)
01 November 1995
Human rights lawyer, Jane Winter, has discovered that many of the documents which should be in the Bloody Sunday file in the Public Records Office at Kew are missing. Thirteen of the 35 listed documents are "closed", ten of these for 75 years. Relatives of the fourteen people killed by paratroopers in the Bogside area of Derry during a civil rights protest in 1972, believe that some of the closed documents provide evidence of meetings in Downing Street during which a decision was taken "to give the Bogside a bloody nose". Even the evidence heard by the Tribunal of Inquiry into the affair has not been archived at Kew. Jane Winter, however, did discover the minutes of a meeting which took place between Prime Minister Edward Heath, Lord Chief Justice Widgery and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham just two days after the killings. The Prime Minister's private secretary, Robert Armstrong (later secretary to the Cabinet and famous for his remark about being "economical with the truth" during the Peter Wright "spycatcher" trial) was also present. The meeting discussed the terms of the inquiry into the killings which was to be carried out by Widgery.
Prime Minister Heath begins the meeting by saying "this was not the sort of subject into which Tribunals of Inquiry had been asked to inquire on previous occasions; nor perhaps was it the sort of subject that those who designed the 1921 Act originally had in mind. It followed that the recommendations on procedure made by Lord Salmon might not necessarily be relevant in this case." The reference to Lord Salmon here is to the Royal Commission on Tribunals of Inquiry chaired by Salmon in 1966. Salmon had recommended that tribunals of inquiry should only be appointed in cases of vital public importance and not, therefore, to serve as flags of convenience for governments. He did not favour the introduction of preliminary proceedings or rights of appeal. He argued that private hearings were to be discouraged and that the Attorney-General as a member of the government should not act as counsel to a tribunal. The use of the judiciary for the extra-judicial purpose of a tribunal of inquiry was regarded as especially controversial in the Bloody Sunday case because Widgery conducted the inquiry alone and because his findings so obviously suited the government.
The Downing Street minutes show considerable confusion on the procedural issues behind the Bloody Sunday tribunal. They clearly indicate that the government wanted to keep a tight grip on the proceedings while seeking to present the inquiry as impartial. Heath felt it right to draw a number of matters to Widgery's attention. Firstly, the matter should be dealt with while memories were fresh; secondly, "great emphasis had been placed during the discussions in the House of Commons that afternoon, on the importance of a speedy outcome". Heath continued, as the minutes record, "the Inquiry would be operating in a military situation, with Troops coming and going and required for operational duties". He thought it was necessary, "to bear in mind the possible risk to the armed forces", who were to give evidence to the inquiry. "It would be necessary to consider whether and how witnesses could be protected, and whether and how access to the Tribunal's proceedings could be limited." Heath's next point was that, "It had to be remembered that we were in Northern Ireland fighting not only a military war but a propaganda war."
Widgery replied that although his job was a fact- finding exercise, he was concerned to narrow the scope of the inquiry to "what actually happened in these few minutes when men were shot and killed; this would enable the Tribunal to confine evidence to eyewitnesses." Heath reminded him that some of these would have to have their identities concealed. Hailsham agreed with this narrow focus and stated that the main issue for the inquiry was "whether troops shot indiscriminately into a crowd or deliberately at particular