Some interesting points, particularly from Philippa. One facet she mentioned concerned destruction of weapons.

"By the way, the British Army destroyed several of the weapons AFTER the inquiry was ordered. The timing may be coincidental but it certainly looks suspicious that they held on to the weapons all those years and then destroyed them on the verge of the inquiry."

I would suspect that the timing was coincidental for the following reasons:

1. Between the events of "Bloody Sunday" and the ordering of the latest Inquiry, the standard firearm of the British Army changed from the SLR (7.62mm) to the SA80 (5.56mm). The bulk of the British Army "stock" of SLR's would then, I imagine, have been offered for disposal to the armed forces of other countries who had bought the SLR and still use the weapon.

2. Unless the disposal was extremely efficient, small numbers of SLR rifles would be found in various armouries. The personnel (and these would be civil servants) assigned the task of withdrawing these weapons from service would order their destruction as the numbers involved would not justify the effort of trying to sell them. So the explanation could simply be that the right hand did not know what the left was doing.

3. Who actually had charge of these weapons would be intersting to know. Also whether or not ballistic and forensic tests had been carried out on the weapons. If the weapons had been held, and quarantined, by Military Police SIB in a special armoury their destruction could possibly be viewed with a degree of scepticism. Having said that, if the required tests and examination of these weapons had been carried out and reports filed, nothing not already known would be gained in re-examining them, so logically there would be no reason not to destroy the weapons.

4. If the weapons were held in a depot/unit armoury, and I believe they were, they would appear in returns and after time they would start to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb to those checking the returns and an instruction to destroy the weapons would be given - no part of that process would ask the question why there were x number of SLR's at such and such an armoury.

As to whether The Parachute Regiment should have been used in an "Aid to the civil power" role. My immediate reaction would be to say no - to be effective in their intended area of operations their training is not best suited to situations that requires delicate handling. Unfortunately they are extremely mobile and very easy to move into trouble spots quickly - hence they do tend to get used and they have, subsequent to "Bloody Sunday", got better at it.