'UNJUSTIFIED AND UNJUSTIFIABLE'

"1 Para arrived in Londonderry on the morning of Sunday 30th January 1972."

And from one simple, opening sentence, the Saville inquiry explains how a tragedy unfolded.
It has taken him 12 years, 10 volumes and almost £200m - but Lord Saville and his Bloody Sunday inquiry team have doggedly achieved a near blow-by-blow account of how 13 people were shot dead in a single day by the Parachute Regiment - all of them killed without justification.

By January 1972, the predominantly nationalist civil rights movement had had enough and decided to defy the ban on marches.
Tensions were high and the 1st battalion of the Parachute Regiment was sent from Belfast to Derry to deal with any trouble.
Saville does not explicitly suggest that 1 Para arrived tooled up for a fight. But he makes clear that they were the wrong people to send into a powder keg situation because they had a reputation for excessive force.
Many marches were followed with a degree of rioting - but the organisers had sought assurances from the various republican factions that they would keep a lid on things while the peaceful demonstration took place.


Lord Saville's report strongly criticised the conduct of solidiers involved in Bloody Sunday.

It said there was

"a serious and widespread loss of fire discipline"

that none of those killed was posing a serious threat.

Some people were killed fleeing or going to the aid of others.

The report also said that many of the soldiers involved had lied about what happened.


From David Cameron's statement in the Commons

"I never want to believe anything bad about our country. I never want to call into question the behaviour of our soldiers and our army, who I believe to be the finest in the world. And I have seen for myself the very difficult and dangerous circumstances in which we ask our soldiers to serve.

But the conclusions of this report are absolutely clear.
There is no doubt.
There is nothing equivocal.
There are no ambiguities.
What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable.

It was wrong.

Lord Saville says that some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to the assistance of others who were dying.
The report refers to one person who was shot while "crawling … away from the soldiers" ... Another was shot, in all probability, "when he was lying mortally wounded on the ground" ... and a father was "hit and injured by Army gunfire after he had gone to…tend his son".

Full report