The case against ‘Soldier F’, a veteran charged with the murders of two men and attempted murders of four others on Bloody Sunday, has today collapsed. In March 2019, Douglas Murray wrote for The Spectator about the 1972 massacre and the subsequent Saville Inquiry into what happened.
It is more than 15 years since the Bloody Sunday soldiers last appeared in public. For months I sat in the room with them to watch their evidence at Lord Saville’s inquiry. And while Lionel Shriver is right that the sight of terrorists benefiting from an immunity denied to our soldiers is grotesque, there are competing qualms. Not only because British soldiers should be held to a higher standard than terrorists. But because, having watched all of the Bloody Sunday shooters testify, I can say with certainty that they include not only unapologetic killers, but unrelenting liars.
As one soldier after another appeared before Lord Saville, it became clear that the soldiers of 1 Para were intent on spurning this last effort to get to the truth of what happened that day. Almost without exception they stonewalled, sticking to the testimony they had given in 1972, repeating claims that had been repeatedly disproven and, when in difficulty, pleading forgetfulness. Not a plausible forgetfulness, but a highly selective, implausible type. Their evidence was evasive, frustrating and self-damning.
The Saville inquiry had promised immunity from further legal action to all witnesses who told the truth about their actions on the day. In that quiet inquiry room, one and a half decades ago, the soldiers of 1 Para might have come clean and admitted what they had done before sinking back into anonymity and retirement. Instead they stuck to their lies.
For example, on the day itself, four soldiers — E, F, G and H — moved as a brick into one of the more concealed areas of the Bogside.
