Leading human rights’ lawyer, Gareth Pierce will join a discussion panel in Derry tomorrow to mark the 50th anniversary of the discredited Widgery report into the Bloody Sunday killings.
On the Monday evening following Bloody Sunday, Prime Minister, Edward Heath asked the then most senior judge in England and Wales, Lord Chief Justice Widgery to conduct an inquiry into the killings. Minutes of the meeting at Downing Street, uncovered in August 1995, showed the Prime Minister advised Whiggery to remember that Britain was “in Northern Ireland fighting not only a military war but a propaganda ward".
Rather than hold his inquiry in Derry, Widgery opted to hear evidence in Coleraine over just three weeks and published his findings on April 18, 1972, just three months after the killings. His subsequent report was branded a “whitewash” by nationalist leaders and families of the victims.
While he found no conclusive proof that any of the dead or wounded were shot while handling a firearm, Widgery concluded that the soldiers were fired on first. He also ruled there would have been no killings if the march had not gone ahead, a conclusion seen by nationalists as exonerating the soldiers and blaming the march organisers for Bloody Sunday.
Widgery’s Report remained a major grievance for nationalist Ireland and was a focus of the Bloody Sunday families in their demand for a new inquiry to clear the names of their loved-ones. Their demand was subsequently granted in 1997 when the Saville Inquiry was established. In his report, Lord Saville completely overthrew the findings of Widgery, that all the killings and woundings were unjustified.
One of the world’s leading human rights’ lawyers, Ms Pierce represented the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six in their ultimately successful fight to have their convictions for IRA bombings overturned. Ms Pierce will be joined at Playhouse Saturday (3pm) by two other eminent legal figures.
Derry solicitor, Patricia Coyle worked on the research which led to he Saville Inquiry while Professor Christine Bell of the University of Ulster is a former director of the Bloody Sunday Trust and a former member of the Committee on the Administration of Justice and the Human Rights’ commission.
Bloody Sunday Trust spokeswoman, Maeve McLaughlin said tomorrow’s discussion would examine the wider legacy of whitewash which flowed from the “travesty which was Widgery”.
Ms McLaughlin said: “More evidence emerges of failures to investigate, information being withheld, former soldiers not being prosecuted and growing evidence of collusion between state forces and loyalist paramilitaries.”
Organised by the Bloody Sunday Trust and the Pat Finucane Centre, the discussion will be chaired by journalist, Freya McClements.
