The only soldier to be prosecuted for the horrific events that transpired on 30 January, 1972, in what became known as Bloody Sunday, has been found not guilty of murder and attempted murder.
That the horrific massacre in the Bogside area of Derry city in Northern Ireland transpired is not disputed. Thirteen unarmed men were shot by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment while attending a protest opposing internment, with many others being injured by shrapnel, rubber bullets, batons, and British Army vehicles. Internment was widely used by the British Army during the Troubles to arrest and imprison individuals suspected of involvement in Irish Republican paramilitary organisations, in particular the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Internment, known officially as Operation Demetrius, was, in the view of some, one of the most contentious facets of the campaign in Northern Ireland. Bloody Sunday was, arguably, the most significant single event of the Troubles period, and, as we have seen recently, its legacy is still causing division five decades on.
On Thursday 23 October, Belfast crown court acquitted the soldier, known only as Soldier F due to the severe likelihood of harm caused towards this individual, though controversially the individual has been named in the House of Commons by the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Colum Eastwood MP.
Mr Justice Lynch found that, on Bloody Sunday, the group of soldiers of the Parachute Regiment had “totally lost all sense of military discipline”, sullying a proud regiment formed in 1942 at the behest of Winston Churchill, which had seen action in the flawed Operation Market Garden, by “shooting in the back unarmed civilians fleeing from them in the streets of a British city.”
Despite this, it was noted during proceedings that “there is no concept of ‘collective guilt’ in this jurisprudence.” In the courts of law in this country, individuals must be found to be irrefutably guilty of the actions that they are purported to have committed. In the case of the prosecution against Soldier F, the only evidence presented was hearsay evidence given by two other soldiers, known as Soldier G and Soldier H, which was ultimately considered unreliable.
It is easier to go after ex-servicemen, whose names and numbers are recorded, than go after alleged paramilitaries
Mr Justice Lynch noted, “Delay has, in my view, seriously hampered the capacity of the defence to test the veracity and accuracy of the hearsay statements. The two witnesses are themselves, on the basis of the Crown case guilty of murder as, in essence, accomplices with a motivation to name F as a participant in their murderous activities. I find that they have been serially untruthful about matters central to events giving rise to this prosecution. They have committed perjury.”
This evidence, naturally, fell far short of the standard required to be used for prosecution, being neither convincing nor manifestly reliable. Subsequently, there could be no proof beyond reasonable doubt that the individual named as Soldier F was responsible for the specific crimes he had been charged with.
Such a verdict predictably polarised those with an interest in the proceedings. Family members of the victims reasonably felt that justice had not been served. Mickey McKinney, brother of William McKinney, one of the thirteen people who lost their lives on Bloody Sunday, said, “Soldier F has been discharged from the defendant’s criminal dock, but it is one million miles away from being an honourable discharge”. The First Minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, said the verdict was “deeply disappointing”.
It is understandable that many people across society want to see individuals prosecuted for their crimes, especially in circumstances as tragic as those of the Bogside massacre, which has left deep rifts in Derry, with little trust in the British Armed Forces ever being possible for those who live there. Just last month the Army withdrew from attending a jobs fair in the city after acquiescing to Irish nationalist councillors who were opposed to a British military presence there.
However, one cannot prosecute individuals for whom there is little or no reliable evidence that they committed such crimes. The Northern Ireland Veterans Movement said ex-servicemen would be “heartened by this verdict”, sharing their views that they “hope that there are no more soldiers brought to the courts here with evidence that has actually no way of going through.”
This speaks to the feeling throughout much of Northern Irish society and beyond: that such prosecutions are little more than show trials, brought to the courts solely for political point-scoring, as a prosecution has little hope of being achieved by a lack of solid evidence.
Doug Beattie, the Ulster Unionist Party’s Justice Spokesperson and himself an ex-serviceman who was awarded the Military Cross for his actions in Afghanistan, made it clear that this was “not the verdict the families would have wanted”. He reiterated that “it has been clear from the very start that the evidence, hearsay statements from two soldiers present at the time without legal representation, would never achieve the guilty verdict the families so desperately wanted”.
“The question now needs to be asked: why was this show trial allowed to proceed in the first place when the evidence was so clearly flawed?”, Beattie said.
Although Soldier F was charged in this instance, the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, introduced by the last Conservative government, suspended many other cases linked to the Troubles, as part of a plan to promote post-conflict reconciliation. Last month, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, suggested that the legacy Act may soon be repealed.
This presents a disparity in the treatment of those involved in either side of the conflict. While former members of the Armed Forces are hounded decades later for horrific crimes, the prosecutions for which will likely never be achievable given current evidence, Irish republican terror suspects have been given “comfort letters” by the British Government, informing them that they will not be charged for their alleged crimes.
It is easier to go after ex-servicemen, whose names and numbers, regiments and ranks, are recorded, than it is to track down alleged members of paramilitary organisations who purposely destroy evidence of involvement to prevent such prosecutions from ever occurring.
For proper reconciliation to take place in Northern Ireland, the two-tier system of justice by which ex-servicemen are disproportionately persecuted for crimes must be reformed. Around 1,400 British military personnel died during the conflict in Northern Ireland, around half of these at the hands of paramilitary organisations. Over 300 members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the police force at the time, lost their lives to radical Irish republican terror. We cannot expect to live in a just society if these atrocities are not prosecuted to the same extent, and with the same expectations of veracity and accuracy of evidence, as former military personnel are expected to be held to.
