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Topic: Widgery Tribunal

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	Socialist Party archives - Widgery Report: Derry Murders Condoned, May 1972
		In general, the tribunal's findings are based upon the canopy of lies submitted by the army as evidence.
		Widgery's grounds for accepting the army claim thayt they were fired on first, against a mountain of evidence to the contrary, are simply that "there was no reason to suppose the soldiers would have opened fire."
		Widgery's case, when laid bare, is really nothing more than a bald conviction that 'our men' wouldn't do such a thing.
	www.geocities.com /socialistparty/Archive/1972Widgery.htm (1062 words)

	Reviews in History:
		Walsh shows that nevertheless the evidence given by numerous soldiers at the tribunal was riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, omissions and obvious falsehoods, to such an extent that it is difficult not to suspect an element of bias in Lord Widgery's strongly expressed faith in their testimony.
		According to critics of the Widgery tribunal, one of the crucial ways in which this agenda was manifest was the way in which the tribunal was held in an adversarial rather than an inquisitorial fashion.
		A tribunal of inquiry is not a court of law, in which two adversaries contest the evidence and the verdict as to where the truth of the matter most probably lies rests with a jury.
	www.history.ac.uk /reviews/paper/griffinBrian.html (1946 words)

	Anglo Irish Policy - Department of Foreign Affairs - Government of Ireland (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-08-09)
		These have been published as The Bloody Sunday Tribunal of Inquiry, a resounding defeat for truth, justice and the rule of law which is a comprehensive critique of the Widgery Tribunal, its motives, methods and conclusions.
		What is new about this material is the revelation that the Tribunal deliberately failed to reveal evidence available to it which undermined the reliability of statements made by the implicated soldiers in the witness box and which ultimately formed the basis for the Tribunal’s report.
		That the Tribunal chose to accept the integrity of the soldiers’ subsequent statements, despite its knowledge that earlier statements made by them were significantly altered, casts serious doubt about the commitment of the Tribunal and its staff to oversee a fair and impartial Inquiry.
	foreignaffairs.gov.ie /angloirish/bloodysunday/summary3.asp (825 words)

	Anglo Irish Policy - Department of Foreign Affairs - Government of Ireland (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-08-09)
		The memorandum records that Lord Widgery believed that the statements were submitted at a "late stage" to cause him "maximum embarrassment" and that there was little choice but to call either none or a substantial number which he was not prepared to do at that stage.
		This view of events is diametrically opposed to that offered in the official version of events by Lord Widgery and in that manner have resurrected the long held concerns that the Widgery Tribunal and its Report frustrated the objective for which it was established.
		According to the terms of the 1921 Act which governed the Widgery Tribunal, Lord Widgery in his role as chairman decided procedure, rules of evidence and what was and was not to be considered.
	foreignaffairs.gov.ie /angloirish/bloodysunday/summary.asp (1255 words)

	Bloody Sunday (1972) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The Widgery Tribunal, held in the immediate aftermath of the event, largely cleared the soldiers and British authorities of blame, but was criticized as a "whitewash" by many.
		Widgery acknowledged that a photograph taken seconds after Gilmore was hit corroborated witness reports that he was unarmed, and that tests for gunshot residue were negative.
		Some of the scientists responsible for the original reports to the Widgery Tribunal now dismiss the interpretations that were put on their findings by the Ministry of Defence.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972) (3354 words)

	The Bloody Sunday Trust
		A Tribunal was appointed under the Tribunals and Inquiries (Evidence) Act 1921 to investigate the allegations under the sole chairmanship of Lord Chief Justice Widgery.
		The Tribunal proceedings and Report have been interpreted in the light of these newly released documents and the results deal a devastating blow not just to the credibility of the Tribunal's findings but also to the whole manner in which they were reached.
		Then there is the issue of the grave matters which the Tribunal effectively ignored: the shootings which did not result in death; the political contribution to the events that resulted in the deaths and injuries; and the measures that would need to be taken to avoid a repeat of these horrific events.
	www.serve.com /~pfc/bs/walsh.html (1159 words)

	Irish Examiner - News From Ireland - 14, November, 2000
		Beginning his opening submission, he said the Widgery Inquiry into the deaths was ‘‘little more than a screen, a facade’’ to draw in the people of Derry, not so the truth could be discovered but so that the Army could be vindicated.
		Widgery was central to the hurt of victims because they attended the tribunal understanding that it was open and would be properly conducted, said Mr Harvey, instructed by Madden and Finucane solicitors, acting for relatives of 10 of those killed.
		Finally there was the failure of all those representing the tribunal and the Army to disclose the statements which revealed glaring inconsistencies between the accounts given by the army on the day as to what happened.
	ted.examiner.ie /archives/2000/november/14/current/ipage_14.htm (705 words)

	Bloody Sunday and the Report of the Widgery Tribunal
		It was breached when Lord Widgery set an extensive and partisan context to the situation in which the march occurred but which failed to mention internment, the very reason for the march and a major factor which had contributed to the deterioration in relations between the nationalist community and the security forces.
		Walsh’s assessment, Lord Widgery accepted and acted upon the Secretary’s suggestions with the implication that "the Tribunal’s findings have been influenced by arguments that were not made in the course of its public hearings and tested in cross examination by the parties affected".
		Lord Widgery, in casting a moral judgement on the organisers of the march by claiming that they were directly culpable for the deaths, made a consideration of their motives and intentions a relevant one.
	www.terrorismcentral.com /Library/Government/International/Ireland/IrishAsmntNM.html (18273 words)

	CAIN: Events: Bloody Sunday and the Report of the Widgery Tribunal - Widgery Report and New Material
		Indeed, the very disregard with which the Widgery Report was viewed by nationalists, particularly those in Derry, has meant that they have largely ignored it, so far removed was its version of events from the reality of what they believed happened in Derry on 30 January 1972.
		On the basis of the Widgery Report, compensation was granted to the next of kin in 1974 and in 1992 the British confirmed the innocence of those killed by reference to the Report's finding that none were found guilty.
		While the disparities between the statements by and between the soldiers were plainly evident to the staff of the Tribunal, they were not made available to Counsel for the next of kin despite their obvious material relevance both individually and collectively.
	cain.ulst.ac.uk /events/bsunday/irgovt.htm (1612 words)

	CAIN: [Widgery Report] Report of the Tribunal appointed to inquire into events on Sundy 30 January 1972
		The Warrant declared that the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921 should apply to the Tribunal and that the Tribunal was constituted as a Tribunal within the meaning of that Act.
		The Tribunal was not concerned with making moral judgments; its task was to try and form an objective view of the events and the sequence in which they occurred, so that those who were concerned to form judgments would have a firm basis on which to reach their conclusions.
		The Tribunal would, therefore, listen to witnesses who were present on the occasion and who could assist in reconstructing the events from the evidence of what they saw with their own eyes or heard with their own ears.
	cain.ulst.ac.uk /hmso/widgery.htm (19575 words)

	CAIN: Bloody Sunday and the Report of the Widgery Tribunal - Widgery Report and New Material; Points 230-275
		Lord Widgery found that Kelly was not firing at the soldiers from the barricade and that he was not throwing a bomb at the time he was shot.
		Lord Widgery's findings on this carnage, inflicted with such apparent ease, by members of 1 Para on innocent civilians, merited just three paragraphs; equal to the number he devoted to defending the Army's spurious claim that one of the deceased, Gerard Donaghy, was carrying nail bombs.
		Para AA's allegation that the staff of the Widgery Tribunal colluded to present distorted and inaccurate statements by soldiers to the Inquiry is particularly damning for the Inquiry as a whole.
	cain.ulst.ac.uk /events/bsunday/irgovt2d.htm (10680 words)

	New Statesman - Bloody hell
		For Dermot P J Walsh, a distinguished Irish legal scholar, the Widgery tribunal was a profoundly compromised exercise that corrupted the subsequent rule of law in Northern Ireland.
		Widgery wrote that the paratroopers' evidence was impressive because their stories had withstood rigorous cross-examination.
		Perhaps this is the nub of the failure of Widgery.
	www.newstatesman.com /200005010056 (884 words)

	Bloody sunday overview. - Irish Nationalism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-08-09)
		Lord Widgery concluded that he had probably been shot by Soldier F (who was in Glenfada Park at the time) who claimed that Patrick Doherty had a pistol in his hand.
		Lord Widgery accepted that Kelly was not armed but concluded that he must have been standing close to someone who had discharged their weapon because of lead particles on Kelly's right cuff.
		Lord Widgery concluded that he was near to someone discharging a weapon and ignored the possibility of contamination from the soldiers or their vehicles.
	www.irish-nationalism.net /forum/showthread.php?t=2876 (4451 words)

	BSI Reports: Week605: 23 -26 SEPTEMBER 2002
		The Tribunal is in possession of a document purporting to be an interview of General Ford by a journalist by the name of Hamill.
		He told the Tribunal that all of the briefings he had attended at HQNI in the lead up to Bloody Sunday concerning the operational plans for the scoop-up operation were predicated on the basis that the soldiers would not be attacked by the IRA.
		In his evidence to the Tribunal, James Porter, who was responsible for recording army and RUC communications on Bloody Sunday, said that he had been intimidated by and had received veiled threats from staff on the Widgery Tribunal (including Lord Widgery himself) when he offered his tapes as evidence to the Inquiry.
	www.birw.org /bsireports/51_70/report66.html (9113 words)

	Guardian \| Bloody Sunday: the final reckoning begins
		The secretary to the Widgery inquiry said in a memo that the lord chief justice would "pile up the case against the deceased".
		Statements by paratroopers to the military police, made available to Widgery but kept from the families of the victims and their lawyers, were also released.
		In his opening speech, Mr Clarke said the tribunal's task was "to discover as far as humanly possible in the circumstances, the truth...
	www.guardian.co.uk /print/0,3858,5068284-103551,00.html (1037 words)

	Modern Ireland :: Provincial Breakdown
		The Widgery Tribunal in the immediate aftermath of the day largely cleared the soldiers and British authorities of blame, but was criticised as a "whitewash" by many.
		Despite the evidence of "Soldier F" at the Widgery Tribunal, the photographs show he was unarmed.
		The Saville Inquiry was a far more comprehensive study than the Widgery Tribunal, interviewing a wide range of witnesses, including local residents, soldiers, journalists and politicians.
	ijsr32.infj.ulst.ac.uk /~14331302/ulster/bloodysunday.htm (2116 words)

	BSI Reports: Week605: 17 - 21 JUNE 2002
		June 2002, the Tribunal sent a letter to all interested parties stating that, due to a confidential matter that had arisen in relation to Soldier 027, it had made the decision to grant screening to the soldier.
		The Tribunal is in possession of a number of photographs taken by Mr O’Donnell shortly after Bloody Sunday, depicting three bullet holes in the wall by which he was sheltering.
		He also told the Tribunal that he did not believe that the fact that the ATO had cut open the pockets of the victim’s jeans in any way affected his ability to conclude that the jeans could have accommodated the bombs allegedly found in them.
	www.birw.org /bsireports/51_70/report62.html (7708 words)

	Irish News, January 3, 1998
		If Widgery is overturned, official sources, in Dublin, said last night it would be a serious indictment of the British government of the time and Britain would be bound, at least, to offer an apology.
		If backed by a tribunal of inquiry, the information would mean that a significant portion of the Widgery Tribunal would have to be dismissed, particularly its version of the events which occurred around barricades on Rossville Street on The Bogside.
		The Widgery Report is fundamentally flawed: "It was a startlingly inaccurate and partisan version of events, dramatically at odds with the experiences and observations of civilian eyewitnesses.
	archives.tcm.ie /irishexaminer/1998/01/30/ihead.htm (3632 words)

	League Reports - Justice Denied
		It is sufficient to say that we quick-ly decided it would be inappropriate for us to promote an ad hoc international tribunal to hear the civilian eyewitnesses of Londonderry who had not made themselves available to the Widgery Tribunal.
		We became satisfied that the procedures adopted by Lord Widgery would proffide the families of the dead and wounded and civilian eyewitnesses with a fair opportunity to present their own testimony in an open hearing, attended by the press of the world, and to permit their counsel to fully cross examine the army witnesses.
		It, therefore, believes it is obligated to the people it counseled to use the established legal process to seek justice to publish a report that would attempt to fairly and objectively reject the record of the Inquiry, which these people and their lawyers helped make.
	www.ilhr.org /ilhr/reports/bsunday/preface.html (1241 words)

	Irish Government Report on Widgery and the New Evidence
		The report assembles overwhelming evidence to support its contention that Widgery was seriously flawed and "startlingly inaccurate and partisan" in its version of events.
		The Widgery Tribunal staff concealed material evidence from relatives of the dead, fabricated evidence, ignored evidence which contradicted that of the soldiers and were biased in favour of the British army and against the deceased.
		Lord Widgery's report is dismissed as a "startlingly inaccurate and partisan version of events, dramatically at odds with the experiences and observations of civilian eyewitnesses...
	library.thinkquest.org /18666/evidence/irishreport.htm (536 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-08-09)
		It was incomplete in terms of its description of the events on the day and in terms of how those events were apparently shaped by the prior intentions and decisions of the authorities.
		A debt of justice is owed to the victims and their relatives to set it unambiguously aside as the official version of events.
		Given the status and currency which was accorded to the Widgery Report, the most appropriate and convincing redress would be a new Report, based on a new independent inquiry.
	www.arts.auckland.ac.nz /courses/index.cfm?S=* (454 words)

	AN PHOBLACHT/REPUBLICAN NEWS (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-08-09)
		The report, titled `The Bloody Sunday Tribunal of Inquiry - A Resounding Defeat for Truth, Justice and the Rule of Law', originally produced in January 1997, is arguably the single most significant piece of research leading to the announcement of the second Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
		The report, now released in booklet form, examines in detail the conduct of the Widgery Tribunal, raising questions as to the possible bias that was displayed by the Lord Chief Justice, its composition, its location, its terms of reference and the haste with which it conducted its proceedings.
		The spokesperson continued: ``The Widgery Tribunal, as Professor Walsh's excellent report demonstrates, was an insult to the families, the wounded and the entire people of Derry.
	republican-news.org /archive/2000/January06/06bloo.html (254 words)

	Bloody Sunday Trust- How you can help the Trust.
		The Widgery Tribunal was regarded within Derry with contempt but it was the "Official" account of Bloody Sunday.
		This account, however, was never accepted by the people of Derry and every year since 1972 a march has taken place in the city to commemorate those killed and wounded as they marched for Civil Rights.
		In 1995 records held in London relating to the Widgery Tribunal were released and for the first time concrete evidence of the Lord Chief Justice's biased conduct during the Tribunal came to light, as highlighted in The Walsh Report, which was produced by the Bloody Sunday Trust in 1997.
	www.bloodysundaytrust.org /educampaign.htm (377 words)

	The Militant - 2/16/98 -- British Gov't Is Forced To Open New Inquiry In Bloody Sunday Massacre -- Tens of thousands ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-08-09)
		Speaking at one of these, Gerry Duddy, a relative of one of those killed on Bloody Sunday, reviewed how the British had used the Widgery Tribunal in 1972, immediately after the killings, to cover up the role of the government and the army.
		The Widgery Tribunal maintained that there was no sniper fire and that the soldiers had only fired in self- defense.
		This included the publication of a statement by a British soldier that demonstrators had been shot with their hands in the air, and that his own statement to the Widgery Tribunal had been torn up.
	www.themilitant.com /1998/626/626_6.html (1499 words)

	Socialist Review (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-08-09)
		The long campaign for a new inquiry to repudiate the finding of the Widgery tribunal in 1972 did not arise from a need to know the truth, but from the fact that, knowing the truth, the families of the dead needed to have it acknowledged.
		If Saville ends up acknowledging that Widgery was a whitewash, an 'appalling vista' will face Widgery's office, the Lord Chief Justice, and the British state institutions generally - especially if it is shown that he acted on the urging of high political figures.
		One of the reasons the tribunal has cost so much is the insistence of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on obstructing Saville at every turn to try and block the emergence of the truth.
	www.socialistreview.org.uk /article.php?articlenumber=7840 (890 words)

	TCM Breaking News - 2002/01/23: Bloody Sunday inquiry urged to probe Widgery evidence
		Lawyers acting for the bereaved and injured have repeatedly challenged the disappearance of the pictures and the contents of the cinefilm shot from an Army helicopter, which in the footage before the current hearings ends with the arrival of the first soldiers in the Bogside.
		‘‘There is a pending application for this tribunal to have an interlocutory hearing in relation to the concealment, destruction or disappearance in some other way of Army photographs that were taken on the day.
		Mr Macdonald said two people ‘‘directly involved’’ in the issue of the cinefilm were William Smith, secretary to the Widgery Tribunal, and his deputy, David Dewick.
	archives.tcm.ie /breakingnews/2002/01/23/story37369.asp (580 words)

	BBC News \| Northern Ireland \| Security assessment ordered at inquiry
		The tribunal has been set up to re-examine the circumstances surrounding the killing of 14 nationalist protesters by British soldiers during a civil rights march in 1972.
		The current preliminary hearing is focusing on whether the anonymity granted to 17 soldiers who fired shots on 30 January, 1972 should be extended to all the soldiers on duty on Bloody Sunday.
		Ministry of Defence counsel William Hoskins said the event which the tribunal was investigating was a "uniquely emotive event in the history of Northern Ireland".
	news.bbc.co.uk /1/hi/northern_ireland/459897.stm (428 words)

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