The Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPS) recently announced on Twitter its decision against prosecuting 15 British soldiers on charges of perjury, in relation to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
The PPS received an investigation file from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, including allegations of murder and attempted murder during the infamous Bloody Sunday event. Upon reviewing the allegations that the 15 soldiers and one former IRA member had given false evidence in connection with the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, the PPS concluded citing insufficient evidence as the primary reason.
PPS Senior Public Prosecutor John O’Neill stated, “After careful consideration, it has been concluded that the available evidence, in this case, is insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction of any suspect for offenses in relation to the giving of false evidence.”
The PPS identified three core issues that make successful prosecution unlikely:
- The Bloody Sunday Inquiry did not express its findings to a criminal standard of proof.
- The majority of findings rejecting the soldiers’ accounts from 1972 would not be admissible in a modern court of law.
- The evidence upon which the Inquiry based its conclusions is not fully available to the prosecutors today.
This decision is likely to disappoint victims and their families. However, the PPS took measures to have direct contact with the individuals concerned to comprehensively explain reasons behind this decision. O’Neill also clarified that this decision does not undermine the Inquiry’s findings that those injured or killed were not posing any threat to the soldiers.
Widely viewed as one of the most fatal days of the longstanding Northern Ireland conflict, Bloody Sunday was a tragic event occurring on January 30, 1972, during which British soldiers shot and injured 26 unarmed civilians during a protest in Derry, Northern Ireland. Official investigations – the Widgery Tribunal held soon after and the Saville Inquiry (also known as the Bloody Sunday Inquiry) established in 1998 – led to the conclusion that the killings were “unjustified” and “unjustifiable,” as detailed in the Saville report.
The soldiers involved claimed that they believed they were firing at gunmen and bomb-throwers. Following the publication of the report in 2010, then-British Prime Minister David Cameron issued a formal apology. A series of murder trials ensued, with one soldier being charged with murder, only to have the case discharged two years later after the evidence was considered inadmissible. A former paratrooper known as “Soldier F” still faces prosecution for two murders and five attempted murders, despite being among the 15 soldiers under scrutiny for perjury.
For more details on this story, read the full content on Jurist.