Families plan to sue Bloody Sunday paras

Families of those shot dead on Bloody Sunday are expected to mount a private prosecution if the Saville report provides evidence of unlawful killing.

On Tuesday Lord Saville of Newdigate will present his long-awaited report into the killing of 13 unarmed civilians by British soldiers during a civil rights march in Londonderry in 1972. Up to 10,000 people are expected to watch a live presentation of the results of the 12-year inquiry, the longest in legal history, on giant screens in Guildhall Square, Londonderry.

Reports that Lord Saville will brand some of the killings unlawful were yesterday dismissed as “unhelpful speculation” by the Government.

However, the idea of former paratroopers ending up in the dock for their role in events so long ago is already causing consternation in military and Unionist circles.

The decision on bringing charges lies with the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland, which has to consider two criteria: the sufficiency of the evidence, and whether a trial would be in the public interest.If a prosecution was not brought, it is understood that some of the families would consider mounting a private prosecution themselves.

Jonathan Powell, who as Tony Blair’s chief of staff played a pivotal role in the peace process, admitted that the inquiry may have been a costly mistake, and questioned whether the £190 million exercise would “bring closure” to the dispute.

“Our experience of inquiries is that they tend not to settle disputes — be they in Northern Ireland or Iraq — just reopen the damn things,” he told The Times.

Lord Trimble, the former Ulster Unionist Party leader and Nobel peace laureate, said he feared that the report would “inevitably raise tensions” in Northern Ireland.

He warned that if the conclusions went beyond those of the Widgery report in 1972 — which said that the troops’ behaviour had merely “bordered on the reckless” — there would be immediate pressure to prosecute former soldiers for manslaughter or murder. Asked how Unionists would react, he replied: “Use your imagination.”

A senior British officer warned that the report “could become an issue if the Government or Ministry of Defence were seen to be dumping on those involved in some way, especially for the Parachute Regiment”. He added: “We are alert to this and determined not to allow it to materialise. We must ensure they are looked after.”

Ian Paisley Jnr, the Democratic Unionist MP for North Antrim, said that prosecuting soldiers “would be completely outrageous and turn the justice process on its head purely to facilitate the ideological needs of Republicans. We would reject it completely”.

He claimed that the inquiry was designed to rewrite history to make the IRA look good and the British bad. It had focused, he said, on just 13 victims of the Troubles when many of the 3,000 killings in the Troubles — many by the IRA — remained unresolved.

Soldiers who testified before Lord Saville’s tribunal were granted immunity only from self-incrimination.

Mr Blair clearly did not anticipate prosecutions when he announced the inquiry earlier that year. He had told the Commons that the aim was “not to accuse individuals or institutions, or to invite fresh recriminations, but to establish the truth”. That was the way to the “necessary reconciliation that will be such an important part of building a secure future for the people of Northern Ireland”.

There were calls for restraint from all sides ahead of Tuesday, with some MPs attributing the timing of Lord Trimble’s remarks to his current role as a Conservative peer rather than as a player in the peace process. “There may be an effort to raise false expectations over the strength of Saville’s conclusions — or even some game-playing to make David Cameron look statesmanlike on Tuesday,” said one. “Whatever the case, I don’t think pre-emptive briefing is helpful.”

Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Féin MP who was an IRA commander in Londonderry at the time of the shootings, said that speculative reports were “heaping anguish upon anguish” on the families. Sinn Féin declined to say last night whether it favoured the prosecution of soldiers.

Shaun Woodward, the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, urged “everyone to show self-discipline before the Saville report is published”.

He said that the decision to hold the inquiry was crucial to reaching agreement, adding: “No one should confuse the cost of the Saville report over the last 12 years with its real value. It established the British Government’s bona fides for the peace process by showing we were willing to put ourselves directly into the witness box.”

Mr Powell said that the Government had been under intense pressure from Republicans and from the Government of the Irish Republic to set up the inquiry, but hearing demands from Sinn Féin afterwards for soldiers to be punished had soon left him “doubting the wisdom of what we had done”.