BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY: A former British army paratrooper who was involved in the Parachute Regiment's operation in Derry just over 31 years ago which resulted in the deaths of 13 civilians denied yesterday that he had "brutalised and abused people on a spectacular scale" on the day.
The retired soldier, who was a private in the regiment when soldiers shot 26 civilians in the Bogside area of Derry on Bloody Sunday, also denied that he was a "habitual liar" while giving his evidence to the inquiry into the shootings, which took place on January 30th, 1972.
The allegations against the witness, known as "Inquiry 12", were made by Mr Barry MacDonald QC, who represents the families of most of the Bloody Sunday victims.
The witness said that "long before" Bloody Sunday, he had been shot and seriously wounded by the IRA in Belfast. He rejected Mr MacDonald's suggestion that because of that experience, his attitude on Bloody Sunday was one of "seeking to gain revenge" or seeking "to vent his spleen on people he may have regarded as sympathetic to the IRA".
The witness told the tribunal that he was one of several soldiers who entered a house at Chamberlain Street, on the edge of the Bogside, on Bloody Sunday to arrest upwards of 20 civilians.
He admitted that on the weekend before Bloody Sunday he had been "caught on camera" kicking a man during a disturbance at Magilligan beach.
Junior counsel to the inquiry, Mr Alan Roxburgh, told the witness that almost a dozen civilians arrested by him on Bloody Sunday had accused him of threatening, abusive and intimidatory behaviour. The witness denied the civilians' claims that he threatened to kill some of them, that he was racist towards them and that he referred to them as "fresh meat" to other soldiers holding Alsatian dogs on short leashes.
He said he had no idea why so many people had made such allegations against him and said there was "not a grain of truth in them", although he admitted that at times, his language towards civilians was bad.
Meanwhile, a former lieutenant in the Royal Anglian Regiment told the inquiry that he heard an "unprecedented level of firing" on Bloody Sunday from his position several hundred yards from the Bogside. He thought that the shots were "in accordance with an IRA plan to provoke the army into a reaction" and that the IRA was trying to lead soldiers into traps.
The inquiry continues today.