Judge to rule on admissibility of crucial evidence in Bloody Sunday murder trial

A judge will rule later on whether to admit “decisive” evidence to the trial of a former paratrooper accused of two murders on Bloody Sunday.

Last week, Judge Patrick Lynch heard three days of submissions at Belfast Crown Court, after an application by the prosecution to admit a number of statements to the non-jury trial made by other soldiers on the ground during the shootings in Londonderry on January 30, 1972.

These statements include claims that the accused veteran, known as Soldier F, fired shots in the courtyard where the two men he is accused of killing were shot.

Members of the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 civilians in Derry on Bloody Sunday after a civil rights march.

Soldier F, who cannot be identified, is accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney.

He is also charged with five attempted murders during the incident in the city’s Bogside area, namely of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon, Patrick O’Donnell and a person unknown.

He has pleaded not guilty to the seven counts.

Last week, prosecution barrister Louis Mably KC argued that statements given by soldiers G and H to the Royal Military Police (RMP) on the night of the shootings, and to the Widgery Tribunal in 1972, are the only evidence “capable of proving” Soldier F fired his rifle at civilians in Glenfada Park North.

“This is decisive evidence,” he told the court.

Defence barrister Mark Mulholland KC, acting for Soldier F, argued against the application to admit the hearsay evidence, describing the contents of the statements as “contradictory, unreliable and inadmissible”.