Witness accused of conspiring to concoct evidence
Questioning of a retired policeman at the Bloody Sunday inquiry was halted by chairman Lord Saville today after a lawyer accused the witness of conspiring with another officer to concoct evidence.
Former Constable Robert Carson was challenged by junior counsel Fiona Doherty, acting for families of some of the Bloody Sunday victims, that evidence he gave of cars ramming a barricade on January 30, 1972 was either identical or strikingly similar to that of another officer - that both accounts were at variance with other witnesses.
Lord Saville stepped in, asking the lawyer if she was about to suggest that because of similarities between the two statements ‘‘that he and the other officer made up this account’’.
Ms Doherty responded: ‘‘Sir that is exactly the suggestion I was about to put to him.’’
Lord Saville told her suggesting the two got together and decided to lie was ‘‘a very serious allegation’’ which to his mind was not supported by the material presented.
He said she was taking the matter ‘‘rather lightly’’ and the officer should have been given prior notice of the allegation to enable him consider it and, if he wanted, seek legal representation.
Lord Saville put the charge to Mr Carson that he had made a statement ‘‘knowing it to be untrue’’ and he insisted: ‘‘I have told this Tribunal what I have seen with my own two eyes on that day and what I can remember.’’
Mr Carson, who gave his evidence screened from public view like many other police witnesses, added he attended of his own free will and was ‘‘not taking too well’’ to be accused of lying.
Before he left the witness box Lord Saville told Mr Carson that on the information available to the tribunal they rejected the allegation against him which, he said, was unsupported by any evidence.
He added: ‘‘Any aspersions on your attempt to tell the truth are, in our judgment, quite unfounded.’’
Lord Saville added:
‘‘I think you should leave here in the belief that nothing we have heard suggests that you have done other than to try and tell the truth.’’
Earlier Mr Carson made a fresh assertion that troops came under fire on Bloody Sunday and said he tended a soldier who was struck by a bullet.
He told the inquiry into the killing of 13 Catholic civilians by paratroopers on the civil rights march 30 years ago that he heard firing and soldiers returning fire. He recalled one soldier being hit.
‘‘I heard a shot and the soldier’s rifle appeared to go up. He shouted ‘I’m shot, I’m shot’ and then staggered towards us dragging his SLR, which was strapped to his wrist, along the ground.
‘‘I can remember examining his flak jacket. This had a scorch mark across it at about chest height and the bullet had broken the zip on the flak jacket.
‘‘He was not injured. He was helped away by other soldiers.’’
Mr Carson told the inquiry sitting in the Guildhall in Derry that the shooting came from the direction of the Bogside - he believed single shots, ‘‘probably from some sort of sniper weapon’’.
