Bloody Sunday Inquiry (Report)

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

It is a pleasure and a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex). He made an extremely perceptive speech, and, with respect, a modest one given his level of experience. It was extremely informative, and I am grateful to him.

I am surrounded by a clutch of hon. and gallant Members, and we heard an extremely powerful speech from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), a colleague and friend whom I have known for many years. I believe that he and I are the only two Members who have had the privilege of commanding infantry battalions. Before I come on to that, I thank the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell)—I am sorry that he is no longer in his place—for his speech, which put the whole Saville inquiry in context and was extremely important.

I suspect that the business of commanding a battalion is like no other. At one’s hand are 600 or 700 men, who are impressionable and not necessarily easily led, but who are looking to one individual in the battalion not just to lead them but to set the tone for the battalion, and to ensure that things go right, but that when things go wrong they are dealt with.

Curiously, I ended up as the defence reporter for the “Today” programme. In 1999, my editor requested me to try to find Colonel Derek Wilford, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment, who had not had a chance to speak on the radio about what had happened on that morning in January 1972. I eventually tracked him down and asked him whether he would like to come on the radio and put the perspective of 1 Para across to the British public, and he did so. I do not know how many hon. Members here heard that interview, but his testimony was jaw-droppingly embarrassing. He ended up being sued by the brother of one of the victims, who he suggested, quite clearly, was an active terrorist when he was not. It is interesting that the inquiry said that Colonel Wilford’s failure

“to comply with his orders”

set

“in train the very thing his Brigadier had prohibited him from doing”

and could not be justified. Colonel Wilford should not have launched an incursion into the Bogside.

It would be very simple to damn the Parachute Regiment—heaven knows it has enough enemies—but it is a fine regiment with a record that is unblemished in so many ways. None the less, that day there was a failure of leadership from one man, who had months before failed to provide leadership in west Belfast.

Worse than that, this involved not the whole battalion, but one support company that took its directions from one misguided individual who believed that he had some God-given right to put straight the situation in Northern Ireland. As a result, the names of the British Army and, to a certain extent, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and all the security forces in Northern Ireland were tarnished by the actions of a small number of maverick soldiers, who got it wrong, behaved badly and who were badly led. When I joined my battalion in 1975 in Ballykelly, my commanding officer repeated an old aphorism. He said, “There are no good regiments and no bad regiments. There are just good officers and bad officers.” How right he was.

I was extremely interested to hear the hon. Member for East Londonderry talk about the historical perspective. So far, he is the only hon. Member to have mentioned the broad spread of the history of violence in the island of Ireland. When I joined my regiment, I was conscious that the old Sherwood Foresters had been fighting in Ireland—or policing in Ireland—for two centuries.

Every time I go to the cemetery in Balderton outside Newark, I am conscious that three soldiers from the Sherwood Foresters, who were killed in Dublin in 1916, are buried there. Anybody who fails to understand the historical perspective of the 30 years of violence that we suffered in the latest set of troubles is, as Derek Wilford said, “horribly naive”. How do we deal with that? If we accept that this is an aberration and that honourable men and women have had their names besmirched on both sides of the argument, how do we deal with it?

Having listened to the comments from the Opposition Benches, particularly from the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I suggest that if we are to proceed, we should do so even-handedly. We have to understand that there is a spirit of amnesty abroad. We cannot take out of retirement men who served 38 years ago and who were involved in this—for heaven’s sake, many of them are dead. We cannot bring these men in front of courts and say to them, “You did wrong. You are now being prosecuted.” We might have been able to do so 12 months or even 24 months after the incident—it might have been the right thing to do then—but we cannot do it now, particularly because in the interim we have had the Good Friday agreement, in which convicted terrorists, who have, in some cases, served their time, have had their sentences quashed or vastly reduced. There would be no justice in that, and it would be wrong in those circumstances for former soldiers now to be prosecuted, whatever the rights and wrongs.

We must not again have the length, cost and expense of first the Widgery inquiry and then the Saville inquiry. Great grief has been caused, particularly by the former inquiry, to the families of the dead and injured, who were besmirched for many years as being sympathetic to or even active in the republican cause. Soldiers’ actions were lied about, and men were able to shield behind deceit because of the length of the inquiry.

The spirit of amnesty has been mentioned. In the past 38 years, the various inquiries have provided an opportunity for violence and confrontation every time they reached a crossing point. For example, in June, I listened with great interest to a Sinn Fein councillor from Londonderry, who told me that everything would be brightness, sunshine and quiet, that closure had been reached and that people could now be forgiven. I said, “You’re wrong. This will beget violence.” The next day, a 200 lb bomb was delivered outside Aughnacloy police station. It did not go off, but anybody who has failed to notice what is going on in Northern Ireland needs to have their eyes opened.

We are again involved in a campaign by Irish dissidents. It should come as no surprise to anybody who can open a history book—one could start from Wolf Tone or wherever one wishes. However, approximately every 25 years, there is another pulse of violence and we are in the middle—or perhaps at the start—of one now.

Inquiries such as those that we are discussing do not help. If we must inquire—if we are to use the Historical Enquiries Team—it must be done quickly, effectively and with the utmost application of justice.

In the past few days, we have been absorbed by the threat of being killed or injured by Islamist fundamentalists. However, I know that, exactly as the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland has told us, we stand on the verge of another serious bout of bloodletting in the north, and the mainland will certainly be attacked.

If we are not to descend into another spiral of violence, we must learn the lessons of Bloody Sunday. We must ensure that our security services always operate within the letter of the law. Above and beyond everything else, we must ensure that justice and the rule of law are applied properly, quickly and effectively.