A former British paratrooper, known only as Soldier F, has been found not guilty of murdering two men on Bloody Sunday, bringing a definitive end to the only criminal prosecution of a soldier stemming from the 1972 massacre.
The verdict was delivered after a five-week non-jury trial which concluded that hearsay evidence linking the soldier to the deaths of James Wray and William McKinney, and the attempted murders of five others, was unreliable. The judge stated the evidence amounted to perjury.
The acquittal means Soldier F, an elderly man in ill health whose identity remains protected by law, returns home a free man. The decision was met with profound disappointment by the families of the victims, who have campaigned for decades for accountability.
“The families are very disappointed,” a spokesperson for the families said outside the court. “We had hoped for a better outcome, or at least a small part of the charges would have stood up. But that wasn’t to be the case.”
The events of January 30, 1972, remain a raw and defining moment of the Troubles. During a civil rights demonstration in Derry’s Bogside area, soldiers from the Parachute Regiment opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 15. A fourteenth person died later from injuries.
An initial government inquiry cleared the soldiers of wrongdoing, a finding that stood for decades until a sustained campaign by families led to a new investigation. The Saville Inquiry, which reported in 2010, completely exonerated the victims, stating that what happened was “both unjustified and unjustifiable.”
“It was wrong,” the inquiry concluded.
For many in Derry, the trauma of that day remains an open wound. A local woman, giving a tour of the area, pointed out preserved bullet holes from the Parachute Regiment in the walls of Glenfada Park. “This is where most of the shootings took place, including my father who was shot wounded and, thanks be to God, survived,” she said.
She recalled the moment she saw her father, Patrick, after he was shot. “I remember looking at his trousers and they were just covered in blood… 53 years on, I still remember that day as if it was yesterday.”
The sister of William McKinney, who was killed alongside James Wray, shared her own painful memory of learning of her brother’s death. “As I went under the house, my mother was sitting surrounded with a lot of people. She’s sitting crying and my father approached me and he said, ‘Well, he’s dead.’ At that point, I just fell to my knees and broke down crying.”
The trial of Soldier F was viewed differently by other groups. A spokesperson for a veterans’ organization argued the prosecution was part of a “witch hunt of veterans who served in the most difficult of environments.”
“We have always acknowledged that innocent people lost their lives at the hands of the security forces in Northern Ireland. We don’t deny that,” the spokesperson said. “But the responsibility for that sits squarely at the feet of those who chose illegally to bring weapons of war onto the streets… They bear the responsibility for innocent people being killed.”
The Bloody Sunday families do not accept this assessment, but they acknowledge that the acquittal of Soldier F marks the end of their legal road. With the UK Labour party proposing new legislation to address legacy issues from the Troubles, including protections for veterans, this case is likely to be the last prosecution of a former British soldier for a Troubles-era killing.