28 May 2006
Related: http://cryptome.org/mcguinness-spy.htm
See also:
http://cryptome.org/mcguinness-taps.htm
Source:
http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk/rulings/tribunal/Archive/RulingIngram.doc
Bloody Sunday Inquiry
INTRODUCTION
1. This is an application by Martin Ingram (a pseudonym), a former serving soldier who is due to give evidence before the Inquiry.
2. The applicant seeks "an order to implement appropriate measures to ensure the screening of his physical appearance and the non disclosure of his true identity when he gives evidence before the Inquiry". He asserts that he "has genuine and reasonable fears as to the potential consequences of disclosure of his personal details and his physical appearance which justify the exceptional measures of screening and non disclosure of his identity". He further asserts that the grant of this application "will not prejudice the fundamental objective of the Inquiry to find the truth about Bloody Sunday".
3. The applicant relies upon confidential material described as Part B and upon the Certificate of The Right Honourable Geoffrey Hoon M.P., Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Defence, dated 5th March 2003. That certificate has been presented to the Inquiry in support of a claim on behalf of the Crown for public interest immunity and to support the claim for screening and anonymity made on his own behalf by the applicant. It is accompanied by a confidential annex. The certificate further contends that the categories of information set out in its paragraph 16 should not be disclosed in the course of questioning of the applicant. Those categories are as follows:
"(1) the organisation, chain of command, methods of operation, capabilities, training, equipment and techniques of the special units of the armed forces;(2) the identity and location of the premises of special units of the armed forces; the identities and physical appearance of members and former members of the special units of the armed forces;
(3) any counter-terrorist activities in which Martin Ingram, or any units with which he served, may have been involved, in particular those summarised in the confidential annex to this certificate;
(4) the nature and sources of intelligence information;
(5) any other information which might be useful to terrorist organisations or detrimental to national security."
4. Thus there are in truth two applications before the Inquiry, one by Martin Ingram for screening and anonymity, and the other by the Defence Secretary which supports the claim for screening and anonymity but goes further and seeks to limit the scope of areas of questioning of Martin Ingram. Martin Ingram's own application contains two witness statements, one dated 26th July 2002 and the other dated 10th February 2003. Those statements have been circulated to the interested parties, though in a redacted form designed to protect rights guaranteed by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. There is a further statement dated 17th March 2003.
5. Although the application by Martin Ingram refers to an individual threat assessment, there is no such assessment in the form required of the relevant authority in some other cases with which the Tribunal has been concerned. He relies upon material in Part B. This material contains information as to Martin Ingram's personal circumstances and the threat to his safety from certain sources together with information bearing on the special units of the armed forces, intelligence details and counter-terrorist activities. The Tribunal has accepted that course where members of the Security Service are involved. We. have followed our usual practice of reading that material for ourselves but not disclosing it to the interested parties. Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights dictates such a course notwithstanding the Tribunal's desire that the Inquiry should be public.
BACKGROUND
6. The background to these proceedings lies in certain claims made about Martin McGuinness who was on 30th January 1972 a high ranking officer of the Provisional I.R.A. in Londonderry, in particular that Mr. McGuinness had admitted to a former Security Service agent, to whom the code name "Infliction" has been given, that he had fired a single shot from the Rossville Flats that had "precipitated the Bloody Sunday episode". In a written statement to the Inquiry Mr. McGuinness has denied making any such admission to Infliction. Indeed he goes further and denies having fired any shot on Bloody Sunday. As appears from the Tribunal's Ruling of 19th December 2002, the Tribunal earlier decided that to call or indeed to make any attempt to call Infliction, who was overseas, would be in breach of his rights under Article 2. Accordingly the Tribunal proposed (and continues to propose) that it would proceed upon the basis that Infliction would not be called to give evidence.
7. As further appears from the Ruling of 19th December 2002, the Tribunal's duty to investigate the events of Bloody Sunday precludes it from simply ignoring the Infliction material and obliges it to weigh that material in the totality of the evidence, including witnesses whose evidence bears upon the credibility of Infliction. In this context the Tribunal has used (and will continue to use) the term credibility to express the general reliability of Infliction in his dealings with the Security Service. The present applicant, Martin Ingram is, by reason of his service as a former member of one of the Army's special units, someone whose testimony may bear on the credibility to be attached to Infliction's assertion that Mr. McGuinness had admitted to him the firing of a shot on Bloody Sunday.
TRIBUNAL'S APPROACH
8. In its Ruling of 19th December 2002 the Tribunal discussed the principles applicable to claims for public interest immunity, the operation of the Human Rights Act 1998, the relevant articles of the European Convention on Human Rights and matters bearing upon anonymity and screening. We do not think it necessary to repeat that discussion. Our task is to apply those principles to the circumstances of the application by Martin Ingram and the public interest immunity claim by the Defence Secretary.
THE MATERIAL
9. Martin Ingram's first witness statement deals with his postings in a range of army intelligence units between 1980 and 1990 or thereabouts. Much of this time was spent in Northern Ireland or in connection with intelligence activities in that country. He describes in some detail the organisation of the special units with which he was associated, the system of storing files and other records including classified documents. He speaks in general terms of the manner in which intelligence was gleaned and of counter-terrorist activities.
10. Clearly, the unrestricted dissemination of such matters could be damaging to national security and to the extent that the material may lead to the disclosure of Martin Ingram's identity could constitute a threat to his safety. At the same time it is apparent that Martin Ingram has put a great deal of information in the public domain and that the Defence Secretary's concern is with categories of information. By way of further illustration, no claim for public interest immunity is made for notes made by Mr. McCartney, the solicitor for James Wray who was killed on Bloody Sunday, of a telephone communication with Martin Ingram on 7th April 2000. Those notes contain information about intelligence organisations operating in Northern Ireland.
INFLICTION
11. In the absence of Infliction to give oral testimony, his credibility can only be tested by the evidence of those who knew him in the course of his work or who, in some other way, can throw light on his reliability. Whether Martin Ingram's evidence will assist the Tribunal in resolving this issue remains to be seen. The applicant cannot himself speak directly of the events of Bloody Sunday.
ANONYMITY
12. Martin Ingram's claim for anonymity is based essentially on the threat to his own safety if his identity is revealed. The certificate by the Defence Secretary supports anonymity by reference to the safety of members of special units which, it is said, would be jeopardized if the identity of Martin Ingram were known.
13. The written submission made on behalf of the family of James Wray stresses the principle of open justice and the requirement of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 that proceedings should be conducted in public. Since the inception of this Inquiry the Tribunal has stressed the principle of open justice. However S.2 of the 1921 Act itself recognises that it may be in the public interest to exclude the public from any of its proceedings.
14. Furthermore the European Convention on Human Rights as incorporated in the Human Rights Act 1998 imposes a positive obligation on the Tribunal to give effect to Article 2: "Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law".
15. Taking into account these considerations, including the exposition by the Court of Appeal in R. v. Saville (28 July 1999), we are satisfied that Martin Ingram's subjective fears are objectively justified and that he should have anonymity in these proceedings. We shall however return to the James Wray submission when considering the scope of questioning of Martin Ingram.
SCREENING
16. As with anonymity, the claim for screening is supported by the Defence Secretary's certificate.
17. The essential issue is whether screening is required in order to safeguard Martin Ingram, bearing in mind the Tribunal's statutory obligation not to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right. The Tribunal has approached that obligation by asking whether the giving of evidence by a witness unscreened will in any significant way increase any risk to which he is subject.
18. The material in Part B contains considerable detail as to the risks to which Martin Ingram would be exposed if his true identity were known. Those risks are enhanced by his personal circumstances.
19. The Tribunal has considered whether an order of the sort that was made on Dr. Martin's application (Ruling 29th May 2002) should be made in this case. That order gave measures of protection against video recording of features but refused screening from the families of the deceased, the public and the media. However in this case an order falling short of screening would not meet the requirements of Article 2. There will therefore be an order in the terms attached.
SCOPE OF QUESTIONING
20. Earlier in these reasons we set out the categories of information which the Defence Secretary considers should not be disclosed in the course of questioning Martin Ingram. Those categories are couched in broad terms and it is their very broadness which is attacked in the James Wray submission and was criticised during argument.
21. Before we take that matter further, we repeat a point made in our Ruling of 19th December 2002. It is that where objection is taken to questioning on a particular matter for which public interest immunity is claimed the information sought may simply be irrelevant to the Tribunal's task. In such a case it will be unnecessary to go into the matter any further.
22. It is apparent that some questions falling within one or other of the categories would simply be irrelevant. For instance, questions which sought details of the special units in every respect are unlikely to assist the Tribunal in dealing with the events of Bloody Sunday. On the other hand, where the witness statement touches on various matters which may be relevant and no objection has been taken by the Defence Secretary, it is hard to see why some questioning should not be permitted.
23. The James Wray submission implicitly acknowledges these considerations and in par. 5 identifies those aspects of the witness statement on which questioning is sought.
(a) K1 2.4 para. 8: further particulars of the documents and intelligence information (though not the individual sources) referred to;(b) K1 2.5 para. 9: the numbers of agents drawn "from all parts of the 32 counties [who] would have been asked to attend" the Bloody Sunday demonstration; the assignments they would have been given; the ciphers, where appropriate, of any who may already be known to the Inquiry;
(c) K1 2.5 para. 10: the practices of FRU and its related agencies with regard to the retention and destruction of relevant intelligence documents:
(d) K1 2.7 para. 17: all relevant details arising from the debriefings of agents 3007 and 3018 (not including their true identities) "which included questions on any information about Bloody Sunday of which they were aware".
24. The Tribunal's task is not made easier by the breadth of some of the categories in paragraph 16, nor by the formulation of the matters in the Wray submission. The submission on behalf of the clients of Mr. Anthony Lawton expresses concern that on one reading, "paragraph 16 may prevent the questioning of Martin Ingram about matters similar to those which are addressed by Officer A in his Second and Third statements, such as access to materials and rank in the intelligence hierarchy". These matters were not canvassed in any detail in argument before the Tribunal.
25. So that the Tribunal can deal with this part of the public interest immunity claim in a meaningful way, we accept in principle the claim in paragraph 16, subject however to the right of any interested party to ask questions of Martin Ingram that are relevant to the subject matter of the Inquiry and that do not offend Article 2 or national security. So that the matter may be more refined, the interested parties should provide to the Inquiry by 28th April 2003 a detailed synopsis of the matters on which they wish to question Martin Ingram, including the reasons for this course and the facts and matters upon which they rely to demonstrate the need to question him.
26. The Tribunal will consider each synopsis. If persuaded that it raises matters of relevance, it will give Martin Ingram and those represented by the Defence Secretary an opportunity to object on human rights or public interest immunity grounds.
27. As to the matter raised by par. 6 of the Wray submission we refer to par. 60(a) of our Ruling of 19th December 2002 where we explained that certain words could now appear in unredacted form. The Tribunal is not persuaded that any further disclosure is appropriate.
ORDER FOR SCREENING
(a) that arrangements be made to enable Martin Ingram to give his evidence in circumstances where he will be fully screened from the view of the families of the deceased, the public, and representatives of the media, and so that he will only be visible to the members of the Inquiry, to its Counsel, to those members of its staff who have a legitimate reason to be present, and to the qualified legal representatives of persons who have been afforded representation by the Inquiry;(b) that no video transmission ('live' or recorded) showing his face or physical features shall be displayed on any screen during the time when he is giving his evidence or at any time thereafter;
(c) that during the taking of his evidence no video recording be made which records his face or physical features;
(d) that effective arrangements be made to protect him from public view while in the Central Methodist Hall and its precincts before and after giving evidence;
(e) that arrangements be made to enable him to enter and leave the Hall before and after giving evidence in circumstances which afford him effective protection from public view, effective protection from harassment, and reasonable respect for his dignity and right to privacy.
Lord Saville
The Hon. William Hoyt
The Hon. John Toohey
14th April 2003
Source:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76319
This week the Inquiry heard from the following witnesses:
Martin Ingram (former Corporal, Force Research Unit and 121 Intelligence Section); David (Director of Intelligence - Northern Ireland); Officer Y (Sergeant, 121 Intelligence Section) and Soldier S (Private, Motor Platoon, Support Company, 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment).
[Excerpt on Martin Ingram]
Summary of Evidence
Monday 12 May 2003 Martin Ingram
A full transcript of the proceedings is available at http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk.
Numbers in square brackets refer to the code given to a particular document by the Inquiry.
INTRODUCTION
This week the Inquiry heard from former members of the army’s secret Force Research Unit (FRU), the former Director of Intelligence for Northern Ireland (MI5) and Soldier S of Support Company. Soldier S admits to firing twelve rounds on Bloody Sunday.
Martin Ingram
Corporal, Force Research Unit
Made Statements to the Inquiry on 26 July 2002 [KI0002.0001], 10 February 2003 [KI0002.0032] and 17 March 2003 [KI0002.0040].
[Ingram's three statements and informative related material on intelligence operations: http://cryptome.org/ingram-sunday-ki2.pdf (3.8MB)]
Martin Ingram is a former member of the British Army’s secret agent handling/intelligence section in Northern Ireland, the Force Research Unit (FRU). Martin Ingram is not his real name.
He joined the Intelligence Corps in 1980. In 1981, after training, he joined 121 Intelligence Section as a Lance Corporal. 121 Intelligence Section were based at Head Quarters Northern Ireland (HQNI). The unit supplied intelligence support for the General Officer Commanding (GOC) and Commander Land Forces (CLF). They were attached to G2, the intelligence wing of HQNI. G2 desk officers were graded GSO2 or GSO3 and were captains or majors.
Mr. Ingram began in the 3 Special Collation Team (SCT) whose sole function was inputting RUC Special Branch intelligence reports, known as SB50s or RIRACS, onto the army 3702 computer system. This was a boring job done in shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The RUC did not want their reports filed on computer so they were not told of the practice.
SB50s were photocopied and circulated within G2. The originals were formally recorded in the HQNI Registry by being entered in the MoD Form 102 books. This was the official procedure whereby a secret document is recorded as having been received and filed in a particular place. The photocopies were not entered because the SB50s should not have been copied or the information entered in the computer.
Mr. Ingram spent 2 or 3 months in the SCT before he engineered himself a more interesting posting in G2. After a brief spell working on Loyalist paramilitaries he was transferred to the Derry Republican desk. Officer Y was Mr. Ingram’s immediate superior whilst on the Loyalist Desk. Mr. Ingram had a level one password which gave him full access to all the intelligence on the 3702 database. This meant he had access to source material from RUC Special Branch, the FRU and some MI5 and MI6 material. MI5 and MI6 source reports were not entered onto the database but in some cases the actual intelligence from these source reports was entered. At the time MI5 was not a big player in running agents in Northern Ireland.
All HQNI intelligence staff had level one passwords. This was between 10 and 20 people. Mr. Ingram was a collator and worked directly to his GSO2 desk officer. He would see perhaps 6 or 7 files a week and these might contain one or two Security Service documents. He saw these files so that he would be kept up to date on developments. MI5 had very few agents in Northern Ireland at this time. So far as he was aware there was no sifting of documents before they were circulated within G2.
There was also a personality card index which contained detailed information of people of interest. Martin McGuinness would certainly have been on the index. In addition to personal information it also referred to relevant intelligence reports.
Report on Bloody Sunday
When he started at the Derry desk he knew nothing about Derry so began reading intelligence files and searching the computer for information. The GSO2s, senior officers, relied on their junior NCOs (Non commissioned officers) to keep them briefed. The collators were their eyes and ears. Mr. Ingram therefore decided to earn brownie points by preparing a paper on Bloody Sunday. He did this as an informal project in his own time as part of his familiarisation with Derry’s history. Junior NCOs often did such projects. Bloody Sunday was by far the most significant event to have occurred in the city. The report he wrote was based on information he obtained from the computer. He simply did a search on the words ‘Bloody Sunday’. It worked like a modern Internet web search giving a list of titles with intelligence or information on Bloody Sunday. These titles then provided access to the full text of source reports which had been entered on the database.
The paper he wrote was three or four pages long and he would have given it to his GSO2 Major. The purpose was to collate the material rather than come to any conclusions. It would have gone into the filing system and may have been archived. Mr. Ingram also recalled there was a file called Bloody Sunday in the G2 registry. There were in excess of 50 documents in it.
At the time the intelligence coverage of Derry was good. Mr. Ingram often visited Derry with his GSO2. SB50s relating to Derry would be copied to Force Research Unit north, also known as Force Research Office (North).
Force Research Unit (FRU)
In 1982 Mr. Ingram was posted to the north detachment of the Force Research Office (FRO(N)). The FRU was divided into three sections: Head quarters West, based in Derry; FRO(N), also in Derry and FRO(W) in Belfast. He was promoted to Corporal and his job was to analyse and collate reports generated by FRU agent handlers following their meetings with Derry agents. His detachment commander was a major who subsequently died on the Chinook helicopter which crashed on the Mull of Kintyre. Because of a shortage of agent handlers Mr. Ingram did act as a co-handler for some agents. He saw intelligence from all agencies with relevance to his area.
The material Mr. Ingram saw, whether at HQNI or at FRO(N), indicated the Derry Civil Rights Association and the Derry Young Hooligans had been infiltrated by the security forces in 1972. He could not say now whether this was by the army or RUC. He saw material dating from 1972 and recent material. Even in 1982 information was still coming in about Bloody Sunday. It was a subject agents were always asked about when they were debriefed. Mr. Ingram said only about 10% of the material gathered in an agent debriefing would be disseminated in the form of source reports. The full details would be in the relevant contact reports.
The purpose of an intelligence report is to turn information from an agent into useful intelligence. This was done by an agent handler commenting on the information and relating it to other information such that the reader of the report would gain some insight into a particular issue.
Martin McGuinness on Bloody Sunday
At no time did Mr. Ingram come across any information suggesting Martin McGuinness had fired a weapon on Bloody Sunday. He did however see documents suggesting Martin McGuinness was under surveillance during the march. He was positive he saw sighting reports regarding Bloody Sunday and that Martin McGuinness featured in these. He said he could not be certain which unit had performed the surveillance. There were reports from local units but there was probably a specialist surveillance unit there as well. The names often changed and he did not know which specialist unit would have been operating in Derry at the time. However a unit like the Military Reconnaissance Force (MRF) or 14 Signals Intelligence would have been there.
He could not remember where Martin McGuinness was sighted. FRO(N) had an ongoing interest in Mr. McGuinness so Mr. Ingram remembered seeing the sighting reports about him. He also saw reports on others but cannot remember who they were. The reports mainly focused on those McGuinness was seen with. Photographs would almost certainly have been taken as well although he did not see any. He believed the reports he saw concerned surveillance from the observation posts on the city walls and the Masonic Hall.
Since FRU had an ongoing interest in Mr. McGuinness, Mr. Ingram would have expected to have seen any agent reports suggesting he had fired a weapon on Bloody Sunday. He was therefore doubtful about the authenticity of the alleged 1984 Infliction report about Mr. McGuinness having confessed to firing a Thompson machine gun. He would also have expected such a report to have been talked about given McGuinness’ prominence.
Mr. Ingram now accepts that Infliction does exist but he retains doubts about the documents produced to the inquiry suggesting Mr. McGuinness fired on Bloody Sunday. He never saw any Infliction documents. He insisted however he did see MI5 intelligence reports similar to the one circulated in relation to Infliction/Mr. McGuinness/Bloody Sunday [G0109.0670]. He said there should be registry documents, similar to the MOD’s Form 102, which would allow the document to be traced and its authenticity tested.
What Happened on Bloody Sunday
Mr. Ingram’s overall assessment of the material he saw in relation to Bloody Sunday, both at HQNI and at FRO(N), was that no shots were fired at the army before they opened fire. He said there were conflicting reports, some of which suggested there had been civilian gunfire, but read as a whole the information did not support the army case that the IRA had opened fire first or that dead bodies had been secretly buried across the border. There were reports of some of the wounded being treated in the Republic. Indeed Mr. Ingram said some of the security forces’ agents were involved in ferrying people over the border. Mr. Ingram’s view, having read all the relevant intelligence, was that the army over reacted.
There was also intelligence from before the event suggesting neither the Official nor Provisional IRA intended to undertake military action on Bloody Sunday. He saw this in contact reports from agents and in an intelligence report. He could not remember if the intelligence report was an army MISR (Military Intelligence Source Report) or an RUC Special Branch SB50. He thinks it was an SB50. Mr. Ingram was involved in relocating compromised agents, such as Frank Hegarty (also known as agent 30:18). Before being relocated an agent would be thoroughly debriefed and one of the matters which would be raised would be Bloody Sunday. There was a MISR produced following a debriefing of Frank Hegarty which Mr. Ingram thinks referred to the IRA having no plans for action on Bloody Sunday.
Agents in Derry
Mr. Ingram could not remember exactly how many agents were active in Derry in January 1972 but he believed there were around 14 to 20. Furthermore agents from outside Derry would have attended the march. He saw MISRs which indicated agents from Belfast had attended and were subsequently debriefed about what had happened. He knew this because the code numbers in the documents, the army ones at least, indicated agents from Belfast were present. He believed agents from other areas would have been asked to attend by the security forces and people who happened to be agents would have been asked to attend by organisations such as the Civil Rights Association.
Retention of Documents
Mr. Ingram’s view was that original source reports from agents were never destroyed and even once an agent was deactivated their file would be retained. There were occasions on which old agents were reactivated and their old files would have to be called back.
Classified military documents were stored by reference to registry books called MOD Form 102. The books detail the life of a secret document from creation to distribution and its destruction (if that occurred). When distributed outside a unit a secret document is forwarded with a MOD Form 24 receipt. This has to be returned by the recipient. The receiving unit enters the document in their own MOD Form 102. The MOD Form 102 is itself classified and recorded in a master MOD Form 102.
Army Career
Mr. Ingram left Derry/FRO(N) in late 1984 when he was posted to deal with counter terrorism in Great Britain. In mid 1987 he was posted to Belize and on his return he requested to attend a course at Repton Manor in Ashford, Kent. This included agent running. He was then posted back to Northern Ireland at St. Angelo near Enniskillen. His posting was to augment the small detachment in response to the Enniskillen bombing. This unit was commanded by FRO(N). He remained at St. Angelo until 26 September 1990.
His last report included a recommendation for promotion from Lieutenant Colonel (now Brigadier) Kerr of the FRU. He was posted to the Ministry of Defence in London at his own request where he joined the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). He held an Enhanced Positive Vetting (EPV) position working primarily on the Israel and Syrian desks. EPV is the highest clearance giving access to Top Secret material.
Mr. Ingram notified Vetting of his intention to marry and this created difficulties with his clearance. He effectively had to choose between his army career and his fiancée. He therefore applied for and received premature voluntary retirement.
In a letter dated 8 May 2003 [KI0002.0043] the MoD sought to suggest Mr. Ingram did not join the FRU until late 1993 but Mr. Ingram thought this was incorrect. His major on joining the FRU was killed in the Chinook crash and therefore was not Officer Z who has provided evidence to the Inquiry. Indeed Mr. Ingram said he had a photograph of Officer Z, the deceased major and himself at an FRU reception. Mr. Ingram described the MoD as the Ministry for Disinformation.
Officer Z, in his statement [KZ0001.0001] also seeks to suggest the clerk referred to by Mr. Ingram as being at FRO(N) was in fact at HQ (W). However Mr. Ingram said his lawyers have an affidavit from the clerk where he says he was the FRO(N) clerk. There was also a female clerk who joined FRO(N) and the other clerk then went to HQ(W). In any event the two offices are very close to each other.
Mr. Ingram says he did have access to screening reports for old agents whilst at FRO(N) even though they were no longer used by the time he was in Ireland. The screening reports used to be prepared when an agent was first recruited. These were kept so that FRU could circumvent the RUC’s prohibition on recruiting new agents. New agents had to be screened unless they were former army personnel, as in the case of Brian Nelson, or were old agents being re-activated. It was to allow re-activation of old agents, without a fresh screening, that FRU kept old screening reports.
Originally agents were run on a fragmented basis with Field Intelligence NCOs (FINCOs), part of the Intelligence Corps, reporting to the local Brigade. The system was centralised by creating the FRU. The FRU took over all existing agents and therefore had to have access to all the existing agent files. For example Frank Hegarty was an agent before and after Bloody Sunday. His material was passed to FRU.
Contacting the Inquiry
In 2000 Liam Clarke of the Sunday Times contacted Greg McCartney, solicitor for the family of James Wray, on Mr. Ingram’s behalf. Mr. Ingram then supplied information to Mr. McCartney about Bloody Sunday. Mr. Ingram did this because he wanted the Inquiry to have access to all relevant information and he was suspicious that the army would not make full disclosure. This suspicion was based on his experience with the Stevens Inquiries. (Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has conducted three inquiries into collusion between the Northern Ireland security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries.) Mr. Ingram helped Mr. Stevens locate documents that had not been disclosed to him by the army.
Mr. Ingram was shown the documents the Inquiry has relating to Infliction. Mr. Ingram had never seen these documents before and had never heard of Infliction. He initially doubted the authenticity of the documents or whether Infliction actually existed. In any event he had never heard of the suggestion that Martin McGuinness had fired on Bloody Sunday. In May 2001 Eamonn McCann of the Sunday Tribune wrote a series of articles casting doubt on the Infliction allegation. These articles, although inaccurate in places, were based on information from Mr. Ingram.
http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk/transcripts/Archive/TS329.htm
1 Monday, 12th May 2003 2 (9.40 am) 3 MR MARTIN INGRAM (affirmed) 4 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH 5 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Ingram, if you look across immediately in 6 front of you, towards the bench, you can see who is 7 talking to you. I am the Chairman. I say this to all 8 the witnesses: the questions will come in the main from 9 the barristers, the people in front of me. Could I ask 10 you to pull that microphone a little closer to you, so 11 we are all able to hear what you have to say. 12 A. Is that okay, sir? 13 LORD SAVILLE: That is fine, thank you, very much. 14 MR ROXBURGH: May we have on one side of the screen 15 page KI2.1, please and on the other side KI2.9. 16 Mr Ingram, you have made three statements to this 17 Inquiry. Would you confirm, please, that what we have 18 on the screen are the first and last pages of the first 19 statement that you made and signed on 26th July 2002. 20 A. Good morning, Mr Roxburgh. Yes, I can confirm that. 21 Q. May we have KI2.32 on the left, please and KI2.35 on the 22 right, please. Are those the first and last pages of 23 a supplementary statement that you made on 24 10th February 2003, in order to deal with certain 25 matters arising out of articles published in the 1 1 Sunday Tribune? 2 A. Indeed, I can confirm that. 3 Q. Finally, may we have KI2.40 on the left and KI2.42 on 4 the right, please. Are those the first and last pages 5 of a further statement that you made on 17th March 2003, 6 in order to address various matters arising out of your 7 first witness statement? 8 A. I can confirm that is accurate. 9 Q. Mr Ingram, do you have with you copies of those three 10 statements that you have made? 11 A. I do, sir. 12 Q. Taking them all as a whole, are the contents of those 13 statements true to the best of your knowledge and 14 belief? 15 A. They are, sir. 16 Q. May we have page KI2.1 on the left and KI2.40 on the 17 right, please. In your first statement which we have on 18 the left-hand side of the screen, paragraphs 1 and 2, 19 you explain that you joined the intelligence corps in 20 1980 and during 1981 were posted to 121 intelligence 21 section at Headquarters Northern Ireland. 22 Is it right that between 1980 and 1981, you were 23 going through your intelligence corps training? 24 A. That is true, sir. 25 Q. And you then went to Northern Ireland as your first 2 1 posting? 2 A. That is true. 3 Q. What rank did you hold when you were first sent to 4 Northern Ireland? 5 A. It is, in the intelligence corps, when you leave 6 training, you become a lance corporal, a junior NCO. 7 Q. Then in paragraph 2 of your second statement, on the 8 right-hand side, you tell us that you were first posted 9 to 3 Special Collation Team at Headquarters Northern 10 Ireland. 11 Was that part of 121 intelligence section, or was it 12 something different? 13 A. Well, let me explain. The first two Alpha numerics "1, 14 "2", signifies 12 Intelligence Company and within the 15 company structure there are a number of security and 16 intelligence sections. For instance 121 is associated 17 with 12 company, 12 Intelligence Company. 18 Within 12 Intelligence Company, as I said, there are 19 a number of units. 3SCT was a very small off-shoot of 20 an IT section that dealt with vehicle intelligence and 21 the computer system at the time and it is, as it says 22 there, it stands for Special Collation Team. 23 Q. Is it right that at that time, 3 Special Collation Team 24 was responsible for transferring intelligence material 25 on to a new computer database? 3 1 A. No, let me just clarify that. 2 It was responsible for one thing and one thing only, 3 to input SB50s, which were the Royal Ulster 4 Constabulary's source reports which were being loaded 5 secretly, without the RUC's knowledge, and that is what 6 prompted the level 1 significance. The RUC did not want 7 it to go on to any data retrieval base and that is why 8 it was done in that way. 9 Q. To understand the position: you are saying that 3SCT was 10 solely concerned at that time with loading the SB50s 11 into the database? 12 A. Indeed. Just to give you an example of the size, it was 13 a 24/7 operation and four operators on each shift. 14 Q. Was some other unit responsible for loading material 15 into the computer database? 16 A. That would be done by the intelligence sections because 17 organically it was Army information that was being 18 produced, therefore, if it was at a local level, they 19 had the ability to input it and it would go via the 20 intelligence sections or, indeed, if, for instance, as 21 in 1980 the FRU, the FRU would input their own material 22 on to the system. 23 Q. Was 121 intelligence section itself responsible at that 24 time for loading some material into the database? 25 A. Very, very little. 4 1 Q. What kind of material was 121-section loading into the 2 database? 3 A. They would load the odd intelligence summary and that 4 sort of thing. As I say, the responsibility is by the 5 unit that actually produces the information. 6 Q. What about historical material that had been created 7 before the introduction of the database? 8 A. Even with the material that goes on to the computer 9 base, there is always a hard copy, the Army is 10 a bureaucratic system and tends to rely, quite rightly, 11 on hard copy. 12 Q. At the time when you were there, if 3SCT was working on 13 the SB50s, was someone else working on the historical 14 intelligence reports from the Army? 15 A. Do you mean to update the computer system? 16 Q. Yes. 17 A. No, because it would be such a mammoth thing to go 18 backwards, they would rely on the, mostly, as I said, 19 the local units, it would have been done over a number 20 of years. The system did not come in -- 3702 did not 21 come in in 1980, it had been in over a period of time, 22 it did not just suddenly arrive. 23 Q. While we are on the matter, is an SB50 something 24 different from what you refer to elsewhere in your 25 statement as an RUCIRAC? 5 1 A. A RUCIRAC. It is just our abbreviation for an RUC 2 intelligence report. The police would call them an SB50 3 and Box 500 call them SB50. We call them RUCIRACs. 4 Q. It is the same thing? 5 A. It is the same beast. 6 Q. Approximately how long did you spend as a member of 7 3 Special Collation Team? 8 A. The same as everybody else because it was such a boring 9 and mundane job, approximately two or three months until 10 you can engineer your own escape, the quicker the 11 better! 12 Q. If we look again at paragraph 2 of your first statement 13 on the left, you say that 121 intelligence section 14 provided support for the GOC, CLF and the entire G2 15 support staff of HQNI? 16 A. Just, if I may interrupt you there, that should also 17 include the civilian representatives, the Security 18 Services representative, he is known as JIRO, Joint 19 Intelligence Research Officer. 20 Q. You would include him among the people that your section 21 provided support for? 22 A. Yes, I worked directly to ... in my area, but I will not 23 name him. 24 Q. Would it be right to understand that your section was 25 not itself part of G2, but operated in support of G2? 6 1 A. No, G2 is, the Army works again, G1, G2, G3, G4. G2 is 2 intelligence full stop. The G2 staff, they do not -- 3 they are part and parcel of the intelligence community 4 and G2 is -- signifies intelligence. So we work in 5 support of the commander's staff. Our job is to produce 6 to the commander, information that he requires. 7 Q. Was 121-section part of G2 or not? 8 A. Indeed, yes. Yes, the intelligence community is G2. 9 The G2 staff -- the offices which occupy the G2 10 corridor, we worked to them and they worked to the CLF 11 and he works to the GOC. 12 Q. Within the G2 branch, would it be right to understand 13 that there would have been a number of senior 14 intelligence officers? 15 A. The honest answer to that is: no. You had one SO1 who 16 was an intelligence corps half Colonel/full Colonel and 17 the remainder could be officers who had very little 18 knowledge of intelligence work; they had staff officers 19 who were drafted in. For instance, my staff officer was 20 totally inexperienced in this work and he relied quite 21 heavily on his junior NCOs to produce material, and that 22 is not uncommon, that is the same throughout the, the 23 Army. 24 Q. Is it right that within the Intelligence Branch, there 25 were desk officers with responsibility for producing 7 1 intelligence assessments in particular fields? 2 A. That is true, but that does not mean to say that they 3 are experienced. 4 Q. What rank would those desk officers typically have held? 5 A. Major and captains. Captains and major, SO1s, SO2s, 6 SO3s. 7 Q. Would people in your section have reported directly to 8 those desk officers or would there have been other 9 officers in between? 10 A. No, no, we worked directly to them. 11 Q. When you use the phrase "G2 support staff" in your 12 paragraph 2 on the left, what category of staff or 13 category of officers are you referring to there? 14 A. The Administration, the clerks and the Registry, which 15 is a very large set-up in a G2 environment. 16 Q. You say also in that paragraph that you started off 17 doing work associated with the Loyalist paramilitaries 18 and after a short period, were given the job of 19 maintaining the Derry Republican desk. At the end of 20 the paragraph you say, as you have said this morning, 21 that you reported to a GSO2 major and the 22 Security Service representative? 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. Their names have been blanked out of your statement for 25 security reasons? 8 1 A. Indeed. 2 Q. May I ask you, please, not to mention the names of any 3 military or intelligence personnel in the course of your 4 evidence today. 5 Was that major the G2 desk officer with 6 responsibility for a particular type of intelligence? 7 A. No, he was responsible for Derry, and Derry county, the 8 whole -- Londonderry as a county, and Derry City. 9 Q. Both Republican and Loyalist or just -- 10 A. Well, in theory both Republican and Loyalist, but we 11 would pay very little attention to the Loyalist side. 12 Q. When you were on the Derry Republican desk in 13 121-section, was there anyone else working with you on 14 that desk or was it just you? 15 A. Just me. 16 Q. Would it be right to say that your job description, so 17 to speak, at this time, was that you were a JNCO 18 collator? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. You then say that your position required a level 1 21 password for the computer system, with regular access to 22 source material from the Security Service Force Research 23 Unit, Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch and 24 occasionally Secret Intelligence Service. May we keep 25 KI2.1 on the left and put KI2.3 on the right, please. 9 1 On the right we have the third page of your first 2 statement. We can see that at the top of that page, you 3 say: 4 "No Security Service information was collated or 5 retained within 121 intelligence section offices. 6 Although Security Service documents were circulated 7 within the office, they were not retained. One 8 exception was the Security Service tout telephone 9 folder, which was operated out of hours by the 10 121 intelligence section duty operator." 11 Just to be clear about this: is it right that it was 12 never part of your job at 121 intelligence section to 13 collate reports from the Security Service? 14 A. That is true. We did not collate the material 15 generated, but let us be under no illusion that they did 16 not generate very much, they did not have a very big 17 presence and so, frankly, they did not really come into 18 the equation. 19 Q. You say that Security Service documents were circulated 20 within the office but not retained? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. When you had seen a Security Service document, were you 23 required to destroy it or did you have to give it back 24 to someone or what happened? 25 A. No. No, the procedure is, it goes into the Registry, 10 1 the Registry then puts it on a circulation slip which 2 involves you signing that the appropriate desk officer 3 has seen it. Then once it has done what we call 4 "a round-robin" and it has been accounted for and at the 5 end of the day there is a head check on each of the 6 files to make sure that they are not left, which 7 sometimes does happen, it is part and parcel of the duty 8 of both the Registry staff and also the junior NCO to 9 make sure that every document is accounted for. 10 It returns at the end of the day back, in theory, 11 back to the Registry, but the GSO2, GSO1 invariably keep 12 them on their desk if they are working late at night. 13 As I say, quantity-wise there was not a great 14 amount. 15 Q. Is it right that information derived from 16 Security Service reports would never have been entered 17 into the Army's computer database? 18 A. That is an accurate statement. 19 Q. Would the same apply to reports from SIS? 20 A. That is accurate. 21 Q. Approximately how frequently would you say that you in 22 fact saw Security Service reports while you were in this 23 post? 24 A. You would not, if we took a week you might see six or 25 seven files. 11 1 Q. Six or seven files? 2 A. Files, as in circulation files. Within those might be 3 one or two documents. 4 Q. If you were not permitted to collate Security Service 5 reports or to enter them into the computer database, 6 what was the purpose of showing them to you? 7 A. So you maintain your knowledge, your operational 8 knowledge of the area. So you are constantly updated. 9 It is one of the fundamental principles of intelligence, 10 it actually breaches the fundamental principle which is 11 centralisation which is something which the Army come to 12 learn its mistakes by. 13 But I just want to emphasise one thing in that 14 respect and I do not want people to get hung up on this. 15 They produce very, very little. As I say, we had within 16 121 their folder which contained their out-of-hours 17 contact numbers for all their agents, believe you me, 18 there were not many. 19 Q. Do you know who would have decided what Security Service 20 reports should be circulated to you? 21 A. Well, they come into the Registry and if you want the 22 textbook answer, if you want to follow the Manual of 23 Army Security as opposed to living in the real world, 24 the Manual of Army Security will say that it is on a 25 need-to-know basis. The reality of the situation, if 12 1 you have a 24/7 operation and you live and sleep in 2 there and you have access to documents, then, frankly, 3 there is no document which is not accessible. 4 But if you want the textbook answer, then I would 5 imagine the SO2 or the SO1 would decide on the 6 circulation. 7 I think, as Officer Y and one of the other officers 8 says, that it is the practice to disseminate the 9 information as widely as possible, for obvious reasons. 10 Q. You say that the reports would have come into the 11 Registry. Would one of the staff officers have had to 12 examine the reports after they came into the Registry 13 and form a view about who they should be sent to? 14 A. No, no, let me say this: the right-hand man of the GSO2, 15 who may well be an inexperienced officer coming in for 16 the first time; he is finding his feet. The person that 17 he relies upon is his junior NCO, his foot soldier. 18 Therefore, if I am going to produce a report that he is 19 going to stand in front of the CLF, I can tell you now, 20 he wants it accurate. Therefore he aint not going to 21 show me everything that is relevant; I am his eyes and 22 ears. 23 Q. Does someone in the Registry just decide to circulate 24 the report? 25 A. Yes, it would be circulated relatively on a, on a -- not 13 1 an informal basis, but just on a routine basis. As far 2 as I was aware there was never any occasion where they 3 would vet a document. 4 Q. When you did see documents from the Security Service, 5 what sort of documents were they? 6 A. Source reports. 7 Q. Were they definitely source reports as opposed to some 8 more sanitised form of intelligence report? 9 A. No, it was basically source reports you would see. 10 Q. Are you sure they were not documents more in the nature 11 of intelligence summaries? 12 A. Mr Roxburgh, having worked in the Ministry of Defence, 13 I think I know what a Box 500 and a CX report looks 14 like. 15 Q. But not necessarily everybody in this room does, so I am 16 trying to obtain your evidence. 17 A. What I am saying to you is they were source reports. 18 Q. If we go on, please, to paragraph 3 of your first 19 statement, you say: 20 "Upon assuming this job, I knew nothing about Derry. 21 I enthusiastically began to read both the intelligence 22 files and search the computer system to glean a basic 23 grounding of the intelligence picture of Derry and 24 surrounding areas. I would say that the intelligence 25 coverage of Derry during this period, in comparison to 14 1 other areas was good, with all agencies having good 2 access.". 3 Should we take that last observation to be a comment 4 about the quality of intelligence coverage of Derry in 5 1981 or 1982 as opposed to the position ten years 6 previously? 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. In paragraph 4, I can pick it up in the third line, you 9 say: 10 MR ROXBURGH: "The process of collating and producing 11 analysis work for the staff officers of HQNI was 12 interesting, though in truth I spent many hours, like 13 other 'new boys', reading both source and open reference 14 material on all the major events affecting both the six 15 counties and the 26 of the Republic. For example, 16 during the early 1980s, if you were to enter either the 17 title "Le Mon" or "Miami Showband", both well-known 18 incidents of the Troubles, as a key word, or the dates 19 into the 3702 computer with a level 1 password, a long 20 list of titles would be available to access." 21 Could you just explain, please, Mr Ingram, what you 22 mean by "a long list of titles"? 23 A. Okay. Well, if -- the best way I can describe it: if 24 you were in the modern day, was to be surfing the web 25 and you put in a key word into Google and it came back 15
http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk/transcripts/Archive/TS329.htm 1 Monday, 12th May 2003 2 (9.40 am) 3 MR MARTIN INGRAM (affirmed) 4 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH 5 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Ingram, if you look across immediately in 6 front of you, towards the bench, you can see who is 7 talking to you. I am the Chairman. I say this to all 8 the witnesses: the questions will come in the main from 9 the barristers, the people in front of me. Could I ask 10 you to pull that microphone a little closer to you, so 11 we are all able to hear what you have to say. 12 A. Is that okay, sir? 13 LORD SAVILLE: That is fine, thank you, very much. 14 MR ROXBURGH: May we have on one side of the screen 15 page KI2.1, please and on the other side KI2.9. 16 Mr Ingram, you have made three statements to this 17 Inquiry. Would you confirm, please, that what we have 18 on the screen are the first and last pages of the first 19 statement that you made and signed on 26th July 2002. 20 A. Good morning, Mr Roxburgh. Yes, I can confirm that. 21 Q. May we have KI2.32 on the left, please and KI2.35 on the 22 right, please. Are those the first and last pages of 23 a supplementary statement that you made on 24 10th February 2003, in order to deal with certain 25 matters arising out of articles published in the 1 1 Sunday Tribune? 2 A. Indeed, I can confirm that. 3 Q. Finally, may we have KI2.40 on the left and KI2.42 on 4 the right, please. Are those the first and last pages 5 of a further statement that you made on 17th March 2003, 6 in order to address various matters arising out of your 7 first witness statement? 8 A. I can confirm that is accurate. 9 Q. Mr Ingram, do you have with you copies of those three 10 statements that you have made? 11 A. I do, sir. 12 Q. Taking them all as a whole, are the contents of those 13 statements true to the best of your knowledge and 14 belief? 15 A. They are, sir. 16 Q. May we have page KI2.1 on the left and KI2.40 on the 17 right, please. In your first statement which we have on 18 the left-hand side of the screen, paragraphs 1 and 2, 19 you explain that you joined the intelligence corps in 20 1980 and during 1981 were posted to 121 intelligence 21 section at Headquarters Northern Ireland. 22 Is it right that between 1980 and 1981, you were 23 going through your intelligence corps training? 24 A. That is true, sir. 25 Q. And you then went to Northern Ireland as your first 2 1 posting? 2 A. That is true. 3 Q. What rank did you hold when you were first sent to 4 Northern Ireland? 5 A. It is, in the intelligence corps, when you leave 6 training, you become a lance corporal, a junior NCO. 7 Q. Then in paragraph 2 of your second statement, on the 8 right-hand side, you tell us that you were first posted 9 to 3 Special Collation Team at Headquarters Northern 10 Ireland. 11 Was that part of 121 intelligence section, or was it 12 something different? 13 A. Well, let me explain. The first two Alpha numerics "1, 14 "2", signifies 12 Intelligence Company and within the 15 company structure there are a number of security and 16 intelligence sections. For instance 121 is associated 17 with 12 company, 12 Intelligence Company. 18 Within 12 Intelligence Company, as I said, there are 19 a number of units. 3SCT was a very small off-shoot of 20 an IT section that dealt with vehicle intelligence and 21 the computer system at the time and it is, as it says 22 there, it stands for Special Collation Team. 23 Q. Is it right that at that time, 3 Special Collation Team 24 was responsible for transferring intelligence material 25 on to a new computer database? 3 1 A. No, let me just clarify that. 2 It was responsible for one thing and one thing only, 3 to input SB50s, which were the Royal Ulster 4 Constabulary's source reports which were being loaded 5 secretly, without the RUC's knowledge, and that is what 6 prompted the level 1 significance. The RUC did not want 7 it to go on to any data retrieval base and that is why 8 it was done in that way. 9 Q. To understand the position: you are saying that 3SCT was 10 solely concerned at that time with loading the SB50s 11 into the database? 12 A. Indeed. Just to give you an example of the size, it was 13 a 24/7 operation and four operators on each shift. 14 Q. Was some other unit responsible for loading material 15 into the computer database? 16 A. That would be done by the intelligence sections because 17 organically it was Army information that was being 18 produced, therefore, if it was at a local level, they 19 had the ability to input it and it would go via the 20 intelligence sections or, indeed, if, for instance, as 21 in 1980 the FRU, the FRU would input their own material 22 on to the system. 23 Q. Was 121 intelligence section itself responsible at that 24 time for loading some material into the database? 25 A. Very, very little. 4 1 Q. What kind of material was 121-section loading into the 2 database? 3 A. They would load the odd intelligence summary and that 4 sort of thing. As I say, the responsibility is by the 5 unit that actually produces the information. 6 Q. What about historical material that had been created 7 before the introduction of the database? 8 A. Even with the material that goes on to the computer 9 base, there is always a hard copy, the Army is 10 a bureaucratic system and tends to rely, quite rightly, 11 on hard copy. 12 Q. At the time when you were there, if 3SCT was working on 13 the SB50s, was someone else working on the historical 14 intelligence reports from the Army? 15 A. Do you mean to update the computer system? 16 Q. Yes. 17 A. No, because it would be such a mammoth thing to go 18 backwards, they would rely on the, mostly, as I said, 19 the local units, it would have been done over a number 20 of years. The system did not come in -- 3702 did not 21 come in in 1980, it had been in over a period of time, 22 it did not just suddenly arrive. 23 Q. While we are on the matter, is an SB50 something 24 different from what you refer to elsewhere in your 25 statement as an RUCIRAC? 5 1 A. A RUCIRAC. It is just our abbreviation for an RUC 2 intelligence report. The police would call them an SB50 3 and Box 500 call them SB50. We call them RUCIRACs. 4 Q. It is the same thing? 5 A. It is the same beast. 6 Q. Approximately how long did you spend as a member of 7 3 Special Collation Team? 8 A. The same as everybody else because it was such a boring 9 and mundane job, approximately two or three months until 10 you can engineer your own escape, the quicker the 11 better! 12 Q. If we look again at paragraph 2 of your first statement 13 on the left, you say that 121 intelligence section 14 provided support for the GOC, CLF and the entire G2 15 support staff of HQNI? 16 A. Just, if I may interrupt you there, that should also 17 include the civilian representatives, the Security 18 Services representative, he is known as JIRO, Joint 19 Intelligence Research Officer. 20 Q. You would include him among the people that your section 21 provided support for? 22 A. Yes, I worked directly to ... in my area, but I will not 23 name him. 24 Q. Would it be right to understand that your section was 25 not itself part of G2, but operated in support of G2? 6 1 A. No, G2 is, the Army works again, G1, G2, G3, G4. G2 is 2 intelligence full stop. The G2 staff, they do not -- 3 they are part and parcel of the intelligence community 4 and G2 is -- signifies intelligence. So we work in 5 support of the commander's staff. Our job is to produce 6 to the commander, information that he requires. 7 Q. Was 121-section part of G2 or not? 8 A. Indeed, yes. Yes, the intelligence community is G2. 9 The G2 staff -- the offices which occupy the G2 10 corridor, we worked to them and they worked to the CLF 11 and he works to the GOC. 12 Q. Within the G2 branch, would it be right to understand 13 that there would have been a number of senior 14 intelligence officers? 15 A. The honest answer to that is: no. You had one SO1 who 16 was an intelligence corps half Colonel/full Colonel and 17 the remainder could be officers who had very little 18 knowledge of intelligence work; they had staff officers 19 who were drafted in. For instance, my staff officer was 20 totally inexperienced in this work and he relied quite 21 heavily on his junior NCOs to produce material, and that 22 is not uncommon, that is the same throughout the, the 23 Army. 24 Q. Is it right that within the Intelligence Branch, there 25 were desk officers with responsibility for producing 7 1 intelligence assessments in particular fields? 2 A. That is true, but that does not mean to say that they 3 are experienced. 4 Q. What rank would those desk officers typically have held? 5 A. Major and captains. Captains and major, SO1s, SO2s, 6 SO3s. 7 Q. Would people in your section have reported directly to 8 those desk officers or would there have been other 9 officers in between? 10 A. No, no, we worked directly to them. 11 Q. When you use the phrase "G2 support staff" in your 12 paragraph 2 on the left, what category of staff or 13 category of officers are you referring to there? 14 A. The Administration, the clerks and the Registry, which 15 is a very large set-up in a G2 environment. 16 Q. You say also in that paragraph that you started off 17 doing work associated with the Loyalist paramilitaries 18 and after a short period, were given the job of 19 maintaining the Derry Republican desk. At the end of 20 the paragraph you say, as you have said this morning, 21 that you reported to a GSO2 major and the 22 Security Service representative? 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. Their names have been blanked out of your statement for 25 security reasons? 8 1 A. Indeed. 2 Q. May I ask you, please, not to mention the names of any 3 military or intelligence personnel in the course of your 4 evidence today. 5 Was that major the G2 desk officer with 6 responsibility for a particular type of intelligence? 7 A. No, he was responsible for Derry, and Derry county, the 8 whole -- Londonderry as a county, and Derry City. 9 Q. Both Republican and Loyalist or just -- 10 A. Well, in theory both Republican and Loyalist, but we 11 would pay very little attention to the Loyalist side. 12 Q. When you were on the Derry Republican desk in 13 121-section, was there anyone else working with you on 14 that desk or was it just you? 15 A. Just me. 16 Q. Would it be right to say that your job description, so 17 to speak, at this time, was that you were a JNCO 18 collator? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. You then say that your position required a level 1 21 password for the computer system, with regular access to 22 source material from the Security Service Force Research 23 Unit, Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch and 24 occasionally Secret Intelligence Service. May we keep 25 KI2.1 on the left and put KI2.3 on the right, please. 9 1 On the right we have the third page of your first 2 statement. We can see that at the top of that page, you 3 say: 4 "No Security Service information was collated or 5 retained within 121 intelligence section offices. 6 Although Security Service documents were circulated 7 within the office, they were not retained. One 8 exception was the Security Service tout telephone 9 folder, which was operated out of hours by the 10 121 intelligence section duty operator." 11 Just to be clear about this: is it right that it was 12 never part of your job at 121 intelligence section to 13 collate reports from the Security Service? 14 A. That is true. We did not collate the material 15 generated, but let us be under no illusion that they did 16 not generate very much, they did not have a very big 17 presence and so, frankly, they did not really come into 18 the equation. 19 Q. You say that Security Service documents were circulated 20 within the office but not retained? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. When you had seen a Security Service document, were you 23 required to destroy it or did you have to give it back 24 to someone or what happened? 25 A. No. No, the procedure is, it goes into the Registry, 10 1 the Registry then puts it on a circulation slip which 2 involves you signing that the appropriate desk officer 3 has seen it. Then once it has done what we call 4 "a round-robin" and it has been accounted for and at the 5 end of the day there is a head check on each of the 6 files to make sure that they are not left, which 7 sometimes does happen, it is part and parcel of the duty 8 of both the Registry staff and also the junior NCO to 9 make sure that every document is accounted for. 10 It returns at the end of the day back, in theory, 11 back to the Registry, but the GSO2, GSO1 invariably keep 12 them on their desk if they are working late at night. 13 As I say, quantity-wise there was not a great 14 amount. 15 Q. Is it right that information derived from 16 Security Service reports would never have been entered 17 into the Army's computer database? 18 A. That is an accurate statement. 19 Q. Would the same apply to reports from SIS? 20 A. That is accurate. 21 Q. Approximately how frequently would you say that you in 22 fact saw Security Service reports while you were in this 23 post? 24 A. You would not, if we took a week you might see six or 25 seven files. 11 1 Q. Six or seven files? 2 A. Files, as in circulation files. Within those might be 3 one or two documents. 4 Q. If you were not permitted to collate Security Service 5 reports or to enter them into the computer database, 6 what was the purpose of showing them to you? 7 A. So you maintain your knowledge, your operational 8 knowledge of the areA. So you are constantly updated. 9 It is one of the fundamental principles of intelligence, 10 it actually breaches the fundamental principle which is 11 centralisation which is something which the Army come to 12 learn its mistakes by. 13 But I just want to emphasise one thing in that 14 respect and I do not want people to get hung up on this. 15 They produce very, very little. As I say, we had within 16 121 their folder which contained their out-of-hours 17 contact numbers for all their agents, believe you me, 18 there were not many. 19 Q. Do you know who would have decided what Security Service 20 reports should be circulated to you? 21 A. Well, they come into the Registry and if you want the 22 textbook answer, if you want to follow the Manual of 23 Army Security as opposed to living in the real world, 24 the Manual of Army Security will say that it is on a 25 need-to-know basis. The reality of the situation, if 12 1 you have a 24/7 operation and you live and sleep in 2 there and you have access to documents, then, frankly, 3 there is no document which is not accessible. 4 But if you want the textbook answer, then I would 5 imagine the SO2 or the SO1 would decide on the 6 circulation. 7 I think, as Officer Y and one of the other officers 8 says, that it is the practice to disseminate the 9 information as widely as possible, for obvious reasons. 10 Q. You say that the reports would have come into the 11 Registry. Would one of the staff officers have had to 12 examine the reports after they came into the Registry 13 and form a view about who they should be sent to? 14 A. No, no, let me say this: the right-hand man of the GSO2, 15 who may well be an inexperienced officer coming in for 16 the first time; he is finding his feet. The person that 17 he relies upon is his junior NCO, his foot soldier. 18 Therefore, if I am going to produce a report that he is 19 going to stand in front of the CLF, I can tell you now, 20 he wants it accurate. Therefore he aint not going to 21 show me everything that is relevant; I am his eyes and 22 ears. 23 Q. Does someone in the Registry just decide to circulate 24 the report? 25 A. Yes, it would be circulated relatively on a, on a -- not 13 1 an informal basis, but just on a routine basis. As far 2 as I was aware there was never any occasion where they 3 would vet a document. 4 Q. When you did see documents from the Security Service, 5 what sort of documents were they? 6 A. Source reports. 7 Q. Were they definitely source reports as opposed to some 8 more sanitised form of intelligence report? 9 A. No, it was basically source reports you would see. 10 Q. Are you sure they were not documents more in the nature 11 of intelligence summaries? 12 A. Mr Roxburgh, having worked in the Ministry of Defence, 13 I think I know what a Box 500 and a CX report looks 14 like. 15 Q. But not necessarily everybody in this room does, so I am 16 trying to obtain your evidence. 17 A. What I am saying to you is they were source reports. 18 Q. If we go on, please, to paragraph 3 of your first 19 statement, you say: 20 "Upon assuming this job, I knew nothing about Derry. 21 I enthusiastically began to read both the intelligence 22 files and search the computer system to glean a basic 23 grounding of the intelligence picture of Derry and 24 surrounding areas. I would say that the intelligence 25 coverage of Derry during this period, in comparison to 14 1 other areas was good, with all agencies having good 2 access.". 3 Should we take that last observation to be a comment 4 about the quality of intelligence coverage of Derry in 5 1981 or 1982 as opposed to the position ten years 6 previously? 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. In paragraph 4, I can pick it up in the third line, you 9 say: 10 MR ROXBURGH: "The process of collating and producing 11 analysis work for the staff officers of HQNI was 12 interesting, though in truth I spent many hours, like 13 other 'new boys', reading both source and open reference 14 material on all the major events affecting both the six 15 counties and the 26 of the Republic. For example, 16 during the early 1980s, if you were to enter either the 17 title "Le Mon" or "Miami Showband", both well-known 18 incidents of the Troubles, as a key word, or the dates 19 into the 3702 computer with a level 1 password, a long 20 list of titles would be available to access." 21 Could you just explain, please, Mr Ingram, what you 22 mean by "a long list of titles"? 23 A. Okay. Well, if -- the best way I can describe it: if 24 you were in the modern day, was to be surfing the web 25 and you put in a key word into Google and it came back 15 1 with a number of hits, 100 hits and you were then to 2 page through because, basically somewhere in the text, 3 the main text of a document that it has been linked to, 4 it makes reference to the, the incident that is being 5 reported upon. 6 Q. So did these titles contain references, then, to reports 7 that had been entered into the database? 8 A. Yes, the title may well not relate directly to the 9 incident. Within -- it is part and parcel of the 10 collator's job, whoever is inputting it to 11 cross-reference the document, so the document itself may 12 well be linked to 50 different topics. 13 Q. Suppose, for example, you had searched in relation to 14 a particular incident and it had thrown up 50 hits, 15 might one of those hits, just purely for the sake of 16 example, be a reference to something written in an SB50? 17 A. It could well be, yes. 18 Q. And would the database tell you that that is what it 19 was? 20 A. Yes, because it would come up with a level 1. 21 Q. If you then decided that you wanted to see what that 22 SB50 had to say about the incident in question, could 23 you get that information out of the database? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. Would the database have given you access to the full 16 1 text of the original report or just to a summary of it? 2 A. No, it would be the full text, along with the analysis 3 comments and also the linking. To give you an example 4 of that: if I refer back to the famous Martin McGuinness 5 MISR or source report, at the bottom of that it makes 6 reference to other incidents that are linking to 7 Martin McGuinness. 8 Now, a real document would put -- would prove the 9 linkage. In other words, it would make reference to 10 documents which were supporting that document. 11 Q. So, generally speaking, would it follow that if you had 12 found a reference to a particular report in the database 13 and you had read whatever it had to say, there would not 14 have been any need for you to go back to try to locate 15 the original paper report? 16 A. That is true, yes, that would be a nightmare. 17 Q. If you had wanted to try to track down the original 18 paper report, what would you have done? 19 A. Well, it would be nigh on impossible. I refer you to 20 Officer Y's statement who, and again as in all these 21 things, he breaches the Manual of Army Security when he 22 admits that a common procedure was to photocopy a source 23 document 20 times and then cut and paste on 24 to documents, which -- he is telling the truth there, 25 but that is totally in contravention of the rules and 17 1 regulations. 2 Now, what I am saying to you there, if you were to 3 photocopy that source document 20 times, then in theory 4 you should enter that 20 times into a MoD form 102 5 giving the details and location that you are storing 6 that document. 7 Q. In practice, was that done or not? 8 A. The answer to that is: no. 9 Q. Are you in a position to say one way or the other 10 whether reports that had been entered into the database 11 were kept in hard copy? 12 A. In relation to SB50s, no, they were not kept as 13 a routine. When we entered them in -- on 3SCT they were 14 photocopied as such. In 121 they were filed. So 121 15 would be the only place that documents of the level 1 16 and an SB50 would be stored, other than in a FRU office, 17 I am talking purely in an Army context now. 18 If, for instance, there was a level 1 document which 19 referred to Derry, for instance, then that document 20 would be copied to FRO(North) for the attention of the 21 handlers. 22 Q. Four lines from the end of paragraph 4, on the left-hand 23 side of the screen, you say: 24 "All HQNI intelligence staff and FRU personnel had 25 level 1 passwords; at HQNI only between 10 and 20 people 18 1 would have had access to a level 1 password." 2 If all HQNI intelligence staff had level 1 3 passwords, would that not mean there were many more than 4 20 people with access to such a password? 5 A. No. 6 Q. May we have on the right-hand side of the screen 7 page KI2.40. First of all may we look on the left at 8 paragraph 5, where you say: 9 "As part of the learning curve, I undertook a number 10 of projects to examine the intelligence picture 11 available. These projects were either requested by the 12 staff officers or undertaken on my own initiative. 13 Examples were vehicles of interest which used particular 14 permanent vehicle checkpoints and Bloody Sunday." 15 If we look across to the right-hand side of the 16 screen, you say in paragraph 2 that after your time in 17 3SCT, you went to the Derry desk, working for the major 18 at 121. 19 "He was an easy-going guy. I cannot say that he 20 told me to do the project on Bloody Sunday, although he 21 might have done. Basically it was a project in 22 collation, bringing together sources of information 23 available in the section. It was very loose, not 24 structured. I think that the exercise was something 25 that I initiated. It probably only took about a week to 19 1 10 days to complete it, doing it at odd times. It was a 2 written report. Major [blank] was aware of it. 3 I completed it well before I left 121. I typed it 4 myself. I would expect it still to be in existence. 5 I was the originator of the document. I classified it 6 as secret and I believe that the Registry clerk entered 7 it on the MoD form 102." 8 At one point you say that the major might have told 9 you to do the project and at another point you say that 10 you think you initiated it yourself. What is your best 11 recollection as to how this project came about? 12 A. I think, if you refer back to Officer Y, he says that it 13 was a practice that individual collation, collators 14 would actually undertake projects like this. 15 My best recollection is, I carried it out, but 16 I could not honestly tell you whether that major -- the 17 other thing you have to remember, as well, that major 18 actually came in part of the way through my tour in 19 there, as always happens there is an overlap and 20 I cannot remember whether it was the previous major or 21 not, but my best recollection is that it was that 22 particular individual. But with the passage of time, 23 I would not swear to it. 24 Q. Are you confident that, whichever major was around at 25 the time, you did show the report to a staff officer in 20 1 G2? 2 A. Yes, yes. You know, in layman's terms, it is a bit of 3 Brownie points. 4 Q. You would have been doing this report in or about 1982; 5 is that right? 6 A. Yes, give or take a few months, yes. 7 Q. So approximately ten years after Bloody Sunday? 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. What was the purpose of doing this report? 10 A. Well, as you take over a desk, whether it be the Syrian 11 desk as I took over in the Ministry of Defence, the 12 first thing you do is read into an area and probably -- 13 not probably, the biggest single event of Derry was 14 Bloody Sunday. So to get a grasp of the area, it seems 15 both logical and common sense to me that you would 16 undertake a project which would involve links to the 17 majority of the major players. 18 Q. Can you remember, approximately, how long your report 19 was? 20 A. It was produced when you were on duty operator so out of 21 hours where you basically sleep there during the close 22 of hours and, you know, you have got time to surf the 23 web. I would not like to say it was the longest 24 document in the world, probably three or four pages. 25 Q. Did it attempt to answer any particular questions about 21 1 Bloody Sunday or -- 2 A. No, no. The, the intention of the documents similar to 3 what I produced was to collate the material, not to come 4 to a determination. 5 Q. Obviously without mentioning any names, having produced 6 this report, can you remember to whom you circulated it? 7 A. No, I think -- again, it is an informal thing. As 8 Officer C has said, it was fairly common, you know, that 9 desks, junior NCOs would produce this sort of thing. 10 That is what a collator does; that is his job, to 11 produce material for and on behalf of the staff officers 12 and if you do something which a staff officer has not at 13 first requested, especially when he is new, if it was 14 indeed that major, which is why I believe it may well 15 have been him because I was partly motivated by showing 16 him something to bring him into his new area and just as 17 a matter of time, we actually visited Derry, myself and 18 him, and we visited the Royal Anglian Regiment on the 19 ground and we both patrolled in green uniform. 20 Q. Are you saying, then, that you do not think you would 21 have copied the document to anybody other than the 22 major? 23 A. No, no. 24 Q. Do you remember receiving any comments from anyone about 25 your report? 22 1 A. Not particularly, no. 2 Q. How did you go about doing the research for the report? 3 A. Just purely off the 3702. 4 Q. What kind of searches did you run on the database? 5 A. I was probably very lazy and put in the key word 6 "Bloody Sunday," that is a sure key to success. 7 Q. As a JNCO collator, would you have been entitled to go 8 into the G2 Registry and ask to see any file that you 9 liked? 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. Would you have been allowed to take files out of the 12 Registry? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. And if you did that, would you have had to sign for 15 them? 16 A. No. If you want to refer to the Manual of Army 17 Security, you should have done. 18 Q. What about files held within 121 intelligence section, 19 would you have had unrestricted access to them? 20 A. Absolutely. 21 Q. If we look back to paragraph 5 on the left-hand side of 22 the screen, you say: 23 "A project would involve examining military 24 intelligence source reports, intelligence reports, 25 intelligence summaries; RUCIRACs and other documents.". 23 1 You did not in fact examine hard copy documents, you 2 have just told us, for the purposes of your project? 3 A. No, I did not. 4 Q. Are those the sorts of documents that you would have 5 accessed through the database? 6 A. Agreed. 7 Q. Can we go back to the previous page to look at that list 8 of different kinds of documents. 9 So far as a Military Intelligence source report is 10 concerned, is it right that that is a document that will 11 contain intelligence from a source of some kind, but 12 that it will not be apparent from the document, or 13 should not be apparent from the document, who the source 14 is? 15 A. That is accurate. 16 Q. You then refer to "Int reps" obviously intelligence 17 reports. What sort of documents are those? 18 A. Those could be produced -- normally produced by the 19 local unit on the ground and they would come in at 20 level 7 or level 9 and I give you an example, that could 21 be that James Martin McGuinness was seen at 3.30 22 entering Butcher's Gate. 23 Q. That is something distinct from source reports? 24 A. Indeed, yes. 25 Q. And then you refer to Int summs. Are you referring 24 1 there to military Int summs? 2 A. Yes, yes. 3 Q. And we have dealt with the RUC documents. So far as the 4 SB50s are concerned, is it right that they, too, would 5 have been drafted in such a way as to conceal the 6 identity of the sources of information? 7 A. In 99 per cent of cases, yes. 8 Q. Were there any other kinds of document that you could 9 access through the computer system? 10 A. No. Well, as I say, sighting reports and that sort of 11 thing. Other than that, not really. 12 Q. In answering my next question, please do not, for the 13 moment at least, go into any details but if you can, 14 just answer it yes or no: do you now remember any 15 specific pieces of intelligence that you saw concerning 16 Bloody Sunday when you compiled this project? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. Please be very careful not to say anything that might 19 identify a source and please do not name any individuals 20 in your answer. Are you able, subject to that, to 21 describe in general terms the nature of the intelligence 22 that you remember, concerning Bloody Sunday? 23 A. Well, there was material prior to Bloody Sunday in the 24 lead-up to Bloody Sunday. There was clear infiltration 25 of the civil rights movement, the Derry Young Hooligans 25 1 and then, obviously on the events of the day there was 2 coverage and then post the events and when I say "post 3 the event," material is still coming in 10, 12 years 4 after the event. I remember quite distinct -- well, if 5 you take the Infliction case as an example, but 6 I remember in a military context, every informer that is 7 basically extracted for whatever reason, he is 8 thoroughly debriefed and asked about all salient points 9 and that is a question which is always asked. 10 Q. Let us take those in turn: so far as material showing 11 infiltration of the Civil Rights Association and the 12 Derry Young Hooligans is concerned, first of all do you 13 remember whether this was police or Army material? 14 A. I could not put my hand on my heart and say -- basically 15 I formed an overview, given the passage of time I could 16 not give you an honest recollection of whether it was an 17 Army Box 500, RUC or, indeed, a signals intelligence 18 report. 19 Q. It would not have been Box 500 if you saw it in the 20 database, would it? 21 A. No, I am talking about my overall view of the material 22 available to me. I am not just talking -- my statement 23 is not in relation to just that, that project of 24 producing that document. My statement is in response to 25 my experience as an intelligence operator. 26 1 Q. Let us go back a step because I will come to other 2 intelligence that you may have seen later on. But what 3 I want to ask you for the moment is whether or not you 4 remember specifically any intelligence that you saw in 5 connection with this project that you did on 6 Bloody Sunday. As I say, I do not want you to go into 7 the details of it. 8 Do you have a recollection of intelligence that you 9 saw, in that context? 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. And did it include material showing infiltration of the 12 Civil Rights Association and the Derry Young Hooligans? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. Did that material, showing infiltration of the 15 Civil Rights Association and the Derry Young Hooligans, 16 cast any light on the plans of either organisation for 17 the march on 30th January 1972? 18 A. I do not know. 19 Q. When you talk about "infiltration of the Civil Rights 20 Association," are you talking about infiltration of the 21 Civil Rights Association by the Security Forces or by 22 the IRA? 23 A. No, Security Forces. 24 Q. And you have referred also to seeing coverage of the 25 event itself when you did your project; is that right? 27 1 A. That is correct, yes. 2 Q. Do you have any recollection -- again speaking for the 3 moment in general terms -- of what was reported in that 4 coverage? 5 A. Just over the period, the weeks after, there was 6 a number of source reports coming in giving their, their 7 accounts of the incidents of that day. If you will, if 8 you have got eyes and ears then obviously one of the 9 primary responsibilities is to debrief them as 10 thoroughly as you can. It does not make sense to have 11 a network of informers if you do not use them. 12 Q. Is there anything that you can say about what the 13 content of that coverage was in a way that will not 14 prejudice any source? 15 A. Okay, well, I will give you -- this particular gentleman 16 is dead now, so it will not make him -- 17 Q. I do not want you to, even if he is dead, I do not want 18 you to say anything that would lead to him being 19 identified -- 20 A. Okay, I just want to say I was involved in his 21 relocation and I had many an opportunity to speak to 22 him. I refer to officer -- not Officer Y, the other 23 one, whatever he is -- 24 Q. Officer Z? 25 A. Officer Z makes reference that there may well have been 28 1 references in contact forms as opposed to a MISR. It is 2 a very significant point that he raises. 3 If, when you are debriefing a source, whatever is 4 produced is similar to an iceberg. If you produce 5 10 per cent there is a vast amount of material which is 6 not produced in or disseminated to outside agencies, for 7 a variety of reasons. Nonetheless that material is 8 recorded on what is called the contact form and that is 9 basically the font of knowledge as opposed to MISR. 10 MISR is relatively insignificant. 11 Q. Let me put it another way: did any of the coverage of 12 the events of Bloody Sunday that you saw when working on 13 this project, cast any light upon the circumstances in 14 which either the Army or the IRA had opened fire that 15 day? 16 A. I, I remember seeing no material which would have 17 suggested there was hostile fire. 18 LORD SAVILLE: That was not quite the answer to 19 Mr Roxburgh's question. Could you put it again, 20 Mr Roxburgh. 21 MR ROXBURGH: Yes. Did any of the coverage of the events of 22 Bloody Sunday that you saw, when working on this 23 project, cast any light upon the circumstances in which 24 either the Army or the IRA had opened fire that day? 25 Let us take the Army first. 29 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. The difficulty I have, I do not want to go into the 3 precise details of any intelligence that you may 4 remember in public because of the possible danger to 5 sources. But can you answer this question: is your 6 memory of the material that you saw sufficiently precise 7 that it would now enable you to give details of the 8 content of individual source reports that you saw when 9 compiling this project? 10 A. No. I gained an overview and when I first made the 11 point that there was material which I believed was not 12 or would not be delivered to this Inquiry, it was on the 13 basis of an overview as opposed to specifics, but there 14 are specifics, as I have intimated to you previously. 15 But, frankly, you are asking me to dance a tango on my 16 own. 17 Q. So far as the overview is concerned, what was the 18 overview you derived from reading these documents? 19 A. That there had been no hostile fire and that the Army 20 had overreacted and that there had been a large amount 21 of casualties, some of which had been taken to hospitals 22 across the border and people had been involved in 23 ferrying people backwards and forwards, including 24 agents. 25 Q. Are you saying that the agents were involved in ferrying 30 1 people backwards and forwards or that the agents were 2 among the people who were taken to hospital? 3 A. No, the agents were involved in ferrying people. 4 Obviously they were present on the day and became 5 involved in it, they were entangled in it. 6 Q. You cannot remember whether these were police agents or 7 Army agents? 8 A. No, I am talking now in reference to material in contact 9 forms and my discussions with agents who were present on 10 the day. 11 Q. Are you now coming on to your second job? 12 A. Yes, I am moving on now to my second job in the FRU, 13 yes. 14 Q. So far as the project you did at HQ Northern Ireland is 15 concerned, have you now told us as much as you can 16 remember of the general overview that you derived from 17 reading those documents and compiling that project? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. In paragraph 3 of your third statement, on the 20 right-hand side of the screen, you say: 21 "I had access to and saw hundreds of documents 22 relating to Bloody Sunday.". 23 You are still talking here, are you not, about your 24 first job at HQNI; is that right? 25 A. It was, yes. 31 1 Q. Is that literally true, that you saw hundreds of 2 documents? 3 A. Absolutely. 4 Q. Would some of those documents have been reports about 5 other subjects that just contained incidental references 6 to Bloody Sunday? 7 A. That is, that is true in part, but the vast majority 8 would be made up of sighting reports, particular people 9 being sighted at given times on the day and in the march 10 and in the presence of given individuals, which is 11 a primary function in -- after the event that you can 12 piece together exactly what has happened. 13 Q. Are you aware that there were annual marches throughout 14 the 1970s and beyond in commemoration of the events of 15 Bloody Sunday? 16 A. I have been present on them myself. 17 Q. Is it possible that some of the documents that you saw 18 contained intelligence about people taking part in those 19 commemorative marches rather than about the march on 20 Bloody Sunday itself? 21 A. I do not believe so, but I accept the point you are 22 making, um, it is a point to be considered but I do not 23 think so; I would not totally discount that. But you 24 see the problem is, it is dated and it is done on 25 precedent. So when you put in your question for the 32 1 computer, obviously the most recent input in and 2 relation to the DOY, which is your date of incident, 3 signifies were on the actual list or the print-out the 4 material is placed. 5 Q. Are you able to be sure or not that you saw sighting 6 reports that actually related to Bloody Sunday itself? 7 A. I am sure, 100 per cent. 8 Q. Do you know whether these were reports of sightings by 9 soldiers or by sources or agents who were reporting on 10 sightings or what? 11 A. Both, but in separate documents. 12 Q. So far as sightings by soldiers are concerned, in the 13 first instance, would you please just answer this 14 question yes or no, if you know the answer: would these 15 have been soldiers from Regular Army units, or not? 16 A. All soldiers. 17 Q. In other words, soldiers both from Regular Army units 18 and from other units? 19 A. Indeed. 20 Q. Again, would you just answer this question yes or no, 21 please: so far as soldiers from Army units other than 22 Regular Army units are concerned, do you know to what 23 unit or units those soldiers who made sighting reports 24 belonged? 25 A. Within a, within a title, yes. I mean, the titles vary 33 1 from month-to-month as a means of disguising, but if you 2 are asking me whether it is a surveillance unit, a 3 specialist unit or, in a similar way to the MRF or, you 4 know, or 14 companies today, then, yes. 5 If you are talking to me, was it a specialised unit, 6 then the answer to that is: yes, but I would not get too 7 hung up on the actual individual titles of units because 8 that is very loose. 9 Q. It may be important for us if we are trying to establish 10 whether or not a sighting took place. 11 You mention the MRF? 12 A. Let me just answer that, I think, before we go on just 13 to give you an example -- 14 Q. Before you give the example, I must ask you, please, to 15 confine yourself to any evidence you can give about 16 units that were operating in 1972 and not to -- 17 A. That is what I am trying to explain to you in that 18 I cannot remember exactly what the numerics were but 19 1 signals unit was titled, for instance, 14 signals unit 20 but it did not perform any signals task. Does that 21 answer your question? 22 Q. It is helpful, thank you. 23 You have referred to the MRF. Do you know whether 24 or not the MRF was operating in Derry at that time? 25 A. I do not know if the MRF were operating at that time, 34 1 but a unit which had a similar capability undoubtedly 2 was. 3 Q. Is that something you actually know or are you just 4 going on the basis that there must have been a unit of 5 some kind? 6 A. No, you can -- well, surveillance is quite a specific 7 sort of role that can only be undertaken by professional 8 people and these people have that expertise, therefore, 9 it is not something that, when you see a surveillance 10 report, which is, as I said previously, I think I put in 11 my statement as regards Martin McGuinness, 12 Martin McGuinness was obviously a key person on that 13 march and an SOP, a Standard Operating Practice, would 14 be to place key people under surveillance and -- 15 Q. Is it possible, Mr Ingram, that by the time you became 16 involved in Northern Ireland, things may have become 17 more sophisticated, but that at the time of 18 Bloody Sunday, any sighting reports that there may have 19 been, would have been sighting reports by individual 20 soldiers from Regular Army units? 21 A. Mr Roxburgh, the world of intelligence is as old as the 22 world of prostitution and it has changed very little in 23 many hundreds of years. 24 Q. Again, in the first instance, can you please confine 25 yourself to answering this question yes or no: do you 35 1 remember the identities of any particular individuals 2 who were the subject of these sighting reports on 3 Bloody Sunday? 4 A. The answer to that is: yes. 5 Q. Was one of them Martin McGuinness? 6 A. James Martin McGuinness. 7 Q. Apart from Mr McGuinness, and please do not give their 8 names, do you remember the names of any other people who 9 were sighted on Bloody Sunday? 10 A. No, but there were -- but again because Mr McGuinness is 11 such a high profile individual and I maintain to keep an 12 interest in him, he was of interest to me. 13 Q. Can you remember where he was sighted on Bloody Sunday? 14 A. Well, I know Derry very well and, um, today the names 15 would be familiar to me. In those days they were just 16 names, but he followed the route round Butcher's Gate 17 and that type of areA. I do not remember specifically 18 an area that he was there, other than names of streets 19 and that type of thing. 20 Q. Are you saying that you remember a report of him being 21 in the Butcher's Gate area or is that just a -- 22 A. No, I am using that as an example. I could not tell you 23 off-hand, it would not really mean very much to me at 24 the time, other than he was under surveillance. 25 Q. Is the position this: you saw a report or reports about 36 1 Mr McGuinness's whereabouts on that day, but you cannot 2 now remember specifically where he was supposed to have 3 been? 4 A. That is accurate, yes. 5 Q. Can you remember this: did the sighting reports 6 concerning Mr McGuinness simply indicate where he was or 7 did they give any detail about what he had been doing? 8 A. It mostly focuses upon your company and at what point 9 and at what time. Surveillance is very useful in that 10 respect, to making linkages. 11 LORD SAVILLE: I am sorry, Mr Ingram, it is the Chairman. 12 I did not quite understand: it mostly focuses upon your 13 company -- 14 A. The company. 15 LORD SAVILLE: That is to say the people that were with, in 16 this instance, Mr McGuinness. 17 A. Indeed. 18 MR ROXBURGH: If we look again at paragraph 3 on the 19 right-hand side of the screen, you say in the second 20 line: 21 "During that period they used a crude intelligence 22 system. This was at HQNI." 23 What exactly do you mean by that? 24 A. Do you want me to go into specifics? 25 Q. Let us take it generally first and I will see. 37 1 A. Okay. Well, fundamentally the intelligence system was 2 not run by professional intelligences, and I mean that, 3 by the intelligence corps, who are specifically trained 4 in that game. It was run on a fragmented basis, 5 therefore there was no centralisation which, as 6 I alluded to earlier, is a fundamental principle and 7 from 1980 that changed. 8 So what I am saying is, there was a crude ad hoc 9 system which relied upon the local units to be the 10 tentacles and to report back to the SMIOs and SMIU and 11 to the FINCOs. 12 Q. Would it be right to say your criticism is essentially 13 of the structure of the organisation? 14 A. Yes, yes. 15 Q. Then you say: 16 "The majority of information would be stored at 17 8 Brigade." 18 What kind of information would be stored at 19 8 Brigade that were not available at HQNI? 20 A. Well, as I have just explained to you there, the local 21 units report directly through the Brigade Commander. 22 Now, the Brigade Commander, who is the man obviously 23 responsible for his area, his troops, ie the local unit 24 are the people carrying out the function of 25 intelligence, now that was a primary fault and that is 38 1 where, you know, they made their mistakes and 2 effectively the Brigade Commander was autonomous. 3 Q. Then, still in the same paragraph, you say: 4 "It was not the job of FRU to hold documents, its 5 job was to get the information and pass it on." 6 A. True. 7 Q. "On night shift it would be boring with nothing to do, 8 I would go on to the computer to occupy my time. In 9 1984 when I was there, I could access all areas with my 10 level 1 password." 11 When you talk about what you did on the night shift 12 and going on to the computer to occupy your time, are 13 you talking there about your job at HQNI or your job at 14 FRU, or both? 15 A. No, part of both, in that particular -- I think is that 16 my second or third statement? 17 Q. That is your third statement. 18 A. That is my third statement. I was asked a specific 19 question and that response can be read both ways, but it 20 is meant in the context of the FRU. What I was trying 21 to say is, it is not the FRU's document to act upon the 22 information or, indeed, keep vast amounts of material, 23 other than material that they have generated. So any 24 Int summaries or Int reps which we would come through on 25 a routine basis would not be kept on a long-term basis. 39 1 Q. When you were serving in the FRU, then, did you have 2 access to the same computer database that you had access 3 to when you were in 121 intelligence section? 4 A. Yes, just an upgraded version, it become crucible. 5 Q. At the end of that paragraph, you say: 6 "They did not put Security Service or SIS material 7 on to the computer on a routine basis ...". 8 I think we have established they did not put 9 Security Service or SIS material on to the computer at 10 all; is that right? 11 A. You are making a fundamental mistake there, Mr Roxburgh, 12 because what I said was "not on a routine basis". 13 Q. Does that mean they did sometimes put Security Service 14 and SIS material on to the computer? 15 A. Would you like me to explain that? 16 Q. Yes, please. 17 A. When a handler sees documents which come to him and he 18 then produces his -- let me take a step back. When you 19 meet with an agent and he gives you information, he 20 imparts information, that is not intelligence, that is 21 information of intelligence value. The intelligence is 22 derived by a process called the intelligence cycle. So 23 you come back into the office and by means of 24 constructive comment and analysis, you produce 25 a document which is then an intelligence report. 40 1 Therefore the analysis of the document is the 2 intelligence. Now, it is a fact that in -- w en you 3 have come into possession of knowledge and you are trying to make the case, you sometimes use material to 5 substantiate your case in the analysis without making 6 reference to the source of it. Therefore you use 7 extracts which may well be in other people's documents; 8 It is naughty but it sometimes happens. 9 Q. Is this the position: that what might have gone into the 10 database is documents written by people in the Army or 11 the police which drew on material that they had seen 12 that originated from the Security Service or SIS? 13 A. In a small way, yes. 14 Q. But the Security Service and SIS reports themselves 15 would not have been put into the database? 16 A. Indeed. 17 Q. You go on in your paragraph 3 to say that you had access 18 to the hard copy documents held in the Registry. What 19 categories of Security Service and SIS documents did you 20 have access in the Registry? 21 A. I am sorry, I am missing the point there; what do you 22 mean? 23 Q. What you said in this paragraph is that Security Service 24 and SIS material was not put on to the computer on 25 a routine basis: 41 1 " ... but I had access to the hard copy documents 2 held in the Registry where I saw them. They also came 3 round on round robins in hard copy." 4 Were the hard copy Security Service or SIS documents 5 held in the Registry to which you had access, the same 6 documents as the ones that came round on round robins? 7 A. Indeed, yes. 8 Q. Do you know whether there may have been Security Service 9 and/or SIS material held in the Registry to which you 10 did not have access? 11 A. Everything is possible, but highly unlikely. 12 Q. I do not want you to go into details about this, please, 13 for the moment, but can you say this: do you remember 14 whether when you were working at HQNI you ever saw 15 either Security Service or for that matter SIS material 16 relating to Bloody Sunday? 17 A. I will have to answer that: probably not. 18 Q. May we then go to page KY1.1, please. This is 19 a statement made by an officer who we know as Officer Y. 20 His identity may or may not be known to you. If you do 21 know who he is... 22 A. Obviously I will not, sir. 23 Q. ... please do not mention his name. In paragraph 1 we 24 can see that he was posted to 121 intelligence section 25 in March 1981 as the corporal on the desk dealing with 42 1 Loyalist paramilitaries and then, in mid-December 1981, 2 he says that he moved to the sergeant's post on the desk 3 dealing with Republican paramilitary organisations. 4 That would mean that he was in 121 intelligence 5 section at the same time as you? 6 A. He was my immediate boss. 7 Q. Exactly. KY1.3, please. I would like to go through 8 some parts of his statement with you. First of all, 9 paragraph 5, in the last two sentences, he says: 10 "The vast majority of intelligence processed by the 11 121 intelligence section was from RIRACs ... and MISRs. 12 However, a lesser amount of other intelligence product 13 such as Int reps and Int summs from the three brigades 14 and their subordinate units as well as open source 15 material such as newspapers was also processed at 16 121 intelligence section." 17 Is that an ccurate statement of the position as you 18 remember it? 19 A. No, he misses out the Security Services. 20 Q. Even allowing for that, is it not correct that the vast 21 majority of the intelligence that you processed was from 22 the RIRACs and the MISRs? 23 A. Well the vast majority of intelligence in the whole 24 equation is produced by those two agencies and very 25 little is produced by the Security Services. 43 1 Q. If we go on to paragraph 7 at the foot of the page, he 2 confirms that his time in 121 intelligence section was 3 very busy, particularly during the hunger strikes. 4 Right at the end he says: 5 "This led to a marked increase in the number of 6 RIRACs we received from two or three per day up to six 7 or seven per day. These were usually received in the 8 late afternoon and it was the job of the duty JNCO, who 9 manned the office during silent hours, to carry out 10 intelligence database checks against all the names 11 mentioned in the reports." 12 Do you agree with that? 13 A. Yes, but let us just understand what he means by RIRAC 14 in that context, what he means by that is reports. 15 Within that RIRAC there may be 30 source reports. So 16 where he uses the term "two or three per day", there may 17 well be 90. 18 Q. He goes on in paragraph 8 to say: 19 "The RIRACs were usually divided into Loyalist and 20 Republican reports. Each report then consisted of 21 a number of paragraphs and was usually three or four 22 pages long." 23 Is what you are saying that within those three or 24 four pages, there may have been several paragraphs, each 25 dealing with a different matter? 44 1 A. Indeed, yes. 2 Q. Would they then have had to be split up and put on the 3 appropriate files? 4 A. Yes, if you read his statement, he says that he 5 photocopies them 20 times and cuts and pastes, and that 6 is an accurate reflection of what happened. 7 Q. Take your time to read paragraph 8, do you essentially 8 agree with everything he says in paragraph 8? 9 A. No. 10 Q. What is there in paragraph 8 that you disagree with? 11 A. Well, think of the logistics of it. If you were to 12 enter every one of those you have cut and pasted, if you 13 photocopy a report 20 times and there are three or four 14 pages, let us for instance say there is 30, that is to 15 the factor of 20, so that is 600 entries on a daily 16 basis in a MoD form 102. That means you are going 17 through one MoD form 102 every day. I think his memory 18 is a little bit suspect. 19 Q. So you agree with the description of the collation 20 system, but not with what he says about entering the 21 details -- 22 A. Yes, it is a minor point, but generally his thrust of 23 his statement in that respect is accurate. 24 Q. Is it your recollection that the M D form 102 was just 25 not used at all or that it was used but people did not 45 1 use it all the time and it was not maintained as 2 thoroughly as it should have been? 3 A. It was maintained for the first copy. 4 Q. So, so far as the first copy is concerned, the system 5 worked, did it? 6 A. Indeed. You see, working on the premise that the RUC 7 did not want you to put it on to the computer in the 8 first instance, it would be quite foolish, would it not, 9 to be entering it into a MoD form 102, saying where you 10 had put it. 11 Q. Was the form 102 just a single sheet of paper or was it 12 a booklet or what was it? 13 A. The MoD form 102 is attached, if you read Mr Harding's 14 submission, he gives you an example of a MoD form 102, 15 it is a book. 16 Q. Once the book had been completed, what was done with it? 17 A. Master MoD form -- there is a MoD form 102 and a master 18 MoD form 102. The Manual of Army Security dictates that 19 that document will then be kept until the last document 20 is either transferred, a live document is transferred to 21 an existing document or the file is closed and then kept 22 for, in those days, ten years, and today it is five 23 years. 24 Q. Suppose that in 121 intelligence section you had 25 a form 102 which was filled up, what was actually done 46 1 with it; did it stay in 121-section, did it go somewhere 2 else? 3 A. Every year you have a security check from a unit called 4 120 security section which is a part of 12 company. 5 I myself was trained in that particular aspect, that is 6 why I am quite well versed in document security 7 procedures. Therefore it is relevant if I was to come 8 along and ask to see folio 133 I would then want you to 9 produce it in the file that has been designated and in 10 the filing cabinet that has been described as holding 11 it. 12 Q. Is the answer to my question: that the completed form 13 102 would have remained at 121 intelligence section? 14 A. Yes. 15 Q. If the underlying documents, for whatever reason, had 16 been destroyed, is that something that would have then 17 been recorded in the form 102? 18 A. It would, but why would you destroy a document? 19 Q. If a time came when all the documents recorded in the 20 register had been destroyed, might the register itself, 21 in due course, have been destroyed? 22 A. After ten years, yes. Ten years from the date that that 23 document -- that that Registry is closed, but then there 24 is a master MoD form 102 which then records who 25 authorises the destruction and it needs to be at least 47 1 a captain alongside a senior NCO. 2 Q. After a certain period of time, might the master form 3 itself come to be destroyed? 4 A. Yes, but I would beg the question: why would you destroy 5 an intelligence document in the first place? 6 Q. Can we go on, please, to paragraph 9 of Officer Y's 7 statement. Where he begins by saying: 8 "This manual collation system meant that files were 9 filled relatively quickly. Each JNCO collator had one 10 by four-drawer filing cabinet adjacent to his or her 11 desk in the Int section office." 12 Is that correct? 13 A. It is, but that is only for current material. There was 14 archived material as well. 15 Q. He goes on: 16 "Further storage space was available in a storage 17 room immediately below the intelligence section office. 18 This room contained approximately 25 by four-drawer 19 security filing cabinets which held all of the closed 20 files." 21 A. That is not accurate, what he means by a closed file. 22 A file may well have been in existence for one month and 23 it is full, therefore, it is termed "closed file" but it 24 is not closed as in an understanding that it is ten 25 years old. 48 1 Q. Would those files, the ones held in the storage room, 2 have included both files on individuals and also files 3 on particular subjects? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. If, let us say, an SB50 came in and it was copied 6 a number of times and paragraphs extracted from it were 7 placed on a number of different files, what would be 8 done with the original complete SB50? 9 A. They were kept on specific SB50 files. That is why I am 10 saying, if you looked in a MoD form 102, you would see 11 one entry and one entry only and if the RUC were to 12 come, you would have the master document, they were not 13 to be aware that it has been put on to the system or 14 indeed put into the manual collation system. 15 Q. Would those master files of SB50s be kept within 121 16 intelligence section or would they go somewhere else? 17 A. From memory, I think they were kept there, but I would 18 not put my hand on my heart. 19 Q. If we read on in Officer Y's statement, he says: 20 "As far as I can remember, the system in place at 21 that time was that as soon as a current file became 22 full, a new volume was opened and the full file closed 23 and moved to the storage room." 24 A. I concur with that. 25 Q. "Space then had been made in the storage room by 49 1 destroying the most dated files. This was the only 2 storage space available for section files and its 3 capacity was limited to the number of filing cabinets 4 that could fit into the room." 5 What do you say about that? 6 A. I think he is slightly inaccurate again. 7 Q. What do you mean by slightly inaccurate? 8 A. Well, if you go to the expense of producing documents 9 and all intelligence documents are relevant whether it 10 is this year, next year or in 20 years' time; you do not 11 destroy documents on the basis you have no storage. 12 Frankly you could move the cleaner out and use her 13 office. I think her materials are slightly less 14 priority than, say, an SB50; would you not agree? 15 Q. Do you actually know that what he says here is wrong or 16 are you just expressing an opinion about what is likely 17 to have happened or not to have happened? 18 A. No, I make very clear when I am expressing an opinion, 19 Mr Roxburgh, I am telling you what I understand, I know 20 to be the truth. 21 Q. I do not want to go into the detail of the next two 22 paragraphs, can we go on, please, to KY1.6. We can see 23 that at the end of paragraph 11, Officer Y refers to the 24 existence of, in 121 intelligence section, of something 25 he describes as: 50 1 "The section's personality card index" which he was 2 "was acknowledged as being both comprehensive and 3 accurate and this was loaded on to the computer over 4 a period of time." 5 Do you remember that index? 6 A. I do, yes. 7 Q. What kind of information could one get from the index if 8 one looked up a particular individual? 9 A. The colour of his three-piece suite. 10 Q. I mean -- 11 A. I am not being facetious. 12 Q. You are giving an example -- 13 A. That is actually a field on the computer, I am not being 14 facetious, that is in actual fact. 15 Q. If you looked up a particular individual, would you find 16 a whole lot of information about his personal details, 17 where he lived -- 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. Who his associates were, that sort of thing? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. Would you find references to particular intelligence 22 reports or just -- 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. Is it right, as Officer Y says, that the contents of 25 that personality card index, were loaded into the 51 1 computer? 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. Was the personality card index compiled on the basis of 4 SB50s and military intelligence source reports and all 5 the other kinds of documents that you have been 6 describing or was it based on other material? 7 A. No, it is built on all relevant access to material, but 8 the way you govern that then is to bring in the level 9 passwords, which is one to nine. Therefore someone in 10 the Ulster Defence Regiment who has a level 9 password 11 would only have the basic access to, for instance, 12 sighting reports, or indeed his address, date of birth, 13 that type of thing. The basic material would be on at 14 level 9, then going down to level 7 and down to level 3 15 and then down to level 1. But there are intervening 16 levels as well. 17 Q. If we go on to paragraph 12, Officer Y deals with 18 special projects. He says: 19 " I mentioned earlier the JNCO collators being 20 required to carry out analysis of data to identify 21 patterns and trends. Occasionally they were also 22 required to carry out special projects on a particular 23 subject. I can only recall two such major projects 24 being carried out during my time in this office.". 25 He says that one of them was to do with 52 1 rocket-propelled grenade attacks in Belfast. Do you 2 remember whether you were involved in that project? 3 A. I was not, no, but I do, I do have a vague remember 4 of ... 5 Q. He says: 6 "The second one was a large project involving all of 7 the JNCO collators" to do with a handbook entitled 8 "Notes on terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland"; 9 were you involved in that? 10 A. I was, yes. 11 Q. If we go on to the next page and look at paragraph 13, 12 he says: 13 "During my tenure as the Republican desk sergeant 14 I do not recall anyone within 121 intelligence section 15 working on and completing a project on Bloody Sunday. 16 As the incident took place many years before, I do not 17 see how such an official study could have had any 18 relevance to the intelligence requirements of 1981, 19 unlike the projects I mentioned in paragraph 12.". 20 What do you say to that? 21 A. Well, he prefaces it by saying "official study" and 22 I have said that it was a private undertaking that I 23 took and I refer you back to his paragraph 15: 24 "However, junior NCOs would sometimes do their own 25 private research. That is exactly what I did. I do not 53 1 disagree with his interpretation, other than he cannot 2 remember me actually producing it and, as he has already 3 said, it was a very busy environment and I, you know, 4 I do not for one moment disagree with it, it is just 5 that he is wrong. 6 Q. He carries on: 7 "Moreover, it is unlikely that the files held at 121 8 intelligence section would have contained material going 9 back that far. For example, when completing the major 10 project on 'Notes on terrorist organisations in 11 Northern Ireland' which covered a wide range of 12 subjects, I remember that there was a lack of historical 13 data on which to draw. This was because information 14 older than five years was considered dated in current 15 intelligence terms and the limited storage capacity 16 meant that there was constant pressure to weed out and 17 destroy out-of-date intelligence reports." 18 A. So what he is effectively saying, then, for instance let 19 us use Martin McGuinness, at the end of five years we 20 ditch and then we just keep five years on him. I do not 21 think that is an accurate testament. 22 Q. If we go on, please, -- you have rightly drawn attention 23 to paragraph 15 where he refers to JNCOs doing their 24 private research. If we go on to paragraph 16 at KY1.9, 25 he says here: 54 1 "Research into archive material may have been 2 undertaken for the purpose of obtaining a greater 3 understanding of current events or of a particular 4 subject area ...". 5 A little further on he says: 6 " I would have been surprised to hear that a new 7 collator to the section was doing his own research on an 8 event that had taken place ten years earlier. Although, 9 if the new collator had had the time and the interest in 10 this subject area, then it is possible that a private 11 project could have been completed." 12 Is what you are saying essentially that this was 13 a private project? 14 A. I think I have made that very clear and I think I would 15 agree with him entirely. I think he supports my 16 position. 17 Q. Would you have kept a copy, then, of your report, just 18 in your own desk at 121-section? 19 A. No. 20 Q. Where would you have kept it? 21 A. It would have gone in the filing system. It may well 22 have been, as I have said earlier, it may well have been 23 archived. 24 Q. Could we next have, please, on the left of the screen 25 KI2.3 and on the right KZ1.1. I want to move on now, 55 1 please, to your next post as a member of the force 2 research unit. In paragraph 6 of your first statement, 3 as we can see on the left, you say: 4 "During 1982" you were posted to north detachment 5 Force Research Office as a collator. Was it in fact in 6 the autumn of 1983 that you were posted there? 7 A. My recollection of the date is earlier, but I am not 8 going to argue for a few months. I think my, my 9 documents would suggest it was some time in 1982. But, 10 as again, I did -- the collator that I eventually took 11 over, there was an overlap between me and him which was 12 agreed by -- and I will not name him -- by the officer 13 commanding 121. So as that when I moved into 14 FRO(North), I effectively engineered my own posting 15 there because of my knowledge within 121. 16 Q. Have you seen a copy of a letter that was written last 17 week by the Ministry of Defence, confirming some details 18 of your service history? 19 A. I have, yes. I do not have a copy with me -- 20 Q. I will put it on the screen. We have it at KI2.43. 21 That is a letter that the MoD has provided, obviously on 22 the basis of checking their records; would you 23 disagree -- 24 A. I would disagree with it in large parts. Well, we will 25 not argue about the couple of months for the actual 56 1 posting of such where there was an overlap, but if you 2 move on to the next page -- it is part of the paragraph: 3 "From 1984 to 1987 Mr Ingram was employed in 4 Great Britain. This tour included a six-month 5 deployment abroad". 6 What he also should have put is: 7 "Mr Ingram was also seconded to the FRU" or should I 8 say to SIW for the specific job of relocating two agents 9 who had been exposed, primarily because I had been 10 involved in the handling of them whilst I was on my 11 first tour. One of them is still alive and one is dead. 12 One of them is willing to give evidence to that effect. 13 So factually, you know, as -- it says "Ministry of 14 Defence", it should actually be Ministry of 15 Disinformation. 16 Q. In effect you say that a piece of information has been 17 omitted, in that there was a time between 1984 and 1987 18 when you were involved, when you were working in 19 Northern Ireland? 20 A. No, I was not working in Northern Ireland, I was working 21 on the mainland, but in the resettlement of those 22 exposed agents. 23 Q. You were employed in Great Britain, but you were 24 employed in Great Britain on a matter connected with 25 Northern Ireland. 57 1 A. I was employed by SIW who are the co-sponsors of the FRU 2 and I was working for the FRU assets which had been 3 exposed. Therefore their document there is selective at 4 best. 5 Q. Can we read on; is there anything else you disagree with 6 on this page? 7 A. No, I think we will -- 8 Q. If you go to the next page, KI2.44. 9 A. I remember the date is December. It is probably about 10 six or seven weeks short of the three-year tour, 11 I think. You actually undertake a two-year tour and 12 I was granted an extension because they were -- it 13 suited me and it suited them because they did not have 14 very many experienced handlers at the time, there was 15 a shortage and so I agreed to a year's extension, on the 16 basis that, again, I engineered a posting to the 17 Ministry of Defence to a good EPV post which was an 18 Enhanced Positive Vetting post. 19 Q. Go back, if we may, to KI2.43. Is it right that during 20 the course of your first posting to FRU, you were 21 promoted to corporal? 22 A. That is true. 23 Q. May we have on the left-hand side of the screen KI2.3 24 again, please. On the right-hand side of the screen -- 25 again, please respect his anonymity -- we have the 58 1 statement of Officer Z who -- 2 A. I know the identity and I will not reveal it. 3 Q. He explains in paragraph 1 where he fits in. He says he 4 was posted to FRO(North) in 1982 and left in 1985? 5 A. Well I actually disagree with him on that as well. 6 I think he is mistaken because when I actually took -- 7 when I was posted there, my boss, who is now deceased, 8 who died on the Chinook, was not this individual. 9 Q. You think this individual arrived some time after 1982? 10 A. I do not think, I know he did, or at least he, he 11 arrived after me. 12 Q. Then he says -- 13 A. In fact, if I may just interject there, I actually have 14 a photograph of me, him, and my boss who died on his 15 hand-over in the offices in FRU with the brigadier at 16 the going-away reception. Therefore, I must have been 17 there before he came. 18 Q. Then he says: 19 "The FRO(North) was one of two subdivisions of 20 HQ West detachment which was part of the Force Research 21 Unit." 22 Would you please be careful in your evidence today 23 not to reveal any details about the whereabouts of 24 premises occupied by FRU. So, without saying where they 25 were located, is it correct that FRO(North) was one of 59 1 two subdivisions of HQ West detachment? 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. The next thing is this: if we look at paragraph 6 of 4 your statement on the left of the screen -- 5 A. Can I just interject? What he does not say, though, is 6 I actually worked for both offices because I had 7 experiences of Derry. Therefore, if they were 8 short-handed, I would be asked to be involved in an 9 operation with Derry. Although I was working in, let us 10 say, the southern detachment for that period, I would 11 still be requested, on the occasion, to go north and 12 also I used to cover Christmas parties. Therefore, 13 every operator could leave and I would then be in sole 14 charge of FRO(North). 15 Q. Is what you are saying that you, at different times, 16 would have worked at FRO(North) and FRO(South) or 17 whatever -- 18 A. That is right, yes, yes. It is west and north. Let us 19 just call it west and north. 20 Q. He talks about two subdivisions of HQ West detachment? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. And then he talks about the officer commanding HQ West 23 detachment. Is the position that there are in fact 24 three headquarters or three offices: there is 25 Headquarters West detachment and then beneath that there 60 1 are two different subdivisions? 2 A. That is accurate. 3 Q. And I have understood you to say that at different times 4 you worked in each of the two subdivisions? 5 A. Yes. 6 Q. Did you also work at HQ West detachment or did you only 7 work in the two subdivisions? 8 A. No, let me explain: FRO(North) is Derry. FRO(West) is 9 another, is another location, okay. Headquarters is in 10 Derry. It is a matter of 50 yards away from FRO(North). 11 So it is within the brigade headquarters. That is not 12 giving anything away because he is ... okay? 13 Q. If we look back to paragraph 6 on the left-hand side of 14 the screen, you say, at the end of the paragraph: 15 "All intelligence generated and received from 16 outside agencies was seen by all members of the small 17 office (numbering approximately 10 members) and 18 circulated by the office clerk." 19 Once again his name has been blanked out. If we 20 look at what Officer Z is saying at the end of his 21 paragraph 1, he refers to that same clerk who he calls 22 Clerk XX. He says that he was one of the clerks based 23 at Headquarters West detachment and was not the office 24 clerk at FRO(North). 25 A. No. 61 1 Q. You have explained that -- 2 A. Can I interject there, let us just bring a little bit of 3 reality to this: this individual, who we will call 4 Clerk XX, swore an affidavit in connection with an 5 offence under the Official Secrets Act which my legal 6 team are in possession of which he swears that he was 7 the clerk in FRO(North) and that the material that was 8 alleged to be a breach, that I was one of only a few 9 people who had knowledge of it and that he outlines his 10 role as that clerk. 11 Therefore, he did work in support of Westette at 12 a later time, but during this period that clerk was in 13 FRO(North). May I also interject, which is something 14 that Officer Z has forgotten, we were also augmented by 15 a second clerk, a lady, who I again will not name and 16 she became our clerk and he became Headquarters clerk. 17 Q. In any event, as you have said earlier, if I understood 18 you correctly, Headquarters West detachment and 19 FRO(North) were very close to each other? 20 A. Absolutely. 21 Q. Again in your paragraph 6 on the left you describe the 22 nature of the job that you had. You say: 23 "This job involved providing analysis and collating 24 all intelligence reports generated by the handlers after 25 their meetings with north detachment FRU agents.". 62 1 Then you identify your detachment commander and you 2 go on to say: 3 "This new job involved a requirement to read and 4 assimilate the information of intelligence value both 5 current and historical generated by the detachment 6 agents. This intelligence was both contemporary and 7 historical. Much of the historical information was 8 generated from the many 'screening' reports carried out 9 by the local unit handlers or FINCOs". 10 Was there something you wanted to say? 11 A. Yes, there is. There is an obvious mistake there, if 12 you can see it. If you read my paragraph 6: 13 "During 1982 I was posted to north detachment", and 14 then I go on to say "my detachment commander being Major 15 [deceased]". 16 One of us is lying, aint there. Either I am lying 17 or he is lying. Now, obviously he is not the guy -- the 18 deceased guy has not wrote that witness statement 19 because he is long gone. Now, he must have come after 20 me so if you can see how it has only just occurred to me 21 now. Do you understand what I am saying? 22 Q. No, I am afraid I do not? 23 A. "During 1982 I was posted to north detachment FRU as 24 a collator. My detachment commander being Major.." who 25 is now dead. 63 1 Q. Yes. 2 A. This gentleman, Officer Z, who I maintain came after the 3 event, okay, he does not -- 4 Q. Officer Z is not the individual obviously who-- 5 A. He is dead, the point being that, if he says "I was 6 posted to FRU (North) in 1982 and left in 1985"; do you 7 understand the context, therefore ... 8 Q. In the passage I read out, you refer to FINCOs. Can you 9 confirm that means Field Intelligence Non-Commissioned 10 Officer? 11 A. Correct. 12 Q. If we go on in the statement to Officer Z, please, to 13 page 2, and paragraph 2, he says that he recalls you 14 being posted to FRO(North). Then he goes on to describe 15 what the role of a collator was. He says: 16 "At that time the main role of a collator was to 17 work in support of the agent-handlers within the unit. 18 The handlers would task the collators to bring together 19 all of the relevant information from a range of 20 documentary sources about the agent they were handling 21 as well as any other confirmatory information which 22 might assist the handler in continuing to work with his 23 agent. In this material the collator would probably 24 include any information that the agent had previously 25 provided to the handler." 64 1 Is that a fair summary of the work that you were 2 doing as a collator in FRO(North)? 3 A. Yes, but he misses out, because of manpower deficiencies 4 we also acted on cover and that is the reason why they 5 instituted the course to enable us to act as cover. 6 Again, I became involved, on a co-handling basis, with 7 some of the agents that I have alluded to which were 8 exposed and had to be resettled and because of my 9 experience I had to go with them. 10 Q. When an agent-handler asked you to assemble information 11 about an agent, as Officer Z describes in this 12 paragraph, was the information that you assembled all 13 put into the agent's file or was it put somewhere else? 14 A. It is put both into the file in the form of a contact 15 form and it is then subject to whether it goes on to 16 a military intelligence source report, depending upon 17 his release, whether the information is released or we 18 keep it ourselves, depending how sensitive the 19 information is. 20 Q. What Officer Z seems to be describing is a process 21 where, if you look at the third line: 22 "The handlers would task the collators to bring 23 together information from a range of documentary 24 sources." 25 A. Yes, I concur with that. 65 1 Q. Is that not a process of going to look at intelligence 2 reports or source reports or whatever it might be to see 3 what you could find out about a particular agent? 4 A. No, not about -- let us get rid of this distinction -- 5 an agent is a professional source; so he is the person 6 who is employed by the agency, okay? So if the source 7 comes in and gives material which is of intelligence 8 value, then we are tasked by the handler, as the 9 collator to go and either confirm or get some collateral 10 for the information that he has provided and that is why 11 I was explaining to you about the intelligence cycle. 12 It is the analysis, it is the job that the collator does 13 which turns the information into intelligence. 14 Now, what he is saying there is correct, I have no 15 problem with that at all. 16 Q. Having been asked to go and see if you could find any 17 collateral, what would you do, would you produce 18 a document of your own which set out the results of that 19 or would you... 20 A. What would happen, the handler would produce the MISR 21 and then we would then write the analysis comment and 22 any, what we call P references. So, for instance, again 23 let us use Martin McGuinness. If Martin McGuinness is 24 used within the text of the document, 25 Martin McGuinness's unique P number would be assigned. 66 1 There may well be 50 people mentioned in this, there 2 would be 50 references, so they are all cross-referenced 3 to each file. 4 Q. You would write the comment and would that comment then 5 go on to the agent's file? 6 A. Yes, a copy of the document would then be placed upon 7 the file. 8 Q. Then Officer Z continues in paragraph 3: 9 "The collator would rely on sources from both open 10 and closed documents, ie information direct from the 11 agent's file which was located at FRO(North), from 12 screening reports, from the SB50s, from contact reports, 13 from information stored at HQFRU and from information in 14 the public domain". 15 Do you agree with that? 16 A. No, I would not draw from screen reports because 17 screening had ceased well before that period so there 18 was no screening in operation. 19 Q. Apart from that, do you agree with that sentence? 20 A. I will just read it again (Pause). Yes, it was a matter 21 of bringing all the agencies together. 22 Q. Would hard copies of SB50s have been available at 23 FRO(North) or would you have got them from the computer 24 system? 25 A. Both; you do have -- again our own robin system is in 67 1 operation because we also have a manual collation system 2 in the FRU -- at that time we did. 3 Q. Then he goes on to deal with screening reports and 4 quotes part of your statement, saying that much of the 5 historical information was generated from the many 6 screening reports. Is your evidence now that screening 7 reports had ceased to be created by the time you were at 8 FRO(North)? 9 A. I think if you read my evidence, I refer to screening 10 reports in the context of making a recruitment and that 11 we did not have to apply to the RUC Special Branch for 12 permission to recruit. If there had been any 13 information imparted at a screening, now, that is 14 a completely different subject. 15 Q. What you said a minute or two ago was that you would not 16 draw from screening reports because screening had ceased 17 well before that period? 18 A. That is right. 19 Q. So there was no screening in operation? 20 A. That is right, but that is not to say that we do not 21 hold screening reports because, as I have said, if you 22 have been subjected to screening, 20 years previously 23 and we have still got that report, then we do not need 24 permission by the RUC Special Branch to go and recruit 25 that individual. 68 1 Q. That is why I asked you whether your evidence now is 2 that screening reports had ceased to be created by the 3 time you were at FRO(North), in other words, the 4 screening reports were historical documents; is that the 5 position or not? 6 A. Screening reports, from memory, went out in the late 7 1970s. 8 Q. Right. So they were historical documents? 9 A. They were, but I would not -- no, his actual reference 10 to it is not correct. As a collator I would not refer 11 to a screening report. I would have no reason to go and 12 page through screening reports because they are not 13 input on to 3702. The only way that I would go and get 14 a screening report is in the context of making 15 a recruitment. 16 LORD SAVILLE: Sorry to interrupt. Mr Ingram, sorry, could 17 you explain to me what you mean by: in the context of 18 making a recruitment. 19 A. Okay. Well, fundamentally, sir, before you can make 20 a recruitment, before you identify a person who is -- 21 fits the criteria of somebody you would like to employ, 22 you have to, um, overcome a major obstacle, which is, as 23 it was at the time, the RUC Special Branch who actively 24 played out a policy where they did not like the FRU to 25 recruit new sources. 69 1 Now a means of actually not having to go through 2 that process was, if the individual was either a past or 3 serving soldier, as in the case of Brian Nelson as an 4 example, or if there had been screening reports, then 5 you did not need to go through the formal procedure. 6 Therefore there was a requirement to hold those 7 documents which, at some stage maybe 20 or 30 years time 8 hence you could say -- you could basically outmanoeuvre 9 the RUC. 10 MR ROXBURGH: If we look, Mr Ingram, on the left side of the 11 screen at your paragraph 6 once again, you -- can I ask 12 the technicians to take off all the arrows, please -- 13 say that your posting to north detachment FRU required 14 the collator to be trained at Repton Manor, Ashford, in 15 the sort of working on the ground as cover on pick-ups 16 and to be involved in the day-to-day running of agents 17 and, occasionally in the role of co-handler." 18 If we look at what Officer Z says about that, on the 19 next page of his statement, KZ1.3, in paragraph 5 he 20 says: 21 "Martin Ingram states that before being posted to 22 FRO(North)"? 23 A. No, I do not say that, where do I say before -- 24 Q. Let me read the paragraph and then we will deal with 25 what you have to say about it: 70 1 "Martin Ingram states that before being posted to 2 FRO(North) he attended and passed a special course to 3 enable him to work as a collator and occasionally as 4 a co-handler. From memory, this was a one-week course 5 which was designed to provide an individual with the 6 basic skills to work as a collator and to provide 7 support to an agent-handler. It did not qualify the 8 future collator to run agents nor act as a co-handler." 9 Now, do you say that you attended a course which 10 qualified you to work as either an agent-handler or 11 a co-handler? 12 A. I do not -- I cannot see in my statement where I said 13 before I was posted to FRO(North); I do not see it. 14 Q. No, what you say is: 15 "This posting to FRU (North) required the collator 16 to be trained" you are quite right you do not say 17 whether that was before or after you went to FRO(North). 18 A. So in that instance -- let us take it, no, from memory 19 I think it was a fortnight's course, but again what 20 officer, was it Z, what Officer Z is saying is 21 incorrect. Primarily because of the numbers, and I do 22 not want to actually reveal the numbers, presumably you 23 do not want me to? 24 Q. No, I do not. 25 A. Because of the drain on manpower and the number of 71 1 informants we ran, we could be -- we could be running 2 three meets simultaneously in periods of high intense. 3 Therefore, we did not have the manpower and, whether he 4 liked it or not and whether it conformed to rules and 5 regulations, that happened and, as I have said 6 previously, a number -- certainly one living agent is 7 prepared to testify that I acted as a co-handler with an 8 individual, again I will not name and I was then, as 9 I said, I was later brought from a security section in 10 England. Prior to me actually attending the FRU course 11 in 1987 to undertake the resettlement of that individual 12 and I would only have done that because I had a working 13 relationship with that individual and I had an empathy 14 with him and that is why I was used in that role. 15 His, his accurate is false -- his testimony is false 16 in that respect. 17 Q. In paragraph 7 of your statement on the left you say: 18 "North detachment FRU stored all the source material 19 generated by FINCOs/local unit handlers and others prior 20 to the formation of the FRU in 1980." 21 Is that right? 22 A. Yes, that is right. 23 Q. Again, let us see what Officer Z says. If we go to 24 KZ1.4 on the right. He says: 25 "It is incorrect for Martin Ingram to state that all 72 1 source material generated by FINCOs prior to the 2 formation of the FRU in 1980 would have been stored at 3 FRO(North). I say this firstly because FRO(North) did 4 not exist prior to the formation of the FRU and, second, 5 any relevant intelligence information obtained prior to 6 the formation of the FRU would have been retained at HQ 7 Northern Ireland at Lisburn." 8 What do you say about that? 9 A. Well, what I say about that is: the Army was running 10 a network of informers and it was administered by the 11 FINCO and the local agent-handlers. Now, powers-to-be 12 decided that the intelligence corps would take a more 13 hands-on approach and the formation of the FRU was 14 brought about in 1980. 15 Now those same agents which were running by local 16 handlers and the FINCOs were not suddenly just demobbed 17 one day and then a magic wand was employed to bring in 18 30 or 40 touts the following day by the FRU, they are 19 the same beast. 20 So one day they worked for one employer; the 21 following day they worked for a new employer, entitled 22 the FRU. Consequently the paperwork generated prior to 23 1980 which supported the running of that agent was 24 transferred to the FRU. 25 Now, at best I think he has misunderstood my 73 1 statement. At worst he is trying to, well ... 2 Q. Are you able to say from your own knowledge that you saw 3 source material of the kind that you are referring to in 4 paragraph 7, stored at FRO(North) when you were working 5 there? 6 A. Mr Roxburgh, let us -- I will use -- rather than -- 7 3018, let us use the code names, okay, 3018 had been 8 running for many years including and during the events 9 of Bloody Sunday. His file, when the FRU was formed, 10 was passed to the FRU. Therefore that file was relevant 11 and any material that he generated previous to me and 12 the other handlers, who were suddenly asked to run that 13 agent. 14 Therefore the FRU could not have existed without 15 that database. They suddenly did not just turn up in 16 the middle of Bogside: "Excuse me, would you work for 17 us?". 18 Q. Was the answer to my previous question: yes? 19 A. The answer simplistically is: yes. 20 Q. KI2.40, please, could we have that on the screen. This 21 is the third statement that you made. In paragraph 4 22 you say: 23 "When I moved to FRU in Derry I did more work on 24 Bloody Sunday. It was the most important event that had 25 occurred in the city. When you saw an agent for the 74 1 first time it was one of the topics that would always 2 come up." 3 Are you saying there that when you were serving in 4 FRU you did some specific piece of work on Bloody Sunday 5 like a project or something like that or are you saying 6 really that it was just a subject that always came up 7 when dealing with agents, or what exactly are you 8 saying? 9 A. I am saying two things really: when you have plenty of 10 time on your hands and you are surfing the web and just 11 trawling the system to see what is around, basically 12 I would have put in Bloody Sunday. So I did the same as 13 what I did in 121; the same as I would do if I put 14 Martin McGuinness in there just to see what was new and 15 the other thing which is when you speak to an agent, 16 when you are actually in with an agent, um, especially 17 as a new, you know, new kid on the bloke, one of the 18 first things to gain a grasp of the area, is to get 19 a feel, is to talk about events which have happened in 20 the past. 21 Q. Looking at Officer Z again, paragraph 8, he says: 22 "From my recollection, FRO(North) did not keep any 23 specific files on the events of Bloody Sunday." 24 Is that true or not? 25 A. That is true, that is accurate. 75 1 Q. "Any such files would have been of no current 2 intelligence value. Comments about Bloody Sunday might 3 have been reported within contact forms but these 4 comments would have been held on an individual agent's 5 file. During his tour with FRO(North) Martin Ingram 6 might have read comments from particular agents about 7 their knowledge of what happened on that day, although 8 these are likely to have been incidental to what the 9 agent was actually reporting on." 10 Is that paragraph fair comment or not? 11 A. It is. It is fair comment and that is the point that 12 I have made consistently: that there are documents which 13 are relevant to this Inquiry, or certainly I have not 14 seen but presumably Mr Roxburgh, have those documents 15 been delivered? 16 Q. KI2.4, please on the left -- 17 A. Excuse me, before I can go on really I need to 18 understand the context of that because you have asked me 19 a question. I am asking you: were those documents 20 delivered up? 21 Q. Mr Ingram, you are here to give evidence and to answer 22 my questions, not to engage in debates about what 23 documents have or have not been produced. 24 A. They are relevant to my testimony. I will take it no, 25 then? 76 1 LORD SAVILLE: Could you answer the questions at the moment, 2 Mr Ingram, you will have an opportunity to say anything 3 that may assist the Tribunal at a later stage. 4 MR ROXBURGH: KI2.4 on the left, paragraph 8 of your 5 statement, talking about your service in FRU. 6 "During this tour I read many intelligence documents 7 and I cannot recall any which suggested that 8 Martin McGuinness was involved in the firing of a weapon 9 on Bloody Sunday." 10 If you are able to answer this question yes or no 11 please do so and please take care, in any event, not to 12 say anything that might disclose sensitive 13 information: was there, so far as you know in the early 14 1980s, any particular reason why FRU should have been 15 concerned to obtain information concerning the events of 16 Bloody Sunday, some ten or so years previously? 17 A. No, but there would be in relation to Martin McGuinness. 18 Q. In general terms what would the reason in relation to 19 Martin McGuinness be? 20 A. I do not think that would be a quite proper answer 21 to ... 22 Q. Again, if you can answer this question yes or no please 23 do so: if the Security Service had obtained information 24 from one of its agents in 1984 to the effect that 25 Martin McGuinness had fired a weapon on Bloody Sunday, 77 1 would there have been any need at all for that piece of 2 information to be disseminated to you? 3 A. I would have expected to have seen a document if -- 4 which I have seen the one that has been generated, the 5 source report -- I would have expected to have seen that 6 and it would have been a topic of conversation, 7 certainly within the intelligence community. 8 Q. Would you have expected to see it simply because you 9 expected to be kept informed about all matters of that 10 kind or did you have some particular reason for 11 expecting to see that sort of document? 12 A. Mr McGuinness is probably one of the two most prominent 13 people in Northern Ireland and consequently anything to 14 do with him, in your area, is relevant. 15 Q. Reading on in your paragraph 8 you say: 16 "Indeed, I remember seeing documents that gave 17 details of Mr McGuinness's movements indicating that he 18 had been the subject of surveillance during the day of 19 the march." 20 Are these the same documents that you were talking 21 about earlier? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. Sighting reports relating to Mr McGuinness? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. Can you remember, did you see those documents in the 78 1 computer database or in hard copies in FRU's files, or 2 what? 3 A. I saw them at 121. 4 Q. And not at FRU? 5 A. And not a FRU, no. 6 Q. Is it not the position that surveillance reports from 7 any form of special surveillance unit would not have 8 been held in FRU at all? 9 A. That is correct. 10 Q. May we go, then, to KI2.41, please, your third 11 statement. In paragraph 7 what is said, is this: 12 "At FRU I saw documents relating to 13 Martin McGuinness's activities on the day, both before 14 and after the march. They related to what he was doing 15 and who he was with." 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. Is that right so far? 18 A. That is correct. 19 Q. "I saw none that suggested that he had a machine-gun in 20 his hand or fired a shot." 21 Is that right? 22 A. That is correct. 23 Q. "I think that they were surveillance reports not source 24 reports." 25 A. That is correct. 79 1 Q. Did you see surveillance reports when you were at FRU in 2 relation to McGuinness? 3 A. No, surveillance covers a multitude of sins. I did not 4 say surveillance carried out by a specialised unit. 5 Surveillance is carried out by the Army from the 6 observation points, Masonic, off the Derry Walls. 7 Q. What you are talking about... 8 A. I am talking about in the military context, Mr Roxburgh. 9 You know, if you would like me to explain it a little 10 bit clearer, you only have to ask. 11 Q. I will come to that. Let me ask you this: are you 12 talking about what one might describe as sighting 13 reports by Regular Army units? 14 A. That is correct. 15 Q. Is there anything else you would like to explain about 16 that? 17 A. No, other than there would be photography as well from 18 that location. 19 Q. How do you know that? 20 A. It is a Standard Operating Practice, I have done it 21 myself. 22 Q. How do you know what was Standard Operating Practice 23 in January 1972? 24 A. Well, it is Standard Operating Practice from -- since 25 the year formation that you would want -- if you are 80 1 engaged in a cover operation or patrol, you would want 2 to take photography. I cannot imagine a scenario where 3 you would not have used cameras; cameras were invented 4 then. 5 LORD SAVILLE: I am not quite understanding, Mr Ingram, 6 I think it is probably my fault, forgive me. When we 7 look at paragraph 7, as Mr Roxburgh asked you to do, you 8 say, about the fourth sentence: 9 "I think they were surveillance reports". 10 Surveillance reports of what nature, I think you did 11 explain this, I am not sure I understood you? 12 A. If you know the typography of Derry and the walls and 13 the vantage point that is created from the Masonic -- 14 not the walls, but from there -- certainly from within 15 the context of the Bogside, offers a fantastic view and 16 surveillance of individuals with night scopes and, and 17 technical kits allows good coverage; that is a form of 18 surveillance. 19 LORD SAVILLE: I follow that. If one looks at the end of 20 this paragraph, perhaps I am misunderstanding you, it 21 says: 22 " I do not think it would have been feasible to see 23 it from the Derry Wall, Masonic ... "? 24 A. What I am saying there is it is from the observation 25 post. I have not made it clear, then, it is my fault. 81 1 What I am saying there is in affect -- I am, the 2 question that was put to me by Mr Tate from memory was 3 an amalgamation of my knowledge of surveillance. In the 4 first part I am talking about, when I was talking about 5 the Army surveillance, in the second part I think I am 6 relating, I would have to see the context and what the 7 notes are by my legal team who were present, but I think 8 that I am referring to the surveillance report in 121. 9 MR ROXBURGH: You start off in the paragraph talking about 10 what documents you saw when you were at FRU; is that 11 right? 12 A. That is right. 13 Q. And you say that you think they were surveillance 14 reports, but you explain that by saying that you mean 15 sighting reports by Regular Army units? 16 A. That is right, yes, yes. 17 Q. Then you say: 18 "McGuinness was being targeted. If you have 19 a surveillance unit deployed as they were then it would 20 make sense for McGuinness to be a prime target." 21 A. In that context I am referring to the document in 121 22 and, as I say, I would have to see the -- how the 23 question was posed to me, but that is my recollection of 24 how I, how I delivered that statement. 25 Q. So -- 82 1 A. The first part of it, let me just explain. The first 2 part of it I am referring to sighting reports and 3 surveillance by regular or close observation point; do 4 you agree with that; do you understand where I am coming 5 from? 6 Q. Yes, I follow that. 7 A. I think there were surveillance reports, not source 8 reports, full stop. 9 McGuinness -- then there was a follow-on question 10 I think, where McGuinness was being told: 11 "If your surveillance unit deployed" I think he was 12 then going on to question me about the MRF and that sort 13 of thing. 14 Q. Right, those are the documents -- 15 A. This is a narrative statement in that it was taken by 16 Mr Tate, typing it down as I was speaking it. 17 MR ROXBURGH: Can we go to ... 18 LORD SAVILLE: Are we moving on to a new topic? 19 MR ROXBURGH: Yes. 20 LORD SAVILLE: I think it may be a convenient time to stop. 21 We will come back to this at 12.50. Mr Ingram, I say 22 this to all the witnesses: please do not discuss the 23 evidence you are giving until you have finished giving 24 it. 25 (12.00 pm) 83 1 (The Short Adjournment) 2 (12.50 pm) 3 MR ROXBURGH: Could we have on the screen, please, page 4 KI2.4. 5 Mr Ingram, this is the paragraph from your first 6 statement we were looking at before the adjournment, in 7 which you describe some of the material that you saw 8 during your first tour as a member of FRU. We have 9 dealt with the documents concerning Mr McGuinness's 10 movements. 11 In the next sentence you say: 12 "I can recall that there was information of 13 intelligence value received prior to the march from the 14 both Official and Provisional IRA agents that there was 15 no intent to undertake military activity during the 16 march." 17 Are the agents that you are talking about there, 18 should we understand, Army agents operating within the 19 IRA in January 1972, or is it something else? 20 A. It is both. 21 Q. What kind of documents did you see that information in? 22 A. I saw that in the contact forms and, and -- which is the 23 record of discussions between the agents and the handler 24 and those MISRs and SB50 -- I think it was an SB50, 25 I would not swear to the SB50s. 84 1 Q. You go on to say: 2 "It is also true to say that there were many reports 3 subsequent to the day which gave conflicting accounts of 4 the events, for example, about shots fired at troops 5 during the march." 6 A. That is correct. 7 Q. Again, are you there talking about reports from Army 8 agents or informants, or police, or both, or what? 9 A. Primarily Army. 10 Q. Are those documents that you saw on the files of people 11 who were current agents at the time when you were 12 working at FRU or -- 13 A. And some historical ones which had been archived, ie 14 some inactive agents. We keep the dormant agents as 15 well on file. 16 Q. Where were the files on dormant agents kept? 17 A. Within the force research unit, and there is also 18 another category, which is "casual contacts". 19 Q. You say those files on dormant agents were kept in 20 FRO(North) or in HQ West detachment or -- 21 A. No, in the actual handler's office, FRO(North). 22 Q. You do recall that some of those documents referred to 23 shots being fired at troops during the march? 24 A. Well, their accounts, contemporaneous accounts from 25 their agents on the ground. 85 1 Q. Then you say: 2 "The collated documents which I read would leave the 3 reader with the distinct impression that there were no 4 shots fired at the troops prior to the troops opening 5 fire." 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. Are you still talking about the same kinds of documents 8 here? 9 A. Yes, I am talking about my -- in my overall view of the 10 documents. 11 Q. Your overall view of the documents you saw at FRO(North) 12 or -- 13 A. No, in its totality. 14 Q. In its totality. Then you say: 15 "It is also my recollection that I saw no official 16 documentation sugges ing that dead bodies had been 17 secretly buried across the border in the Republic, 18 lthough there were many reports of the wounded being 19 treated in the south for wounds received during the 20 march." 21 Did you see those reports about people being treated 22 in the south for wounds received during the march when 23 you were at FRO(North) or when you were at 121 24 intelligence section? 25 A. I cannot recall. 86 1 Q. You have used the expression "official documentation." 2 Just to be clear, should we understand that you never 3 saw any intelligence material at all that you remember 4 to suggest that dead bodies had been secretly buried 5 across the border? 6 A. I make the distinction, the official documentation, as 7 opposed to an open source. 8 Q. Official documentation would cover any secret or 9 confidential material? 10 A. (Witness nodding) 11 Q. Could we keep this page on the screen, please, and put 12 alongside it page KZ1.5. This is Officer Z's statement 13 again. In paragraph 10 he is dealing with what you have 14 said in the paragraph we have just been looking at? 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. He says: 17 "Later in this paragraph Martin Ingram recalls two 18 possible facts: first, that he had seen intelligence 19 from agents within both the Official and Provisional IRA 20 that there was no intent to undertake military activity 21 during the march; and second that there were conflicting 22 accounts of the events on the day such as shots being 23 fired at troops during the march. It is my view that if 24 such intelligence existed on files held at FRO (North) 25 Martin Ingram would only have seen it on an agent's file 87 1 or he might have heard it from a casual contact or 2 possibly during the debrief of an agent-handler after 3 his meeting with his agent or when providing support to 4 a handler at meetings with low level agents." 5 Do you accept what he says in that sentence or not? 6 A. I am a little bit confused in truth, I had not actually 7 seen the significance of what he is saying, but I refer 8 you to the bottom of the paragraph, he says: 9 "At this meeting with an agent or when providing 10 support to a handler at meetings with low level agents." 11 Is he meaning I am actually discussing with the 12 agent; is he saying I am actually communicating with the 13 agent? 14 Q. We will have to ask him on Wednesday what he means by 15 that? 16 A. Fine. 17 Q. Generally speaking, are those the sorts of means by 18 which you could have obtained access to intelligence of 19 this kind during your job at FRO(North). 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. Going back to your statement on the other side of the 22 screen, at paragraph 9 you say, this: 23 "There are a number of points to bear in mind when 24 assessing the intelligence generated by agents working 25 for the Security Forces prior to, during and after 88 1 Bloody Sunday. The civil rights march was a major event with a reasonable lead-in period, that is to say, agents 3 from all parts of the 32 counties would have been asked 4 to attend." 5 Can you explain, please, what you mean by saying 6 that, "agents from all parts of the 32 counties would 7 have been asked to attend"? 8 A. Certainly. Am I allowed to explain it? 9 Q. As long as you do not go into any sensitive matters. Do 10 you think there is a difficulty in answering the 11 question, without going into sensitive matters? 12 A. There could well be, but I will try my best and keep 13 within the bounds of sensibilities. 14 Q. In that case, before I ask you to give a general 15 explanation, can I just try and clear up a couple of 16 points: is what you are saying here that the Security 17 Forces would have tasked agents from all parts of the 32 18 counties to attend, or are you saying that the civil 19 rights organisers would have asked people to attend from 20 all over the 32 counties, and some of those people would 21 in fact have been agents? 22 A. Both. 23 Q. Insofar as you are saying that agents from all parts of 24 the 32 counties would have been asked to attend by the 25 Security Forces, would it be fair to say that you make 89 1 that statement by reference to your own experience of 2 what happened in the 1980s when you were serving? 3 A. No, some of the documentation which the reference 4 numbers would identify from which office they generated 5 from. 6 Q. You mean some of the documents that you saw in the 1980s 7 carried reference numbers? 8 A. Yes, which -- 9 Q. Which identified -- 10 A. Which did not originate in FRO(North). 11 Q. Did they originate from some other Army unit? 12 A. Yes, they originated from Belfast. 13 Q. What did that tell you, the fact that the reference 14 number was a Belfast reference number, for example? 15 A. Well, that tells you that somebody from Belfast has 16 travelled and he has been debriefed by his handler in 17 Belfast. 18 Q. Are you talking here about police documents or Army 19 documents, or both? 20 A. No, no, you cannot tell with an SB50, at least I cannot. 21 Q. An SB50 itself is a police document? 22 A. I cannot tell whether it originated from a Derry 23 division or it originated from a Belfast division, but 24 I can with a MISR. 25 Q. You were able to see, from looking at MISRs, that some 90 1 of them related to sources, is this right, who had come 2 from other parts of the 32 counties? 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. Is it an overstatement to refer to agents from all parts 5 of the 32 counties or do you really mean that? 6 A. I am saying that to -- because it is feasible that 7 people from all Ireland attended and, therefore, if 8 there are assets in Armagh, Newry as well as in Belfast, 9 then you would ask them to attend. 10 Q. It is one thing to say what is feasible -- 11 A. What I said was from all parts of 32 -- that is an SOP. 12 I go on to say: 13 "It would have been a Standard Operating Practice to 14 request photography." 15 What I am saying is to try and disguise the fact -- 16 if you want me to point out that people from Belfast 17 have travelled -- I have tried to be a little bit, um, 18 fair and say that, you know -- the actual documents 19 I saw did suggest Belfast, but rather than say just 20 purely Belfast, I have said "32 counties," to try and 21 disguise the fact. 22 Q. Is this the position: you saw documents that you related 23 to Belfast and in your statement, in order to avoid 24 singling out Belfast, you put it more generally? 25 A. Yes. 91 1 Q. And said, "agents from all parts of the 32 counties"? 2 A. Yes. Obviously we do not have agents in Kerry. 3 Q. Just concentrating on the documents that you actually 4 saw, were they confined to Belfast? 5 A. They were, but I would expect if anybody was available 6 in south Armagh to have travelled, that they also would 7 have reported, but I cannot honestly say I saw any. 8 Q. Should we understand the next sentence in the same way, 9 when you say: 10 "To illustrate this point, agents from Belfast and 11 other areas of both the north and south travelled to 12 both participate and act as eyes and ears for the 13 Security Forces ..." 14 You know from documents that you have seen that 15 there were people from Belfast, but you do not actually 16 know about other areas; is that right? 17 A. Well, FRO(North) also covers Donegal and agents that 18 live in the Republic of Ireland, that is why I put north 19 and south. 20 Q. You did not see documents relating to Bloody Sunday that 21 carried references identifying the sources as coming 22 from anywhere other than Belfast and Derry itself; did 23 you? 24 A. That is right, that is right, but Derry controls Donegal 25 as well. 92 1 Q. Then you say: 2 "It would have been a Standard Operating Practice to 3 request photography by the agents of events or 4 'interesting' individuals for the Security Forces prior 5 to, during and after the march." 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. Do you actually know whether or not that was Standard 8 Operating Practice in 1972? 9 A. The straight answer to that is: no, but I would be very 10 surprised if it did not take place. 11 Q. Would it not, at any rate in some circumstances, have 12 been rather unwise for an agent to draw attention to 13 himself by taking photographs of an interesting 14 individual? 15 A. That is the name of the game. 16 Q. If we look at paragraph 10 of your statement, you say: 17 "Within North Detachment FRU, we had two four- or 18 five-drawer cabinets which stored the contact forms for 19 all 'active' agents and a further two cabinets which 20 stored the files, including screening reports, for the 21 inactive agents who were either dead or had been stood 22 down." 23 I think you said something to the same effect 24 a little earlier in your evidence. Is it right that 25 screening reports were retained for people who had been 93 1 agents but were no longer agents, either because of 2 death or because they had been stood down? 3 A. Screening reports were kept for people who were of 4 interest. 5 Q. That would include, would it, agents who were either 6 dead or stood down? 7 A. If -- well, yes, but -- I make the reference to the 8 screening reports, as I explained previously, only as 9 a means of actually targeting somebody, but if that 10 agent has subsequently been recruited, then the first 11 document on his file would be the screening report. 12 Q. Then you say: 13 "The historical records were kept primarily for the 14 information contained within them which, from an 15 intelligence point of view, is invaluable." 16 What kinds of documents do you mean when you refer 17 to the "historical records"? 18 A. Exclusively to the agents. So his past records. For 19 instance, 3018 must have been 30 or 40 files. 20 Q. Then you say: 21 "In my experience, original source reports were 22 never destroyed." 23 A. No. 24 Q. "Such records might prove to be useful, even years after 25 they were produced." 94 1 A. Can you imagine the embarrassment if a source says to 2 you, "Do you remember I told Brian ten years ago," about 3 such and such a thing, and you cannot actually go and 4 recover that document? You lose all -- well, certainly 5 the agent would lose confidence in you and that is part 6 and parcel of the make-up of you as a handler. You have 7 got to engender confidence in him. He has to think 8 behind the scene there is an almighty powerful 9 organisation. He is wrong in that fact, but that is how 10 you have got to sow the seeds. 11 Q. If it is suggested that the reason why source reports 12 held at FRO(North) were not destroyed, is that the only 13 source reports that were held there were ones relating 14 to active agents; what do you say to that? 15 A. No, that is not true. An active -- a dormant agent can 16 be re-enacted, and I give you an example: 3018 was an 17 Official IRA source during this period that we are 18 discussing now; he was subsequently stood down for 19 a problem. He was re-enacted some years later and was 20 later responsible for the largest ever arms find on the 21 island of Ireland. If you had destroyed his files 22 previous to that, you would be starting back at ground 23 base zero, would you not? 24 Q. Officer Z, in paragraph 11, on the left of the screen, 25 says that he can: 95 1 "... confirm that FRO(North) had a number of 2 four-drawer cabinets which contained contact forms for 3 active agents as well as a cabinet holding general files 4 with obsolete screening reports in them." 5 We need not bother with the rest of that paragraph. 6 Paragraph 12 he says: 7 "However, files on inactive agents (ie agents no 8 longer used) or agents who had died were not kept at 9 FRO(North). Once an agent had become inactive or had 10 died, his file (with all the original documents on it) 11 would be sent back to HQFRU." 12 Is that not right? 13 A. No, he is reading from a textbook and it is not the 14 reality of life. You have got to remember that this 15 gentleman here, he probably only stepped into the 16 archive room once in his life; he would not normally be 17 there; it is not his office environment. 18 Q. Is the position that what he describes is what ought to 19 have happened, but that is not what happened in 20 practice? 21 A. Maybe. 22 Q. If we go on to the next page of his statement at 23 paragraph 13, he says that it is not right to say that 24 original source reports were never destroyed. That is 25 something that you have said a number of times? 96 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. Are you prepared to accept any possibility that you 3 might be wrong about that? 4 A. Do you want a one-word answer? 5 Q. If it can be done in one word, yes, please. 6 A. No. 7 Q. Let me ask you this: is it not the case that a great 8 many documents were destroyed after their contents had 9 been transferred into the computer system, on the 10 grounds that if they were in the computer you did not 11 need the original document? 12 A. No, you see, you are missing the point and so is the 13 officer: no contact form is entered on to any computer 14 system. 15 Q. What about source reports? 16 A. Well -- but they are also included in your files. The 17 source reports are organic to the file. So the source 18 report is part and parcel of the contact form. So there 19 is always a master record. 20 Q. What about SB50s? 21 A. I do not know, you will have to ask -- in relation to 22 what, though? 23 Q. Once their contents have been transferred into the 24 computer system, might they have been destroyed? 25 A. What happened with those, are we talking in FRO(North) 97 1 or are we talking in 121? 2 Q. Is this right, they would have been put into the 3 computer system as HQNI and also at FRO(North)? 4 A. No, FRO(North) would have had a hard copy sent to them, 5 only for matters which was in relation to Londonderry 6 and not into -- obviously they would only send Derry 7 matters which were relevant to Londonderry and matters 8 which went to Belfast would only refer to Belfast. 9 Q. If HQNI were sent SB50s and they were then logged into 10 the computer database at HQNI, might they then be 11 destroyed, having been put into the computer database? 12 A. No, I think the master one was kept. As Officer Y, is 13 it, the first one -- 14 Q. Y is the first one, yes? 15 A. Officer Y explained, the original was photocopied 20 16 times and then cut and pasted. But my recollection is 17 that the original, because it was entered in MoD form 18 102 was returned, but again I could well stand to be 19 corrected on that. 20 Q. Could we go to KI2.6 on the right-hand side. At the 21 foot of the page you come on to dealing with your 22 dealings with Mr Liam Clarke and with Mr McCartney. If 23 we go over the page again, you say that one of the 24 reasons why you decided to supply certain information to 25 Mr McCartney was that you were suspicious that the Army 98 1 would not make a full disclosure of all relevant 2 documents to this Inquiry. 3 Was that just a general suspicion or was there some 4 particular reason for it? 5 A. It is born from experience. 6 Q. If we look at what you say in your later statement, 7 could we have KI2.41 on the left of the screen, please. 8 You say a little more about this in paragraph 6, where 9 you say: 10 "Given the full range of agencies that were 11 targeting the paramilitaries, it is inconceivable that 12 there was very little product generated on 13 Bloody Sunday. Therefore, I believe that there would 14 have been many documents created about Bloody Sunday. 15 The Army do not hand over documents unless pressure is 16 brought to bear on them: ask Sir John Stevens." 17 I do not want to get into the details of the Stevens 18 Inquiry at all. Is it the position that at least one 19 reason why you thought that the Army would not make 20 proper disclosure to this Inquiry is that, in your view, 21 they had not done so in the Stevens Inquiry? 22 A. I helped the Stevens Inquiry to locate a number of 23 documents, so that is born from experience, as I have 24 suggested to you. 25 Q. Is that essentially the reason why you were suspicious 99 1 that the Army was not going to make proper disclosure to 2 this Inquiry, or was there something more to it than 3 that? 4 A. No, it is born from experience. 5 Q. While we are on paragraph 6, on the right-hand side, you 6 refer to the full range of agencies that were targeting 7 the paramilitaries. What agencies are you talking 8 about? 9 A. Simplistically, or do you want me to go into detail? 10 Q. I would like you to answer the question in as much 11 detail as necessary? 12 A. Let us take the Army in the first instance. The Army 13 has a capacity to intercept signals, both on the C -- CB 14 was a big thing at that time, but also the Republic's 15 forces. You also have the surveillance units. You also 16 have the human -- HumInt, which is the source handling. 17 Q. Are you talking here just about Army agencies or are you 18 talking in paragraph 6 about other agencies? 19 A. No, I am talking about agencies plural there, about all 20 agencies, Box 500, SB, normal RUC. 21 Q. Just to understand that first sentence: are you talking 22 about agencies who were targeting the paramilitaries in 23 1972? 24 A. I am, yes. 25 Q. And you say that covers the Army, the Special Branch, 100 1 the regular police, Box 500; is that right? 2 A. Yes, signals, intercepts. 3 Q. Let us take the Army first: so far as the Army is 4 concerned, your evidence is that you actually saw, 5 during your time in Northern Ireland, a substantial 6 quantity of material containing Army intelligence about 7 Bloody Sunday; is that right? 8 A. That is right. 9 Q. So it goes a bit further on your account than simply 10 saying you believe there would have been many documents 11 created. You are saying, as far as the Army is 12 concerned, that you know that? 13 A. What I am saying to you there is -- I am being succinct 14 when I am saying, given the full range of agencies -- 15 now this is in response to a question, this narrative 16 statement. 17 Now, what I have done is an accurate reflection as 18 I can. Now, given the full range of agencies which is 19 posed against that threat, in my experience it is 20 inconceivable that only a handful of documents would 21 have been handed over to this Inquiry. 22 Q. Is not your view that the RUC would have had only a very 23 limited amount of intelligence coverage in January 1972? 24 A. Define "limited"? 25 Q. Well, how would you characterise the -- 101 1 A. Let me put it -- 2 Q. -- quality and quantity of the intelligence coverage 3 that the RUC had in January 1972? 4 A. Okay, it would have been, in my opinion, much better or 5 more detailed than Box 500's would have been. The major 6 problem when you are dealing with human intelligence as 7 a point of contact is actually getting alongside the 8 individual. 9 Now obviously the RUC have that ability and so do 10 the Army, because of a day-to-day operation. It is very 11 difficult for a Box 500 representative to do that. 12 Now, the other thing you have to bear in mind, which 13 has not been covered in either of these statements, is 14 the operation and practice of actually co-handling with 15 Box 500. I myself have undertaken numerous operations 16 in conjunction with Box 500 and actually shared agents 17 where we cross-pollinate and we share agents. Indeed, 18 3018 is one -- an example. For a period of time he was 19 co-handled and so was -- well ... 20 So let us just say that I have got a little bit more 21 experience working with them and my best guesstimate for 22 you is that the RUC would probably have better coverage. 23 Q. Could we have on the screen KI2.13, please. Do you 24 recognise that document? 25 A. Yes. 102 1 Q. That is a fax, is it not, that you sent to Mr McCartney? 2 A. Well, I did not send it directly, but ... 3 Q. It is a fax -- 4 A. It is, yes. 5 Q. It is written by you? 6 A. It is, yes. 7 Q. In the third paragraph it says: 8 "RUC: the force was intelligence-naive during the 9 early days of the troubles and as such their coverage 10 during this period was sparse. It is probably over the 11 last 28 years that agents will have from time to time 12 made available information to their handlers, although 13 I would expect contemporaneous reports to be few and far 14 between." 15 A. Can I answer that? 16 Q. Yes, I have not asked the question yet, the question was 17 going to be: do you stand by what you say there? 18 A. I do indeed, yes. I mean, police officers are not 19 professional intelligences, but there is no doubt about 20 it, in the early days of the troubles, they had a void 21 of intelligence, and I have made that clear. 22 However, what I have tried to give to Mr McCartney 23 there is an overview of what was available at that time. 24 Q. Can we go back, please, to KI2.41, paragraph 6 again. 25 After the reference to Sir John Stevens, you say: 103 1 "Documents were not always stored under 2 Bloody Sunday by name but were stored by date." 3 Did you, as far as you remember, in the course of 4 either your posting at 121 intelligence section or when 5 you were serving in FRU, did you ever see a file of 6 documents under the heading "Bloody Sunday"? 7 A. Yes. Oh, yes. 8 Q. Can you elaborate a little on where you saw those files 9 or that file? 10 A. I think we have already covered that: within 121. But 11 the point that I am making there is actually in relation 12 to 3702, that was the question that was posed to 13 me: when documents were not always stored under 14 Bloody Sunday by name, but were stored by date and we 15 were talking about the retrieval system. What I said 16 was, you could either put a key word in, ie 17 Bloody Sunday or you could put the date in, or both. 18 Q. I am not asking at the moment about the computer system. 19 When you were at 121 intelligence section, did you ever 20 see a hard copy file of documents called "Bloody Sunday" 21 or something similar? 22 A. Yes, in the Registry department, which was the document 23 which supported the G2 staff. 24 Q. The document that supported the G2 staff? 25 A. Yes, they have their own file system. As well as 121 104 1 they have their own. 2 Q. So in the G2 Registry? 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. You say there was a file of documents relating to 5 Bloody Sunday? 6 A. Yes, with the title "Bloody Sunday". 7 Q. Do you remember what was in it? 8 A. More or less a mirror image of what was included in 121. 9 Q. Did 121 also have a hard copy file entitled 10 "Bloody Sunday"? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. Are you sure about that? 13 A. Absolutely, but not, not in a sense of doing a piece, 14 a project piece, but documents which relate to it. Just 15 like you would have on the Teebane massacre, just like 16 you would have one for the murder of Constable Graham. 17 Do you understand the distinction? 18 LORD SAVILLE: Can I ask you a question, Mr Ingram: do you 19 have any recollection as to the size of these files, 20 what sort of numbers of documents are we talking about? 21 If you cannot remember, tell me, but ... 22 A. You know, just a normal size files, you know, nothing 23 extraordinary. 24 LORD SAVILLE: Can you give me any sort of idea of the 25 number of documents -- 105 1 A. You would be looking at a fair amount of numbers, you 2 would be talking in excess of 50 documents. 3 LORD SAVILLE: Thank you very much. 4 MR ROXBURGH: Can we move on, please, to paragraphs 9 and 10 5 of this statement. 6 Mr Ingram, in your first witness statement you 7 expressed doubts about the existence of Infliction and 8 about the authenticity of the one document that at that 9 stage you had been shown. 10 Is it right that having now seen more documents 11 relating to Infliction and having heard what Liam Clarke 12 had to tell you about his conversations with a former 13 RUC officer, that you are not now suggesting that 14 Infliction is non-existent? 15 A. Yes, that is correct. 16 Q. And you are not now suggesting, are you, that any of the 17 documents that you have been shown are not authentic? 18 A. Oh, no, I have concerns over the documents. 19 Q. Are they concerns over the authenticity of the document 20 or concerns over the quality of the desk comment? 21 A. Well, as I have put in my statements later on, I would 22 like to see the supporting documents before I came to, 23 um, a final conclusion at that point. 24 Q. By the "supporting documents," you mean Registry 25 documents; is that right? 106 1 A. I would like to see, as I have explained previously, for 2 that MISR to have been conceived there has to be -- it 3 is not a stand-alone document, there has to be 4 a document which supports it and in outline that 5 document would detail how, where, when that agent was 6 met, how much he was paid, who also was on the meeting. 7 I would like to see those documents first, before 8 I made any comment as to -- as to whether that is an 9 accurate document or not. 10 Q. You know, do you not, that it is not a MISR? 11 A. No, it is a source report. I know it is not a MISR, but 12 it is a source report. When -- Box 500 make a meet, 13 they too also have to produce a report; they also too 14 have to account for the money that has been spent. They 15 have to account on a basis to see if there is any 16 progress in the source. So I would like to see the 17 periodical reviews of the agent and, as Mr Tate told me 18 in the presence of my solicitor, in 1984 he had been 19 running for a number of years; I would like to see the 20 documents which support that. 21 Q. In paragraph 10 you say: 22 "Having seen the statement of Officer A and the 23 documents he produces ... I observe that this document 24 is consistent with my understanding and recollection of 25 the Security Service product. I have seen many hundreds 107 1 of these documents in my career and remain adamant that 2 I have not seen any of these Infliction documents before 3 seeing them in connection with this Inquiry. I would 4 have expected to see it either during 1984 or on my 5 return to service in Northern Ireland in 1986 or 1987." 6 With that in mind, can we look, please, at the 7 document that you are talking about, which we have at 8 G109.670. Can we have page 671 on the screen as well, 9 please, side by side. Officer A has told the Inquiry 10 that this document is in the format of 11 a Northern Ireland intelligence report? 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. In other words, a report from the Security Service to 14 its intelligence customers? 15 A. Indeed. 16 Q. Quite a lot of the details on the first page have been 17 redacted for security reasons, including details of its 18 intended distribution within the Army, but the second 19 page sets out the intelligence concerning Mr McGuinness. 20 Officer A has given evidence to this Inquiry that the 21 distribution of this report within the Army would or 22 should have been confined to a very small number of 23 senior officers. Are you really maintaining that you 24 saw many hundreds of documents of this kind during your 25 service in Northern Ireland? 108 1 A. In my career, I was saying many hundreds of documents in 2 my career, but I have seen -- again, let us not got hung 3 up with MI5. MI5 are very small producers of 4 intelligence material; they would not be the biggest 5 producers. So, you know -- now what he is saying, 6 effectively, is -- with this document it is, it is 7 classified "secrets". He says it is a delicate source 8 and it should go to limited distribution; do we agree? 9 Q. Well, that is what it says? 10 A. It is source description. Now, initially, as you are 11 well aware, I had my reservations because the grading 12 was redacted; that is correct, is it not? 13 Q. Yes, it is? 14 A. It is. Now, why was there a public immunity certificate 15 asked for to stop this Inquiry looking at a document 16 which is now not fully assessed? And he had been 17 running for a number of years. That is why I have 18 difficulty with this document. 19 Q. Yes. The question I wanted you to answer was whether or 20 not it is correct that you saw many hundreds of 21 documents of this kind during your service in 22 Northern Ireland? 23 A. The answer is: yes. 24 Q. And by "documents of this kind," do you mean 25 specifically Security Service documents? 109 1 A. Yes. I would, again not specifically to service in 2 Northern Ireland. Throughout my career I have seen -- 3 I was using that as an example that I have seen that 4 type of document. In Northern Ireland, I would not say 5 "hundreds of documents," maybe 50. 6 Q. Did you see documents of this kind, both when you were 7 serving in 121 intelligence section and when you were 8 serving in FRU? 9 A. Well, you would see them mostly when you were in 121 and 10 then when you would visit Headquarters Northern Ireland, 11 which I would do very frequently, and I would call in to 12 see the operational officer of the FRU, I would see this 13 type of document. 14 Q. If we go back to your third statement, KI2.42, 15 paragraph 11, please, you set out further information 16 that you would like to see concerning these documents. 17 You refer in particular to the Registry documents and to 18 the regular appraisal of the source. 19 So far as the Registry documents are concerned, what 20 is the information that you would hope to gain from the 21 Registry documents that would assist in relation to this 22 report about Martin McGuinness? 23 A. Well, the Registry documents would tell me, dependent 24 with -- well, there are tests available and this 25 happened again with the Stevens Inquiry, they have found 110 1 evidence that the MoD forms 102 were tampered with and 2 that the documents, as they purported to be, were not 3 accurate. 4 Q. When you refer to "Registry documents," you are talking, 5 are you -- 6 A. MoD form. 7 Q. The MoD form 102 covering the copy of the Infliction 8 intelligence report? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. That was received by the Army in Northern Ireland? 11 A. No, no, I am talking about the Security Services 12 equivalent to the MoD form 102. Their Registry 13 documents, which support this document here, I would 14 like to see. 15 Q. May we then go back to your first statement at KI2.8. 16 As we have seen, matters have moved on a little since 17 you made the comments that you made in this statement 18 about Infliction. But one thing you did say here in 19 paragraph 17, is that you were involved in the 20 debriefings of agents 3007 and 3018 and you say: 21 "I was involved in both debriefs which included 22 questions on any information about Bloody Sunday of 23 which they were aware." 24 I understand that I am at liberty to say that agent 25 3018 was Frank Heggarty, but not to refer to the 111 1 identity of agent 3007; do you follow? 2 A. I do, yes. 3 Q. Dealing first with 3007, whose name we will not use, 4 please, do you recall whether that agent was able to 5 give any information about Bloody Sunday in the course 6 of the debriefing that you were involved in? 7 A. I do not think he gave anything very meaningful. 8 Q. So far as Mr Heggarty, agent 3018, is concerned, what do 9 you recall about what he had to say about the events of 10 Bloody Sunday? 11 A. No, I mean Frank Heggarty and my discussions with him 12 were over a number of years as such and not specifically 13 just to that. I do not think I was actually present 14 when he was debriefed in the fullest extent on his 15 resettlement. But he is not only debriefed by the Army, 16 he is also debriefed by all three services 17 independently. 18 Q. In this statement you say that you were involved in this 19 debriefing; in a later statement you say you overheard 20 part of his debrief? 21 A. That is what I am saying, I was not actually the 22 debriefer. 23 Q. Do you in fact know whether, in the course of his 24 debriefing, he provided any information about 25 Bloody Sunday? 112 1 A. No, what I -- I do not. I actually do not know whether 2 he did or he did not, but what I have made reference to 3 in my statement is the information which is contained in 4 his contact forms. 5 Q. Let us look at what you say about that, KI2.40, please, 6 paragraph 5. The first part of this paragraph deals 7 with the debrief, but then you say, just where my blue 8 arrow is: 9 "The reference to no IRA activity on Bloody Sunday 10 came from a MISR document." 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. Are you still talking about Frank Heggarty there? 13 A. I am, I am saying there was a MISR document generated 14 from information that he produced. 15 Q. You go on to say: 16 "He was emphatic when he told me that there was no 17 action planned by the Stickies on Bloody Sunday." 18 Is that the information that went into the MISR or 19 is that something different? 20 A. I do not, I do not recollect. I do not recollect that 21 was exact, you know, the terminology, but I think that 22 is what it contained, roughly: that there was no 23 activity planned by the Stickies. 24 Q. Was he making a distinction between what had been 25 planned by the Stickies and what actually happened, can 113 1 you remember? 2 A. I do not -- I am just trying to remember the context of 3 it, to be fair. I do not -- the way he delivered it to 4 me was that they had not planned any military -- 5 Q. Did he use the word "planned," can you remember? 6 A. I, I could not tell you. That is my language as such 7 that I ... 8 Q. Can we go, please, to page KI2.15 on the left and KI2.17 9 on the right. Do you recognise these two documents, 10 Mr Ingram? 11 A. The ones on the left-hand side are questions which were 12 posed to me by Counsel for -- Clarke, McCartney, 13 I think. The ones on the right were notes which were 14 taken off a tape that somebody typed up, a member of -- 15 a journalist staff typed up, I believe. But I have to 16 see the original on that one. 17 Q. Do you recall receiving a series of questions? 18 A. I do, yes, yes. 19 Q. And what happened; did you dictate an answer to them? 20 A. Yes, I did. I received that list of questions via 21 a journalist, Mr Clarke, and he forwarded them to me and 22 as you can see it is quite a big list and I did not have 23 my PC working at the time, so I put them on to an audio 24 tape and then it was transcribed by one of the 25 secretaries. 114 1 Q. One of Mr Clarke's secretaries? 2 A. Or somebody who works for the Sunday Times. 3 Q. Do you know where the tape is now? 4 A. I do not, no. 5 Q. As far as you know, is Mr Clarke the last person to have 6 had the tape? 7 A. Either that or Greg McCartney, I do not know. 8 Q. Thank you. 9 Questioned by MR MACDONALD 10 MR MACDONALD: Mr Ingram, my name is MacDonald, I represent 11 some of the families, if I could ask you just a few 12 questions, please. 13 Could I direct you first of all to KI2.2, 14 paragraph 5 of your first statement. You refer there to 15 the fact that one of the projects that you undertook was 16 in relation to Bloody Sunday, and you have answered some 17 questions in relation to that. It has been pointed out 18 to you that Y, Officer Y, implies that there was no such 19 report written by you, queries are raised about where it 20 could be filed. 21 What is the situation exactly? Are you in any doubt 22 that you did write a report or undertake a project in 23 relation to Bloody Sunday, as a result of which there is 24 a written document? 25 A. I am in no doubt and if you read his -- he actually does 115 1 admit that we did undertake that type of project. Just 2 because he does not actually recollect -- he would not 3 have been involved in the booking in and I certainly did 4 not need to go to him to ask permission to undertake the 5 project and it was not something which was out of the 6 way to do. 7 So I do not take issue with his testimony. 8 Q. But insofar as he implies there was no such report 9 written by you, what is the situation? 10 A. Well, that is -- I think you have got to come to expect 11 that. We obviously have a difference of opinion. 12 Q. Is it a difference of opinion? 13 A. Well, I stand by my statement and presumably he will 14 stand by his. 15 Q. Where would such a report have been filed by you? 16 A. Well, the report would -- goes to the SO2 and, which 17 I am sure I did show it to him because I would not have 18 undertaken it without showing it to him -- it would then 19 have come in and basically it would have been put into 20 a four-drawer cabinet and in the passage of time it 21 would have been archived, unless, excuse me, it was 22 destroyed. 23 LORD SAVILLE: May I interrupt you, because I think you are 24 a little too far away from that microphone for everybody 25 to hear. 116 1 A. Sorry. What happens basically is, more or less as 2 Officer Y has outlined, when basically we are running 3 out of space in the -- it was a series of portakabins, 4 the office space, it was very limited. 5 Now, underneath that was also another row of 6 portakabins and we had access to another overflow, but 7 sheer -- from the space point of view, we did use to 8 archive a lot of material. 9 Q. If you were given access to these cabinets, to these 10 storage spaces, would you be in a position to find such 11 a report, do you think? 12 A. Well, I would need access to the MoD form 102, that 13 would be the easiest way of finding documents. 14 Q. If you received the co-operation of the Ministry of 15 Defence and the other intelligence agencies, do you 16 think you could find your report on Bloody Sunday, 17 assuming it has not been destroyed? 18 A. I would certainly have a look -- well, even if it has 19 been destroyed -- the way to answer that, 20 Mr MacDonald: they could answer whether the documents 21 were still live, as in the document register was still 22 live. If they answered in that period, the document 23 register is still live, then I think you would have 24 a fair chance that you would be able to locate any 25 document, for that matter. 117 1 Q. You have indicated that you have helped the Stevens 2 Inquiry in finding documents that previously had not 3 been supplied voluntarily by the Ministry of Defence. 4 Have you been invited by the Ministry of Defence to help 5 them find this report or, indeed, any of the other 6 documents that you have referred to concerning 7 Bloody Sunday? 8 A. The straight answer to that is: no. 9 Q. Would you be prepared to help them if they invited you 10 to do that? 11 A. I would be prepared to help the Inquiry. 12 Q. As a matter of interest: have you been invited by the 13 Inquiry to help to search for this report and in 14 relation to other documents? 15 A. I did make the offer in the year 2000. 16 Q. Has that offer been taken up? 17 A. No. 18 Q. Do you know why? 19 A. No. 20 Q. KI2.4, paragraph 8 of your statement, you say there that 21 you recall that there was information of intelligence 22 value received prior to the march from both Official and 23 Provisional IRA agents that there was no intent to 24 undertake military activity during the march. 25 You know that has been queried by Z. He says, in 118 1 a paragraph that you have been referred to, that he 2 cannot remember seeing anything like this in the files. 3 A. We will agree to disagree. 4 Q. You are quite sure that there was information of that 5 nature? 6 A. Yes. I mean, is he suggesting that a march like that, 7 given the range of agencies which were available, 8 nothing would have been generated prior to the march? 9 It is just not a sustainable position. 10 Q. What he says exactly is at KZ1.5, paragraph 10. You 11 were shown the first part of this, in which reference is 12 made to the proposition that there was intelligence of 13 that nature. You see at the end, in the last sentence? 14 A. The low level agents. 15 LORD SAVILLE: I think it is the last sentence. 16 MR MACDONALD: "I cannot remember seeing anything like this 17 type of intelligence on any file held at FRO(North)." 18 Does that undermine your confidence in any way that 19 there was intelligence of that nature? 20 A. No, no, not on the file, because, as the officer has 21 already pointed out, I am talking about their -- which 22 is the files, not the person, the agent's files, do you 23 understand what I am saying? There is a distinction 24 there. 25 Q. If we go back to your statement, KI2.4, paragraph 8. In 119 1 this sentence that I have just indicated, you refer to 2 the document that you have seen which led you to have 3 the distinct impression that there were no shots fired 4 at the troops prior to the troops opening fire? 5 A. Yes. 6 Q. Is that still your -- 7 A. That is still my -- that would still be my overall 8 assessment of the documents that I saw. In 9 particular -- the impression that I got there was 10 speaking deliberately to Mr Heggarty. 11 Q. Essentially Mr Ingram, as you will know, the families' 12 case, as far as this matter is concerned, is that first 13 of all the IRA planned to stay away from Bloody Sunday 14 and take no part in any hostile activity against the 15 Army. Would the intelligence documents that you saw 16 support that case? 17 A. That would be my overall view of documents. Now, there 18 were contradictory documents and I have made that clear 19 in the statements. But the general thrust of my 20 impression of reading those documents, would be as 21 I have reported. 22 Q. Would you expect that where there is a multiplicity of 23 documentation generated by a multiplicity of sources 24 that there would be occasional conflicts? 25 A. Of course there would, yes, and that is why you have 120 1 a grading system. 2 Q. Your overall impression is that the documentation you 3 saw supports the families' case to the effect that the 4 IRA planned to stay away from the march on 5 Bloody Sunday? 6 A. That would be my overall view of documents. 7 Q. The families' case is also that the Army opened fire at 8 unarmed marchers prior to any shots being fired by any 9 civilian gunman. Is that case supported by the 10 documentation that you saw? 11 A. Well, again, distinctly from Mr Heggarty that was more 12 or less the words that he would use. 13 Q. Is it just limited to what you heard from Mr Heggarty? 14 A. No. 15 Q. That you formed this impression? 16 A. There was one other PIRA agent at that time, so ... 17 Q. Specifically in relation to Mr McGuinness, 18 Martin McGuinness, this is a reference at the top of 19 paragraph 8 and the suggestion that he was involved in 20 firing a weapon on Bloody Sunday; is it still the case 21 that your recollection, based on the material you saw, 22 is that there is no material to support that view, that 23 he fired on Bloody Sunday? 24 A. That is true. 25 Q. In connection with him: would there have been 121 1 a personality card index file? 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. Did you have access to that? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. If there had been any intelligence suggesting that he 6 had fired the first shot or any shot on Bloody Sunday, 7 would you have expected that sort of material to be in 8 his personality card index file? 9 A. I would, but I would go further than that, Mr MacDonald. 10 Do you remember or have cause to remember Operation 11 Taurus? 12 Q. Sorry, I do not? 13 A. Operation Taurus was an RUC-inspired investigation 14 shortly after the Cook report, do you remember Roger 15 Cook? 16 Q. I remember the individual, yes. 17 A. Roger Cook did a hatchet job on Mr McGuinness and there 18 was an RUC investigation -- there was a secret 19 investigation but it was subsequently made public. That 20 was -- they gathered all the relevant material to try 21 and put forward a prosecution against Mr McGuinness. 22 Now, I have not seen Operation Taurus but presumably 23 if they had evidence from a paid agent that he did fire 24 the first shot on that day, that material would also be 25 recorded within Operation Taurus. I would suggest that 122 1 you get Operation Taurus to see -- 2 Q. Again, it may seem a silly question: do you think 3 Mr McGuinness's personality card index file still 4 exists? 5 A. I would imagine so. 6 Q. Do you think there would be any reason to destroy parts 7 of it relating to the early parts of his activities? 8 A. No. 9 Q. Do you know where that sort of file would be stored? 10 A. Well, it would actually be duplicated but there would be 11 a number of personality files. For instance, the local 12 unit may have one, you know, the local battalion, there 13 may well be in 8 Brigade, there certainly would be one 14 in Headquarters Northern Ireland, and then he would have 15 a general one on the computer. 16 Q. If the Ministry of Defence co-operated, would there be 17 any difficulty, do you think, in providing such a file 18 to the Inquiry, if it sought it? 19 A. I would not think so. 20 Q. At the bottom of KI2.4, paragraph 9, you referred there 21 to agents working for the Security Forces and the fact 22 that the civil rights march was a major event with 23 a reasonable lead-in period, that is to say, agents from 24 all parts of the 32 counties would have been asked to 25 attend: 123 1 "To illustrate this point, agents from Belfast and 2 other areas of both the north and south travelled to 3 both participate and act as eyes and ears for the 4 Security Forces." 5 Just to clarify the position: I had understood when 6 I first read that you were referring to agents working 7 for the Security Forces, in the sense of officers of the 8 Security Forces? 9 A. As in an agent provocateur, as in an officer -- they are 10 called operators, let us use that distinction. 11 Q. Are we talking here about agents in the sense of 12 informants? (Indistinguishable) 13 A. That is exactly right. 14 Q. Does this term not cover agents in the sense of officers 15 employed by -- 16 A. No, that would never be a terminology that would be 17 used. 18 Q. These are agents who were private civilians who had 19 given information or other forms of assistance to the 20 Security Forces. Do you know roughly how many agents 21 would have been present in Derry on Bloody Sunday; are 22 we talking about one or two or a dozen or more? 23 A. I would have -- I could give you an accurate reflection 24 if I am allowed to as to the level of -- numbers in 25 Derry during that period, roughly that period. 124 1 Q. Unless there is any objection? 2 LORD SAVILLE: There does not seem to be at the moment, 3 Mr MacDonald, I should get in while you can. 4 MR MACDONALD: Could you answer that quickly? 5 A. Probably in the region of -- the lower end of the figure 6 14, high end of the figure 20. 7 Q. That is in Derry alone. 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. Would there have been a similar number from Belfast or 10 more? 11 A. Actually, on the march I would not have thought there 12 would be anywhere near that much. 13 Q. These were people who would have been -- 14 A. I am not saying that all those were on the march. 15 Q. Yes, I understand that. Are these people who would have 16 been taking part in the march itself? 17 A. There would have been a number of -- I would have 18 expected, as I think I make clear in my statement, that 19 would have been an SOP, that would be ... 20 Q. The expectation is that they would have been required to 21 provide reports back to their handlers about what had 22 taken place and what they had seen and heard? 23 A. That is right. 24 Q. Do you know whether there were any such reports 25 generated? 125 1 A. There was. 2 Q. Did you see any of those reports? 3 A. I think I have mentioned that previously. 4 Q. And those are among the documents that allow you to form 5 the general impression that you have formed about what 6 took place? 7 A. I think if you refer to Officer Y -- sorry, Z, he does 8 make reference to -- references in the contact files 9 and, as I was asking Mr Roxburgh, if those documents 10 have been delivered. 11 LORD SAVILLE: To make sure I understand: Mr Ingram, when 12 you were discussing this paragraph with Mr Roxburgh 13 a little earlier, you explained that you had thought it 14 was a good idea to disguise the fact that the agent 15 reports that you had seen were exclusively from Belfast. 16 A. Yes. 17 LORD SAVILLE: When Mr MacDonald asked you the question 18 whether you had seen any reports from these people, am 19 I right in understanding this: yes, you did, those from 20 Belfast? 21 A. And from Derry, sir. 22 LORD SAVILLE: And Derry. 23 A. And from Derry. 24 MR MACDONALD: When you talk about Martin McGuinness and 25 perhaps other high profile individuals being under 126 1 surveillance or put under surveillance during the march, 2 would they have been put under surveillance by these 3 agents that you refer to in this paragraph or by other 4 people? 5 A. No, no, no, it would not be as in -- sorry, it would not 6 be as in an agent, no, you would not ask an agent ... 7 Q. Who would carry out that function? 8 A. That would be a specialist unit. 9 Q. Were there such specialist units operating in Derry on 10 Bloody Sunday? 11 A. As you know yourself, the resource is augmented by those 12 troops which are on the top there. 13 Q. Apart from those troops at the observation posts -- 14 A. As I say, unless I saw the operational orders I would 15 not normally (inaudible) but I would not imagine they 16 would be included. But the documents that I saw would 17 have suggested that there was surveillance. 18 Q. You have referred earlier in your evidence to the 19 existence of specialist units of whatever name or 20 description. The Inquiry has received evidence from 21 General Sir Peter de la Billere to the effect that the 22 SAS was not operating in Derry on Bloody Sunday and 23 there were no special forces operating in Derry, as far 24 as he was aware, on Bloody Sunday. Can you accept that? 25 A. Do I accept it? I take him at his word, other than the 127 1 surveillance aspect of it. 2 Q. When you say, "other than the surveillance aspect" -- 3 A. The document that -- obviously Mr McGuinness was under 4 surveillance. I too -- as I have explained, that it was 5 carried out by a specialist unit. I have no knowledge 6 that that was so, as in that there was a unit deployed, 7 but I took it -- my understanding, having seen that 8 document, that there was. But I would accept his word, 9 if he says there was not. 10 Q. Do you know that the RUC -- 11 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Ingram, I am told that the lady who is 12 taking down what you are saying is finding difficulty. 13 Could I ask you to bring that microphone even closer to 14 you. 15 MR MACDONALD: You know that the RUC has a specialist 16 surveillance unit. 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. Do you know whether they had such a specialist 19 surveillance unit in 1972? 20 A. I do not know that. 21 Q. Do the Army have specialist surveillance units? 22 A. They do. 23 Q. Do they come under any particular branch of the Armed 24 Forces? 25 A. They do now. I could not comment during that period. 128 1 Q. Without saying what branch they may have come under in 2 1972, are you in any doubt that there would have been 3 specialist surveillance units? 4 A. No. 5 Q. Available to the Army as part of the Army Armed Forces 6 in 1972? 7 A. I would have no doubt that was available. 8 Q. Did you see any photographs generated by any agents or 9 surveillance units? 10 A. I personally did not, no. 11 Q. You have said that original source reports are never 12 destroyed. It has been pointed out to you that has been 13 denied on the part of Z. Is there any doubt in your 14 mind that important original source reports are 15 preserved? 16 A. I think, I think I have illustrated Mr Heggarty's case, 17 where he was temporarily stood down. Now, if you had 18 destroyed that file you would have had a void when he 19 was eventually reconfigurerated. 20 Q. Thank you very much, Mr Ingram. 21 Questioned by LORD GIFFORD 22 LORD GIFFORD: I am Anthony Gifford. I appear for the 23 family of James Wray. 24 I want to ask you only about one series of documents 25 which I am not sure you have been able to see. If you 129 1 have not, I am going to ask that you be given time to 2 see them. The first such document is at KJ4.44. This 3 is a letter, bearing the date 27th January, from David. 4 You know David is the Director of Intelligence at the 5 time? 6 A. I do, sir. 7 Q. Johnston, who is the head, I believe, of Special Branch. 8 It purports to enclose a copy of the signal. I turn 9 over to KJ4.5. That is a copy of a signal bearing the 10 date 27th January. The better transcription of the 11 words in the signal appears at KJ4.48 -- 12 LORD SAVILLE: Perhaps you could just help Mr Ingram in 13 explaining from -- if there is necessary -- anything 14 else on that document. 15 LORD GIFFORD: I will come back to it. I just wondered if 16 he had seen it in his preparation for today. 17 A. I have not. 18 Q. I know some other questions will be asked. I think it 19 would be fairer if these documents, together with two 20 others, be shown to the witness -- I should have 21 given -- I gave notice very belatedly this afternoon, it 22 had not occurred to me before -- 23 LORD SAVILLE: What quantity of documents have you in mind? 24 LORD GIFFORD: The linked documents, which are KJ4.69 and 25 KJ4.73, they are the James and Julian file notes which 130 1 reference to the David signal. That is the only area 2 about which I want to ask this witness. 3 LORD SAVILLE: What do you want us to do; rise for a minute 4 or two or ... 5 LORD GIFFORD: Either to rise or to take other questions. 6 I do not know whether there are other questions of any 7 length. 8 LORD SAVILLE: I think it is probably quickest if we simply 9 rise so these documents can be shown to Mr Ingram and 10 then come back as soon as we possibly can. 11 MR ROXBURGH: If that course is going to be taken, might 12 I suggest it would be helpful, before the Tribunal 13 rises, if a brief explanation is given to Mr Ingram of 14 what the other two documents are so that he knows what 15 he is looking at. 16 LORD SAVILLE: I think that would be an excellent ideA. Can 17 you do that, Lord Gifford? 18 LORD GIFFORD: If one looks at the document on file, that is 19 a document signed by James. You know who James is, 20 officer of the Security Service at the time. 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. That is dated 31st January. There is a linked docum nt 23 at KJ4.69 and page 70, signed by Julian; and you know 24 who Julian is? 25 A. I do, sir. 131 1 Q. The evidence from Julian is that these were notes for 2 the file, written up on 31st January, noting down 3 intelligence received from a source known as Observer C 4 on 26th January; the details in these two notes for the 5 file are, to a large extent, replicated in the signal 6 which I first referred to at KJ4.45. 7 The questions I will be asking is to whether, in the 8 course of your examination of the available material in 9 the 1980s, you saw these documents or anything like them 10 and there may be questions following from that? 11 A. Okay, sir. 12 LORD SAVILLE: We will rise for a few moments. 13 (2.10 pm) 14 (A short break) 15 (2.20 pm) 16 LORD GIFFORD: Mr Ingram, now you have had a chance to read 17 them properly, can you help us as to whether any of the 18 documents you have now been shown were among the 19 material which you were able to see in your service in 20 the early 1980s? 21 A. They may have been, sir, I could not be definitive about 22 that. 23 Q. You say, if we can go to page KI2.4, in paragraph 8, 24 that you can recall that: 25 "... there was information of intelligence value 132 1 received prior to the march from both the Official and 2 Provisional IRA agents that there was no intent to 3 undertake military activity during the march." 4 You will have seen that in that signal there is 5 a reference to the source expecting that the IRA will 6 use the crowd as cover? 7 A. Yes, sir. 8 Q. Are we to understand that there was intelligence both 9 ways or do you simply not remember? 10 A. I do not remember seeing that specific piece. That is 11 not to say that there was not there, I am not doubting 12 its authenticity, but on the balance of my understanding 13 of the files, the material for and against, it would 14 appear to me that there was more -- that there was not 15 going to be any activity on the day. 16 Q. In the file you have seen, there may have been reports 17 such as this information that the IRA would use the 18 march, but a lot more reports that it would not? 19 A. Yes, sir. 20 Q. That is your assessment? 21 A. That would be my assessment. But the one thing I do 22 have a problem with, sir, is the actual layout of this 23 document. 24 Q. I was going to come to that. Is that the document 25 KJ4.45, the signal? 133 1 A. It is, sir, yes. 2 Q. Can we look at that, please. What have you in mind in 3 relation to the layout? 4 A. I find it very difficult, I have to say, to read the 5 first covering, which is the signal, which is fine, 6 there is no problem at all. 7 Now, am I to understand that that is the note file 8 that has been -- 9 Q. What I can tell you: all that we know, Mr Ingram, is 10 that this signal was disclosed by the RUC, attached to 11 the letter on KJ4.44, and no other copy of it has been 12 produced from any source, apart from the RUC, and you 13 will see that the letter has annotations from officers 14 of the RUC. 15 The actual text of the signal is at KJ4.48. You 16 have been able to read it, have you? 17 A. I have read that. It is more the notes, the file notes 18 that I -- 19 Q. Can we go to those. The first in time is clearly 20 KJ4.73? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. Can I ask you -- what is your problem? 23 A. Is Observer C a new agent? 24 Q. What the evidence has been is that Observer C was 25 a well-trusted agent who gave a great deal of 134 1 information and who is also the source referred to in 2 the signal and he is in Derry? 3 A. Is he an Army agent? 4 Q. He was an agent originally run by the Army and taken 5 over by the Security Service? 6 A. And Observer B? 7 Q. B does not come into this particular document; B in fact 8 was an agent who did not live in Derry but visited 9 frequently. 10 A. Okay -- 11 Q. C was said to be the main agent in Derry. 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. First of all, did your material, the material that you 14 looked at, include documents such as the one we see on 15 the screen? 16 A. Yes, that type, but the notes on the file would, would 17 only -- would be relevant only to the agent's file and 18 not -- and certainly would not have been distributed as 19 part of the signal, if that is what is being suggested. 20 Q. No, no. I am thinking of what you were able to look at 21 in the material which you reviewed when you did your 22 project? 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. That would have included these notes for the file? 25 A. That sort of thing, yes. 135 1 Q. Would it also have included the signals of the type that 2 we see on KJ4.45? 3 A. Yes, um. You see, I do not actually see any Registry 4 stamp for these documents, though. 5 Q. That may be, Mr Ingram, because if you go back to 6 KJ4.44 -- 7 LORD SAVILLE: This is the copy that went to, as far as we 8 can understand it, went to the RUC, so you would not get 9 that stamp on it, would you? 10 A. Well, they would have their own Registry document, sir, 11 but this is -- are they saying this has been sent from 12 8 Brigade to the RUC? 13 LORD GIFFORD: No. This has been sent -- 14 A. Headquarters Northern Ireland. 15 Q. Headquarters Northern Ireland to 8 Brigade, but this 16 particular copy has been sent, under cover of a letter? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. To the RUC at Special Branch? 19 A. That is what I am saying, sir, with all due respect, 20 that that document there would be booked into the Army's 21 MoD form 102. It would then be given a receipt which 22 would then be enclosed within it and then, once the RUC 23 received that document, they would then despatch the 24 receipt back, because the Army is still the originator 25 of that document, and they would want to know where that 136 1 document is being stored; does that make sense? 2 Q. Let us try and piece it together: what we anticipate the 3 evidence will be from the sender, although we do not 4 have a statement from him on this matter, is that he 5 would have sent this document on KJ4.45, as a cable to 6 8 Brigade and that a copy retained by him in Lisburn 7 would then have been sent, with the letter on KJ4.44, to 8 Special Branch, and delivered in some way that we do not 9 quite know? 10 A. Okay, well, let me just stop you there, sir. When that 11 document is originated, whoever has originated it, it 12 does not matter if it is going to the RUC or not, it has 13 still been -- a document has been conceived and once it 14 is complete it is entered into a MoD form 102 and the 15 point I am making is: I cannot see the Registry stamp on 16 it. 17 Q. You would expect to see on this cable a Registry stamp. 18 Whereabouts would you see it? 19 A. I would see it on the covering letter for that document. 20 Your KJ4.44, I need supporting documents, I cannot see 21 any Registry stamp on there. 22 Q. By "Registry," you mean what exactly? 23 A. I mean if that is an authentic document, and it is 24 obviously in existence today, because you have got it 25 here, then I would want to see the MoD form 102 and then 137 1 the MoD form 102 would lead you to more information. 2 And it must have a stamp on there to tell you, ie where 3 on the file it has been stored, so it will have a folio 4 number, and it will also tell you what volume the MoD 5 form 102 and -- 6 Q. Pause a moment, because this may be very important. 7 Bear in mind, please, we have received no copy of this 8 document, either from Ministry of Defence or from the 9 Security Service or from any other source, except the 10 RUC, and you have referred to certain procedures. Are 11 you sure that those procedures that you are referring to 12 would have been in operation in 1972? 13 A. I am, sir. I think Mr Harding actually makes that very 14 clear in his, his statement to the Inquiry. 15 Q. The MoD form 102, what are you referring to exactly? 16 A. Well, that is the Registry document, sir. When that 17 document is originated it takes a life upon itself and 18 it is a secret document and must be accounted as for 19 manual (inaudible) security. 20 The relevance for that, sir, obviously that document 21 is still in existence, because you have it here, or you 22 have a copy of it. Now that would tell you -- would 23 lead you then on a paper chase back to the live Registry 24 and Sod's law would be that the next document alongside 25 it would also be relevant, I would imagine, to this 138 1 Inquiry. 2 Q. And that original document, bearing a Registry number, 3 must, must it not, have been filed and be in existence 4 today? 5 A. In Headquarters Northern Ireland. 6 Q. In Headquarters Northern Ireland, if that is a genuine 7 document? 8 A. If that is a genuine document. 9 Q. The Registry number would go on the letter to the RUC? 10 A. Well, the logical place to put the -- the actual 11 covering letter is also a title "secret." Now -- so 12 that means that that document is a secret document, so 13 you would expect to see one of one, two -- if it is 14 a four-page document, one of four, two of four, three of 15 four and four of four and then it is accounted as 16 a four-page document. 17 If you look at Mr Harding's testimony, he actually 18 outlines, in good detail, as to the workings of a MoD 19 form 102. 20 Q. Is this right, in addition to there being a Registry 21 stamp and reference on the letter, you would also expect 22 there to be a Registry stamp and reference on the cable, 23 on the signal, bearing in mind that that signal 24 originally went to 8 Brigade commander? 25 A. Not necessarily so, because in -- Headquarters Northern 139 1 Ireland is defence here. If that was drafted up as it 2 was -- now this is, I presume -- you see, this has been 3 stamped "Comsen", which I presume is Headquarters 4 Northern Ireland and it has been despatched to 5 8 Brigade. 6 Now, on receipt in 8 Brigade you would have -- they 7 would have had to have entered this into their MoD form 8 102. Now, when the signals sent this, they could have 9 done it one of two ways. Either the entry and then 10 destroy it immediately if it was not going to be 11 retained on the file -- but the normal course of events 12 is that that copy would be retained for a period, 13 therefore there would be an entry in an MoD form 102. 14 Q. That would be both a copy retained by 8 Brigade? 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. And a copy retained at headquarters? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. So this document, the one on KJ -- both these documents 19 are, in your mind, incomplete in that they do not have 20 the references that you would expect them to have? 21 A. That would be an accurate reflection, yes. As I say, 22 there could be a possible explanation for the signal if 23 it was not to be retained and they just sent this to 24 Headquarters 8th Brigade. But immediately upon receipt 25 in Headquarters 8th Brigade, that document would then be 140 1 entered into their MoD form 102, or Headquarters 2 Northern Ireland could possibly have an explanation as 3 to why they have not. But it would be unusual. 4 Q. What we noted, and no doubt you noted, was that the 5 notes for file were only written up after the event, on 6 31st January, when they refer to intelligence which is 7 meant to be advance intelligence, about the event on 8 30th January? 9 A. I have to say, sir, I did not know that, but I would 10 take your advice there. 11 Q. Is it common for notes of this kind, in your experience 12 of these documents, to be written up after the event to 13 which they are relating? 14 A. Not if you have communicated that information to the 15 commander and the commander has then forwarded it to his 16 subordinate commander. It would have to be written up 17 and appraised accordingly; it would not be done post the 18 event. 19 Q. It would have to be written up before the event to which 20 it is referring? 21 A. It would, sir, yes. 22 Questioned by MR O'DONOVAN 23 MR O'DONOVAN: Mr Ingram, my name is O'Donovan, I represent 24 OIRA 1 to 5. It has been your evidence to this Tribunal 25 that you did see documentation which indicated that 141 1 Mr McGuinness had, in effect, been the subject of 2 targeted surveillance. 3 A. Yes, sir. 4 Q. Do you consider it likely that other persons, for 5 instance those known to be active within the Official 6 IRA, would have been likely to have been subjected to 7 similar surveillance on the day? 8 A. Yes, from -- but not as intense as -- yes, from the 9 close observation positions, yes. If they were 10 prominent paramilitaries, then you would expect that 11 troops would have recognised them and taken action 12 accordingly. 13 Q. The product of the surveillance or observation would 14 have then found its way back to the documentation which 15 you later perused; is that right? 16 A. That would be right, sir, yes. 17 Q. And similarly, in respect of, if we call them prominent 18 members of the Official IRA, there would also, would 19 there not, have been reports from agents and observers? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. Similarly, those observations, reports would have found 22 their way back on to the files which you considered? 23 A. Yes, sir. But the actual location of people is also an 24 helpful aid when you are debriefing. Now, I do not 25 actually know that that was carried out. If I was 142 1 debriefing somebody and I had the benefit of a log where 2 people were at certain points and you was trying to 3 recreate what had happened, you would obviously use 4 that. 5 Q. As part of the study which you undertook, you would have 6 given consideration to that body of information about 7 the activity of prominent members of the Official IRA, 8 would you not? 9 A. I cannot say I personally did, no. 10 Q. You see, you have informed this Tribunal that you have 11 made an overall assessment of what happened on the day? 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. Presumably part of that assessment would have been the 14 activities both of the Provisional and the Official IRA? 15 A. Yes, yes. 16 Q. It must follow then, must it not, that the information 17 that you considered and weighed really was to the effect 18 that the Official IRA, on the day, were not operating in 19 accordance with any preconceived offensive plan? 20 A. Yes, that would be a fair comment. 21 Q. Thank you. I wonder if you can help me with this: it 22 must be the case that the surveillance teams who were 23 present on the day were armed; were they not? 24 A. I do not know that for a fact, sir, but I would imagine 25 they were. 143 1 Q. I wonder if you can give an estimate to the Tribunal of 2 approximately how many of those individuals would have 3 been present in the centre of Derry on the day; 4 I appreciate you were not there, but from your perusal 5 of the documentation and your experience, can you help 6 with that? 7 A. It would be a guesstimate, sir. 8 Q. I appreciate that. 9 A. I would not think less than eight, ten. 10 Q. But maybe double that? 11 A. Maybe. 12 Q. If I can move to another subject, please: would I be 13 right in thinking that part of the intelligence activity 14 is to discover, for instance, if a known member of the 15 Official or the Provisional IRA had in fact left the 16 Derry area; in other words, he was no longer around? 17 A. That is right, sir, yes. 18 Q. In your experience, if a Derry Republican had been 19 killed in a conflict with the Armed Forces, do you think 20 that is an event which you would have expected to see 21 a report on? 22 A. You would, sir, and certainly the Republican community 23 would celebrate -- not celebrate, but they would honour 24 their dead. 25 Q. Yes, I mean, that is one of the aspects of this Inquiry 144 1 is that you are dealing with a very small community in 2 Derry, of Republicans? 3 A. Absolutely. 4 Q. Consequently, if a Derry Republican had been killed on 5 Bloody Sunday and then buried in the Irish Republic, it 6 is not really realistic, is it, to think that that could 7 have been done and missed? 8 A. I think anybody who was disposed to that would probably 9 be thinking that Santa Claus was still coming at 10 Christmas time. 11 Q. I do not think I need take that any further, thank you, 12 Mr Ingram. 13 Questioned by MR GLASGOW 14 MR GLASGOW: Mr Ingram, I am right on the other side of the 15 room. My name is Glasgow. I represent a large number 16 of the soldiers who were present on the day and it is on 17 their behalf that I want to ask you just about two 18 matters. 19 Firstly, about what they did on the day itself and, 20 secondly, on what they did before or after the day in an 21 intelligence capacity? 22 A. Okay, sir. 23 Q. The soldiers that I am concerned with, many of whom have 24 already given evidence, either orally like you or in 25 writing, because I think it may have been thought that 145 1 what they said was not seriously in issue, were the 2 intelligence officers of the resident battalions; do you 3 understand -- 4 A. I do, sir, yes. 5 Q. Are you saying that you saw any document or indeed any 6 photograph that recorded or indicated that those 7 soldiers, soldiers of the resident battalions, the 8 intelligence officers of 8 Brigade or the resident 9 battalions, had had any particular targets under 10 surveillance on the day, or just that somebody did? 11 A. It would be a -- the intelligence section within the 12 local unit would be, as a normal course of events, 13 involved in both photography and also regular briefing 14 of the troops on their requirements, that is sightings. 15 Now, to answer your question in specifics: I do not 16 know whether that -- the local unit of that day was 17 responsible for that surveillance; I would assume that 18 that was the case. 19 Q. If it is only assumption -- 20 A. It is. 21 Q. I take it no further than this, because the Tribunal has 22 heard, just for example, from the surveillance officer 23 of the Royal Anglians, whose name was Conder -- we know 24 his name -- and he specifically was asked about this, 25 and a soldier who held the same position for the 146 1 22 Light Air Defence, both of whom told the Tribunal 2 that they had not been aware of any surveillance that 3 was to be kept on Mr McGuinness or that he was to be 4 photographed. 5 So far as you are concerned, you know of nothing 6 that would contradict that as far as those individuals 7 are concerned? 8 A. I will answer that: no, I do not. 9 Q. When you told us, you told the Tribunal about your 10 belief that there would have been observation from the 11 walls on individuals and specifically on Mr McGuinness; 12 was that too a matter of informed assumption on your 13 part or did you see some document or were you told 14 something that indicated that people had been taking 15 photographs or observing individuals, including 16 Mr McGuinness, from the walls? 17 A. I think I actually saw a specific reference to the 18 masonic and the walls. 19 Q. So you believe that you saw some document that indicated 20 that somebody was observing or photographing or both? 21 A. Both. 22 Q. From the walls? 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. The second matter is the general role of the resident 25 intelligence officers at the time. Whatever the 147 1 position with RUC documents and specifically 2 Special Branch forms, are you saying that you saw any 3 document that indicated that intelligence officers 4 attached to resident battalions, the soldiers on the 5 ground, were handling agents in Londonderry at the time? 6 A. They were, sir, yes, absolutely 100 per cent. 7 Q. I do not want to debate it or challenge it further than 8 this, just so the Tribunal knows the extent to which it 9 is in issue. The Tribunal has heard from the 10 intelligence officer of 8 Brigade, whose reference -- 11 perhaps you should see it, it is C1803.3. 12 Would you mind taking it from me, Mr Ingram, this 13 is, I think, the third page of the statement of the 14 intelligence officer from 8 Brigade? 15 A. Sir, it may well be helpful if I just elaborate why, and 16 it is slightly different to how I actually delivered it 17 to you, and that is: each (inaudible) battalion supplies 18 a local handler. He is then trained. At that point in 19 time, he went back to Ashford and undertook a course. 20 He then returns back. He still works out of that 21 environment, but he does not report back -- in theory -- 22 back to his commander, ie the local unit, he reports 23 back to the brigade chain. But he is still a local -- 24 if you take the Royal Anglians, who actually have a very 25 good history in unit handling. 148 1 Q. You will understand, and everyone else will, Mr Ingram, 2 that I am not challenging at all on what you have known 3 when you took up your position as lance corporal doing 4 this type of work. But it may be important for the 5 Tribunal to know what you are alleging was done by 6 people who have already given evidence but who were not 7 challenged on this because nobody knew what was going to 8 be said. 9 A. I accept that sir, yes. 10 Q. I am sorry about the elaborate way of putting it, but 11 that is why I am trying to do the job I have to do on 12 their behalf. 13 Could you look at paragraph 9 in the middle of the 14 page. What the intelligence officer of 8 Brigade said 15 in terms, it has not been challenged, is: 16 "I have been asked whether 8 Brigade got information 17 from informants. We did, although it was generally low 18 grade, non-specific general information of more 19 relevance to the troops on the ground. 8 Brigade did not 20 run its own agents at this time." 21 Stopping there, the other intelligence officers have 22 in effect said much the same thing for the other 23 regiments? 24 A. Okay. 25 Q. Are you questioning that? Are you saying that that is 149 1 untrue or simply that you do not know and that you 2 assumed that they were running agents? 3 A. No, what he is saying, from his understanding, is 4 accurate. What you have to understand is that the local 5 intelligence officer has no need to know. What he is 6 saying, effectively, is that what information he has 7 been given has been graded in a similar position as 8 I have explained earlier. It is a sort of need-to-know 9 basis. 10 Now the local IO has no real need for any knowledge 11 of any source information. If that information is going 12 to be exploited, which it obviously was during that 13 period, then if the IO needed to told, he would be told. 14 He is treated very similar to a mushroom; he is kept in 15 the dark and fed on shit, until you need to use him. 16 Q. I am sure that is very entertaining and will feature 17 well in somebody's book. The question I was asking you, 18 Mr Ingram, is whether or not you were challenging the 19 truth of what this officer says, in the last sentence 20 that I read: 21 "8 Brigade did not run its own agents at this time." 22 I wanted the Tribunal to know whether or not, for 23 what it is worth, your testimony was that that was 24 untrue; what is it, is that true or untrue? 25 A. That is not an accurate statement, but he may well be 150 1 making that from a position of ignorance. 2 Q. When you reviewed the files that you say you saw, your 3 general overview, to use your own words, the first 4 answer you gave to the Tribunal this morning was that 5 your overview was that there had been no hostile fire 6 and that the Army had overreacted; is that right; is 7 that what you meant to say? 8 A. Is that what I actually said? 9 Q. Yes, that is why I wanted you to have the opportunity to 10 comment on it; did that put it a little higher than you 11 meant? 12 A. It did a little bit, yes. 13 Q. We need not turn it up, today, page 30 and 31. As 14 I say, your actual answer to my learned friend 15 Mr Roxburgh's question: 16 "Question: So far as the overview is concerned, 17 what was the overview you derived from reading those 18 documents?" 19 And you said: 20 "Answer: That there had been no hostile fire and 21 that the Army had overreacted." 22 You went on to say that a large number of 23 casualties, some had been taken across the border. 24 Would you like to rephrase that answer? 25 A. I will rephrase that, I will take the opportunity of 151 1 rephrasing that, and say that my overview was that there 2 was no intent by the paramilitary -- well, by any 3 civilian parties and that -- I will still rely on: the 4 soldiers overreacted. 5 Q. The second half of your answer, that your overview 6 included the conclusion that a large amount of 7 casualties, some of which had been taken to hospitals 8 across the border, including agents; you stand by that, 9 do you? 10 A. Well, I think I explained that by saying that the agents 11 actually were involved in the transportation. 12 Q. In the handling, but that part of it is still accurate? 13 A. It is still accurate, yes. 14 Q. The last matter, is this: you tell the Tribunal, but by 15 l means look at it, if you like, at KI2.7. Of course 16 you shall see it, 2.7 at the top of the page, which is 17 part of your paragraph 13, that you are concerned that 18 the Inquiry should be given full and complete 19 information to enable it to examine and report on the 20 events of Bloody Sunday. 21 That was a sincere wish; was it? 22 A. I hope so. 23 Q. If that is right, Mr Ingram, why did you not approach 24 this Tribunal directly; why did you decide to take 25 a roundabout route, if I may put it like that? 152 1 A. I think the Tribunal will tell you privately that I had 2 very good reason for that, which reasons that you are 3 obviously not aware of. 4 Q. If I am in ignorance it may be right I am kept there, 5 I often am. 6 If we look at the final paragraph of Mr McCartney's 7 very helpful note, KI2.12 -- we must not be misled by 8 the date at the top, I think that is the date when he 9 very kindly ran this off his computer so the Tribunal 10 could see it. This is an attendance note of 11 a conference with you that lasted, as we see, one and 12 three-quarter hours -- 13 A. It was a telephone conversation. 14 Q. The very last thing that you apparently said to him was 15 that you suggested that you would be prepared to meet 16 with Counsel for the family on a confidential basis? 17 A. And, again, there is very good reason. 18 Q. All I wanted the Tribunal to know is: why you were 19 choosing, if you can properly answer this question 20 without infringing anybody else's safety or rights, why 21 you were offering to meet Counsel for the family on 22 a confidential basis and not simply doing what the vast 23 majority of other people have done and go to the 24 Tribunal to tell them the truth? 25 A. Well, let me just -- if I may, I will take the 153 1 opportunity, in so much within the parameters that 2 I can. 3 My details were leaked to this Inquiry by 4 a Special Branch officer and when I was arrested under 5 the Official Secrets Act in relation to other matters, 6 I then was in the process of helping Mr McCartney. 7 Now, given personal circumstances, of which the 8 Inquiry are well aware, I was reluctant to actually be 9 here today; this was not my wish to be here, and I do 10 not mean that as in any, um, derogatory way to the 11 families, because I am more than happy to be here today. 12 But from a personal point of view, this is not good for 13 me. 14 However, I was persuaded by the Inquiry, on the foot 15 of some legal action that if I did not -- and that is 16 why I am here today, sir. 17 Q. When you had that conversation and offered to meet the 18 Counsel to the families on a confidential basis 19 in April 2000 -- 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. -- had you in fact already approached the Tribunal 22 yourself, because if that is the position I have 23 misstated it and I must correct it? 24 A. No. 25 Q. Because that appears to have been indicated by Mr McCann 154 1 in his newspaper article, that you had approached the 2 Tribunal in February? 3 A. I do not know the dates. We had been in -- basically 4 what happened was: Mr Clarke did an article in the 5 paper, which was brief and to the point, which was that 6 basically I do not think all the documents would have 7 discovered up under discovery and from that I think the 8 Inquiry wrote to Mr Clarke and -- trying to seek 9 information. 10 In the intervening period I was arrested and, 11 contrary to any agreement they had with the police, they 12 leaked the details to the Inquiry and the Inquiry then 13 contacted my legal advisors. 14 Q. All I was asking, and I hope there is nothing improper 15 in this, Mr Ingram: had you already spoken to the 16 Inquiry before you telephoned the families' lawyers and 17 offered to meet them confidentially? 18 A. The answer to that is a straight: no. I spoke to the 19 families -- 20 Q. First? 21 A. And let me explain why. My intent was not to give 22 formal evidence because of my personal circumstances, 23 nevertheless I wanted to help the families. 24 Q. I am sure that is right and I do not doubt your desire 25 to help the families at all. But you should have the 155 1 opportunity, I think, of just dealing with the newspaper 2 articles, because they may be wrong. You very kindly 3 produced them for us at KI2.37. What we were told in 4 those articles -- there are three of them, but they are 5 almost identical, the second paragraph: 6 "The man, known to the media as 'Martin Ingram', met 7 with lawyers for the Tribunal under Lord Saville three 8 months ago." 9 That would indicate that you had met the Tribunal at 10 the end of February. I think on what you are saying 11 that must just be a mistake? 12 A. No, I think that is actually accurate. I think -- I do 13 not imagine I would have said I had met with them if 14 I had not met with them. I am sure the Inquiry will 15 tell you when and where we met -- they will not tell you 16 where, but will tell you when. 17 Q. Again, the Tribunal will know the position, but 18 I thought it right you should have the opportunity of 19 dealing with it. 20 A. No, I think -- 21 Q. Mr McCartney's note, you see, indicates that the first 22 contact you had was on 7th April when you were offering 23 to meet the Counsel for the family on a confidential 24 basis, whereas you yourself are very properly exhibiting 25 a newspaper article -- in face three newspaper 156 1 articles -- which would indicate you had already met the 2 Tribunal lawyers in February. 3 I wonder whether you could help the Tribunal just to 4 clear up that apparent inconsistency? 5 A. Although Mr McCartney may not remember, I did actually 6 speak to Mr McCartney a considerable period before -- 7 LORD GIFFORD: My question was: is it not a different year? 8 The newspaper article is 2001 and the McCartney notes 9 are 2000. 10 MR GLASGOW: I am very grateful, that may clarify. Does 11 that help? 12 A. That helps a lot, sir. 13 Q. The newspaper we have on the screen is 2000. I am 14 afraid I have not got a date on mine, but it is 2001. 15 Thank you very much. 16 A. Does that -- 17 Q. Thank you very much, Mr Ingram, yes, it does indeed. 18 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH 19 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Roxburgh, do you have any information on 20 dates and so on in relation to Mr Ingram approaching or 21 being approached by this Inquiry? 22 MR ROXBURGH: No, I do not have dates to hand about that 23 very early stage, I am afraid. 24 May we have on the screen, please, KJ4.44. 25 Mr Ingram, I want to ask you a few final questions about 157 1 the documents that you were shown by Lord Gifford. 2 First of all, this one, which, as we can all see, is 3 a letter dated 27th January 1972, addressed to DH 4 Johnston of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, it is signed 5 "yours sincerely, David". 6 We do not use the surname of the person who wrote 7 the letter, again for security reasons. But may I ask 8 you, this: do you yourself know who it is who wrote this 9 letter; down the identity of that individual? 10 A. I think I do, yes. 11 Q. What is your understanding of the position that that 12 individual held at the time? 13 A. If it is who I think it is as such, he was in control of 14 intelligence. 15 Q. Do you know what organisation he worked for? 16 A. Do you mean what regiment or corps? 17 Q. Is it your understanding that he was an Army officer? 18 A. No, that is what I was asking, that is the point that 19 I was trying to come to. I think he is a civilian; is 20 he not? 21 Q. Yes, a Security Service Officer? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. Now, would a Security Service Officer, albeit one 24 working at Headquarters Northern Ireland, have been 25 obliged to follow MoD Registry procedures in relation to 158 1 his correspondence? 2 A. Well, if that document was to turn up on a tip in 3 Lisburn and it is the Headquarters Northern Ireland 4 Lisburn, County Antrim, then I think there would be 5 questions to be asked. 6 Q. What is the answer to my question? 7 A. The answer to the question is: yes, he would need -- he 8 could not send a secret document out in the second class 9 post. 10 Q. No doubt he could not, but that is not quite the same as 11 asking whether or not he would have had to fill in an 12 MoD form 102 in relation to this correspondence? 13 A. With respect, Mr Roxburgh, what control would you have 14 over that document if you did not have any, any Registry 15 documents to -- 16 Q. There may have been Registry documents of one kind or 17 another. I am simply asking for the moment whether he 18 would be obliged to follow MoD Registry procedures? 19 A. I think you would have to ask him yourself, I do not. 20 Know. 21 Q. We can do that. 22 A. Good. 23 Q. Let us assume that the document was registered in the 24 Registry at Lisburn. Would it necessarily follow that 25 a Lisburn Registry stamp would appear on the copy of the 159 1 document that was sent to the RUC? 2 A. No, it would have the RUC one on it, but you would then 3 send the receipt back to acknowledge that you have 4 received that correspondence. Therefore, the MoD form 5 102, in Headquarters Northern Ireland, would acknowledge 6 that they have received that document back. So that 7 safe custody has been recorded. 8 Q. Can we go on to page KJ4.69, please. Perhaps we had 9 better have KJ4.70 alongside it. This, as we can see, 10 is a "note for file." It is signed Julian? 11 A. You see the redacted in the top right-hand corner, that 12 may well be the Registry information. 13 Q. It may be? 14 A. It may be the key that you are looking for, Mr ... 15 Q. So far as this document is concerned, do you appreciate 16 that this is a document written by a Security Service 17 officer? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. And it is a note for his file? 20 A. Yes, sir. 21 Q. Would you ever have seen documents that Security Service 22 officers wrote for their files? 23 A. No. When I said I had seen documents similar to this -- 24 but I could not say that I have seen that document. 25 Q. Would you ever have seen any file note written by 160 1 a Security Service officer for his file in the 2 Security Service? 3 A. Yes, I would. The joint intelligence research officer 4 regularly wrote papers on file notes; he is a serving 5 security officer, but what -- I know what you are 6 saying, that there is a distinction and the answer to 7 your question is: no. 8 Q. Is the distinction that the -- that the JIRO was an 9 officer who was based at Lisburn and you were working 10 closely with him, so you may have seen some of his 11 documents? 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. But you would not have seen file notes written by 14 London-based Security Service officers in relation to 15 agents they were handling? 16 A. No, you would not. 17 Q. Thank you very much. I have no more questions. 18 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Ingram, it is the Chairman again. Thank 19 you very much indeed for coming here to give evidence, 20 thank you. 21 We will start again tomorrow at 9.30 and tomorrow, 22 of course, we will have evidence by video. 23 MR ROXBURGH: Sir, may I say in relation to Wednesday, we 24 have Officer Y and Officer Z in the morning and we have, 25 in order to fill the afternoon, brought forward 161 1 Soldier S, who was due to give evidence on Thursday, so 2 he will start on Wednesday afternoon and continue into 3 Thursday, as may be necessary. 4 LORD SAVILLE: Thank you very much. 5 (3.05 pm) 6 (Proceedings adjourned until 9.30 am 7 on Tuesday, 13th May 2003) 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 162 1 INDEX 2 PAGE 3 MR MARTIN INGRAM (affirmed) .................. 1 4 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH .................... 1 5 Questioned by MR MACDONALD ................... 115 6 Questioned by LORD GIFFORD ................... 129 7 Questioned by MR O'DONOVAN ................... 141 8 Questioned by MR GLASGOW ..................... 145 9 Questioned by MR ROXBURGH .................... 157 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 163