{"id":141864,"date":"2025-10-24T03:03:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T03:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/141864\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T03:03:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T03:03:18","slug":"soldier-f-found-not-guilty-of-murders-on-bloody-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/141864\/","title":{"rendered":"Soldier F found not guilty of murders on Bloody Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former paratrooper known as Soldier F<\/strong> has been found not guilty of committing two murders and five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday<\/strong> in Derry in 1972.<\/p>\n

Delivering his judgment at Belfast Crown Court, Judge Patrick Lynch said the evidence presented against the veteran fell \u201cwell short\u201d of what was required for conviction.<\/p>\n

However, the judge said that members of the Parachute Regiment had shot dead unarmed civilians, and those involved should \u201chang their heads in shame\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the packed public gallery at court 12, gathered relatives of the Bloody Sunday victims gave no visible response as the veteran was found not guilty on all counts.<\/p>\n

There was also no reaction from those in the public gallery supporting the former paratrooper.<\/p>\n

Soldier F had been accused of the murders of James Wray and William McKinney on Bloody Sunday, regarded as one of the darkest days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

The veteran had also been accused of attempting to murder Michael Quinn, Patrick O\u2019Donnell, Joseph Friel, Joe Mahon and an unknown person.<\/p>\n

Thirteen people were killed when members of the Parachute Regiment opened fire on a civil rights demonstration in the city.<\/p>\n

The non-jury trial heard evidence across four weeks which included statements by two of Soldier F\u2019s colleagues.<\/p>\n

Soldier F was present at Belfast Crown Court for each day of the trial with his identify concealed behind a curtain in the court room.<\/p>\n

Relatives of the men killed and supporters also attended each day of the trial.<\/p>\n

Delivering his judgment, Judge Lynch said on Bloody Sunday a number of members of the Parachute Regiment entered Glenfada Park North in Derry and started firing at unarmed civilians at a distance of 50 metres or less.<\/p>\n

He said this resulted in two murders and a number of people being unlawfully wounded.<\/p>\n

The judge said: \u201cThey had totally lost all sense of military discipline. They were members of a regiment formed in 1942 at the behest of prime minister Churchill and had a proud record in World War Two.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThose who fought valiantly against SS Panzer divisions in 1944 have had their regiment sullied by some of their successors.<\/p>\n

\u201cShooting in the back unarmed civilians fleeing from them on the streets of a British city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose responsible should hang their heads in shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the judge said there was no concept of \u201ccollective guilt\u201d in the courts.<\/p>\n

He said the Crown had failed to establish that Soldier F was \u201cknowingly and intentionally assisting in the shootings, with intent to kill, or was shooting himself with that intention\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the sole evidence against Soldier F was from two other veterans, Soldiers G and H, and said there were difficulties in relying on it.<\/p>\n

The judge said: \u201cTheir statements, the sole and decisive evidence, cannot be tested in a way that witnesses giving evidence from the witness box would be.<\/p>\n

\u201cDelay has, in my view, seriously hampered the capacity of the defence to test the veracity and accuracy of the hearsay statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two witnesses are themselves, on the basis of the Crown case guilty of murder as, in essence, accomplices with a motivation to name F as a participant in their murderous activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find that they have been serially untruthful about matters central to events giving rise to this prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge added that \u201cwhatever suspicion\u201d the court may have about the role of Soldier F, he was \u201cconstrained and limited\u201d by the evidence presented.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Trial<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Trial came after long campaign for justice for Bloody Sunday victims<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

He said: \u201cTo convict it has to be upon evidence that is convincing and manifestly reliable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence presented by the Crown falls well short of this standard and signally fails to reach the high standard of proof required in a criminal case; that of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, I find the accused not guilty on all seven counts on the present bill of indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former paratrooper known as Soldier F has been found not guilty of committing two murders and five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-141864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115426925226929855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}