First, the now familiar statistics: it lasted 12 years, sat for some 434 days, at a total cost of £191m and finally published this month, 38 years after 13 people were shot dead by the British Army on 30 January 1972. So was Lord Saville’s inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday really worth it?
Was the Saville Inquiry a victim of its own success? Jon Robins reports
First, the now familiar statistics: it lasted 12 years, sat for some 434 days, at a total cost of £191m and finally published this month, 38 years after 13 people were shot dead by the British Army on 30 January 1972. So was Lord Saville’s inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday really worth it? Did it have to be on such a scale that it was described by justice minister Ken Clarke as “ludicrously out-of-hand”?
Michael Mansfield QC represented the families of some of the victims, and was with them in Derry’s Guildhall Square when the report was published. “Absolutely, it’s been worth it,” the barrister insists; adding that the process has “rectified a terrible blot
