The organisers of the anti-internment march on Bloody Sunday deliberately failed to record a sighting of a civilian gunman seen firing at soldiers, the Saville Inquiry heard today.
Mr Peter McLaughlin said he reported seeing the gunman firing between three and five low velocity shots at advancing soldiers in Chamberlain Street on the edge of the Bogside in Derry.
Mr McLaughlin, who is director of finance and information with the Western Health and Social Services Board, told the Saville Inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings that two days after the killings of 13 civilians and the woundings of 14 others, he told a member of the march organisers, the Civil Rights Association, that he'd seen the gunman.
Mr McLaughlin, who watched the events of Bloody Sunday unfold from his home in the Rossville Street flats complex, said the gunman's actions were stupid.
"The man did not take aim before he fired. In fact he couldn't see what he was shooting at", he told the Inquiry.
"He then put the gun away. I thought to myself ‘how stupid’ because this was clearly a danger to the people in the play area. I had a general sense of people in the play area and other people in the flats shouting their disapproval to him", he said.
Mr McLaughlin described the gunman as being fairly young, in his early twenties.
He said he referred to the incident when he gave a statement to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association two days later.
"I did tell the NICRA person that I spoke to that I had seen the gunman, although it was not recorded", he said.
The witness said he had expected to be called to give evidence to the original Widgery Inquiry into the killings. Had be been summoned to give evidence to the 1972 Inquiry, he said he would have referred to the gunman.