The credibility of a police witness to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry was called into question today after it was claimed information was withheld which could have affected his successful application for screening in the witness box.
Lawyers acting for the families of several Bloody Sunday victims challenged former Royal Ulster Constabulary sergeant Mr William McGeehan to state if he was currently living in Northern Ireland.
Mr Seamus Treacy, acting on behalf of the families, claimed if he was not living in Northern Ireland, then it would mean that the High Court decision to allow police officers to be screened could be called into question.
During evidence, the former police sergeant admitted that he did not live all the time in Northern Ireland and was involved in full-time work outside the country.
"Do you live full-time in Northern Ireland?" he was asked. "No," he replied.
"Do you live outside the jurisdiction?" the lawyer asked him. "I do," he said, adding that this had been the case on and off over the past six years.
He said he did however have a residence in Northern Ireland and denied holding back any material relevant to the court application for screening or the Bloody Sunday tribunal.
The exchange began after Mr Treacy claimed he had only learned this morning that the police witness had been living outside the North.
Several police officers were granted the right to be shielded from public view while giving evidence in the Guildhall in Derry because of fears that republican paramilitaries might target them.
Relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday unsuccessfully challenged the ruling in the High Court and Court of Appeal.
The police officer later said during evidence that he considered Northern Ireland to be his home and he intended to return there permanently when his work abroad was finished.
"My permanent home is already here in Northern Ireland; my family are here and I will return here," he said.
Earlier the former sergeant had said rioters taunted security forces with the chant "Send in the Paras" before the Parachute Regiment went into the Bogside area of Derry on Bloody Sunday.
In a statement to the tribunal, he said young rioters taunted police and the British army at barriers in Little James Street and Sackville Street.
"The taunt ‘Send in the Paras!’ was directed, I think, at both Barrier 12 and Barrier 13," he said.
Pressed on his recollection in a police report of a Thompson machine gun firing the initial shots when the Parachute Regiment moved in, and asked if it was possible he had confused this with rubber bullets, he said: "I doubt it.
"To have given me that impression, it would have had to be carefully orchestrated, with quite a few (salvoes) of rubber bullet guns firing and reloading. It does not ring to me as though that would be possible."
PA