Bullets fired from Derry's historic walls narrowly missed then MP Bernadette Devlin as she started to speak to civil rights supporters on Bloody Sunday, it was claimed today.
Witnesses Dominic O'Donnell and his sister Grainne Lynch told the Saville Inquiry the first shots rang out as the Mid Ulster MP was on a platform in front of Free Derry Corner in the city's Bogside district that day in 1972.
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Mrs Lynch, who was 14 that day, said: "I felt they were aimed at Bernadette Devlin and remembered saying at the time that they came from the Derry walls. You could tell from the direction of sound where they came from."
Ms Devlin was described getting children to sing as the demonstration rallied at Free Derry Corner before the shooting rang out and Mrs Lynch said: "I remember looking up and feeling excited that I was very close to Bernadette Devlin."
Brother and sister both claimed she was just starting to speak when the gunfire rang out, probably from the direction of the historic walls overlooking the Bogside from the east - not the Paratroopers who entered the area on foot from the north.
Another witness, Harry McBride, spoke of the gunfire beginning at the same time, but he believed it came from the north, although he said he encountered shooting from the walls later that day as he tried to flee.
Mrs Lynch said: "I heard three distinct shots and saw bullets hit the wall above Bernadette Devlin's head. The shots were sharp cracks with one straight after the other, fired from the left towards the platform."
Mr O'Donnell, who was 11 at the time, said: "I have a clear picture in my mind of the wall breaking up above Bernadette Devlin's head, as if it had been hit by bullets."
"Bernadette Devlin would have been about five feet tall, the platform would have been about four or five feet off the ground and the wall broke up about two feet above Bernadette Devlin's head.
"I believed at the time that the shooting was coming from the city walls. I came to that conclusion because there were soldiers moving about on the walls which were directly above us, although I had paid no attention to them at the time.
"There were always soldiers on the city walls. In truth, however, the shots could have been coming from anywhere."
Mrs Lynch recounted Ms Devlin telling the crowd not to run away and added: "The atmosphere suddenly changed."Prior to the shooting there had still been a carnival-like atmosphere with children singing. In a second it seemed that I was in a war."I felt awful and the fear is still so strong after all these years.
"I had seen riots in the past as I watched them after school. They were part of normal life and like and bat and ball games between the Army and the young ones. This was different. I felt very frightened."
PA