THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY: The 16-year-old son of the man seen as the most heroic victim of the Bloody Sunday shootings came within inches of suffering a similar fate on the same day, the inquiry heard on Thursday.
A paratrooper's bullet narrowly missed Charles McGuigan as he and a friend went into Rossville Street, curious to see what the British soldiers who had invaded the Bogside were doing.
As the youths fled in panic, they were unaware that shortly afterwards, Charles's father, 41-year-old Barney McGuigan, was cut down by a bullet through the head as he moved out from cover, holding a white handkerchief aloft, to try to help a wounded man.
Yesterday, Charles McGuigan, now a lecturer aged 44, issued a moving appeal from the witness box for the truth about the killing of his father.
In a brief prepared statement, he said: "The McGuigan family have never sought revenge for the murder of my father - we merely want to understand why someone thought it necessary to kill him."
Who had given the orders to do it, and why was it covered up, he asked. He said the family still had great faith that the present tribunal would expose the truth, and in that case "we could finally have closure on this devastating chapter in our lives".
Even though the tribunal has announced its decision to move to Britain for the soldiers' evidence, he called upon any soldiers who wished to do so to come to Derry and testify.
Mr McGuigan acknowledged the vast majority of the several thousand troops who were in Derry on the day "have no case to answer because they did nothing wrong".
He added, however: "To the minority of soldiers who do have a case to answer, including the soldier who murdered my father, I would like to say that even after 30 years it is still not too late to tell the truth."
Mr McGuigan revealed in evidence that his father "had strictly told me that I was not allowed to go (on the march)". But, with an atmosphere of excitement around, he adopted a friend's suggestion they could go into the town to see what was happening, without actually going on the march.
They watched rioting at the main army barrier, but fled with hundreds of others when the troops began to advance. After taking shelter in an alley off Rossville Street with another youth, he said, the two of them edged out to see what was going on. He saw four soldiers aiming rifles from behind a wall a short distance away, and one of them fired a shot which struck a wall beside them.
"This was the first gunshot that I heard on that afternoon," said Mr McGuigan. He stressed that neither he nor the other youth were doing anything to cause a soldier to fire at them.
While running away, he did not know that his father was sheltering behind the high-rise flats just across Rossville Street. Earlier witnesses have told the inquiry how Barney McGuigan - despite warnings by others - went out with his hands up, holding a handkerchief, to minister to a wounded man who was crying out for help. He took just a few steps before he was shot.
Charles McGuigan said none of his family could bring themselves to look at the photographs of his father's body. He himself, involved in the campaign for a new inquiry, knew he would have to deal with the photos, and first looked at them on the 25th anniversary of the killings.
He said that after Bloody Sunday his mother made him kneel under the Sacred Heart picture "and swear to her that I would never do anything about my father's death that would bring shame on the name of the family".
The inquiry resumes on Monday.
Due to a computer fault, a report of an earlier hearing was published yesterday in place of the above report of Thursday's session.