Life became very difficult after Bloody Sunday for a Bogside family who had a son in the RUC and a daughter whose boyfriend was a soldier, the inquiry heard yesterday.
Ms Maureen Gerke, whose boyfriend at the time was in the Royal Greenjackets Regiment based in Co Derry, said in evidence he told her there was trouble at the barracks later between locally based regular soldiers and the paratroopers who had carried out the killings.
The regular soldiers felt they would face the brunt of people's hostility because of the actions of the paratroopers, and, in fact, people's attitude to the British army changed almost overnight after Bloody Sunday, she said.
Ms Gerke, who was 18 at the time, was watching from a window of her parents' flat when soldiers entered the courtyard and car park of Rossville Flats on January 30th, 1972.
She said two army "Pigs" (armoured personnel carriers) "came screeching into the courtyard very fast" as large numbers of people who had attended the civil rights march ran away.
Soldiers jumped out and "almost before their feet touched the ground" they seemed to start firing their weapons. She thought they were firing rubber bullets, but then saw a young man, later identified as Jackie Duddy (17), fall to the ground.
When other people turned him over she saw there was blood all over his shirt.
She then assumed the soldiers were firing live rounds at people, and as the firing continued she saw many people take shelter behind a low wall in the courtyard. Each time they popped their heads up it seemed they were shot at.
Ms Gerke said her sisters and a friend were looking out alongside her, and some of them became a bit hysterical after seeing Jack Duddy shot.
She then saw a soldier looking up at them. He took aim with his rifle and fired, and "we all hit the floor of the bedroom". She did not hear the bullet hit anything (her sister, Dolores, has already told the inquiry in evidence that the shot hit the concrete wall beside the window).
Ms Gerke had said in her statement to the inquiry that before Jack Duddy was shot he was running away from the soldiers and she could see he was not carrying anything in either hand.
When Mr Edmund Lawson QC, for a number of soldiers, asked her why she included that in her statement "when you saw no such thing", the witness replied: "I really do not feel that I am on trial here."
Ms Gerke, who left Derry in 1974 and now lives in the south of England, said she had given a statement of what she saw at the time, feeling this was something she had to do.
Before adjourning, the tribunal chairman, Lord Saville, urged counsel for the various interested parties to bear in mind in future that they should not waste the time of the inquiry and of witnesses by asking unnecessary questions of those giving evidence.
Mr Lawson, who is leaving the inquiry at this point because of other trial commitments, paid tribute to the families of the Bloody Sunday victims. He said their approach towards him, particularly outside the hearings, had been quite remarkable "bearing in mind their feelings".
The inquiry, which has now heard 270 witnesses out of a prospective total of some 800, then adjourned until September.
The tribunal is expected to issue a number of rulings in the interim, in particular concerning the venue for hearing evidence from soldiers who were in Derry on Bloody Sunday.