HET Review Summary Report into the death of William Francis ...

Very careful consideration was given in this case to re-interviewing
soldiers ‘A’ and ‘B’ under caution. Crucial aspects of the case, albeit known
to the investigating authorities at the time, were apparently not used to
challenge the version of events given by the soldiers. The account given
by the various civilian witnesses (which are at odds with what soldier ‘A’
said) is a prime example. It is the view of the HET that but for the fact
that the Chief Crown solicitor at the time determined that the actions of
soldier ‘A’ did not amount to criminal negligence (accepting that there may
have been some negligence on his part, but not sufficient to amount to
the degree of recklessness required to commit an offence of
manslaughter), the re-interviewing of soldier ‘A’ under caution would have
been appropriate.
Soldier ‘B’ was not actually involved in the shooting of Mr McGreanery.
His evidence has always been that he did not see anything in particular,
but he did say that soldier ‘A’ shouted something about a man with a gun
immediately before he (soldier ‘A’) opened fire. Soldier ‘B’ was therefore
invited to engage with this review purely as a witness. He agreed to do so,
and was interviewed by members of the HET at his home address in the
North of England on July 2, 2009. He is in extremely poor health and is
housebound. His memory is poor and he suffers bouts of nervous
depression. His recollection of the events of September 15, 1971 is as
follows:
• He was a member of the 45 Medium Regiment of the Royal
Artillery. In 1971, he was posted to a four-month tour of duty in
Northern Ireland, all of which was spent in Londonderry. It was
his only tour of duty in the Province. He cannot recall the name of
the barracks where he was accommodated, but says it was very
close to the City Walls of Londonderry. The majority of his time
was spent on observation duty within sangers in the city. He would
often spend twelve hours on duty followed by 12 hours off duty.
Normally there would be two soldiers at a time in each sanger.
• He could remember that the shooting of Mr McGreanery happened
on the same day as the death of army Sergeant Carroll. He said
that Sergeant Carroll had been in the next Sanger to him for most
of the day and then for some unknown reason he left the relative
security of the sanger and placed himself in unnecessary danger in
an open area of the base. That was where he was shot and killed
soon after. He thought Sergeant Carroll had been very foolish.
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