Journalist is excused

10 May 2002
Bristol Evening Post
Greater Bristol

A journalist who refused to name three IRA men at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry last night escaped being forced to reveal his sources.



Kieran Gill had argued that professional ethics and a risk to his life stopped him from disclosing their identities to the tribunal probing the shooting of 13 civilians in Londonderry in January 1972.

The decision contrasts with the threat of being held in contempt facing two Channel 4 journalists unless they reveal army sources to the tribunal.

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In brief - Inquiry excuses reporter.
10 May 2002
The Guardian

The Bloody Sunday inquiry decided that Kieran Gill, a reporter for the Irish Press in 1972, need not reveal his terrorist sources to the hearing on the killings.

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Journalist refuses to name IRA Sunday sources.
10 May 2002
Belfast News Letter

A journalist who refused to name three IRA men at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry last night escaped being forced to reveal his sources. Kieran Gill had argued that professional ethics and a risk to his life stopped him from disclosing their identities to the tribunal probing the shooting of 13 civilians in Londonderry in January 1972. After the debate was reduced to one Official IRA man which the reporter claimed to have confronted with allegations he shot a civilian on the day, inquiry chairman Lord Saville ruled there was no need to override his human rights. He told his lawyer: "Your client does have a subjective fear. It is reasonably or objectively justified and there is, as matters stand, no compelling reason for requiring Mr Gill to name this particular source." The decision contrasts with the threat of being held in contempt facing two Channel 4 journalists unless they reveal Army sources to the tribunal. Mr Gill told the hearing that a member of the Provisional IRA tipped him off about an Official IRA man who fired a revolver from the flats on Rossville Street, he said. Mr Gill, who now lives in Australia, told how he had gone to his Official IRA source last week seeking his permission to name him. "He made it clear that I was under no circumstances to be released from my journalistic duty of confidentiality in relation to him," he said. The inquiry continues.