£50,000 offer over Bloody Sunday

Mourners line the streets near St Mary's Church to watch the funeral procession of the 13 people who died on Bloody Sunday in 1972
16 February 2013

The families of 13 people killed by soldiers in Northern Ireland on Bloody Sunday have been offered £50,000 each in compensation.

Paratroopers opened fire on innocent civil rights marchers in Londonderry in 1972.

Thirteen others seriously injured have also been offered £50,000 each as part of a total compensation package from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) worth around £1.3 million.

Kate Nash, whose brother William was killed and father Alex injured, said: "My brother cannot be replaced and all the money in the world won't bring him back."

A solicitor for one of the families said the offer was derisory and an insult to those killed. There have been months of discussion between lawyers for the MoD and the families' legal teams.

Her father, Alexander Nash, saw his son William, 19, being shot by members of the Parachute Regiment in the Bogside area on Bloody Sunday on 30 January 1972 and went to help him. He was then shot and wounded himself.

Ms Nash said she was simply interested in accountability and not money. She said: "I became slightly outraged at that. How do they pick out the seriously injured? My father recovered, he was shot through the arm and the side. My father was in a bunker watching his son die. How in terms of compensation could you ever make up for that?"

She added: "My father was not just physically seriously injured, he was mentally seriously injured." He died in January 1999.

The Saville Report into Bloody Sunday was published in June 2010, prompting Prime Minister David Cameron to apologise to the families and describe the killings as "unjustified and unjustifiable".

The massive document, which took 12 years to complete at a cost of £195 million, was heavily critical of the Army and found that soldiers killed people without justification.

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