Tag Archives: bloody sunday

The technology of the Saville tribunal

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The report by Lord Saville into what happened in (London)Derry on 30th January 1972, which has become known as Bloody Sunday, was published on 15th June 2010. 

Much has already been written about it. The statistics are there for all to see. It took 12 years, it cost £190 million, there were approximately 2,500 written statements and the opening statement was the longest in English legal history. The tribunal heard from almost 1,000 witnesses, sat in Derry and in London and spawned judicial review litigation which reached the then House of Lords (now the Supreme Court). 

As I have mentioned earlier [Bloody Sunday, 22nd June, 2010] I was involved for the best part of six years in gathering the evidence for the Tribunal but little of my time was spent in the actual hearings apart from listening to one or two witnesses of particular interest.

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Bloody Sunday

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Some time in May 1998, I returned to my office from a meeting to find on my desk a three page fax (remember those?) from the Solicitor to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry asking if Eversheds would be prepared to express an interest in taking some statements in Northern Ireland during July and August of 1998.

The publication of the Saville Report last week has set me thinking a lot about what transpired. Having indicated our interest, I and a couple of other partners, a senior support lawyer and our Head of IT set about working out how we might respond to the opportunity offered to attend a meeting with the Solicitor and the Secretary to the Inquiry and leading Counsel.

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Bloody Sunday and IT

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When I was in private practice, I acted for the Bloody Sunday Tribunal. The inquiry is chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate (originally a Law Lord and now one of the Supreme Court Justices) and is likely to report next year, some 12 years after it was set up.

Much has been written about the inquiry, and doubtless considerably more is to come when the report is published in 2010, but I was interested to see that Lord Saville’s experience in the Bloody Sunday Inquiry helped to inform the design of the IT systems which have been developed for the Supreme Court.

According to a recent article by Richard Susskind  (‘How Bloody Sunday helped to future-proof the Supreme Court’s IT‘, The Times, 1st October 2009) Lord Saville chaired a committee including Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Master of the Rolls, Jenny Rowe, Chief Executive of the Supreme Court and various legal technologists, systems specialists and ministry officials.

Susskind says “Introducing IT to the Supreme Court was made easier because a high-tech court was envisaged from the outset. The Ministry of Justice and various IT suppliers developed the systems and an IT user group oversaw the project”.

I had no involvement in the selection of the IT systems used by the Bloody Sunday Inquiry but there was a considerable amount of material to be handled and I will always be grateful to Kelvin McGregor Alcorn (then of Oyez Legal Technologies, now of Deloitte) for introducing me to the delights of electronic document management during the course of the almost 6 years I worked with the inquiry.

Happy memories!