Saville report: exoneration for the victims

David Cameron is reporting to Parliament now - follow it live. He's also apologised on behalf of the British government but says that any other events like this won't have their own inquiries - apparently you can put a price on innocent lives, and it's too much. He admits that soldiers lied to the inquiry and that the Army fired first, and at unarmed civilians without justification.

The Saville Report completely exonerates the 14 victims, and ascribes their deaths to wilful disobedience by a senior officer:

an order by Colonel Wilford, which should not have been given and which was contrary to the orders he had received from Brigadier MacLellan.

and indiscipline by the paratroopers (I suspect this means that, having being wound up by their officers, they were up for a spot of Paddy-bashing):

Our overall conclusion is that there was a serious and widespread loss of fire discipline among the soldiers of support company.

Bloody Sunday turned a peaceful Civil Rights and constitutional nationalist movement into a civil war, fought between armed groups on both sides, the police and the British Army, both of which aided loyalist groups in murdering active and civilian republicans. The report's final sentences summarise the effect of that day:

What happened on Bloody Sunday strengthened the Provisional IRA, increased nationalist resentment and hostility towards the army and exacerbated the violent conflict of the years that followed. Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded, and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland.

Update: from David Cameron's speech

Lord Saville says that some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to the assistance of others who were dying. The report refers to one person who was shot while "crawling … away from the soldiers" ... Another was shot, in all probability, "when he was lying mortally wounded on the ground" ... and a father was "hit and injured by Army gunfire after he had gone to…tend his son".