How the MOD played the Knocking Game after Bloody Sunday

 

Lord Saville's Report into Bloody Sunday will be debated in the House of Commons on Wednesday. No doubt the length and cost of the inquiry will feature prominently in the debate. 

The process might arguably have been less protracted had it not had to overcome a Ministry of Defence campaign to obscure the truth. Central to this campaign was 'The Knocking Game' an army document produced within three months of the 1972 massacre, which claimed that the victims were 'amateur gunmen'.

Former army information officer Colin Wallace testified to the inquiry that this document was used to brief the press. In contrast, the former head of the Information Policy Unit at Headquarters Northern Ireland, Colonel Maurice Tugwell, claimed that the document was intended for circulation solely within the army.

Faced with these conflicting accounts, Lord Saville concluded that there was no "evidence that anyone involved in military information disseminated to the public anything about Bloody Sunday, knowing or believing that information to be untrue."

However, evidence found by SpinWatch, but apparently withheld from the inquiry, shows that 'The Knocking Game' was intended for unattributable briefings, and was shown to at least one journalist, confirming Wallace's version of events.