Bloody Sunday: Patsy O'Donnell's family awarded £130k
- Published
Thirteen people were killed on Bloody Sunday in January 1972.
The family of a man shot and beaten on Bloody Sunday is to receive £130,000 in damages, a High Court judge has ruled.
Patsy O'Donnell, then aged 40, was shot in the shoulder as he tried to take cover from the gunfire.
Thirteen people died after members of the Army's Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators.
The judge said Mr O'Donnell, a father of six, had "lived under a stigma, with a feeling of being blamed for what had happened to him on Bloody Sunday".
He died in 2006.
The court heard Mr O'Donnell was shot as he attempted to take cover in Glenfada Park.
He was among a number of civilians arrested, the court was told, and made to stand against a wall.
His head was pulled back by a paratrooper who subjected Mr O'Donnell to sectarian abuse and threatened that he would be shot again, the court heard.
Mr O'Donnell was released but was subsequently pulled from a taxi depot by a soldier who struck him on the head with a baton. Mr O'Donnell's wound required eight stitches.
Mr Justice McAlinden told Belfast High Court on Friday Mr O'Donnell had been a victim of "outrageous conduct".
"A man was shot, he was obviously wounded and he was made to adopt a search position in front of the press," he said.
"He then was dragged out of a taxi office and struck."
Soldiers on the ground in Derry in January 1972
Counsel for his family, Karen Quinlivan KC, said Mr O'Donnell, who in subsequent years established and worked in his own roofing business until retirement in 2004, had died before being vindicated.
In 2010, the Saville Inquiry found that those killed or injured on Bloody Sunday were innocent.
The then prime minister, David Cameron, issued a public apology for the actions of the soldiers, describing the killings as "unjustified and unjustifiable".
Speaking after the court's decision, solicitor Fearghal Shiels of Madden & Finucane said Mr O'Donnell had carried psychological scars following Bloody Sunday.
"Regrettably Patsy went to his death in 2006 without his total innocence being declared.
"The findings of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry restored his impeccable reputation and today's judgment is a further vindication of Patsy and his family," he said.