The Saville Report into the events of Bloody Sunday is ten volumes or 5,000 pages long and was five years in the writing. The inquiry lasted 12 years, including those five years, and cost the taxpayer £200 million. Some 2,500 people gave evidence, nearly 1,000 of whom gave oral witness. It was set up under one prime minister, Tony Blair, in 1998, and its conclusions were delivered in June 2010 under a different prime minister, David Cameron. It was the lengthiest and costliest inquiry in legal history.
The events it was concerned with — the shooting by members of the 1st Parachute Regiment of 13 civilians attending a civil rights march — took place on 30 January 1972, or 38 years before the report was delivered. Was it worth it?
One result of the inquiry is Douglas Murray’s book. The sheer scale of the Saville Report meant that few journalists, myself included, bothered to go further than the summary — we’re a lazy trade.
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