THE SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, accompanied by relatives of those shot dead by the British army in Derry on Bloody Sunday, has met the Northern Secretary, Sir Pa trick Mayhew, to press for a new inquiry into the killings.
Mr Hume described the meeting as a "significant occasion". Sir Patrick told him that he regretted what had happened on Bloody Sunday and that it was a "serious tragedy". A dossier of what relatives of the victims say is new evidence on the shootings was presented to him.
Sir Patrick told the delegation - which also included the solicitor acting for the 14 people who died as a result of the Bloody Sunday shootings, relatives of two of the victims and Mr Don Mullan, author of a new book on Bloody Sunday - that he would study the dossier very carefully.
"I regard this meeting as very constructive and I think that the Secretary of State definitely showed that he is very sensitive to the overall situation," said Mr Hume after the meeting in Stormont.
Mr John Kelly of the Bloody Sunday Trust, whose brother Michael was killed, said he hoped the meeting was an indication that matters were about to move forward. There had always been justification for a proper inquiry, he said.
The relatives' dossier includes the evidence in Don Mullan's Eyewitness: Bloody Sunday, which reports that soldiers other than those from the Parachute Regiment fired from Derry's walls on January 30th, 1972.
It also contains the testimony of Dr Raymond McClean, who was in Derry on the day, but whose evidence was not addressed in the Widgery inquiry. Recordings by a radio ham of messages from the British army - which Lord Widgery refused to hear because they were obtained illegally - are also part of the relatives' case.
