Bloody Sunday Families Offered £50,000

The families of the victims of Bloody Sunday have been each offered £50,000 compensation, according to the BBC.

The same amount has also been offered to people who were injured in the shootings.

BBC Northern Ireland has revealed how the offer follows months of discussion between lawyers for the Ministry of Defence and the families' legal teams.

The BBC says each of the 13 families whose relatives were killed would receive a payment of £50,000.

This would bring the total compensation to be paid out to about £1.3m.

But a solicitor for one of the families is reported to have described the offer as "derisory" and "an insult to those who were killed".

The legal firm Madden and Finucane told the BBC: "Negotiations in respect of compensation are continuing with the Ministry of Defence and their legal representatives.

"The contents of those negotiations shall remain confidential between the families of those murdered and the wounded whom we represent, and the MoD."

Thirteen people were killed when British soldiers began firing during a civil rights march in L’Derry in 1972. A fourteenth person died later in hospital.

Prime Minister David Cameron apologised to the families of victims of Bloody Sunday when the Savile Report was published in June 2010.

He said the killings were "unjustified and unjustifiable".

(IT)