Judgement has been reserved in the latest judicial review over the Bloody Sunday tribunal.

The family of one of the victims is challenging a ruling that police officers can give their evidence from behind screens.

Mr Justice Kerr said in the High Court in Belfast on Wednesday he hoped to deliver a judgement next Tuesday.

Earlier, a veteran Irish Times journalist told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in Londonderry that he tried to telephone the Army to tell them to stop firing.

Dick Grogan was giving evidence to the inquiry, sitting in the Guildhall in the city, on what he saw and heard on 30 January 1972 when the Army opened fire on civil rights marchers killing 13 civilians. Another man died later.

Mr Grogan told the inquiry that before the shootings he could hear "the unmistakable sound of blast bombs exploding" as he walked around the Bogside area.

He said that when he walked to the Creggan area, where the marchers were assembling, he was surprised by the numbers of people gathering, but had no feeling there was going to be any trouble.

'Menacing atmosphere'

When the march reached the junction of William Street and Rossville Street, stewards directed the vast body of the marchers towards Free Derry Corner, but Mr Grogan said about 150 went to a security barrier and started stoning the Army.

Troops responded with water cannon, rubber bullets and CS gas canisters, he said.

Mr Grogan said he retreated to waste ground from where he noticed the skylights on a row of terraced houses on Sackville Street were all ajar and he said he detected "an atmosphere of menace" when he realised soldiers were positioned there.

The journalist said the air was thick with CS gas and he retreated into a courtyard to regain his breath.

'Stunned'

Then he heard gunfire. "Very many single shots fired in rapid succession by many weapons. I was sure this was high velocity rifle fire."

He said he was "absolutely stunned" and did not know why the firing had started or where it was coming from.

Once the firing died down, he said he went in search of a phone to contact his newspaper "and to telephone the Army to ask them to stop firing".

Mr Grogan found a man standing outside his house and asked to use his phone.

The man said he had the Army on the line at that very moment. Mr Grogan went in and asked whoever was on the end of the line "to order a ceasefire".

He was told he was, in fact, speaking to the Irish Army across the border in Donegal.

He told them there had been "a major incident and ambulances might be needed".

'Human eyelid in matchbox'

Leaving the area, he spotted a Civil Rights Association flag lying bloodstained on the ground with some flowers on it.

"In the middle was a matchbox, opened with a complete human eyelid in it," he said.

"Someone had turned it into a small shrine. Seeing this was very traumatic," he said.

In his statement to the inquiry, Mr Grogan said he was shocked by the "one-sided reports" on the BBC and ITN after the Army shootings.

They "seemed to be based solely on the Army version of events", he said.

He said his impression of the activity of republican paramilitaries on the day, gained from hearsay, was that the Provisional IRA had stayed in the Creggan area of Derry because they were fearful of leaving the area "unguarded" while residents were away attending the march.

"Once the firing started, elements of the PIRA commandeered a car and then drove to the Bogside to fire at troops," he said.

"The preferred method of operating at the time was to use snipers and I would imagine that there might have been the odd Official IRA sniper hidden in the Bogside that afternoon, although I do not know this for certain," he added.

The inquiry is continuing to hear the evidence of civilian witnesses, while the legal action on whether police witnesses can give their evidence from behind screens proceeds at the High Court.