got used to his new position when Lord Parker of Waddington (who had been Lord Chief Justice since 1958) announced his retirement. There was no obvious successor and Widgery was the most junior of the possible appointees. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, chose Widgery largely on the basis of his administrative abilities. On 20 April 1971 he was created a life peer taking the title Baron Widgery, of South Molton in the County of Devon. Widgery Tribunal Shortly after assuming office, Widgery was handed the politically sensitive job of conducting an inquiry into the events of 30 January 1972 in Derry, where soldiers from Parachute Regiment had shot and killed 13 civil rights marchers, an event commonly referred to as Bloody Sunday (a 14th person died shortly after Widgery's appointment). Widgery heard testimony from the soldiers, who claimed they had been shot at, while the marchers insisted that no one from the march was armed. Widgery produced a report, published in April 1972 that took the side of the soldiers. Widgery put the main blame for the deaths on the march organisers for creating a dangerous situation where a confrontation was inevitable. His strongest criticism of the soldiers was that their "firing bordered on the reckless". The Widgery Report was accepted by the British government but met with a mixed reception in Northern Ireland; loyalists supported the report but Irish republicans, particularly those from the Bogside and Creggan areas, criticised Widgery's findings. The British government had acquired a level of goodwill in Northern Ireland due to its suspension of the Stormont Parliament, but that was said to have disappeared when Widgery's conclusions were published. Grievances with Widgery's findings in Northern Ireland lingered and the report remained contentious as the Northern Ireland peace process advanced in the 1990s. In January 1998, on the eve of the 26th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced a new inquiry, criticising the rushed process in which Widgery failed to take evidence from those wounded on Bloody Sunday and did not personally read eyewitness accounts. The resulting Bloody Sunday Inquiry lasted 12 years before the Saville Report was published on 15 June 2010. It overturned the findings of the Widgery Report, finding that soldiers present on Bloody Sunday had lied about their actions and had falsely claimed to have been attacked. The Daily Telegraph described the Saville Report as "[turning] the Widgery