Following my last post I can now confirm that the report of forensic pathologist Dr Hunt dated 25 July 2003 is now on line and can be viewed here. I have only skimmed through it and will not comment at length about it in this post.
The conclusions made by Dr Hunt from my quick reading seem to be largely what we already knew. An area of interest to the medical profession will I'm sure be the more detailed description of the distribution of blood, it appears that even Dr Kelly's cap wasn't immune from blood!
Two very quick points I've noted are the fact that not only was the rectal temperature taken very late in his examination at 19.15 hours, a fact already in the public domain, but it seems that it wasn't until about 17.30 that he was noting rigor mortis. Extraordinary in my opinion.
On page 1 of his statement we have Dr Hunt saying: "He was apparently seen heading for a walk at approximately 15.00 hours on the 17th July 2003. He was subsequently seen at 15.30 hours walking northwards. That I understand was the last known sighting of him (at this stage)." When one looks at the Hutton Inquiry transcripts this statement by Dr Hunt with its timings is very interesting indeed!
UPDATE: Included with this post should have been a link to the toxicologists report. It is here.
Why I wonder was DCI Young, in charge of the investigation, not called to the Hutton Inquiry? He was present at the scene, according to Hunt. Mr Young's name appears on the front of Operation Mason, which as we all know, commenced at 2.30pm the day Dr Kelly disappeared, and ended at 9.30 am the next day.
ReplyDeleteSeveral names of officers are redacted from Mr Hunt's report. I wonder why?
On the toxicology front, I notice Dr Allan Richards has brought the time the body was discovered to 8.30 am. Not relevant to his enquiry, but
a sloppy piece of reporting.
He says 67mg of Paracetamol was found in the stomach, but later talks about the CONCENTRATION of paracetamol. That would require the amount of fluid to be known, which he does not state. That seems to me sloppy:concentration and amount are quite different things.
"Significant amounts of dextropropoxyphene and its metabolites and breakdown products (I would have thought the last two were the same) were found in the urine"
That seems quite woolly to me. Why is that significant? It easily buries the missing DPO.(The unquantified vomiting seems nicely to dispose of the rest of the missing DPO)
Another item missing for my satisfaction is the relative absorption of DPO and Paracetamol- Co-proxamol has a ration of 10:1 Paracetamol - DPO. in the stomach of Dr Kelly was a ratio of 100:1.
67mg of Paracetamol in the stomach is equivalent to 1/5 of a tablet,(rather a lot less than "less than one", i.e. 1/145 of the apparent ingested dose. There were the remains of two "possible" plastic capsules in the stomach - what happened to the other 27 - metabolised?? Unlikely.
To me,with a scientific background, not very satisfying.
These reports were written up on 25 July, a week later, even though the Police had said they were not looking for anyone else on the Saturday 19th. Where the report is conjectural,to my mind it eems to be squaring the data with what was required by the initial opinion of suicide.
I will continue below....
Well, it needs experts to read between the lines of Dr Richards' report. The level of 1 microgram / ml of blood is well below the minimum to cause death alone, which I read to be 2-3 microgram/ml. (Dr Richards puts that even higher)
ReplyDeleteMoving to Mr Hunt's report...
Was the matching (?) Barbour cap noticed by Mrs Absalom?
I also notice that at gone 7pm in the evening the next day after Dr Kelly went for his walk,the temperature was 20.8 degrees - pretty warm. Of course we don't know what it was the day before, but it doesn't seem like mid-afternoon weather for walking in a Waxed barbour jacket and cap.
Finally , WHO exactly saw Dr Kelly walking north ? Nobody at the Hutton Inquiry. Time to have some more documents released.
Once again, in Mr Hunt's summing up, the gloss on the contentions date always seems to be in the direction of what was demanded by the police statement that they were not looking for anyone else on Saturday 19th July 2003.
Other facts have been well chewed over,re: injuries, bruising,etc., including the quite extraordinary decision to leave taking the rectal temperature until 7.15pm,
but the statement about rigor mortis needs more analysis by experts. That is really quite surprising.
Yes it is astonishing that Chief Inspector Young didn't appear at the Hutton Inquiry because he was certainly right in the thick of things at the time. I have often wondered whether he was kept away from Hutton in case there was a worry that he and ACC Page wouldn't be 'singing from the same hymn sheet' under questioning. It does illustrate all to clearly that inability to subpoena witnesses was one of the many failings of the Inquiry.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere yesterday I saw that the redacting of certain names was down to some sort of privacy or human rights legislation. Can't remember just where at the moment but it was on official paper.
Regarding the time mentioned on the toxicology report of the finding of Dr Kelly's body I've never understood where that time of 8.30 ever came from. Even Norman Baker uses it on one occasion in his book!
I forgot to mention that the plastic water bottle seemed to attract little attention from Mr Hunt. It might have contained poison! And he did not comment on the amount of liquid remaining in the 500ml Evian container. I would have expected the contents to have been analysed, given the circumstances. I am somewhat bemused. Of course it had bloodstains which were duly noted, as did the bottle cap.
ReplyDeleteVery good points Felix re the water bottle. I had been concerned about the apparent lack of measurement of residual contents but hadn't thought about the contents being analysed to confirm it was water and not some other liquid.
ReplyDeleteI will be looking in detail at the water container when I get to discussing the co-proxamol tablets later.
Felix -
ReplyDeleteFor the record, the toxicologist's name is Alexander Richard Allan, rather than Allan Richards as you have written here. An easy mistake to make I know, no doubt you saw this on his witness statement where his name is given in surname-first format.
I realised that later when reading another piece.A bit embarrassing. Thanks very much, Andrew.
ReplyDelete@Brian There are some sapient comments elsewhere, regarding the absence of SOCO witnesses and a forensic biologist who were present at Harrowdown Hill at the Hutton Inquiry plus incomplete evidence from forensic biologist Roy Green, and more....