Leigh Day & Co represent the doctors who produced "The Memorial", their legal presentation to the Attorney General Dominic Grieve putting the case for an inquest into the death of Dr Kelly. The Memorial can be viewed by going to an earlier post of mine here: http://drkellysdeath-suicideormurder.blogspot.com/2011/01/memorial.html With further evidence coming to light Leigh Day have made a final submission to the AG by way, I believe, of an Addendum to the Memorial. The firm have made a statement about this which can be read here: http://www.leighday.co.uk/news/news-archive-2011/final-submissions-made-to-ag-in-kelly-inquest-case
Relating to this there is a story in the Daily Mail which is accessible here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361953/Fingerprint-riddle-leads-new-Dr-David-Kelly-inquest.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
yourrights.org.uk informs me
ReplyDelete“The sole purpose of the inquest is to determine as far as possible the identity of the deceased and where, when and how he or she came to die.”
Assuming that the body found in a copse on Harrowdown Hill, in Oxfordshire, on 18th July 2003 was indeed that of Dr David Kelly then we must therefore assume that the first requirement of an inquest has been satisfied, we know the identity of the deceased.
If there had been an inquest we may have learned where, when and how he died but there wasn’t and so we don’t.
The Blair government blocked an inquest and replaced it by an inquiry headed by someone with no experience, skill or qualification as a Coroner.
Insufficiency of inquiry and police cover up has meant the place, time and manner of Dr Kelly’s death if not on the public record but certainly known to some.
It is not too late to correct the public record and hold a legally required inquest in the interest of justice, there is however a downside to this strategy; an inquest could expose systemic corruption in our politicians, civil servants and the police.
Is it better for the public to suspect those, responsible for delivering our justice system, of corruption or is it better that the corruption is exposed?
It is not possible to deal with corruption until it is exposed, that is why the Attorney General must send an application to the High Court in order for Dr Kelly’s death to receive a proper inquest and the process of purging our society of corruption can begin.
LL - a very insightful comment! The only point I would make is that Mrs Kelly isn't asked at the Inquiry whether the body she and one of her daughters went to see at the mortuary on Saturday 19th July was indeed that of her husband.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm not suggesting that it wasn't Dr Kelly's body but it shows once again how flawed the Hutton process was in not asking this most basic question of the witness who went to identify the body.
Of course at an inquest the question would be asked and the respondent would have to answer under oath.
Look away now if you're squeamish.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming that if someone from the Kelly family identified the body it was done after the brain had been removed by Dr Hunt and then popped back in.
ACC Page said identification was achieved by DNA; my own theory is that Dr Kelly's body was identified by dental records before the search team found him.
Mrs Kelly's missing diary might have helped. Immediately after Dr Kelly's body had been found newspaper reports stated that Mrs Kelly had kept a detailed diary of Dr Kelly's last days which held "explosive" revelations. She told this to Mr Hoon on his visit but did not show him the diary, instead it was reported that Mrs Kelly would send the diary to Sir Kevin Tebbit.
Mr Hoon offered to pay for Mrs Kelly's legal councel at the Hutton inquiry at which Mrs Kelly gave evidence that she had lost her diary
I have never understood why the police seemed to have decided on Friday 18 July 2003 that the idenification would be done the following day. As LancashireLad implies, it would have been immeasurably more pleasant and convenient to have done it the same day and I am not aware of any pressing problems which would have prevented the family so doing.
ReplyDeleteQuite a lot of detail emerged in the press following 18th July which has subsequently been forgotten. The article about the diary came in a Sunday newspaper quoted by Kim Sengupta Independent Mon 28 July 2003
Sengupta also identified Hockley as the location of the safe house.
Sengupta and Marie Woolf on Thurs 24 July 2003 report the previous day's meeting of Geoff Hoon with Janice Kelly.
Another article by Tom Newton Dunn, Amanda Walton and Oonagh Blackman in the Daily Mirror says Hoon was accompanied by a young female assistant (like Dr Who always was). It is only assumed the daughters were present.
This is what Sengupta & Woolf wrote in the Independent.
Fresh information passed to The Independent suggests Dr Kelly had close links to the espionage services, and was well placed to judge whether No 10 had exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. It throws doubt on government comments before his death designed to portray him merely as a relatively junior technician.
Dr Kelly was a consultant to the Defence Intelligence Analysis Staff, which can draw upon classified information provided by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), MI5, GCHQ, military intelligence and material supplied by allied espionage services. In this capacity, he played an important role in providing information for the September Iraq arms dossier.
@Lancashire Lad
ReplyDeleteThe use of dental records for identification would suggest an earlier death than the temperature records indicated. Perhaps Dr Hunt's problem was a warming rather than a cooling curve and being prevented from taking an initial measurement? Let's face it, the man has been set up, a show trial (performed by people out of the loop) has cleared him, and he blabbed about Rockingham. Can life ever return to normal? Any evidence after the ISC Select Committee is worth taking with a huge pinch of salt.
Felix,
ReplyDeleteFrom a relative's point of view what they experience in identifying a body before or after a postmortem is pretty much the same.
Yes, the body has been hacked around a little (or a lot) but identification is pretty much done on the face (in all but a few cases). Everything else is covered up.
Felix,
ReplyDeleteThere is evidence of an earlier death than that claimed by Dr. Hunt.
I wrote to Thames Valley Police about it some weeks ago, on 22nd November 2010. They haven't even acknowledged the information I sent them.
I copied the information to the Attorney General in connection with his considering whether to apply to the High Court for an order that an inquest be held into the death of David Kelly.
Andrew
ReplyDeleteThe article by Jason Burke, Observer 20 July 2003 says that that "Details from the post-mortem examination, completed yesterday morning after the identification of the body at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital by his widow ended the mystery over how, if not why, the microbiologist died. "
Dr Hunt says his post-mortem examination was completed at 00.15 hrs earlier that day. Yet Jason Burke says that the post-mortem examination continued after the formal identification.
Burke also says
"In their first public comments shortly after formally identifying the body of Dr Kelly, 59, the family issued a statement saying the actions of all parties in the affair had driven him to suicide.
Thus suicide is in the public domain from the family I guess around noon Saturday 19th July.
Felix - an excellent spot about the timing of the end of the post-mortem and the formal identification by Mrs Kelly.
ReplyDeleteThe official timings seem very solid to me and I think it's possible that the anomaly might be just down to loose reporting by Mr Burke!
The mortuary technician would have ensured that everything from the neck up would have been OK for the formal identification. It's possible I suppose that Dr Hunt did further work on that part of the corpse not exposed but I would be amazed if that did happen.
Brian
ReplyDeleteI think possibly now Dr Hunt may have been completing writing up his first report after the formal identification based on written or audio notes from the previous night.
Felix - yes totally agree that is the most likely reasoning for the chronology as expressed in the piece by Jason Burke.
ReplyDelete