In a comment on my last post, in which I had been discussing Dr Kelly's Barbour jacket, Lancashire Lad remarked on the Barbour cap found near the body. I had previously written about this cap http://drkellysdeath-suicideormurder.blogspot.com/2011/01/blood-and-barbour-cap.html but at that time didn't have the benefit of seeing the report of the forensic biologist Mr Green http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Roy%20Green%20forensic%20statement%2027%20September%202003.pdf
On 25 July 2003 the cap was one of a substantial number of items received by Mr Green from the police. Reference the ground beneath the cap:
Areas of possible vomit-like staining were observed on both sides of deceased's face coming from the mouth, on the jacket and on the ground partially covered by the cap.
I believe that Mr Green's report was scanned as I am unable to copy it in the normal way. The cap information is on page 17 of 20 of the pdf file and can be accessed from the link already given. The first sentence I will repeat here though:
Item (AMH.6) was the brown, blue, red and white checked "Barbour" cap, which was found near the deceased's left shoulder.
This description took me by surprise as I had just assumed it was a single coloured cap. This shows the danger of making assumptions of course. Lancashire Lad provided a link that shows what such a cap might have looked like http://sartorialmale.com/style/the-hottest-winter-hats/attachment/barbour-mens-classic-wool-tartan-cap/
Enlarging on what Dr Hunt said in his report we learn from Mr Green that the inside of the cap was heavily stained with smears of blood, also that the underside of the peak bore smears of blood. It seems very likely that this was Dr Kelly's blood from tests carried out on one of the bloodstains inside the cap.
DNA tests from a non bloodstained area inside the cap indicated the presence of two sets of DNA, one of which was Dr Kelly. Mr Green also says that the other, minor, contributor to the DNA mix could have been a female.
Dr Hunt dealt with this cap in two sentences in his report:
Lying adjacent to the left shoulder/upper arm was a 'Barbour' cap with the lining side uppermost. There was blood over the lining and also the peak.
It needs to be remembered that a flat cap was present in the game pocket of the Barbour jacket.
Roy Green is a forensic scientist, Dr Hunt is a forensic pathologist, yet neither of them seems to have considered why the blood was present on the cap. This is so typical of the slip shod way the investigation was carried out followed by the totally inadequate Inquiry. It's as if the evidence of blood on the cap can't be made to fit in with the suicide hypothesis so this oddity is then ignored. What a shambles!
Brian
ReplyDeleteIn Andrew's blog
http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/2010/12/death-of-david-kelly-evidence-that-it.html
he says
Vomiting in that position and the documented vomit track(s) is strongly suggestive that it was an agonal event, occurring while Dr. Kelly was deeply unconscious or at the point of death.
"If Dr. Kelly were conscious at the time of vomiting then quasi-reflexly he would have sat forward (at least to some degree) and/or rolled to the side (to maintain a clear airway) causing the vomit tracks to have been present some distance forward of the mastoid process.
If, as I suggest, the vomiting was agonal occurring while Dr. Kelly was on his back, serious problems arise for the "suicide hypothesis"."
If Andrew is correct, how did the cap come to be placed OVER the vomit on the ground?
It wasn't a Barbour Ladies Tartan Wool Baker Boy Hat, was it (assuming this line was made i 2003)? Might explain the female DNA!
ReplyDeleteLL, the fact that the vomit-like staining was partially covered by the cap is an extremely interesting question. There is no indication that the question was considered by Mr Green, Dr Hunt or the police. Additionally one might ask why wasn't the matter of the blood on the cap and the cap's somewhat unusual positioning investigated.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the last mentioned point I have lain flat on my back and with my right hand removed a cap from my head. The most natural action it seems to me is for the cap to be dropped by my right thigh. Possible but more awkward in my opinion is for the cap to be dropped by the left shoulder. To get the cap to this position using the left hand would be very difficult.
It was suggested that removing watch and spectacles was perhaps indicative to cause self harm. Why didn't Dr Hunt include the cap in his speculation for good measure?
Apparently part of the strap of the watch was on TOP of the knife handle. Another example of objects not being laid out in the correct order my logic suggests.
Felix, that Barbour ladies hat to which you linked is available in sizes S, M, L or XL.
ReplyDeleteI omitted to note that Mr Green found a label within the cap with the size: 71/4 / 59. The 7 and a quarter is typically a man's size (I think perhaps that 59 might be some sort of metric equivalent)
Definitely a gentleman's hat I would venture to say!
If the suicide theory was to hold up, then it has to be shown that Dr Kelly died where he was found and there was no 3rd party involvement at the scene.
ReplyDeleteWe already know because of photographic evidence that Dr Kelly's body was moved after the search team found it so there is clear evidence of 3rd party activity.
What puzzled me for a long time was the vomit stain on the ground by the left shoulder; this certainly indicated that Dr Kelly died in the position that Dr Hunt examined him in at the scene.
Until we learn that the satin under the cap was not analysed to see if it was vomit and if it was, was it Dr Kelly's and what concentration of coproxamol was in the vomit staining on the ground, arm, shoulder and back ( if that was vomit too)
No, what we are left with is (presumably) vomit stains running from mouth to ear indicating that Dr Kelly was flat on his back when he vomited. But as for the scene at Harrowdown hill there is no evidence that anyone vomited there.
Thanks Brian,So two men's caps then. Was Mrs Absalom asked whether Dr Kelly was wearing a cap? Of course not. A strange thing to wear on a warm,humid summer's day, more suitable for evening/night/winter. Or did he have two caps in his pockets, and chose only one to put on (for whatever reason) some adjacent putative vomitus?
ReplyDeleteLL - there is no evidence that there is any vomit anywhere, on or around the person. It is all conjectural and never analysed. It could be anything.
I think this cap may be a candidate to, note in the text you cannot specify the colour of check as they change with each batch but at £19.95 you can't grumle
ReplyDeletehttp://www.barbourbymail.co.uk/Barbour-New-Country-Cap.html
Felix, yes Ms Absalom should have been questioned about the cap, and spectacles come to that. In talking to someone you are more likely to be aware of what is on their head as you make eye contact than the detail of what is worn below neck level. And why wasn't Mrs Kelly quizzed on the subject of cap and spectacles - did he normally wear them on his walks.
ReplyDeleteI think that Dr Kelly was very much a "countryman" and wearing a Barbour jacket and cap would almost be part of the "uniform" for him, even on a warm day.
Google maps / satellite view might help in understanding this comment
ReplyDeleteI can understand why Dr Kelly might wear a cap and take his glasses off if he did not want to be recognised close to his home. He must have been fearful that journalists were still lurking.
Leaving his home via the northern entrance would be fraught with the danger of being mobbed, if Dr Kelly had wanted to go for a walk it would have been far more sensible to leave through the bottom of his garden and if he wanted to take a stroll towards the river he would have made his way to the Draycott road A420 underpass and then north to the river.
However Ms Absalom’s evidence is that she met him at the top of Harris’s lane which would make sense only if Dr Kelly left by the northern entrance of his home and taken the footpath opposite up to the A420 footbridge.
But it makes no sense for Dr Kelly to have left for his walk out of his front gate.
I read Mai Pederson’s 2008 Daily Mail interview again and some new thoughts along with the old cropped up when I compare it to Mrs Kelly evidence at Hutton.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1050919/David-Kellys-closest-female-confidante-COULDNT-killed-himself.html
Mrs Kelly said DK’s regular walks were a strategy for him to cope with his bad back, Mai Pederson confirms they went for regular walks together but that seems more down to been able to speak without being monitored.
Mai P also stated that DK’s right arm hurt because he rubbed it a lot, the arm injury was such that he was unable to cut a steak in the spring of 2003 and the knife that he used to keep in his Barbour pocket was blunt because his right hand was too weak to hold a sharpening stone ( Mrs K has the knife kept in DK’s desk drawer.
Mai P knew it was “difficult” for DK to swallow pills.
Is it possible that DK used his wife’s co-proxamol to help him with his elbow and back pains? Was it ever established if DK ever took any of Mrs K’s pills? Did he keep some in his pocket and take some water on his walks if ever the discomfort became too much?
I suffer from indigestion I keep a blister pack of my indigestion tablets in my Barbour pocket and because of dilatory housekeeping I can sometimes carry around 2 or more empty packs before I clear my pockets out. I only mention this because if ever I go for a walk and then I am found dead somewhere wearing my coat containing load of empty pill packs I don’t want people to think I’ve OD’d on Zantac.
Anyway this brings me back to DK and his walk, I can think of three possible scenarios 1) DK went for a walk and got abducted and murdered. 2) DK went for a walk with the intention of committing suicide and was successful. 3) DK didn’t go for a walk.
LL There is no evidence of any journalist filing any story drawing on any experience of being in Southmoor in the days before 18th July. The visit by Nicholas Rufford on 9th July is cleverly used by the Hutton Inqury to create the impression of a scrum of journalists ready to camp outside - did Mr Rufford himself return after 9th July for a story? We are not told. Probably not.
ReplyDeleteI go for (3).
Felix
ReplyDeleteLeigh Potter's evidence has a handful of reporters outside the house and Rufford's piece CAB/1/526 supports his evidence at Hutton's bash.
LL CAB/1/526 (which appeared in print here is basically the over the wall "Sorry I can't talk" meeting. One wonders why Dr Kelly could't talk in his garden. Perhaps he had "company" or MoD minders present?
ReplyDeleteArticles written by Rufford on the 20th July indicated quite a good telephone rapport between them - so why did Rufford not ring up again in the evening? He said he had been trying to contact Dr Kelly all day. And presumably the home phone was not being answered.(even though he said he had rung Southmoor that morning and Mrs Kelly had said Dr Kelly had gone to London). So what does Rufford do? Turn up at the house on spec where nobody was apparently in. And lo and behold, Dr Kelly is in the garden!
I find the evidence of the student in the pub rather odd. The publicans were not friends of the Kellys - they would only acknowledge each other but that was about it, according to a newspaper article. It is extremely fishy that Dr Kelly would go into a pub where he was hardly known and say that his house, full of classified secrets, would be empty for a while. This evidence is of course not under oath and highly convenient for the official narrative. And as I said, no story emerged from any journalist. It must have been extremely boring for those alleged members of the press. Why weren't the publicans themselves called?
The key phrase used by Rufford in his 13 July 2003 article (When was it said? Over the garden fence in his checked shirt and jeans?? On the telephone another day??) was:
ReplyDeleteIn his first public comments since the row blew up, Dr David Kelly said the government's position on Iraq was “credible and factual”.
Is this what Dr Kelly was telling Susan Watts on the phone? Or is this just a bluff for public consumption?
Additionally one ability ask why wasn't the amount of the claret on the cap and the cap's somewhat abnormal accession investigated.
ReplyDeleteVisors
This is the common agricultural policy to be dropped from my right thigh. Possible but more difficult in opinion is the common agricultural policy be dropped by the left shoulder.
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