DC Coe and a serious shortage of detail

Reading through the transcripts of the Hutton Inquiry it is evident that Lord Hutton's counsel appointees, Mr Dingemans and Mr Knox, were at pains to set the scene when people such as the two dog searchers, the ambulance crew, PCs Sawyer and Franklin were giving their evidence.  To elaborate a little: they would be asked such questions as when they were briefed, who briefed them, were there others being briefed at the same time, when did they leave for Harrowdown Hill, that sort of thing.  So it was possible to get a reasonably clear idea as to their movements and timings from the moment they were called out on the morning of 18th July.  This I believe was the correct and normal procedure to follow.

However when Detective Constable Graham Coe gave his evidence as the first witness of the morning on Tuesday 16th September 2003 things could hardly have been more different.  It was Mr Knox's turn to proceed with the questioning.  After recording the witness's name and occupation we find out that Mr Coe is based at Wantage which lies some miles south of our area of interest, this is not to say that Mr Coe actually lives in Wantage of course.  The next question tells us that Mr Coe got called out at 6 o'clock.  Then he is asked "Where did you go?"  The reply "I went over to Longworth".  "Longworth police station?" asks Mr Knox in response to Mr Coe's somewhat unexpected reply.  "Abingdon police station" Mr Coe says and then, like a perfectly flighted boomerang, "I went out to the Longworth area".   For a brief moment Mr Knox hauls Mr Coe back to Abingdon by asking "When you got to the police station, what were you asked to do?"  "Go and make some house to house inquiries in the area where Dr Kelly lived" is Mr Coe's reply.

Mr Coe, in his fifties at the time, must surely have been aware of the established procedure of establishing the early facts to set his later evidence in context.  However he seems to be a man with a mission; a desire to get through his evidence in the shortest possible time with the very minimum number of words.  Mr Knox appears to be happy to go along with what I perceive to be a charade; why didn't he establish when Mr Coe got his briefing, who gave the briefing, were other police officers present, when did Mr Coe leave Abingdon to start his inquiries, was DC Shields at the same briefing, were other officers conducting house to house inquiries, we know none of the answers to these and other related questions.

It would seem that Mr Coe struck lucky in his inquiries:  Mr Knox "Where did you go then?"  Mr Coe describes how "We spoke to a witness ... who had seen Dr Kelly on the afternoon, ... and myself and a colleague went to the area where she had last seen him and made a sort of search towards the river".  Further questioning confirms the river to be the Thames and the witness Ruth Absalom.

An interesting albeit small point here: Mr Coe uses the word "we" when describing talking to the witness and then instead of repeating "we" when they went to the area in which Dr Kelly had been seen he talks of "myself and a colleague".  Were there other officers doing house to house inquiries one wonders and Mr Coe deciding to select DC Shields to accompany him.   Ms Absalom had told the Inquiry that she met Dr Kelly at the top of Harris's Lane but  she can't be absolutely certain which way he continued after they parted company.  Her description I feel is open to some interpretation but she does mention the road to Kingston Bagpuize and this road is in the opposite direction to that toward Harrowdown Hill and the river.  Compounding the problem of geography is the fact that the northern end of Harris's Lane forms a T junction with a west to east road.

Although the main part of Longworth village lies a little way to the north west of the road junction there are some properties very close by and one might have thought that Mr Coe and his "colleague" would have knocked on a few doors there next.  They didn't do that it seems but "made a sort of search towards the river".  Mr Knox inexplicably doesn't ask the reason for this decision.  The other thing that I want to mention is Mr Coe's rather odd use of the English language - the phrase "made a sort of search towards the river", it is quite  woolly, I would really have expected something far more precise from a serving policeman.

I will continue with Mr Coe's extraordinary testimony in another post.    


  

Farmer Paul Weaving

As has previously been stated the last person that one can say for certain spoke to David Kelly before his death was a near neighbour Ruth Absalom. A note in passing: although Detective Constable Coe had stated in his evidence to Hutton that Ms Absalom "lived more or less opposite" the Kelly's home the reality, according to Norman Baker, was that she lived about a hundred yards away.

Just after the death of Dr Kelly was announced a story started getting traction in the media that in fact there was another person who saw (but did not speak to) Dr Kelly on that afternoon. He was identified as a local farmer Paul Weaving , an old friend of the Kellys, who it was alleged saw Dr Kelly walking in the fields north of the A420 main road and that they acknowledged each other.

This is worth following up then. Well fortunately for us someone else has already done the investigation. Norman Baker in his book records that Rowena Thursby was informed in an email from Mr Weaving: "the early reports were wrong. I did not see David on the day he went missing". That seems pretty clear to me. I can't see why that statement would be anything but the truth. Ms Thursby by the way is the author of this blog and I doubt if anyone has done more to try and get to the truth as to how David Kelly died.

In "The Strange Death of David Kelly" Norman Baker gives a reference as to where the story of Mr Weaving seeing Dr Kelly on that day is to be found. It is Scotsman of 19 July 2003 (ie the day after the body was discovered) the article writers being Karen McVeigh and Paul Gallagher. I haven't read this particular piece but an evidently similar item was included in next day's Observer which can be read here. Unusually there is no indication of who wrote the Observer story.

I have to say that I often find newspaper reports wanting and it's not unusual to read things that you know are plain wrong. The problem is trying to "separate the wheat from the chaff" because there's no doubt there can be some gold nuggets amongst the dross. Looking at that Observer piece then in respect of David Kelly's last walk I would comment as follows:

They refer to "Paul Weaver" when in fact it is Paul Weaving. Not a very good start! They talk about Dr Kelly's home village (Southmoor) and the village of Longworth being two miles apart, in reality nearer one mile. Regarding that part of his walk they colourfully say "It would have taken him at least an hour to cross the fields, sodden after rain". Although there are field paths in the vicinity there is no evidence at all that he used them, in fact Ms Absalom describes meeting Dr Kelly at the top of Harris's Lane, a road not a field path. This is just so typical of newspaper reporting. I have to say that I'm a stickler for getting geographical details correct and get frustrated when lazy journalists don't get it right. Yes they have to work to tight deadlines but some seem to have a slap happy approach and it's not confined to any one paper. For instance on the day before the Guardian has the body of David Kelly being found face down. Where did that come from?

The one other thing about the media story relating to Mr Weaving's alleged sighting of Dr Kelly on that Thursday is that the information didn't come direct from him but from another person he knew. So obviously another place where whatever Mr Weaving said might have been misheard or misinterpreted.

Two men seen talking to Ruth Absalom

We have to be really grateful to LibDem MP Norman Baker for penning his book "The Strange Death of David Kelly". It isn't only the basic facts surrounding Dr Kelly's death that Norman investigates but in the almost 400 pages of the book he also relates various odd incidents that the mainstream media wouldn't be too bothered about. One of these involves Ruth Absalom who was the subject of an earlier piece by me and for convenience I'll deal with it now.

To summarise the account by Norman Baker (NB): a local reporter, Robert Wilkinson, was making enquiries around the village of Southmoor soon after the death of Dr Kelly was announced. While he was interviewing neighbours he noticed a car with two occupants who were also interested in interviewing people. The car was parked at 'The Wagon and Horses', the pub that is almost opposite the house where David and Janice Kelly lived. Amongst the locals they were talking to was Ruth Absalom who was the last person to speak to Dr Kelly so far as we are aware.

Fascinated by who the two men might be and with a journalist's nose Mr Wilkinson asked Ruth who the two men were. She told him that they had asked her many questions but as to their identity she wasn't able to say, the men having impressed upon her that she must not reveal who they were working for. Apparently she was most insistent that she couldn't say anything. The men still being there the reporter tapped on the car window and asked who they were working for. Laughing they answered "Thames Valley Police". Mr Wilkinson told NB that he somehow didn't think that was right, certainly they weren't in uniform.

Later that day, explaining he was a journalist, he phoned Thames Valley police asking if any officers had been out interviewing neighbours of the Kelly's. No they said and then Mr Wilkinson explained why he had posed the question. Two days later, and out of the blue, he gets a call from the police saying that they had made a mistake and that the occupants of the car and indeed the car itself were from their force. After relating this incident NB wonders if the call from the police was a way of shutting down the story. There will be other examples of strange behaviour by the Thames Valley Police to report on in due course.

Ruth Absalom - last person to speak to Dr Kelly

I'm now going to run through the evidence of Ruth Absalom who spoke to the Inquiry by video link; she was examined by Mr Dingemans. Ms Absalom, a near neighbour of the Kellys, stated that she had known Dr Kelly for a number of years. So far as we know she was the last person to speak to Dr Kelly. She was out walking her dog and she and Dr Kelly exchanged some pleasantries, she thought that their conversation was 5 minutes long at the most. Interestingly her testimony showed that Dr Kelly opened the conversation and he didn't appear to be desperate to end it, it seemed to be the fact that Ms Absolom's dog was pulling on its lead that gave reason for the two people to part. Ms Absalom also stated that David Kelly was just his usual self so far as his demeanour was concerned.

Consultant psychiatrist Professor Keith Hawton (KH) was the subject of an extensive examination from Mr Dingemans and one of the questions asked by the latter concerned the evidence given by Ruth earlier that day in which she had indicated that David Kelly was just his usual self. KH, who we are informed is an expert on the subject of suicide, declared that it isn't unusual in those intent on killing themselves to experience a sense of peace and calm having made the fateful decision. Well I'm not totally convinced on that one in this instance.

The wretched business of timings which I had raised in my last post also manifests itself here. Ruth says that on that particular day she left home with her dog at about 2.15, rather earlier than her usual time of 3 o'clock. Although she didn't look at her watch she reckons that she met Dr Kelly at about three o'clock. Their paths crossed at the top of Harris's Lane in Longworth (that village lies between Southmoor where the Kelly's lived and Harrowdown Hill), this point being, by her estimation, about a mile from her home. However the evidence from Mrs Kelly seems to indicate that her husband didn't actually leave their house until sometime between 3 o'clock and 3.20 and then, assuming he took the shortest route to the top of Harris's Lane, one would need to add on at least 20 minutes I would have thought.

A couple of other points to round off this particular post. Mr Dingemans asked Ruth if she saw where Dr Kelly went after they separated. Understandably she wasn't sure but surmised that he went along the road toward Kingston Bagpuize, which place is south east of Longworth whereas Harrowdown Hill is to the north. The second point was the answer Ruth gave to the question about whether she had seen anyone between leaving home and bumping into Dr Kelly. She hadn't. Based on my own experience of village life there is often a lull in the afternoon when nobody seems to be about. I must admit I haven't checked on this but guess there isn't a village school at Longworth. If there was then this would have generated some activity in mid afternoon. I'm assuming that schools wouldn't have broken up by 17th July.

With nobody around on the streets Norman Baker's contention that Dr Kelly could have been quickly overpowered and abducted into a van say is only too possible in my opinion.