It appears to be accepted as a fact that once searcher Paul Chapman had shown DC Coe the body then the detective stood guard at the scene for 25 to 30 minutes. Certainly the chronology fits pretty well if Mr Chapman leads DC Coe to the body at say 9.30 and PCs Franklin and Sawyer get to the top of the track at about 10 o'clock. This is an exchange between Mr Knox and DC Coe at the Inquiry:
Q. How far away from the body did you actually go?
A. 7 or 8 feet.
Q. How long did you spend at the scene?
A. Until other officers came to tape off the area. I would think somewhere in the region of about 25 or 30 minutes.
Q. Did anyone then arrive after that time?
A. Yes, two other police officers arrived, I took them to where the body was laying and then they made a taped off area, what we call a common approach path for everybody to attend along this one path.
Here we have another classic example of the muddled evidence presented at the Inquiry. I guess it is just loose language but it might be assumed that one lot of officers taped off the area and then after that a new pair of officers (evidently Franklin and Sawyer) arrive on the scene. I'm assuming in reality we are just talking about PCs Franklin and Sawyer. Whether Mr Dingemans and Mr Knox set out to avoid crystal clear clarity is an interesting question!
From the wording in the last answer we see that DC Coe took his police colleagues to the body. In other words at that moment in time when he meets the two police constables he is not with the body! When one looks at the testimonies of PCs Franklin and Sawyer together with that of the ambulance crew it becomes apparent that he is down on the track and then leads them to the body.
Dr Kelly's body is well into the wood, by DC Coe's estimation about 75 yards, PC Franklin reckoned 50 to 75 metres, somewhere approaching three quarters of the length of a football pitch then. If DC Coe is down on the track when the PCs and the ambulance crew come into view my thought is 'how long had he been down on the track, after Mr Chapman showed him the body did he decide it was better to join his companions down on the track sooner rather than later'. My logic suggests that DC Shields should have accompanied DC Coe and Paul Chapman to note the body location, then whilst DC Coe remains with the corpse DC Shields returns to the track so that when the cavalry turn up he can take them to the correct spot.
Now I'm not suggesting that as soon as DC Coe left the body to head for the track that men from the security services materialised from the undergrowth and for instance moved Dr Kelly's body but nevertheless the possibility that the body was left unguarded does cause concern. In my next post I will examine the fact that DC Coe noted very little about Dr Kelly, strange for someone who was with the body for up to half an hour apparently.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Mr Green - the little evidence he gave at the Inquiry
In my last post I had lamented the fact that no evidence from the 50 or so lab tests referred to by the forensic biologist had entered the public domain. I wouldn't have necessarily expected Mr Green to have supplied the detail of every individual test but at the minimum some sort of overview of the test results should have come out.
Anyway there are a few bits and pieces worth noting from what was generally sketchy evidence from Mr Green at the Inquiry. Mr Dingemans asking the questions, this extract gives some context regarding Mr Green's presence at Harrowdown Hill:
Q. When you arrived at the body, what did you do?
A. Well, basically the start of it is just to have a look and see -- just to take it all in and make notes and measurements and try to get some sense of what could have happened.
Q. How long were you doing that for?
A. It was sort of a gradual process. As I say, I arrived at just gone 2 and left at about 7, so it was quite a while. But during that time I will have gone back to the original tent, the changing tent, to report what I was seeing to DCI Young.
Q. Yes.
A. And to make arrangements for toxicology work that needed to be done.
Q. How long were you on the scene for that day?
A. In total, from just gone 2 until 7, so just short of five hours.
A couple of points here before moving on: a mention of the shadowy DCI Young who didn't give evidence at the Inquiry, we would have expected his presence at HH of course and we know he attended the post-mortem at Oxford late in the evening and extending into the early hours of Saturday morning (a long days work for him then). The other thing I have to say is that Mr Green's presence for nearly as long as that of Dr Hunt slightly mitigates the criticism that I've read of there not being two pathologists examining Dr Kelly. Having said that his discipline is different from that of a forensic pathologist even if there is overlap in places.
There is a section of evidence from Mr Green about his observation of "arterial rain" on nettles which were close to the left hand side of Dr Kelly's body. We are not told how close unfortunately. I'm not going to quote the relevant part of the evidence because it has been reproduced and superbly analysed on the blogs of both Rowena Thursby and Dr Andrew Watt. The links to the posts made by Rowena and by Andrew are here:
http://dr-david-kelly.blogspot.com/2006/07/thursday-13th-july-2006-why-was-there.html
http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/2010/11/death-of-david-kelly-is-it-possible-to.html
http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/2010/11/death-of-dr-david-kelly-why-was-there.html
Why didn't Dr Hunt make any remark about the arterial rain in his report? He was working closely with Mr Green that afternoon and if he didn't spot the blood on the nettles surely Mr Green would have remarked on it. Just possibly the lack of arterial rain elsewhere might have been seen as a dent in his suicide theory so best not to mention it. Of course it does just that and the arterial rain distribution is more suggestive in my opinion of someone else holding Dr Kelly's arm to make the incisions.
We now move on to the question of how much blood was at the scene and witness this exchange:
Q. We have heard from some ambulance personnel, and they said they were not specifically looking, for obvious reasons, at the distribution of blood but they noted, just on their brief glance, not very much blood. What were your detailed findings?
A. Well, there was a fair bit of blood.
LORD HUTTON: There was -- I beg your pardon?
A. A fair bit of blood, my Lord. The body was on leaf litter, the sort of detritus you might find on the floor of a wood, which is -- and that is very absorbent, so although it may not have appeared to them there was that much blood, it would obviously soak in.
MR DINGEMANS: A bit like blotting paper in some respects?
A. Yes.
Here I want to clarify the distinction between leaf litter and leaf mould. The latter according to my dictionary is "soil composed chiefly of decaying leaves", the sort of stuff you might shovel up to put on your garden. I'm very familiar with leaf mould where I live in the damp south west and if there was a lot of this at Harrowdown Hill then it is conceivable that blood could have soaked into it as suggested. However the evidence is that leaf mould at our location was absolutely minimal - we are talking about high summer not late autumn, if there was substantial leaf mould then footprints would have been evident and I have a pretty good idea of the nature of the woodland floor from photos I've seen.
Mr Green, correctly I believe, refers to leaf litter, in other words loose undecayed leaves strewn across the ground. Geologically Harrowdown Hill consists of hard, well nigh impermeable, Oxford clay. I do not necessarily believe that the leaf litter was absorbent in the way claimed. Later claims made about blood soaking into the ground have no factual basis and neither Mr Green nor Dr Hunt have provided a shred of evidence to support any contention about blood loss into leaf litter or into the ground.
Notice it was Mr Dingemans who helpfully provided Mr Green with the blotting paper comparison to give the evidence a little more weight. Mr Dingemans was particularly proud of the blotting paper reference I'm sure because in his Closing Statement on the 25th September he says this about Mr Green:
He identified the blood, the stains on the clothing and the blood on the leaves, which had acted in part as blotting paper.
Mr Dingemans revisits the vegetation close to Dr Kelly's body:
Q. Did you examine the vegetation around the body?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you form any conclusions from that examination?
A. Well, the blood staining that was highest from the ground was approximately 50 centimetres above the ground. This was above the position where Dr Kelly's left wrist was, but most of the stainings were 33 centimetres, which is approximately a foot above the ground. It was all fairly low level stuff.
Q. What does that mean?
A. It meant that because the injury -- most of the injuries would have taken place while Dr Kelly was sitting down or lying down.
As with so much of the testimony gathered at the Hutton Inquiry this is unsatisfactory. Earlier evidence had discussed the arterial rain on the nettles on Dr Kelly's left. So what was the vegetation displaying stainings which were about 12 to 20 inches above the ground? Is in fact the stainings in this evidence the same as the arterial rain in the earlier evidence. Why was the earlier "arterial rain" and later "staining" evidence separated?
We now move on to the contact blood stain on the right knee of Dr Kelly's jeans. I'm not going to dwell on this but Mr Green assumes that Dr Kelly must have knelt in a pool of blood. Vanessa Hunt had described it as a small patch on his right knee, her colleague Dave Bartlett said it 'was a bloodstain about 25 mm across'. Mr Green, without giving a measurement, describes it as a large contact bloodstain. If I hadn't had access to the evidence of the ambulance crew and relied on what Mr Green said about kneeling etc I would have been under the impression that the whole of the right knee was soaking in blood. PC Sawyer had also noticed the blood on the right knee so it was significant enough to note but from what I have previously written perhaps not so dramatic as made out by Mr Green. At the moment I can't offer a fresh explanation of why the contact stain was there but certainly it's something to think about.
The one other thing in Mr Green's evidence I want to put into this post is Mr Green's explanation about the smeared blood on the Evian water bottle and its cap. Mr Green contends that Dr Kelly drank some water while the blood was flowing because he needed to replenish the liquid in his body from the loss of blood. From a medical standpoint alone I wouldn't argue about that but I suggest reading my open letter to the Attorney General which refers to Mr Green's explanation of this point http://drkellysdeath-suicideormurder.blogspot.com/2010/12/open-letter-to-attorney-general-death.html
Anyway there are a few bits and pieces worth noting from what was generally sketchy evidence from Mr Green at the Inquiry. Mr Dingemans asking the questions, this extract gives some context regarding Mr Green's presence at Harrowdown Hill:
Q. When you arrived at the body, what did you do?
A. Well, basically the start of it is just to have a look and see -- just to take it all in and make notes and measurements and try to get some sense of what could have happened.
Q. How long were you doing that for?
A. It was sort of a gradual process. As I say, I arrived at just gone 2 and left at about 7, so it was quite a while. But during that time I will have gone back to the original tent, the changing tent, to report what I was seeing to DCI Young.
Q. Yes.
A. And to make arrangements for toxicology work that needed to be done.
Q. How long were you on the scene for that day?
A. In total, from just gone 2 until 7, so just short of five hours.
A couple of points here before moving on: a mention of the shadowy DCI Young who didn't give evidence at the Inquiry, we would have expected his presence at HH of course and we know he attended the post-mortem at Oxford late in the evening and extending into the early hours of Saturday morning (a long days work for him then). The other thing I have to say is that Mr Green's presence for nearly as long as that of Dr Hunt slightly mitigates the criticism that I've read of there not being two pathologists examining Dr Kelly. Having said that his discipline is different from that of a forensic pathologist even if there is overlap in places.
There is a section of evidence from Mr Green about his observation of "arterial rain" on nettles which were close to the left hand side of Dr Kelly's body. We are not told how close unfortunately. I'm not going to quote the relevant part of the evidence because it has been reproduced and superbly analysed on the blogs of both Rowena Thursby and Dr Andrew Watt. The links to the posts made by Rowena and by Andrew are here:
http://dr-david-kelly.blogspot.com/2006/07/thursday-13th-july-2006-why-was-there.html
http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/2010/11/death-of-david-kelly-is-it-possible-to.html
http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/2010/11/death-of-dr-david-kelly-why-was-there.html
Why didn't Dr Hunt make any remark about the arterial rain in his report? He was working closely with Mr Green that afternoon and if he didn't spot the blood on the nettles surely Mr Green would have remarked on it. Just possibly the lack of arterial rain elsewhere might have been seen as a dent in his suicide theory so best not to mention it. Of course it does just that and the arterial rain distribution is more suggestive in my opinion of someone else holding Dr Kelly's arm to make the incisions.
We now move on to the question of how much blood was at the scene and witness this exchange:
Q. We have heard from some ambulance personnel, and they said they were not specifically looking, for obvious reasons, at the distribution of blood but they noted, just on their brief glance, not very much blood. What were your detailed findings?
A. Well, there was a fair bit of blood.
LORD HUTTON: There was -- I beg your pardon?
A. A fair bit of blood, my Lord. The body was on leaf litter, the sort of detritus you might find on the floor of a wood, which is -- and that is very absorbent, so although it may not have appeared to them there was that much blood, it would obviously soak in.
MR DINGEMANS: A bit like blotting paper in some respects?
A. Yes.
Here I want to clarify the distinction between leaf litter and leaf mould. The latter according to my dictionary is "soil composed chiefly of decaying leaves", the sort of stuff you might shovel up to put on your garden. I'm very familiar with leaf mould where I live in the damp south west and if there was a lot of this at Harrowdown Hill then it is conceivable that blood could have soaked into it as suggested. However the evidence is that leaf mould at our location was absolutely minimal - we are talking about high summer not late autumn, if there was substantial leaf mould then footprints would have been evident and I have a pretty good idea of the nature of the woodland floor from photos I've seen.
Mr Green, correctly I believe, refers to leaf litter, in other words loose undecayed leaves strewn across the ground. Geologically Harrowdown Hill consists of hard, well nigh impermeable, Oxford clay. I do not necessarily believe that the leaf litter was absorbent in the way claimed. Later claims made about blood soaking into the ground have no factual basis and neither Mr Green nor Dr Hunt have provided a shred of evidence to support any contention about blood loss into leaf litter or into the ground.
Notice it was Mr Dingemans who helpfully provided Mr Green with the blotting paper comparison to give the evidence a little more weight. Mr Dingemans was particularly proud of the blotting paper reference I'm sure because in his Closing Statement on the 25th September he says this about Mr Green:
He identified the blood, the stains on the clothing and the blood on the leaves, which had acted in part as blotting paper.
Mr Dingemans revisits the vegetation close to Dr Kelly's body:
Q. Did you examine the vegetation around the body?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you form any conclusions from that examination?
A. Well, the blood staining that was highest from the ground was approximately 50 centimetres above the ground. This was above the position where Dr Kelly's left wrist was, but most of the stainings were 33 centimetres, which is approximately a foot above the ground. It was all fairly low level stuff.
Q. What does that mean?
A. It meant that because the injury -- most of the injuries would have taken place while Dr Kelly was sitting down or lying down.
As with so much of the testimony gathered at the Hutton Inquiry this is unsatisfactory. Earlier evidence had discussed the arterial rain on the nettles on Dr Kelly's left. So what was the vegetation displaying stainings which were about 12 to 20 inches above the ground? Is in fact the stainings in this evidence the same as the arterial rain in the earlier evidence. Why was the earlier "arterial rain" and later "staining" evidence separated?
We now move on to the contact blood stain on the right knee of Dr Kelly's jeans. I'm not going to dwell on this but Mr Green assumes that Dr Kelly must have knelt in a pool of blood. Vanessa Hunt had described it as a small patch on his right knee, her colleague Dave Bartlett said it 'was a bloodstain about 25 mm across'. Mr Green, without giving a measurement, describes it as a large contact bloodstain. If I hadn't had access to the evidence of the ambulance crew and relied on what Mr Green said about kneeling etc I would have been under the impression that the whole of the right knee was soaking in blood. PC Sawyer had also noticed the blood on the right knee so it was significant enough to note but from what I have previously written perhaps not so dramatic as made out by Mr Green. At the moment I can't offer a fresh explanation of why the contact stain was there but certainly it's something to think about.
The one other thing in Mr Green's evidence I want to put into this post is Mr Green's explanation about the smeared blood on the Evian water bottle and its cap. Mr Green contends that Dr Kelly drank some water while the blood was flowing because he needed to replenish the liquid in his body from the loss of blood. From a medical standpoint alone I wouldn't argue about that but I suggest reading my open letter to the Attorney General which refers to Mr Green's explanation of this point http://drkellysdeath-suicideormurder.blogspot.com/2010/12/open-letter-to-attorney-general-death.html
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Mr Green - the evidence that failed to become public
Mr Green, the forensic biologist, has a number of interesting comments to make in his evidence on the 3rd September and I'll try and cover these in my next post. For the moment though read this exchange between him and Mr Dingemans (Mr Green had just been testifying about his activity at Harrowdown Hill on the afternoon of the 18th):
Q. That concluded your investigations on the day, did it?
A. On that day, yes.
Q. And what further investigations did you make?
A. Well, since then I have had upwards of -- I could count them but at a guess 50 items sent to the laboratory.
Q. To analyse?
A. To analyse, to carry out DNA profiling, to look at some of the staining in a little more detail.
Q. Right. And you have carried all that out and reported back to Assistant Chief Constable Page or through his senior investigating officer?
A. Well, my examinations are still ongoing.
Q. Right.
A. I have provided a spreadsheet with a kind of -- a snapshot of where we are today about what items have been examined, what has been found on them, which items were profiled, the results of those profile tests, although I have not put my evidence down in a statement form as yet.
Q. Because you are just finishing off the testing of that material?
A. Exactly.
Q. I think when all that is concluded Assistant Chief Constable Page is going to come back and tell us the results.
These are my thoughts on all this:
1. It's a pity that Mr Green couldn't have supplied some interim information at this stage about his results.
2. Why couldn't Mr Green come back at stage 2 of the Inquiry to divulge the results? Surely he is far better qualified to do so than ACC Page.
3. ACC Page needed two specialist search advisers to point the way to where Dr Kelly might be found yet now he is deemed to be a suitable witness on forensic biology! Once again at Hutton we have an inappropriate person expected to give testimony.
4. There was no explanation as to why Mr Green couldn't return but let us assume that there was a good reason for this. A colleague of Mr Green's Ms Eileen Hickey attended at Harrowdown Hill on that afternoon. Surely she would be the logical person to give evidence on the test results. Why wasn't she called anyway? Dr Andrew Watt has raised the issue of Dr Hickey's non appearance at the Inquiry http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/2010/11/dr-eileen-hickey-forensic-scientist.html
5. ACC Page makes his second appearance at the Inquiry on 23rd September. It seems that he, Lord Hutton and Mr Dingemans are suffering from collective amnesia on the afternoon of that day because the results of Mr Green's 50 or so lab tests AREN'T discussed at that time.
6. ACC Page, Lord Hutton and Mr Dingemans were all great advocates for the suicide explanation for Dr Kelly's death. If the forensic results from the lab were bolstering the suicide hypothesis would they have suffered the same apparent loss of memory referred to above?
Q. That concluded your investigations on the day, did it?
A. On that day, yes.
Q. And what further investigations did you make?
A. Well, since then I have had upwards of -- I could count them but at a guess 50 items sent to the laboratory.
Q. To analyse?
A. To analyse, to carry out DNA profiling, to look at some of the staining in a little more detail.
Q. Right. And you have carried all that out and reported back to Assistant Chief Constable Page or through his senior investigating officer?
A. Well, my examinations are still ongoing.
Q. Right.
A. I have provided a spreadsheet with a kind of -- a snapshot of where we are today about what items have been examined, what has been found on them, which items were profiled, the results of those profile tests, although I have not put my evidence down in a statement form as yet.
Q. Because you are just finishing off the testing of that material?
A. Exactly.
Q. I think when all that is concluded Assistant Chief Constable Page is going to come back and tell us the results.
These are my thoughts on all this:
1. It's a pity that Mr Green couldn't have supplied some interim information at this stage about his results.
2. Why couldn't Mr Green come back at stage 2 of the Inquiry to divulge the results? Surely he is far better qualified to do so than ACC Page.
3. ACC Page needed two specialist search advisers to point the way to where Dr Kelly might be found yet now he is deemed to be a suitable witness on forensic biology! Once again at Hutton we have an inappropriate person expected to give testimony.
4. There was no explanation as to why Mr Green couldn't return but let us assume that there was a good reason for this. A colleague of Mr Green's Ms Eileen Hickey attended at Harrowdown Hill on that afternoon. Surely she would be the logical person to give evidence on the test results. Why wasn't she called anyway? Dr Andrew Watt has raised the issue of Dr Hickey's non appearance at the Inquiry http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/2010/11/dr-eileen-hickey-forensic-scientist.html
5. ACC Page makes his second appearance at the Inquiry on 23rd September. It seems that he, Lord Hutton and Mr Dingemans are suffering from collective amnesia on the afternoon of that day because the results of Mr Green's 50 or so lab tests AREN'T discussed at that time.
6. ACC Page, Lord Hutton and Mr Dingemans were all great advocates for the suicide explanation for Dr Kelly's death. If the forensic results from the lab were bolstering the suicide hypothesis would they have suffered the same apparent loss of memory referred to above?
Mr Green - 'Coming at short notice'
In Lord Hutton's opening statement his intention to hold the inquiry in two stages was spelt out together with his reasoning behind this. I think it is just as easy for the reader to interpret Hutton's thoughts here by going to the official website rather than me to try and explain the logicality behind the process. Suffice to say that his Lordship made his opening statement on 1st August 2003 and took evidence for stage one from Monday 11th August till lunchtime on Thursday 4th September. Hearings were then adjourned until Monday 15th September and stage two ran through till Hutton's closing statement on the 25th of that month. It had to reconvene for a day on 13th October for Sir Kevin Tebbit's examination, Sir Kevin having had an eye operation at the time he would normally have given evidence.
On the morning of 3rd September we hear from ACC Page in response to Mr Dingemans:
Q. What was the name of the pathologist who --
A. The pathologist was Mr Nicholas Hunt.
Q. We were hoping to call Mr Hunt to give evidence this morning, but he is on holiday and he is coming in stage 2. Just so that we can keep the evidence chronological, perhaps you can assist me in identifying some of the material parts of his findings.
A. Yes, my Lord.
A little later Dr Hunt is mentioned again before reference is made to Mr Green:
Q. And we will hear from him but unhappily not today. What other searches were carried out at the scene? You have mentioned a forensic biologist. What do they do?
A. A forensic biologist, I believe you will be hearing from one later --
Q. Who was the forensic biologist?
A. A Mr Green I think. Yes, Mr Rory Green.
Q. I think you have very kindly arranged for him to come along later today?
A. That is correct, my Lord.
Mr Green does indeed arrive that afternoon to give evidence and at the end is thanked for coming at short notice. This again demonstrates the farce of the Hutton Inquiry, the implication being that Mr Green came at short notice because Dr Hunt failed to show up and that it was the industry of ACC Page that ensured that the inquiry wasn't left with a gap that afternoon. Dr Hunt hadn't been suddenly taken ill he was away on holiday for goodness sake! The nature of Mr Green's evidence meant that he would be a candidate for stage one of the Inquiry, which finished at lunchtime the following day anyway. So why does Mr Dingemans say to Mr Green 'Thank you for coming at short notice'?
On the morning of 3rd September we hear from ACC Page in response to Mr Dingemans:
Q. What was the name of the pathologist who --
A. The pathologist was Mr Nicholas Hunt.
Q. We were hoping to call Mr Hunt to give evidence this morning, but he is on holiday and he is coming in stage 2. Just so that we can keep the evidence chronological, perhaps you can assist me in identifying some of the material parts of his findings.
A. Yes, my Lord.
A little later Dr Hunt is mentioned again before reference is made to Mr Green:
Q. And we will hear from him but unhappily not today. What other searches were carried out at the scene? You have mentioned a forensic biologist. What do they do?
A. A forensic biologist, I believe you will be hearing from one later --
Q. Who was the forensic biologist?
A. A Mr Green I think. Yes, Mr Rory Green.
Q. I think you have very kindly arranged for him to come along later today?
A. That is correct, my Lord.
Mr Green does indeed arrive that afternoon to give evidence and at the end is thanked for coming at short notice. This again demonstrates the farce of the Hutton Inquiry, the implication being that Mr Green came at short notice because Dr Hunt failed to show up and that it was the industry of ACC Page that ensured that the inquiry wasn't left with a gap that afternoon. Dr Hunt hadn't been suddenly taken ill he was away on holiday for goodness sake! The nature of Mr Green's evidence meant that he would be a candidate for stage one of the Inquiry, which finished at lunchtime the following day anyway. So why does Mr Dingemans say to Mr Green 'Thank you for coming at short notice'?
Friday, 31 December 2010
Louise Holmes and Brock
New Years Eve and my special wish for 2011 is that justice will be done in determining the real cause of the death of Dr David Kelly. As it is the day it is I'm not writing a long post but I thought it might be a pleasant diversion to supply a couple of links for videos of Louise Holmes and search dog Brock who it will be recalled, along with Paul Chapman, discovered the body of Dr Kelly on 18th July 2003.
These "youtube" videos result from Ms Holmes and Brock entering the Crufts "Friends for Life" competition in 2009 and, as will be seen in the second video, they went on to win it. These are the links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnvcJU0WUzM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_zWOXvsDbg&feature=related
Brock is a lively chap isn't he!
Brock works by "air scenting". There is a useful article about how this works:
http://www.suite101.com/content/search-and-rescue-dog-training-air-scenting-a106740
To followers of this blog (excluding any readers who have been lying about the death of Dr Kelly) I wish you a Happy New Year!
These "youtube" videos result from Ms Holmes and Brock entering the Crufts "Friends for Life" competition in 2009 and, as will be seen in the second video, they went on to win it. These are the links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnvcJU0WUzM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_zWOXvsDbg&feature=related
Brock is a lively chap isn't he!
Brock works by "air scenting". There is a useful article about how this works:
http://www.suite101.com/content/search-and-rescue-dog-training-air-scenting-a106740
To followers of this blog (excluding any readers who have been lying about the death of Dr Kelly) I wish you a Happy New Year!
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Dominic Grieve - now it's over to you
Sometime in the near future we expect the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, to make one of his most significant decisions: whether to set in train the events that will lead to an inquest into the death in July 2003 of Dr David Kelly.
The group of doctors who had presented a legal document, a "memorial" as it's known to Mr Grieve some months ago subsequently made it available for viewing on the internet. The Memorial can be read here. In the Memorial they robustly present their case as to why the Hutton Inquiry process was woefully inadequate and hence why an inquest is now necessary. They also, and this is important, point out that another coroner should be used not the Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner. Mr Gardiner it will be remembered had the opportunity to reopen the adjourned inquest into Dr Kelly's death but declined to do so and cannot now be considered in any way a suitable candidate to oversee a new inquest. Furthermore whilst the Hutton Inquiry was under way a final death certificate was issued, a certificate that was deficient and was not signed by a coroner or doctor as it has to be. In my opinion by not being signed it was not a legal document and the Registrar of Deaths had absolutely no business to accept it onto the register. Another thing: as flagged up in the Memorial Mr Gardiner gave an interview to a newspaper after the Hutton Report was published but before he announced that he would not reopen the adjourned inquest in which he stated he was seeking closure. Without doubt this is a gross abuse of his position and for that reason alone is not a fit person to oversee a new inquest.
To perhaps stiffen Mr Grieve's resolve the doctors pointed out yesterday that the case for a new inquest is unanswerable. It should be mentioned that although the arguments in the Memorial are more than enough to trigger a new inquest others have also made their depositions to the Attorney General. It is worth going over to http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/ where Dr Andrew Watt has produced well reasoned letters to the Attorney General which clearly show why a further investigative process is now essential. I too have written to Mr Grieve as can be read here.
I've read comments on various internet sites that the immediate family of the late Dr David Kelly don't want an inquest and therefore there shouldn't be one. They are 100% wrong about this, it is not for the family to decide, it is a legal matter - the Hutton inquiry subverted the law as to the procedure to be followed after an unusual and unexplained death.
Should Mr Grieve shy away from a new inquest under a new coroner then I can see all hell being let loose. The politicians must never again be allowed to overrule the judicial system to pursue their own agenda.
The group of doctors who had presented a legal document, a "memorial" as it's known to Mr Grieve some months ago subsequently made it available for viewing on the internet. The Memorial can be read here. In the Memorial they robustly present their case as to why the Hutton Inquiry process was woefully inadequate and hence why an inquest is now necessary. They also, and this is important, point out that another coroner should be used not the Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner. Mr Gardiner it will be remembered had the opportunity to reopen the adjourned inquest into Dr Kelly's death but declined to do so and cannot now be considered in any way a suitable candidate to oversee a new inquest. Furthermore whilst the Hutton Inquiry was under way a final death certificate was issued, a certificate that was deficient and was not signed by a coroner or doctor as it has to be. In my opinion by not being signed it was not a legal document and the Registrar of Deaths had absolutely no business to accept it onto the register. Another thing: as flagged up in the Memorial Mr Gardiner gave an interview to a newspaper after the Hutton Report was published but before he announced that he would not reopen the adjourned inquest in which he stated he was seeking closure. Without doubt this is a gross abuse of his position and for that reason alone is not a fit person to oversee a new inquest.
To perhaps stiffen Mr Grieve's resolve the doctors pointed out yesterday that the case for a new inquest is unanswerable. It should be mentioned that although the arguments in the Memorial are more than enough to trigger a new inquest others have also made their depositions to the Attorney General. It is worth going over to http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/ where Dr Andrew Watt has produced well reasoned letters to the Attorney General which clearly show why a further investigative process is now essential. I too have written to Mr Grieve as can be read here.
I've read comments on various internet sites that the immediate family of the late Dr David Kelly don't want an inquest and therefore there shouldn't be one. They are 100% wrong about this, it is not for the family to decide, it is a legal matter - the Hutton inquiry subverted the law as to the procedure to be followed after an unusual and unexplained death.
Should Mr Grieve shy away from a new inquest under a new coroner then I can see all hell being let loose. The politicians must never again be allowed to overrule the judicial system to pursue their own agenda.
Monday, 27 December 2010
No power to subpoena witnesses
Much has been made of the fact that witnesses at the Hutton Inquiry weren't examined under oath. An exception to this seems to be that of the evidence of Professor Hawton: at the start of his transcript is the word (sworn). Presumably he elected to give evidence under oath but was not compelled to. For a person whose testimony was always likely to be more opinion based than fact based he would not be particularly liable to a charge of perjury from what he said.
Another gross failure of the Hutton Inquiry of course was the fact that his Lordship couldn't compel witnesses to attend. I'm flagging this up now because it is easy to say Hutton should have called certain people (for example DCI Alan Young). But it has to be said that it is possible that Hutton did want DCI Young in our example but he, or his bosses said 'no'. In reality I rather suspect that Lord Hutton had a convivial chat with say the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police and came to a very amicable agreement about who should attend the Inquiry from the police side.
I've just read an interesting fact in Norman Baker's book (page 266) that those making statements in connection with Dr Kelly's death had an opt out at the end of their statement allowing them to decide whether or not they would accept their statement being forwarded to the Inquiry. So looking at the list of witness statements on the Inquiry website and wondering why a statement from an individual hasn't been lodged by Thames Valley Police might be purely because that person didn't want their statement to go forward for whatever reason.
Another gross failure of the Hutton Inquiry of course was the fact that his Lordship couldn't compel witnesses to attend. I'm flagging this up now because it is easy to say Hutton should have called certain people (for example DCI Alan Young). But it has to be said that it is possible that Hutton did want DCI Young in our example but he, or his bosses said 'no'. In reality I rather suspect that Lord Hutton had a convivial chat with say the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police and came to a very amicable agreement about who should attend the Inquiry from the police side.
I've just read an interesting fact in Norman Baker's book (page 266) that those making statements in connection with Dr Kelly's death had an opt out at the end of their statement allowing them to decide whether or not they would accept their statement being forwarded to the Inquiry. So looking at the list of witness statements on the Inquiry website and wondering why a statement from an individual hasn't been lodged by Thames Valley Police might be purely because that person didn't want their statement to go forward for whatever reason.
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