Did Mrs Kelly lie at the Hutton Inquiry? I imagine that among the Tom Mangolds and John Rentouls of this world I would be condemned for even mooting such a possibility. However the question does need to be asked I'm afraid.
This post isn't an all out attack on Janice Kelly - sure there are a lot of anomalies in her evidence but this piece is about one particular item in her 1 hour and 5 minutes of evidence on Monday 1st September. On Wednesday 9th July David Kelly's name was confirmed as the alleged informant in Andrew Gilligan's now infamous broadcast on the Today programme of 29th May. Mrs Kelly's testimony includes the decision of the couple to flee their home temporarily to avoid the Press who it appears were heading toward Southmoor. Fortunately Mrs Kelly knows somewhere they can go to in Cornwall to get out of the spotlight. They quickly pack that evening and drive west and break their journey by staying the night at a hotel in Weston-Super Mare. The next day she says they continue their journey on to Mevagissey, a traditional Cornish village on the south coast approximately midway between the east and west extremities of the county.
There are concerns about the integrity of the whole story of the visit to Cornwall but I won't dwell on them here, rather it is just a single piece of evidence from Mrs Kelly that can't be reconciled with another person's testimony. This is part of Mrs Kelly's questioning by Mr Dingemans relating to events following breakfast at the Weston-Super-Mare hotel:
Q. Did you set off anywhere?
A. Yes, we did. He made a few calls on his mobile in the garden of the hotel.
Q. Do you know who he was calling?
A. He was calling MoD, but I do not know who he spoke to.
Q. Do you know what was said? Did he report back?
A. No, he did not. He just said I was okay to continue down towards Cornwall.
Q. You did the packing?
A. I did my packing. He had already more or less done his own.
Q. There obviously was not that much to pack anyway?
A. No, there was not. He had a briefcase and we each had a small suitcase each.
Q. You set off down to Cornwall I think?
A. We did, yes.
Q. What time did you leave the hotel?
A. We left the hotel about 8.30, 8.45, that sort of time.
Q. What time did you get down to the place you were driving to in Cornwall?
A. That was about noon or just after.
Note the sentence He just said I was okay to continue down towards Cornwall. She says 'I was' not 'we were' which might be significant, almost suggesting that she was going on to Cornwall by train with perhaps her husband coming later.
Two days later at the Inquiry we have evidence from Mr "A" who we now know to have been Rod Godfrey, a UK chemical weapons expert. This is some of the testimony (Mr Dingemans asking the questions again):
Q. We have heard that he spent the night of the 9th July at a hotel in Weston-Super-Mare then, I think, travelled down on 10th July to Cornwall. Did he tell you that he was travelling anywhere?
A. It was slightly odd. He rang me on the morning of the10th to tell me he had the medication for me.
Q. What medication was this?
A. It was paladin, it is an anti-malarial medication.
Q. Who had given him that?
A. The doctor at RAF Honnington had given him the medication for the three of us who were about to deploy to Iraq on Friday. She had made a slight error in the prescription and was giving us some more.
Q. Right. And he rang you to say that he had the medication -- sorry, I interrupted.
A. Yes. He rang to say he had the medication and was quite happy to drop it off. This was quite odd. I was quite happy to travel the short distance to his home to pick it up. But he almost insisted he dropped it off. Within about half an hour to an hour he arrived at my house.
Q. Sorry to press you, whereabouts in Wiltshire? Can you give a town that you are near?
A. I am near Swindon.
LORD HUTTON: Was Mrs Kelly with Dr Kelly at this time, Mr A?
A. It is possible that she could have been in the car. I myself did not understand how the whole
Weston-Super-Mare/Cornwall trip works in the chronology. David had parked some distance from my house and walked 100 yards up the road to my house.
Q. Do you have a drive?
A. I am afraid not.
Q. Was 100 yards the closest he could park?
A. Yes, that is the problem.
Q. And how did he seem to you when you saw him on 10th July?
A. He was distracted. Our conversation would normally include a significant part relating to work, but he seemed to want nothing more than to have a cup of coffee and walk through my garden talking about the garden, so that is what we did.
Q. Was that usual behaviour for him?
A. It was not. I would characterise his behaviour as being somewhat distracted at this point; and he clearly did not want to talk much about work.
Q. Was that usual?
A. It was not. Our friendship was based partly on work but -- mostly on work, and really a large part of our meetings would consist of talking of matters of professional mutual concern.
Mr "A" clearly indicates that he doesn't understand how the chronology worked for that morning but, this being the Hutton Inquiry, the impossibility of the timeline isn't pursued further. And it is literally impossible to do the trip back to near Swindon from Weston-Super-Mare, stop for coffee and look around the garden, and then drive to the final destination in Cornwall, arriving 'about noon or just after'.
We are told that Mr "A" was off to Iraq the following day and have to assume that he was very clear about the fact that Dr Kelly saw him with the medication on the 10th. I cannot believe that he could have got this piece of evidence wrong or have any motivation for lying.
What of Mrs Kelly's evidence then. She had appeared at the Inquiry two days before and it would be reasonable to assume that she wouldn't know about the upcoming evidence from Mr "A" about Dr Kelly dropping off medication. It's possible in my view that she might have been angry and frustrated with the thought of backtracking in the direction they had come and this might have been a reason for her to "skip" the incident of going back to Swindon in her testimony. With her evidence taking over an hour to conclude the temptation to omit something that seemed fairly unimportant and with a bad memory might have been substantial. If she and her husband had exchanged words she might have felt somewhat embarrassed or ashamed about it and from her perspective the omission would have seen unimportant.
The problem now for her is that, seemingly being caught out not telling the truth about the arrival time in Cornwall, all of the rest of her evidence is under suspicion.
One final point: in his excellent book Norman Baker covers the visit to Mr "A" by Dr Kelly. Norman tries to make sense of the time taken by Dr Kelly to get to Mr "A"s home from W-S-M and finds it impossible to believe. Unfortunately he makes a couple of mistakes in his logic. Firstly he quotes Mr A as saying 'Within about an half an hour he arrived at my house' (from the phone call evidently) - the reality was Mr "A" saying 'Within about half an hour to an hour he arrived at my house' which is not the same! Secondly Norman Baker states Swindon is 62 miles from W-S-M and that the AA route planner estimates a journey time by road of 1 hour and 8 minutes. The AA route planner would surely take you from town centre to town centre, Mr "A" lives near Swindon, he could be within a couple of minutes of the M4 (which runs just south of Swindon) for all we know. I'm mentioning this just to show how easy it is for the investigator to make slight errors aided and abetted by his or her own prejudices. From my own experience I know the difficulty in being 100% factual and the discipline needed!
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Monday, 10 January 2011
A very long body examination at Harrowdown Hill
This article concerning forensic pathologist Dr Nicholas Hunt is from the MailonLine 23 August 2010: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1305159/Dr-David-Kelly-pathologist-Nicholas-Hunt-demands-inquest-Ive-hide.html The final section on doubts and rebuttals is particularly interesting and Dr Hunt's rebuttals seem extraordinarily weak.
Looking at the second paragraph of his final rebuttal we read:
'We look at every millimetre of skin. We're looking for any needle puncture marks and so forth, any sign of skulduggery – between the fingers, the toes, under the nose, behind the ears, here, there and everywhere.
Looking at the second paragraph of his final rebuttal we read:
'We look at every millimetre of skin. We're looking for any needle puncture marks and so forth, any sign of skulduggery – between the fingers, the toes, under the nose, behind the ears, here, there and everywhere.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
DC Coe - what he failed to notice
In my last post I had put forward the possibility that DC Coe didn't stay with Dr Kelly's body for anything like the 25 to 30 minutes that his evidence to Hutton suggests. I don't have proof of how long he remained with the corpse but what I find intriguing is how little he evidently noticed about the body he was supposedly guarding and its immediate environs.
From his testimony at the inquiry we learn that DC Coe didn't know whether there was any water left in the Evian bottle and whether Dr Kelly's cap was on or off his head - although he thinks "off" which is correct. He is somewhat vague about the clothing although he does notice the Barbour jacket in particular.
It was in early August last year that Graham Coe had an interview with the Daily Mail, this was the moment that he admitted that there was "The Third Man" accompanying him and DC Shields at Harrowdown Hill (I tried to obtain the name and rank of this person via a FOI request but Thames Valley Police weren't prepared to release it - although they did admit that they knew who it was!). Some of the interview is reported on the Mailonline http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301210/Detective-Dr-David-Kellys-body-raises-questions-death.html#ixzz0w1BS1KlK. However the previous day evidently the story was presented in greater depth in the newspaper itself as can be seen by going to this particular website http://www.tpuc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=139126&sid=8e1f55edc51c10007be0e7d3489314e2 In this forum you need to scroll to 8th August 2010 where someone calling themselves "leavemealone" has made a couple of entries. The first of these is a newspaper report about the occasion when Dr Hunt allegedly mixed up the details of two dead servicemen (this needs its own blogpost at some time). The second entry is the Daily Mail piece involving DC Coe (now retired). Here is an extract:
‘I think he was wearing a green Barbour jacket and a bluish checked shirt, both of which I think were rolled up, and dark cords. I think he was wearing his glasses and I think his eyes were closed. I could see his left wrist had been cut.
That he thought that Dr Kelly was wearing his spectacles is extraordinary, particularly as he thinks his eyes were closed. The reference to dark cords is strange too because the jeans he was wearing would presumably be denim in the normal accepted definition of jeans.
Regarding the body position we have Mr Coe saying to the Mail in 2010:
‘As I got closer, I could see Dr Kelly’s body sideways on, with his head and shoulders against a large tree. He wasn’t dead flat along the ground. If you wanted to die, you’d never lie flat out. But neither was he sat upright.’
Go back seven years to 2003 and this is what DC Coe is saying to the Hutton Inquiry:
Q. And how was the body positioned?
A. It was laying on its back -- the body was laying on its back by a large tree, the head towards the trunk of the tree.
I do have a problem reconciling these two statements.
From his testimony at the inquiry we learn that DC Coe didn't know whether there was any water left in the Evian bottle and whether Dr Kelly's cap was on or off his head - although he thinks "off" which is correct. He is somewhat vague about the clothing although he does notice the Barbour jacket in particular.
It was in early August last year that Graham Coe had an interview with the Daily Mail, this was the moment that he admitted that there was "The Third Man" accompanying him and DC Shields at Harrowdown Hill (I tried to obtain the name and rank of this person via a FOI request but Thames Valley Police weren't prepared to release it - although they did admit that they knew who it was!). Some of the interview is reported on the Mailonline http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301210/Detective-Dr-David-Kellys-body-raises-questions-death.html#ixzz0w1BS1KlK. However the previous day evidently the story was presented in greater depth in the newspaper itself as can be seen by going to this particular website http://www.tpuc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=139126&sid=8e1f55edc51c10007be0e7d3489314e2 In this forum you need to scroll to 8th August 2010 where someone calling themselves "leavemealone" has made a couple of entries. The first of these is a newspaper report about the occasion when Dr Hunt allegedly mixed up the details of two dead servicemen (this needs its own blogpost at some time). The second entry is the Daily Mail piece involving DC Coe (now retired). Here is an extract:
‘I think he was wearing a green Barbour jacket and a bluish checked shirt, both of which I think were rolled up, and dark cords. I think he was wearing his glasses and I think his eyes were closed. I could see his left wrist had been cut.
That he thought that Dr Kelly was wearing his spectacles is extraordinary, particularly as he thinks his eyes were closed. The reference to dark cords is strange too because the jeans he was wearing would presumably be denim in the normal accepted definition of jeans.
Regarding the body position we have Mr Coe saying to the Mail in 2010:
‘As I got closer, I could see Dr Kelly’s body sideways on, with his head and shoulders against a large tree. He wasn’t dead flat along the ground. If you wanted to die, you’d never lie flat out. But neither was he sat upright.’
Go back seven years to 2003 and this is what DC Coe is saying to the Hutton Inquiry:
Q. And how was the body positioned?
A. It was laying on its back -- the body was laying on its back by a large tree, the head towards the trunk of the tree.
I do have a problem reconciling these two statements.
DC Coe guarded the body for 25 to 30 minutes - or did he?
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.
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.
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'?
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