1.
Politics
Hutton report
HUTTON INQUIRY CLOSED DAVID KELLY MEDICAL REPORTS FOR 70 YEARS
By Afua Hirsch
** Doctors trying to see files consider legal challenge -- Doubt grows over suicide verdict on Iraq expert **
Guardian (London)
January 25, 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/25/david-kelly-suicide-hutton-inquiry
Lord Hutton's decision to classify documents about the death of Dr. David Kelly is likely to face a legal challenge amid claims by experts that there are increasing grounds to question the inquiry's verdict of suicide.
The Hutton inquiry, which reported in 2004 that Kelly's death was suicide after he cut an artery in his wrist, has come under scrutiny from doctors who claim the medical account is improbable.
Five doctors who made an application to the Oxford coroner to have the inquest reopened have been told Lord Hutton made a ruling in 2003 to keep medical reports and photographs closed for 70 years. "This is a revelation," said Michael Powers QC, a former assistant coroner and expert in coronial law. "I can't think of anything that would justify these documents being treated any differently."
The doctors are trauma surgeon David Halpin, epidemiologist Andrew Rouse, surgeon Martin Birnstingl, radiologist Stephen Frost, and Chris Burns-Cox, who specializes in internal general medicine. They applied for the documents with a view to applying to the attorney general to have the inquest reopened.
"We hope to get more materials from the coroner, examine those, and in the light of those materials make submissions," said Powers, who is closely involved in the case, although not party to the legal proceedings.
But a response from the coroner's legal advisers rejected the doctors' request, and revealed that the documents had been classified. "It is truly remarkable that they should be kept secret for twice as long as the other documents. I'm sure that they will meet with their legal advisers and consider the most appropriate way to deal with this," Powers said.
The doctors are also thought to be considering a challenge to the coroner's decision not to allow them to be "interested parties." Freedom of information experts say there appear to be strong grounds for the legal challenges. "If Lord Hutton was not carrying out a statutory inquiry, I can't immediately see what power he had to order that these records be closed," said Maurice Frankel, Director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information.
News of the decision to keep the documents classified has come as a surprise to lawyers. There is no mention of the decision on the Hutton inquiry website.
"If a matter as sensitive as this was not made public . . . it raises questions as to what else was withheld," said Powers. "You can't help but suspect that the legal advisers to the Oxfordshire coroner disclosed it inadvertently, thinking that it was already known that this material was being kept secret for such a long period."
Questions have remained around the death of Dr. Kelly after an initial inquest into his death was never resumed. Instead, the Hutton findings were said to be sufficient. But the inquiry applied a less stringent test than would have used in an inquest, where a coroner has to be sure "beyond reasonable doubt" that a person intended to kill themselves.
"There should be a full inquiry. We need a proper answer," said Powers. "The medical evidence doesn't add up. I have yet to meet a doctor that will say it was even possible, let alone likely."
2.
DR. DAVID KELLY DEATH EVIDENCE TO BE KEPT SECRET FOR 70 YEARS
Daily Mirror (London)
January 25, 2010
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/25/dr-david-kelly-death-evidence-to-be-kept-secret-for-70-years-115875-21992989/
Evidence about the death of Iraq weapons row scientist David Kelly will be kept secret for 70 years.
Medical records including a postmortem will remain classified until after all those connected with the case are dead.
Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry into Dr. Kelly's death, imposed the unusually long time limit.
Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has questioned an inquest verdict of suicide on Dr. Kelly, said the decision was "astonishing."
Dr. Kelly was found dead in woods close to his Oxfordshire home in 2003.
He had been identified as the source of BBC reports disputing government claims on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
3.
DAVID KELLY POST MORTEM TO BE KEPT SECRET FOR 70 YEARS AS DOCTORS ACCUSE LORD HUTTON OF CONCEALING VITAL INFORMATION
By Miles Goslett
Dail Mail (London)
January 24, 2010 (updated Jan. 25)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245599/David-Kelly-post-mortem-kept-secret-70-years-doctors-accuse-Lord-Hutton-concealing-vital-information.html
Vital evidence which could solve the mystery of the death of Government weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly will be kept under wraps for up to 70 years.
In a draconian -- and highly unusual -- order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr. Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence.
The move, which will stoke fresh speculation about the true circumstances of Dr. Kelly’s death, comes just days before Tony Blair appears before the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War.
It is also bound to revive claims of an establishment cover-up and fresh questions about the verdict that Dr. Kelly killed himself.
Tonight, Dr. Michael Powers QC, a doctor campaigning to overturn the Hutton findings, said: ‘What is it about David Kelly’s death which is so secret as to justify these reports being kept out of the public domain for 70 years?’
Campaigning Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has also questioned the verdict that Dr. Kelly committed suicide, said: ‘It is astonishing this is the first we’ve known about this decision by Lord Hutton and even more astonishing he should have seen fit to hide this material away.’
The body of former United Nations weapons inspector Dr. Kelly was found in July 2003 in woods close to his Oxfordshire home, shortly after he was exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the Government’s claims that Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, which could be deployed within 45 minutes.
Lord Hutton’s 2004 report, commissioned by Mr. Blair, concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.
It was dismissed by many experts as a whitewash for clearing the Government of any culpability, despite evidence that it had leaked Dr. Kelly’s name in an attempt to smear him.
Only now has it emerged that a year after his inquiry was completed, Lord Hutton took unprecedented action to ensure that the vital evidence remains a state secret for so long.
A letter, leaked to the *Mail on Sunday*, revealed that a 30-year ban was placed on ‘records provided [which were] not produced in evidence.’ This is thought to refer to witness statements given to the inquiry which were not disclosed at the time.
In addition, it has now been established that Lord Hutton ordered all medical reports -- including the post-mortem findings by pathologist Dr. Nicholas Hunt and photographs of Dr. Kelly’s body -- to remain classified information for 70 years.
The normal rules on post-mortems allow close relatives and ‘properly interested persons’ to apply to see a copy of the report and to ‘inspect’ other documents.
Lord Hutton’s measure has overridden these rules, so the files will not be opened until all such people are likely to be dead.
Last night, the Ministry of Justice was unable to explain the legal basis for Lord Hutton’s order.
The restrictions came to light in a letter from the legal team of Oxfordshire County Council to a group of doctors who are challenging the Hutton verdict.
Last year, a group of doctors, including Dr. Powers, compiled a medical dossier as part of their legal challenge to the Hutton verdict.
They argue that Hutton’s conclusion that Dr. Kelly killed himself by severing the ulnar artery in his left wrist after taking an overdose of prescription painkillers is untenable because the artery is small and difficult to access, and severing it could not have caused death.
In their 12-page opinion, they concluded: ‘The bleeding from Dr Kelly’s ulnar artery is highly unlikely to have been so voluminous and rapid that it was the cause of death. We advise the instructing solicitors to obtain the autopsy reports so that the concerns of a group of properly interested medical specialists can be answered.’
Tonight, Dr. Powers, a former assistant coroner, added: ‘Supposedly all evidence relevant to the cause of death has been heard in public at the time of Lord Hutton’s inquiry. If these secret reports support the suicide finding, what could they contain that could be so sensitive?’
The letter disclosing the 70-year restriction was written by Nick Graham, assistant head of legal and democratic services at Oxfordshire Council.
It states: ‘Lord Hutton made a request for the records provided to the inquiry, not produced in evidence, to be closed for 30 years, and that medical (including post-mortem) reports and photographs be closed for 70 years.’
Nicholas Gardiner, the Chief Coroner for Oxfordshire, confirmed that he had seen the letter.
Speaking to the *Mail on Sunday* today, he said: ‘I know that Lord Hutton made that recommendation. Someone told me at the time. Anybody concerned will be dead by then, and that is quite clearly Lord Hutton’s intention.’
Asked what was in the records that made it necessary for them to be embargoed, Mr. Gardiner said: ‘They’re Lord Hutton’s records, not mine. You’d have to ask him.’
He added that in his opinion Lord Hutton had embargoed the records to protect Dr. Kelly’s children.
The inquest into Dr. Kelly’s death was suspended before it could begin by the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. He used the Coroners Act to designate the Hutton Inquiry as ‘fulfilling the function of an inquest.’
News that the records will be kept secret comes just days before Mr. Blair gives evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday.
To date, Dr. Kelly’s name has scarcely been mentioned at the inquiry. One source who held a private meeting with Sir John Chilcot before the proceedings began said that Sir John had admitted he ‘did not want to touch the Kelly issue.’
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: ‘Any decision made by Lord Hutton at the time of his inquiry was entirely a matter for him.’
A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said yesterday that it would not be possible to search their records during the weekend.
The Mail on Sunday was unable to contact Lord Hutton.
4.
COMMENT
By James Harlosh, Isle of Skye
Mail on Sunday (London)
January 26, 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245599/David-Kelly-post-mortem-kept-secret-70-years-doctors-accuse-Lord-Hutton-concealing-vital-information.html
Just how stupid do they think we are? First, they try and tell us that it was a suicide, then they realize that they have literally been caught with blood on their hands, AND NOW, the best part. Why do we have to wait 70 years to tell us that he committed suicide, if that is the story they are sticking to? I am sorry, but these lies do not wash with me any more and I have a feeling that the public are starting to awaken to more and more of the lies that are being spun by our rulers.
5.
COMMENT
By Caroline, Swindon
Mail on Sunday (London)
January 26, 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245599/David-Kelly-post-mortem-kept-secret-70-years-doctors-accuse-Lord-Hutton-concealing-vital-information.html
Who the hell is Lord Hutton to dictate this? The government is a servant of the people and as such should be answerable. I am overpowered by something that stinks to high heaven.
6.
COMMENT
By Paul Hartley, Hall Green
Mail on Sunday (London)
January 26, 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245599/David-Kelly-post-mortem-kept-secret-70-years-doctors-accuse-Lord-Hutton-concealing-vital-information.html
Some commenters here just don't get it, do they? The next government is not going to release the information, nor the one after that. Democracy in this country, as in America, is an illusion. All the establishment parties are controlled by the same corporate and banking interests and so is the mainstream media.
7.
HUTTON WAS FARCICAL, FEEBLE AND AMATEURISH... SO WE MUST BE TOLD THE TRUTH NEXT WEEK
By Norman Baker, M.P.
Mail Online (London)
January 25, 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1245626/NORMAN-BAKER-Hutton-farcical-feeble-amateurish--MUST-told-truth-week.html
When Tony Blair finally appears before the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday, there will be many across the land who will be longing to see him at last brought before the bar of public opinion to account for his central role in launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Here is the man who planned it all well in advance, but told Parliament he was trying to avoid war.
The man who told us Saddam Hussein presented an increasing threat, when the Iraqi dictator possessed no weapons of mass destruction at all.
The man who said he put the British interest first, but who, eager and starry-eyed, followed George Bush wherever he wanted to go, even into the maddest corners.
On Friday, Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues will be polite, measured, and calm. But, encouragingly, they will almost certainly be well-briefed and forensic as well, if previous sessions are anything to go by.
Don’t let us count chickens, but we may yet get the final report that people want to see, nailing Blair, Campbell, Hoon, and the rest of the shameful shower.
Yet the fact that we, the British people, have had to wait seven long years for justice is a disgrace, and much of the blame can be firmly laid at the door of one man: Lord Brian Hutton.
In contrast to the probing Chilcot Inquiry, the 2003 equivalent that was led by Lord Hutton now looks an amateurish, feeble, and farcical process for which the term ‘inquiry’ is frankly laughable.
Here, the most challenging question the then Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues were asked was whether they could confirm their names and if they wanted a cup of tea. All right, I exaggerate, but not by much.
But when Lord Hutton finally reported in January 2004, he astonished the nation by clearing the Government of everything -- dodgy dossiers and all -- and instead fastened blame firmly on the BBC. If in doubt, shoot the messenger.
Now we learn that evidence which was not presented at the inquiry has been locked away for 70 years -- and this inquiry, remember, was to subject Dr. David Kelly’s death to public scrutiny.
How could Lord Hutton have got it so wrong?
The reality is that his inquiry was fixed by Blair and his cohorts to produce the right result. If you put down the tracks, that’s the way the train goes.
Hutton was appointed, and his terms of reference agreed, within record time, just hours after Dr. Kelly, the Government’s foremost weapons inspector, was found dead on Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire.
His task was to examine the circumstances surrounding the scientist’s death, including the political events that straddled the war, not least the claim that the Government’s case for war had been ‘sexed up.’
Lord Hutton was the ideal appointment for the Government. He had chaired only one inquiry before -- into the diversion of a river in Northern Ireland.
Even more importantly, throughout his career he had shown himself to be sympathetic to the Government and critical of the media.
In 1973, he had represented the Ministry of Defence at the Bloody Sunday inquests. In 1991, he successfully led the campaign to overturn the decision to extradite the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
In 2002, he blocked the attempt by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler to use a public-interest defense to justify his revelations about the actions of the organization.
Nobody is suggesting that Lord Hutton was anything other than independent but, in the words of Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister, you don’t choose a judge whom you can lean on; you choose one who doesn’t have to be leant on.
Worse, Tony Blair and his close circle decided from the outset that Hutton’s should be a ‘non-statutory inquiry.’
Take away the jargon and what that means is no witness could be compelled to appear, nobody could be required to tell the truth or charged with perjury if they didn’t, and the normal safeguards associated with a court process, such as proper cross-examination of witnesses, were entirely absent.
If Lord Hutton’s conduct of his inquiry into the battle between the Government and the BBC was deeply unsatisfactory, his examination of the death of Dr Kelly was pathetic.
You might think that such a high-profile and controversial death would call for an especially rigorous examination.
Instead, it was investigated to a lower standard than normal.
So, incredibly, Lord Hutton did not, for example, call the police officer who was actually heading the investigation into Dr. Kelly’s death, Chief Inspector Alan Young.
Nor did we hear from the scientist’s best friend, Mai Pedersen, who would have been able to tell Lord Hutton that Dr. Kelly had damaged his right arm and was incapable of cutting steak, let alone cutting his left wrist.
She could also have told him that her friend, who we were invited to believe had swallowed 29 co-proxamol tablets, had an aversion to swallowing medication.
Lord Hutton did not even inquire as to whose fingerprints were on the knife allegedly used to slit Dr. Kelly’s wrist. That was left for me to establish through a Freedom of Information request, which revealed there were no fingerprints on the knife, and Dr. Kelly was not wearing gloves.
Lord Hutton was to confess that he had not bothered looking into the death very deeply.
Writing in the Inner Temple Yearbook 2004, he unashamedly observed: ‘I thought that there would be little serious dispute as to the background facts [about Dr. Kelly’s death].
'I thought unnecessary time could be taken up by cross-examination on matters which were not directly relevant.’
So key questions went unasked, conflicting and contradictory evidence abounded, and no attempt was made to tie up the countless loose ends.
And now it seems that Lord Hutton has unilaterally decided that the records of his inquiry should be closed for 30 years and medical evidence for an incredible 70 years -- evidence that is hotly disputed by a number of medical practitioners, who are looking to take court action to force a proper inquest to be held.
In an inquest, all the evidence is there for the public to see. What is Lord Hutton seeking to hide away until nearly all of us are dead?
The Chilcot Inquiry is also a non-statutory one, but looks like proving rather more robust in dealing with the politics of 2003. Yet Dr. Kelly’s name has barely been mentioned.
If we are to draw a line under the events of 2003, Chilcot needs to acknowledge that Lord Hutton was as useless in dealing with Dr. Kelly’s death as he was with weapons of mass destruction, if not more so.
He should accept Dr. Kelly is entitled to the inquest he never had, and recommend that one should now take place.
--Norman Baker is the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes and the author of The Strange Death of David Kelly.
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