Hutton started sitting 1st August 2003 in a modern attachment to the neo-medieval Royal Courts of Justice with IT facilities on hand.  He sat alone.  His sonorous voice suggested authority, but he had no coronial experience.  He probably did not know there are four chambers in the human heart but he did know about death and blood. 

He was defence counsel for the Ministry of Defence (1) but not listed (2), at the Widgery Inquiry into the shooting to death by paratroopers of unarmed Irish republican marchers 30th January 1972 – ‘Bloody Sunday’.  It is interesting to note that Widgery was invited to lead a 1921 type  judicial inquiry the day after the shooting.  But it was a quick whitewash with buckets of red added.

This is a reminder of how a coroner might speak –

“The city’s coroner, retired British Army Major Hubert O’Neill, issued a statement on 21 August 1973, at the completion of the inquest into the 14 people killed.  He declared: This Sunday became known as Bloody Sunday and bloody it was. It was quite unnecessary. It strikes me that the Army ran amok that day and shot without thinking what they were doing. They were shooting innocent people. These people may have been taking part in a march that was banned but that does not justify the troops coming in and firing live rounds indiscriminately. I would say without hesitation that it was sheer, unadulterated murder. It was murder.” (3)

The Saville inquiry was set up in 1998; it sat for 12 years.  On 15 June 2010 Cameron told both Houses  ”What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.”  Major O’Neill, Her Majesty’s coroner, had given the same verdict at a tiny fraction of the time and cost with expedition.

 Hutton (4) called about 100 witnesses from the two paramedics and Ms Holmes the searcher who found the corpse, down to Blair, Campbell and Hoon.  About one third were from the ‘intelligence’ department concerned with defending the UK by the subversion of other nations and by illegal war.  Another third were people who had some personal connection with Dr Kelly and the remainder were civilian authorities.  That no oath was taken was fortunate for some because there was no risk of imprisonment for lying.  It was all very plummy; ‘Yes my Lord, no my Lord, three bags full my Lord’.  The aim was to bury the truth six foot deep beneath spadefuls of words.  Many answers were left in mid air and many questions went unasked.  The author was not there but the transcripts convey the surreal.

‘Only one half day of twenty-one days spent sitting was to do with the forensic medical aspects’ (Michael Powers QC BSc MB BS FFFLM).  There was no one in the court with any forensic knowledge who could examine Dr Hunt the forensic pathologist, or Dr Allan the forensic toxicologist, in any depth  Added to that, the examination of witnesses was generally ‘kid glove’.  Questions there were plenty and often superfluous for the key witnesses like Mrs Janice Kelly and daughter Rachel.  They were expected to remember the many times when dark clouds might have crossed his face; the subtext was the possibility that he might have been thinking of ending his life.  But that did not come across strongly; there was no exaggeration of that possibility in question or answer.  There was a rehearsed quality to the evidence of mother and daughter, especially given the remembered detail.

 So the well oiled gears of an ad hoc inquiry were engaged.  Ad hoc; for one particular purpose or situation only.  Chambers Dictionary.  Purpose certain.

Rachel Kelly gave evidence after her mother and Sara Pape, her father’s half sister, on the morning of the 1st of September.  As with her mother Janice, she was in a separate room or building.  There was an audio link between her and the court and there was a still picture of her on a video screen in the court.  Was it possible for the audio link to be interrupted if it was thought necessary? (see below)  Why was the questioning of Janice and Rachel Kelly done like this?  One could presume it was to cause them less distress but distress was not evident in the transcript.  Eye to eye contact and all human expression is necessary for the fullest understanding.

Rachel Kelly’s evidence

However, Rachel’s evidence is of the greatest interest.  She says her father was very fond of the Iraqi people. (5) **  This extract and the author’s comments were one of several made to the Attorney General when a group of doctors were pleading for the AG to facilitate an inquest.(6)  The short first part outlines why the AG should have withdrawn from any consideration of a second inquest given his conflict of interest; he had voted for the Iraq ‘war’.

 The following part is to do with two trips by Dr Kelly to the Middle East.  The first was out on the 19th of May, and back the next day.  He had some trouble with his visa before take off from Heathrow.  On arrival in Kuwait airport (which was probably under the command of Polish forces) he was arrested, searched, his cell ‘phone taken and he was then confined to an hotel.  To use Rachel’s words he was deported the next day.  He always had a minder, who had been a navigation officer in the RAF.  Did he have a minder then?  A ‘phone call from Heathrow to the MoD about the visa ‘problem’ of this man with top security clearance should have resolved it in minutes.  What was behind this unpleasant nonsense?  Did someone not want Kelly to see what the coalition of the willing had been up to in Iraq?  No questions were posed about this in the Hutton Inquiry.

The second trip was from 5th June to the 11th June 2003.  He was put up in very poor accommodation.  The coalition had found two wheeled structures in the Iraq desert which they thought were for the production of germs.  A large amount of propaganda flowed from this with aerial pictures etc.  Dr Kelly said –

“They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were – facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.” (7) 

In fact BAe had sold them to Iraq for this purpose and no doubt at exorbitant cost.

Dr Kelly’s clear words dismissing these ‘mobile germ warfare laboratories’ should be seen in context.  Little has been made of them.  Millions in the UK knew that the coalition had seized pretexts from thin air in the preceding months to justify its bombardment and invasion of Iraq.  In short, they knew or could sense those in the sofa cabinet were psychopaths to whom black was white, and white was black.  When the war crime was well embedded like the reporters, there was even greater public antagonism to the massive and inhuman action.  Stories were circulating that there were no WMDs to be found.  Imagine the reaction in the cabinet and within the war machine when Kelly’s contradiction flew back.  Nothing could have been less welcome to those bent on demolishing Iraq.  He was lying at Harrowdown Hill 5 weeks later.

 This is an appropriate context to consider what he might have known about the weapons and methods being used in Iraq.  His wife spoke of seven computers in his study.  He was sometimes given a new laptop for a new assignment.  It was said his ‘computer’ connections were encrypted.  It is likely he received reports from the ‘battlefield’.  He was looked to for advice about protection from WMDs although concerns about those in the UK troops soon disappeared when the suits could not be worn in the heat.

The author strongly believes that a neutron shell, or similar, was the cause of the terrible incineration of the arms of Ali Abbas and the burning of his trunk to a depth of one inch.  His pregnant mother, his father and ten relatives were incinerated in the same house. (7 – beware images)   If the author is right, and there is some supporting evidence apart from analysis of the images, Kelly would probably have known.  His expertise extended across the black spectrum from germ to chemical to nuclear weapons.

114 “ We know your father went on the 7th and 8th July to RAF Honington, which is over East Anglia way. Did you know he was going to do that?

RAF Honington was the base for the Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiation and Nuclear Regiment that was active from 1-04-1999 to 16-12-2011 Joint British Army and RAF.

Simply put, Kelly knew the works.  Was this civil, thoughtful and highly intelligent man about to step out of line?  If there was a hint of that, and his response to the twin machines was more than that, what would the sofa chums and all those in step at the MoD, FCO and MI6 be ‘thinking’.  It was a critical time for that supreme war crime.

**  There was a story on the www.  Dr Kelly and two graduate friends from their Oxford college met up on the eve of the millenium.  They buried a time capsule.  Dr Kelly’s inclusion was an Iraqi army cap badge.

Explanatory Note regarding the transcript of Rachel Kelly’s examination

There are two ‘unmatched’ breaks in the transcript of Rachel’s examination:-

104  Obviously he had not been out there since 1998 and although he had followed the progress of the war the actual reality of going to Iraq made quite an impact on him, and he was disappointed he did not see any actual real Iraqis, as he put it. He was very fond of the Iraqi people and he was actually …………….  all the personnel there had to stay on the airfield, I think, for security reasons.

 105  In general conversation really. Certainly Tom Mangold, as a family we were all aware of him. I was aware that when he had been out to ……………..(inaudible) he had lunch with Julie Flint —
Your father had told you about this?   Yes, he would just mention it in passing. He often told me. I would actually book to go out myself and we would sometimes share where we had both been and
restaurants we had been to, and he just commented he had been to lunch with this lady who I knew to be a journalist.  To which country?  (Ms Flint appears to have political in addition to journalistic functions.)

 Notes

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Hutton,_Baron_Hutton

2. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/hmso/widgery.htm

3. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/bsunday/chron.htm

4. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/index.htm

 5. link can no longer be found

6. http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/23-articles/dr-david-kelly/147-mc-g-rachel-deportation

7. http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/9-articles/war-on-the-afghans-and-the-iraqis/58-anthony-charles-lynton-blair-due-on-trial-in-the-hague

The above text was revised and updated on August 5, 2013