Day 22: Key Points

Here are the key points of Day 22 of the Hutton inquiry into the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly with the most recent witness first.

Richard Hatfield

The MoD personnel director, making his fourth appearance before the inquiry, said on 8 July he told Dr Kelly the department would need to make a statement about him that evening.

Mr Hatfield said he suggested "reinserting a reference that had been in the draft the previous day to say the meeting with Andrew Gilligan was unauthorised". The reference was taken out but was then reinstated.

He read the text of the statement to Dr Kelly "paragraph by paragraph" at 5.10pm. "He [Dr Kelly] said very little at all but after each paragraph he indicated that he had not got a problem. When I finished running through the text, I confirmed that he was content with it."

Mr Hatfield told Dr Kelly the statement "would go out very fast" and he was certain it would be out by 7pm.

When he spoke to the scientist at 4.15pm, he said he should contact the press office and Dr Bryan Wells once the statement had been released to arrange for some support.

Professor Keith Hawton

The suicide expert said Dr Kelly believed his own mother might have committed suicide while he was at university.

Dr Kelly had told Janice, his wife, that his mother might have killed herself after suffering a stroke.

"I think the relevance of that fact was extremely uncertain and it would have been speculation to put it forward."

Prof Hawton said he had received more information since giving initial evidence to the inquiry on 2 September, which included a letter setting out Dr Kelly's vetting procedures, in which he said he thought his mother might have killed herself, a copy of the register of her death and a memo from his GP at the time of her death.

An extract from an interview on 20 November 1985 stated: "Dr Kelly said his mother died by her own hand in 1964, never having remarried."

Dr Kelly said at the time she had suffered from depression for several years and he believed the coroner was correct when he said the balance of her mind was disturbed at the time of her death.

An unnamed friend of Dr Kelly, said on 28 November that year that the "while the tragedy distressed him, he appeared to ride the period well and at no time when we were together did he display any mental reactions." He described his friend as a "well balanced person".

An open verdict was recorded at an inquest into the death of Dr Kelly's mother.

Prof Hawton said there was "no evidence" Dr Kelly "had significant mental illness", or "aggression or impulsiveness". "Absolutely not, indeed the reverse," he said.

According to several accounts, Dr Kelly "had become increasingly withdrawn into himself during the period shortly before his death, which meant he became even less accessible, less able to discuss his problems with other people", said Prof Hawton.

Nick Rufford

The Sunday Times journalist said when he arrived at Dr Kelly's house on 9 July, he was not aware that the weapons expert was the source of Andrew Gilligan's report on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"I suspected he might be the person who had spoken to Andrew Gilligan but I didn't know that for sure...."

"His first words were that he had been contacted by the MoD and told he would be named in national newspapers the following day."

After leaving the scientist's house, Mr Rufford said he called his news editor to tell him that Dr Kelly had confirmed he was the person who had spoken to Mr Gilligan.

Mr Rufford said Dr Kelly told him "that he had been misrepresented in the way that the BBC had reported..." and the journalist asked him if he would like to write an article for the Sunday Times, putting his point of view.

He offered Dr Kelly hotel accommodation but this had not been connected or dependent upon the weapons inspector writing for the newspaper.

"He said he would be happy to do it with the approval of the MoD press office," said Mr Rufford.

The journalist left Dr Kelly's house and called Pam Teare, MoD head of news, at about 8.17pm with the proposal.

She refused, but then said in the unlikely event Dr Kelly would be allowed, she would consider Mr Rufford's request first.

When asked if the scientist had been unhappy about his visit, Mr Rufford said: "Before I crossed the road, Dr Kelly saw me in the car park of the [pub]. I waved at him and he acknowledged me. It took some time for me to cross and he stayed at the end of his drive and waited so I did not believe he was unwelcoming."

Mr Rufford said he only stayed 15 minutes at Dr Kelly's house because he had not invited him in beyond his drive so he felt it was appropriate to go.

Asked about a story that was written on 11 April - in which Dr Kelly was said to be "frustrated" to see his name - Mr Rufford said: "Dr Kelly never said to me he objected to having been quoted. It was a one-line quotation."

He had had nine or 10 conversations with Dr Kelly since 13 April, he said.

Dr Kelly had told him he was not offered any advice by the MoD about hotel accommodation or getting a press office chaperone.

Wing Commander John Clark

The wing commander, who worked in the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat, was asked about four parliamentary questions which were sent to Dr Kelly's computer by his MoD colleague James Harrison on 17 July.

He said he had tried to contact Dr Kelly after 3pm that day, but could not raise him.

James Harrison

Dr Kelly's Ministry of Defence colleague said he was not aware that the weapons expert was under undue pressure by 17 July.

"My perception was that he had been under pressure but that the peak of that had very much passed."

Mr Harrison said Dr Kelly was back at home after leaving to avoid the media, adding: "As it seemed to me, the peak had passed, he had these administrative details, in effect, to attend to and beyond that he could focus on his deployment to Iraq."

Dr Bryan Wells

Dr Kelly's line manager at the Ministry of Defence said he and Richard Hatfield, the MoD's personnel director, first interviewed the weapons expert on 4 July about his contacts with BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan.

They discussed the possibility that a press statement would have to be issued, but suggested that it would refer to an unnamed individual.

At a second interview on 7 July, the issue of Dr Kelly's name "emerging" in public was raised with him.

At the same time, the MoD officials had begun working on the "question and answer" material that would allow press officers to confirm Dr Kelly's identity to reporters if they came up with the right name.

Asked by James Dingemans QC, Counsel to the inquiry, if Dr Kelly had been informed of the plan, Dr Wells said: "At no point did David discuss the mechanics of his name emerging with me."

Mr Dingemans asked: "This is fair, is it not ... at no point did anyone discuss with Dr Kelly the mechanics by which his name might emerge?" Dr Wells replied: "I can only answer for myself, sir, in that I did not."

Dr Wells said on 9 July he was asked to tell Dr Kelly that reporters knew his name.

Telephone records showed that he called Dr Kelly twice, with the first call at 7.03pm lasting 46 seconds and the second, one minute and two seconds.

Dr Wells said he had made two phone calls because he had phoned from the train and he wanted to make sure Dr Kelly had received the message. He called again after getting off the train.

"He expressed no concern at all, as if this was going to be inevitable. He had accepted by this stage that his name would emerge."

Dr Wells said he next spoke to Dr Kelly on 11 July to tell him that he would have to appear before a televised session of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

"To the best of my recollection ... the words he used were: 'If I am asked to do it, I will do it'."

Gavyn Davies

The chairman of the BBC governors took to the stand at the Hutton inquiry at 1015 BST.

Mr Davies said there is no higher authority in the BBC than the governors who are "the supreme authority of the BBC".

The governors were acting as a supervisory authority with regard to handling Alastair Campbell's complaints about the Iraq dossier report.

Mr Davies was shown a 5 July letter from Mr Campbell to the BBC governors which noted that the BBC viewed his complaint as an attack on the corporation's independence and assuring them that was not the case.

Mr Davies said he welcomed that letter, but it was in sharp contrast to what Mr Campbell had said at the Foreign Affairs Committee the previous month.

Andrew Caldecott QC, Counsel for the BBC, asked about the Downing Street lobby briefing suggesting the government was simply asking the BBC to say whether it believed its one anonymous source outweighed the denials from the prime minister and the members of the Joint Intelligence Committee, and whether the corporation was in effect calling all those people liars.

Mr Davies said the BBC had never claimed those views outweighed the views of the prime minister and others, and it was not questioning the integrity of the prime minister. It was simply reporting a source.

Asked about Greg Dyke's observation that the BBC could itself have referred the matter to the programme complaints unit, Mr Davies replied that one of the governors raised that thought at the 6 July meeting.

But Mr Davies thought it had some disadvantages, because it needed Mr Campbell to be willing to bring evidence from the dossier drafts.

Mr Davies said the governors meeting on 6 July had been the only one in three years at which Greg Dyke was not present - the reason was he did not want the governors decision to be affected by considerations of the "sensibilities of management".

Mr Caldecott asked if the governors were "too ready to defend management" - Mr Davies said governors were "highly experienced and independent minded people" who did not do it for monetary reward, and have nothing to gain "by supporting management for the sake of it".

Mr Davies said this case was not like the majority of news broadcasts which are based on evidence in the public domain such as the Budget speech.

"If it appears on a news broadcast in the voice of a BBC newscaster then the bar of certainty is higher. And it is interesting to me in this case that what was said on the news broadcast at 0600 was actually somewhat different from what was said at 0607 [When Andrew Gilligan said that the 45 minute claim was included in the dossier despite Downing Street knowing it was probably wrong]."

Mr Davies said he still felt, having seen what has happened at the inquiry, "it was extremely difficulty... actually literally impossible for the governors to get the information required to determine the intrinsic accuracy of the source's allegations".

Because of this they focused on whether the source was credible and reliable and whether the correct procedures had been followed.

Mr Davies said it would not have made sense for the governors to be told the status of the source without being told his name, as the status would more or less have identified him.

Jonathan Sumption QC, Counsel for the Government, asked if that meant the governors could not be trusted with the information. Mr Davies said what he was saying is information given to 12 governors with a lot of other people present is not likely to remain secret.

Asked if the governors should have been told the source was not a member of the intelligence services, Mr Davies replied that the governors were not interested in the source's job, but wanted an absolute assurance the person was in a position to make the allegations which Mr Gilligan reported.

Mr Davies said "I have to tell you I am happy with the standing of the source now I know a great deal more about Dr Kelly".

Mr Davies was asked about an e-mail he sent to fellow governors at the height of the row saying "right or wrong on the 45 minutes, we must not buckle under govt pressure".

He still agreed with that e-mail because the BBC was faced with an "intemperate attack on our impartiality and integrity" and the public were looking to the BBC governors to be independent.

Mr Sumption suggested he was urging the governors they should not give an inch whatever further investigation showed but Mr Davies said: "I do not at any stage in my life ignore the facts." What concerned him most was the pressure from Campbell which was "intolerable".

Mr Davies agreed Andrew Gilligan's notes of his meeting with Dr Kelly were not put in front of the governors, even in redacted form.

He was not aware that by 6 July, BBC news chief Richard Sambrook knew the source was not in the intelligence sources. Mr Sambrook realised he had described the source wrongly in his Today programme interview, but he felt he could not correct his mistake without pointing further fingers at the source. He did not mention any of this to the governors.

Mr Davies said most journalists broadcast material based to a large extent "on memory as well as notes, and most journalists do not make verbatim or anywhere near verbatim notes of their discussions". Most journalists think it puts off the interviewee if they bring out a tape recorder or notepad.

Mr Davies was asked if it was to avoid being seen to criticise management that the governors' statement watered down an agreement at the meeting that the allegations should have been put to Number 10 before broadcast.

Mr Davies said: "I have never heard such nonsense. We watered it down in the statement because one of our most senior...governors thought it was actually actively wrong to give prior notification to Number 10."

Mr Sumption said the press release suggested the governors were under the impression the source was a senior intelligence source.

Mr Davies said the whole point of the governors decision was that producer guidelines had not been broken.

He accepted the words "senior intelligence source" in the press release could have been misunderstood. He said it was drafted in late not by him or anybody else on the board of governors. He regretted if it did mislead anyone.

Mr Davies said one of the governors, as recorded in the minutes, said it was "somewhat naive" of the Today programme not to recognise the nature of the story it was broadcasting, but other governors felt it was always difficult to say how big stories were.

Mr Davies agreed that Susan Watts' Newsnight reports omitted the point that the government knew the 45 minute claim was probably wrong. But her report supported the broad thrust of Mr Gilligan's report: "It was not identical, but it was not so different that it rang alarm bells in my head."

Mr Davies said he thought the public was looking to the governors to say to the government: "The BBC is not the state broadcaster."

He believed the governors were "cool headed" about the issues and one of the reasons why they wanted to put on record they were not questioning the prime minister's integrity was that they were deliberately trying to cool the atmosphere.