A dramatic first week for Hutton

by Nick Higham BBC media correspondent

Last Wednesday I stood outside the Royal Courts of Justice and told viewers of the BBC's One O'Clock News what in my opinion "any fair-minded person" would conclude about Susan Watts' tape of Dr David Kelly, which had been played that morning to the Hutton inquiry.

It showed, I suggested, that he did indeed think Alastair Campbell had had a hand in transforming the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons - even though the Newsnight reporter herself insisted that it didn't.

It was (I admit) precisely the conclusion my bosses at the BBC hoped we would all come to, but I can't help that.

As I walked away from the camera in search of a sandwich, an ITN reporter asked me what I thought.

Watts taped Dr Kelly conversation

I told him. Oh no, he said, he disagreed. The man from Sky sitting next to him did too.

Both thought the Watts tape (or at least the transcript of it - to those sitting in Court 73 the elderly tape itself was barely audible, so often had it been played) was damning evidence that Andrew Gilligan on Radio 4's Today programme had exaggerated both the extent to which the dossier had been transformed and Alastair Campbell's role.

We stood in the sweltering sun debating the issue, and soon others joined in. Another ITN reporter agreed with me rather than her colleague. So did someone else I didn't recognise. Eventually there were eight or 10 of us engaged in a vigorous exchange of views.

It is unusual to find journalists so passionate about a story, although since the Hutton inquiry is partly about journalism it is perhaps not surprising.

It is also unusual to find them adopting such radically different interpretations of the facts. Clearly I was wrong: not all fair-minded people do agree that Susan Watts' tape corroborates Andrew Gilligan's story.

But Wednesday's newspapers should have prepared me for that. In many papers, the reporting of the evidence presented to the Hutton inquiry has been extraordinarily one-sided, even by the partisan standards of Fleet Street.

Different accounts

So Wednesday morning's accounts of Tuesday's evidence - mainly from Andrew Gilligan, though Susan Watts took the stand for the last half hour - differed sharply.

Gilligan had told us of his meeting with Dr Kelly, shown us the notes made at the time on his Sharp electronic organiser and insisted that it was Dr Kelly, not he, who had first mentioned Alastair Campbell's name in their discussion of the dossier.

But he had been forced to admit the language he used in his first report "wasn't perfect" and the inquiry had learnt of a memo from his boss, Today's editor, criticising his "loose language" and "lack of judgement in some of his phraseology".

Susan Watts, meanwhile, had told us of a conversation with Dr Kelly in which he had mentioned Alastair Campbell in connection with the dossier - though she had dismissed his remarks as "glib" and "gossipy".

In the following morning's Sun, the most rabidly pro-Campbell paper, the admissions of Gilligan's failings prompted the front page headline "Lies, lies, lies".

The headline in the Sun's pro-government stablemate, the Times, was more temperate, but also chose to lead on the BBC's failings: "BBC admits Iraq scoop was flawed".

By contrast the pro-BBC Independent had: "Two reporters, one story - Campbell sexed up the dossier". The Daily Mail (usually as rabidly anti-BBC as the Sun is pro-Campbell, but on this occasion the BBC's unlikely ally) talked of the "double damning of Campbell".

For the anti-Campbell papers, it seemed, the fact that David Kelly had said similar things to two different journalists was evidence not just that Gilligan and Watts had accurately reported his views but that Alastair Campbell was indeed guilty as charged - not quite the same thing.

'Bullied'

Thursday morning's papers were equally divided. Watts' complaint that the BBC had tried to pressurise her into revealing her source and moulding her story so as to corroborate Gilligan's produced the Sun headline "Bullied by the Beeb".

"The BBC has gone to war with the government over a dodgy story delivered in 'loose language'. And now it has been accused by one of its most respected journalists of bullying her to 'mould' her story to fit this chicanery," wrote the paper's political editor, Trevor Kavanagh, who is close to Campbell.

The BBC should give up now and apologise for this "rash gamble" he suggested.

But for other papers Watts' tape was proof that Number 10 had been up to no good.

"The voice of dead scientist Dr David Kelly came back from the grave yesterday to haunt Tony Blair and his spin-master Alastair Campbell," said the Mail.

"It was No 10: Kelly tape bombshell," ran the headline in the Mirror.

By the end of the week however even the pro-government press was forced to concede that civil servants and politicians had put Dr Kelly under intense pressure. The Mail called it "the destruction of a decent man", the Mirror "the bullies' shame". Kelly had been "hounded" according to the Guardian, "thrown to the wolves" according to the Mirror.

The papers differed only on how far up the tree to lay the blame. The Sun fingered the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon. The Times and the Daily Telegraph led on the involvement of the prime minister himself.

Credibility

The Hutton inquiry is a test of the credibility of a whole series of individuals and institutions, among them David Kelly, Andrew Gilligan, Alastair Campbell, Geoff Hoon, the BBC, the government in general and Number 10 and the Ministry of Defence in particular.

So far, none of them have emerged with their reputations unscathed.

Dr Kelly may have been hugely respected for his expertise, but he clearly went beyond what he was authorised to say in his conversations with journalists and was evasive and even untruthful in his dealings with his superiors at the MoD, the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Andrew Gilligan may have been broadly correct in reporting what his source told him, but some of his journalism was sloppy.

The BBC is accused of having publicly backed one reporter despite internal doubts about aspects of his work, and of having tried to pressurise a second.

Lord Hutton will hear from government officials and BBC staff

Alastair Campbell is revealed as the author of a succession of hectoring, nit-picking and sometimes bullying letters of complaint to the BBC (which may have proved counter-productive, driving the corporation into a defensive posture in which it was reluctant to admit any error).

Geoff Hoon stands accused of having put "presentational" considerations ahead of his employee's interests - against the advice of his most senior civil servant - by insisting that Dr Kelly give evidence to the committee.

And evidence has even started to emerge that one of Dr Kelly's central charges - that the September dossier was "hardened up" - may well have been true.

Meanwhile the newspapers, with the notable exceptions of the Financial Times and the Guardian, are revealed as unreliable guides to the inquiry's proceedings and what it all means.

All that, and still there are several weeks of hearings to come. Next week we will hear from Alastair Campbell himself, from some of the prime minister's closest aides, from government spokesmen and women and from the journalists who first revealed Dr Kelly's name.

Still to come after that, Tony Blair, Geoff Hoon, the BBC's chairman and perhaps many others.

And at some point many of the inquiry's witnesses may be called back for cross-examination by lawyers for the government, the BBC and Dr Kelly's family.

Those reputations may sustain a good deal more damage yet.