MoD press chief centre stage

By Ollie Stone-Lee
BBC News Online political staff at the Royal Courts of Justice

Most journalists at the Hutton Inquiry are now based in a big tent like some sort of travelling circus.

Inside Court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice, the inquiry counsel Peter Knox might not have been a circus knife-thrower, but as he took the podium twiddling his Biro, he seemed intent on showing that the pen really can be mightier than the sword.

In his sights was Pam Teare, the Ministry of Defence's director of news.

Ministry of Defence's Pam Teare

Her jacket sleeves rolled up, Ms Teare looked ready to tackle questioning more rigorous than her usual skirmishes with the doyens of the Westminster press pack.

Ms Teare spoke firmly and slowly throughout, her hands, with their red painted fingernails clasped tightly in front of her.

Barrister Mr Knox took on the body language of a keen listener, head to one side, coaxing the civil servant through a deluge of detail over meetings and telephone calls.

Naming strategy

If this were a circus, Ms Teare's role in this show was almost as Mrs Memory, with the most frequent question posed to her being: "Can you remember that?" as yet another document flickered up on one of the 52 screens which litter the courtroom.

This forensic approach - some of it covering a time when Ms Teare was on holiday - sometimes proved too much for the witness who, although always maintaining her composure, confessed at one point: "I'm not being very articulate."

The closest questioning covered the MoD's strategy of agreeing to confirm the name of Dr Kelly as the official who had spoken to BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan if reporters came up with the name themselves.

"It might be thought you did not want to be seen to be naming him directly," suggested Mr Knox, predicting that the press would inevitably be able to identify the then mystery official from the MoD's own utterings.

Ms Teare denied the ministry had that aim - and said part of the point of the confirmation policy was to protect other officials from being put into the spotlight of media speculation unfairly.

By the end, Ms Teare looked glad to be escaping the spotlight of the inquiry and Lord Hutton's ever-alert gaze as Mr Knox asked if she had anything else she would like to add.

"No, I don't think I have got anything more I can offer the inquiry," she said - roughly translated that means: "That's quite enough for me thanks."