Thursday 10 May 2012

Mrs Kelly's dubious testimony (2)

Dr Kelly was a member of the Hinds Head cribbage team, the Hinds Head being a short distance from the Kelly's home and in the adjoining village of Kingston Bagpuize.

In my last post I recalled Mrs Kelly saying that her husband talked to journalist Nick Rufford at the garden gate and that not long after that conversation the Kellys decided that evening to leave their house for a while to avoid the press.  Once that decision had been made they packed some luggage and within ten minutes were gone.

This is the 9th of July but on 22 July Steve Ward, the landlord of the Hinds Head, sent an email to Keith Jones of Thames Valley Police.  In it he clearly states that David Kelly was present at the pub for a friendly game of cribbage on the night of the ninth. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/tvp/tvp_3_0100.pdf

He clearly uses the word "night" so we can exclude this particular game being played at lunchtime.  In any case the ninth was a Wednesday, not the weekend so the friendly game wouldn't be played at lunchtime.

So at sometime during that evening a cribbage game took place there in which David Kelly participated.  Many if not most people will be aware that pub activities tend to take place in the second half of the evening, after 8 o'clock say, when people have had a chance to shower and have a bite to eat.  We know that Dr Kelly's evening was split up by the arrival of Nick Rufford so that he definitely wasn't playing crib at 7.30!

This is Mrs Kelly's account of the 9th up until the arrival of Nick Rufford:

Q. Did he go to London?
A. Yes, he was supposed to be going to London so I was quite surprised when he said he was going to work in the garden all day. Again he got on to his vegetable patch and was working in a rather lacklustre way that particular day but he did receive and make some phone
calls as well.
Q. Did you have any visitors that day?
A. Yes, we did in the evening.
Q. What time did you have a visitor?
A. Not absolutely certain. It was something like 7.30 or something like that.
Q. Who was that visitor?
A. It turned out to be Nick Rufford.
Q. Where was Dr Kelly?
A. We had both been sitting out having our coffee in the garden after dinner that evening. I was watering the
plants and David went to put some tools away he had been using during the day which involved him going into the yard which lay between our house and the main road outside.
Q. And were you aware that anyone else was there?
A. I suddenly looked up and there was David talking to somebody. I had not got my glasses on so I moved a little bit closer with the hosepipe to see who it was and I recognised it as Nick Rufford. Nick had been to our house before but only by arrangement, he never just turned up before this. No journalist just turned up before this, so I was extremely alarmed about that.



Prior to 7.30 then we see perfectly normal activities of a married couple on a summer's evening: having dinner, sitting outside to drink their coffee, David putting some tools away whilst his wife was watering the plants.  Dr Kelly was clearly not playing cribbage at this time!


Further confirmation of Dr Kelly playing cribbage on 9 July can be read in this schedule (no 47) on the Attorney General's website http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Schedule%20of%20responses%20to%20issues%20raised.pdf

Mr Dingemans asks where the Kellys drove to after leaving their home that evening.  This is the exchange:

Q. Where did you drive to?
A. We headed along the road towards the M4 and got to --  about 9.30, 9.45 we got as far as Weston-Super-Mare and decided to pull in at a hotel there for the night.



So, there we have it -
1. The unsworn testimony given by Mrs Kelly directly contradicts the Steve Ward email.
2. Thames Valley Police either fail to notice this contradiction or ignore it.
3. Although the email is on the Hutton website Hutton ignores it.
4.  It would have been useful to have heard evidence from one or two members of the crib team. 

No comments:

Post a Comment