The knife - summarising my observations

The last seven posts on this blog have been concerned with the knife found close to the body at Harrowdown Hill.  Here is a summary of my thoughts on this particular aspect of the Dr Kelly mystery:

• There is general agreement in the description of the knife by witnesses.  An exception is DC Coe who, in the Mail on Sunday, stated that it had a wooden handle.
• The searchers fail to mention the presence of the knife.  They aren't asked about it either.
• The ambulance crew report the presence of the knife but don't talk of blood on it.  Nor do they observe a pool of blood under the knife.
• DC Coe states at the Hutton Inquiry that the watch was on top of the knife.  This was subsequently interpreted from photographic evidence as part of the watchstrap lying on the handle of the knife.  Despite this observation by DC Coe he fails to note the pool of blood under the knife.  In fact he states in the Mail on Sunday 'On the ground, there wasn't much blood about, if any'
• My belief is that the knife and watch were repositioned after being seen by the ambulance crew (I'll explain the reasoning later).  This might readily explain why neither Dr Hunt nor Mr Green see the watchstrap partly over the knife handle.
• The description of the knife demonstrates that it was totally unsuitable for the incision of the ulnar artery.  Ideally a very sharp straight blade with a knobbly sort of handle for good grip would be used, the traditional style of "Stanley" knife then would be much better than a pruning knife.
• Dr Hunt records the presence of crushed edges to the wrist wound which suggests that the knife wasn't very sharp.
• In 2010 Tom Mangold makes a comment about gaffer-tape on the handle of the knife contrary to previous recorded evidence.  The gaffer-tape story appears to have been brought into play to explain why fingerprints weren't recorded on the knife; when asked Mangold refuses to explain how the gaffer-tape story originated.
• The official narrative has the knife normally in a draw in Dr Kelly's study.  The implication from this it seems is that Dr Kelly took it from the drawer before he started his last walk thus lending some credence to the suicide hypothesis.
• Lord Hutton mentions comment about the knife by daughters Rachel and Ellen in his Report.  However the only oral evidence from the family about the knife came from Mrs Kelly.
• Mai Pederson believed that she had seen the knife and that Dr Kelly habitually carried it in a pocket of his Barbour jacket.

The Family and the knife

When Mrs Kelly attended the Hutton Inquiry on 1 September 2003 Mr Dingemans had little option but to ask her about the knife.  This is the relevant part of her evidence: 

Q. We have heard about the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death and the fact that a knife was used. Were you shown the knife at all?

A. We were not shown the knife; we were shown a photocopy of I presume the knife which we recognised as a knife he had had for many years and kept in his drawer.
Q. It was a knife he had had what, from childhood?
A. From childhood I believe. I think probably from the Boy Scouts.

It appears that there was nothing to distinguish this knife from any similar knife.  I would suspect that part of the "identification" was derived from the fact that the knife was missing from the draw.

In paragraph 146 of his report Hutton says:

Very understandably the police did not show the knife found beside Dr Kelly's body to his widow and daughters but the police showed them a photograph of that knife. It is clear that the knife found beside the body was a knife which Dr Kelly had owned since boyhood and which he kept in a desk in his study, but which was found to be missing from his desk after his death.

He then sets out the quoted evidence I have already given.  Paragraph 146 is completed as follows;

And in a statement furnished to the Inquiry Police Constable Roberts stated:

The knife found in possession of Dr David Kelly is a knife the twins, Rachel and Ellen recognise (from pictures shown by Family Liaison Officers). It would not be unusual to be in his possession as a walker. They have seen it on their walks with him. He would have kept it in his study drawer with a collection of small pocket knives (he did like gadgets) and the space in the study drawer where a knife was clearly missing from the neat row of knives is where they believe it would [have] lived and been removed from.

In the evidence tab on the inquiry website there ought to be mention of the statement by WPC Roberts but as yet I haven't located it.  There is I think just this statement from her about Dr Kelly's handedness: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/tvp/tvp_16_0001.pdf  It can be seen that there was an extraordinary delay in making the statement relating to David Kelly's handedness.  Whereas she spoke to Sian about this it was Rachel and Ellen who appeared to have given information about the knife so it wouldn't be surprising in my view if WPC Roberts made separate statements about these matters.

I might have missed the other witness statement from the WPC in the evidence lists.  Please add a comment if you see it!

The suggestion that there was a space in the drawer where a knife was clearly missing I have to treat with some scepticism.  Unless the knives were separated by being in their own compartments for example then I find it difficult to believe with the opening and closing of the draw that Dr Kelly's knives would neatly stay in a line.  My experience of putting things in a draw is that they don't stay arranged for long if merely neatly placed.

 

Collating a few facts about David Kelly

The aim of this post is to assemble some biographical facts about David Christopher Kelly, to get a bit of sense of Kelly the person.

David Kelly was born on 14 May 1943 in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales.  According to journalist Tom Mangold he was very proud of his country of birth and liked to be called Dai.  Although there is plenty of reason to criticise Mangold in what he has said about Dr Kelly's death I suspect that this particular observation is correct.

Norman Baker has sketched Kelly's childhood well, telling us that his father was the son of a coal miner and that he was a signals officer in the RAF.  His mother, who was the daughter of a gravestone sculptor, was a schoolteacher.  His parents, who had married in Pontypridd shortly after Christmas in 1940, moved after a time to Tunbridge Wells in Kent.  Within two years of this move the couple had separated and David went back to Pontypridd to live with his mother and grandmother.  He was an only child.

Almost immediately after the divorce was made official David's father married Flora Dunn, a woman ten years younger than him.  The couple had three children of their own and adopted a fourth.  Mr Kelly became head teacher at a school ... he was die of lung cancer aged 66.  It seems that David didn't ever live with them.

Interestingly, there is a common thread of teaching here: his mother was a teacher, his father became one, he married Janice Vawdrey who taught and it's clear that David Kelly himself was very keen to impart some of his very considerable knowledge to colleagues and to demystify various complexities to the media.

The young Kelly then wasn't blessed with the best home life but nevertheless excelled at school.  Academically he was gifted enough to go on to University, first Leeds, then Birmingham for a second degree before studying at Oxford for his PhD.  Mr Baker also mentions that he had become head boy at his Grammar School and was a good athlete.  Certainly he appears to have had a passion for sport, parts of his diaries are on the "evidence" tab of the Hutton website and it can be seen that he had noted upcoming sporting events, some of these occurring in the months after his death. 

Romance blossomed when he was at Leeds University, on Saturday 15 July 1967 he married Janice near her Crewe family home.  He was 23, she a year younger.  They were to have three daughters, Sian and twins Ellen and Rachel.  At the time of Dr Kelly's death Sian was 32, the twins 30.  Dr Kelly was last seen alive two days after his 36th wedding anniversary.

For many years the Kelly's lived a comfortable middle class life in their spacious home in the village of Southmoor in Oxfordshire.  As demand for his expertise increased Dr Kelly would be spending more time away from his home.  He was much travelled spending time on inspections in Russia and making more than 35 visits to Iraq as an Inspector after the first Gulf War.  Another port of call was New York for UN meetings.  He seems to have visited other parts of America, Geneva and other countries as well.

Very much in contrast to this jetting to various parts of the World was his lifestyle back at Southmoor.  An enthusiastic gardener he grew vegetables and kept the grass in check in the paddock.  He rode a horse (whether his own or not I don't know)  but he had a riding accident in I think late 1991 because of a saddle that moved, resulting in an elbow injury.  This injury, as will be discussed later, had important implications regarding the suicide hypothesis.  If it is true, and I believe it is, that he had residual weakness in his right arm then it's possible that he didn't regularly ride after that mishap.

He enjoyed the traditional pub game of cribbage at the Hinds Head, a pub in the adjoining village of Kingston Bagpuize.  There was evidently a cribbage league because we have learnt that David, who drank little or no alcohol, would drive players to the various away venues.  It seems that he gave up alcohol when he was introduced to the Baha'i faith.

Not well known I think is the fact that David Kelly enjoyed music to the extent, I seem to recall from a press report, of playing the saxophone.  He also had a substantial collection of CDs and another press report says that these (800!) were left in his will to his friend Professor Christian Seelos.  Austrian born Seelos is another interesting character: he says 'Music became a passion and I played in several rock bands' http://christianseelos.com/journey.html  The fact that the CDs were left to Seelos rather than anyone in the family does beg the question of whether they shared his musical taste.

A time line showing the history of Dr Kelly's employment in the government can be read here: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/mod/mod_2_0041.pdf