"Gone for a walk by the river"

Mrs Kelly gave her evidence on the morning of 1st September.  This is the exchange with Mr Dingemans regarding her activity following the time that her husband set off for his walk on the afternoon of the 17th:

Q. So between 3 and 3.20 he had gone for a walk?
A. That is right, yes.
Q. And what were you doing for the rest of the day?
A. I was still feeling extremely ill so I went to sit in the sitting room. I could not settle, I put the TV on, which is unheard of for me at that time of the day. There were a few callers at the front door. I answered those and had a short chat with each of them. Then I began to get rather worried because normally if David was going for a longer walk, he would say. It was a kind of family tradition, if you were going for a longer walk you would say where you were going and what time you would be back.
Q. He had not said?

A. He had not said that. He just said: I am going for my walk.

Q. How long would a normal walk take?
A. About 15 minutes, depending if he met somebody, perhaps 20 minutes, 25 minutes.
Q. What time did you start to become concerned?
A. Probably late afternoon. Rachel rang, my daughter rang to say: do not worry, he has probably gone out to have a good think. Do not worry about it, he will be fine.  She had planned to come over that evening. She made a decision definitely to come over. She arrived -- I am not quite sure what time she arrived, half five, six o'clock, I think. She went out. She said: I will go and walk up and meet Dad. She walked up one of the normal footpaths he would have taken -- in fact it was the footpath he would have taken. She came back about half an hour or so later.
Q. What time was this?
A. This must have been about 6.30 perhaps by now. I am not sure of the times. I was in a terrible state myself by this time trying not to think awful things and trying to take each moment as it came.
Q. And Rachel gets back about 6.30.
A. Something like that.

Rachel gave her evidence on the same day and we have this (Mr Dingemans posing the questions again):

Q. On the 17th we have heard about the circumstances in which your mother contacted you.
A. Yes.
Q. I think you came and helped look for your father?
A. I did, yes. I came over -- Mum told me that Dad had gone for a walk; and we are actually quite a private family and I assumed that after all he had been through he would want to find some solitude, which I quite understood. I thought he had perhaps gone for a walk down to the river. I could quite understand that need in him. So initially I did not worry. But When he then -- I could not reach him on his mobile phone, which did make me worry because I could always reach him. I then dashed home and was talking to my sisters. Mum actually was not very well and I was torn between leaving Mum and going to look for Dad. Initially I walked down -- I just assumed he would be coming home by now and I walked down to see if he was coming. Then I went back home and then went out in the car and just searched all the local routes. I went actually down to Harrowdown first, that was my first thought, and looked at the track but I could not see him coming. I promised I would not leave the car and start walking as it was starting to -- it was quite an overcast night. 

I think that it was quite understandable for a young woman on her own to be concerned about going up the track to Harrowdown Hill on an overcast evening.  Even if she had followed the track I'm sure that she wouldn't have seen the spot where her father was discovered the following morning, unless she went into the wood.

Civil servant James Harrison was the Deputy Director for Counter Proliferation and Arms Control in the MOD.  In the late afternoon of the 17th he tried contacting Dr Kelly on his mobile phone to resolve some points about Dr Kelly's press contacts but to no avail.  He also spoke to Mrs Kelly and made a note of the conversation with her as seen at MOD/13/0032 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/evidence/mod_13_0032.pdf 
Mr Knox seeks clarification about the note and the following relates to its first paragraph:

Q. We know at MoD/13/32 you appear to have made a note of your last conversation.
A. Indeed, yes.
Q. Perhaps you could just clarify one or two words.  "Rang Mrs K about 1750 or so."
I am not quite sure, the words you have inserted  then are?
A. "Having tried mobile -- rang, no answer."
Q. And then?  
A. I am afraid I am not sure what the blob is. 
Q. Then after that? 
A. "To see if back", i.e. if David was back yet. "Gone for a walk by the river. Bad headache. Had intended to go about 2 o'clock, but delayed [by phone calls?].  Sometimes goes on long route."    

Mrs Kelly hadn't said anything in her evidence about a walk by the river but she seems to be sure that is what has happened.  Rachel wonders if he had gone down to the river.  Did she impart that thought to her mother with the latter believing that is where he had gone and then Mrs Kelly telling Mr Harrison the same as a fact.  Possible perhaps but difficult to really believe.  I'm assuming that "Bad headache" refers to the fact that Mrs Kelly had a bad headache - but is this right?  Perhaps Dr Kelly had had a bad headache, we just don't know.

What we do know though is that the last quoted evidence was given by Mr Harrison on his first visit to the Inquiry, on the 27 August, less than a week before the testimony from Mrs Kelly was heard.  If Hutton was honest, competent and diligent - as we have every right to expect - then he should have asked Mrs Kelly about the supposed walk by the river.  This wasn't an isolated failing on the part of his Lordship, again and again and again he failed in his duty to adequately investigate matters.

The mobile phone was switched off

ACC Page is asked at the Inquiry about whether the mobile phone was switched on or off when it was discovered in the pocket of the Barbour jacket.  His reply:

My recollection is that when found it was off.

The first of the five people who tried to ring Dr Kelly was John Clark.  He is clear that he had an electronic response that was proof of the phone being turned off.  Similarly the last of the five, Olivia Bosch also got an electronic response but the detail is hazy as to the nature of this message.  James Harrison and Bryan Wells it seems each rang with no response as if perhaps the phone was on but not being answered; their attempts to call Dr Kelly were only ten minutes apart.  Rachel Kelly simply says 'I could not reach him on his mobile phone'  

Are these variations in response indicative of some quirk with mobile phones ... that sometimes the electronic response cuts in quickly and on other occasions you have to wait for a considerable number of rings.  In the latter circumstance the caller might ring off too early.  I don't know enough about this subject to know whether this can happen but otherwise it appears possible that the phone was turned off, then turned on by Dr Kelly (or a third party) but with incoming calls ignored and finally turned off. 

Paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 from Annex TVP-5 supply a little more illumination: http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Annex%20TVP%205.pdf 

2. At a meeting held at 5.00am on Thursday 17th July 2003 cell site data was ordered on the mobile telephone of Dr Kelly in an attempt to pin point its location.  Unfortunately the phone was switched off so cell site data could not be retrieved.  Following the discovery of Dr Kelly's body his mobile phone was found, turned off, in his coat pocket.

3. At that time cell site techniques were not as advanced as they are now and technicians were unable to trace when the mobile last accessed the network (or where) as there had not been live cell site tracing on the phone at the time. 

4. Technicians were able to say that mobile communications were operating correctly in the Longworth area on the 17th and 18th July although one sector was showing slight congestion on the afternoon of the 18th. 

The date quoted in paragraph 2 is meant to be "Friday 18th July" I imagine.  Perhaps the "congestion" mentioned in paragraph 4 resulted from intense media use of the airwaves that afternoon.

Normally Dr Kelly was well known as a person always contactable because he kept his mobile phone on.  Therefore goes one argument he set off to commit suicide by keeping his phone off so that he couldn't be contacted or his location known.  My counter argument to this is why take his phone at all.  We know that the phone wouldn't have already been in the jacket because the last outgoing call was at 12.58 that day, a time according to Mrs Kelly's testimony when he was at their home.

Perhaps Dr Kelly took his phone as he normally would on his walks but decided to leave it turned off.  From his perspective he might have thought that his last conversation with John Clark shortly before 3 o'clock had finally wrapped up all the points he had had to deal with and that he needed a walk uninterrupted by telephone calls to try and wind down from what had been a tumultuous and stressful week.  Speculation on my part?  Certainly.  I don't think it's possible to come to any definitive explanation as to why, unusually, the mobile phone was switched off.

The mobile phone and James Harrison

At this point I need to make a correction, thinking that I had mentioned all those known to have rung the mobile.  In the late afternoon of 17 July John Clark had to go to an appointment with the optician.  A colleague, James Harrison, made one further attempt to ring Dr Kelly's mobile and this is Mr Harrison answering Mr Knox's questions on 27 August:

Q. Did you try to call Dr Kelly on his mobile?  
A. Yes. John had left at, as I say, around 5 o'clock and he had tried to ring -- he had spoken to Mrs Kelly shortly before that. I was very conscious of the need  to get the balance right. On the one hand, we had to try to answer these questions and the letter fully and accurately on that day if we could. At the same time, I did not want to be bothering Mrs Kelly on the phone or David indeed unnecessarily soon, when there were already messages for David to ring back.  
Q. When you rang Dr Kelly's mobile phone -- 
A. Yes.
Q. -- what was the response? Was it dead, completely dead or was there any electronic voicemail?
A. My recollection is it rang and was not answered and I rang at about 10 to 6 or thereabouts.
Q. I think we heard from Wing Commander Clark that when he tried calling there was an automated response.
A. Yes.
Q. You say when you tried it was simply ringing and there was no automated response?
A. Yes. We discussed this issue the following day, the Friday.   Bryan Wells was in the office and that was after it had been announced by the police that David Kelly was missing. We compared noting on our telephone conversations. I think Bryan Wells had tried shortly after I had and at that time on the Friday morning my clear recollection was that I had rung his
mobile number and that the phone had rung but not been answered.
Q. And you may already have said, what was the precise time as far as you can tell that you first tried to get hold of the mobile?
A. At around 10 to 6. That was the only time. 

From the above it seems as if Bryan Wells had also tried to contact Dr Kelly but to no avail.


The "questions" referred to in the testimony will be the subject of a later post.