Vanessa Hunt at the Inquiry

MR DINGEMANS: Ms Hunt, please. 
MS VANESSA ELIZABETH HUNT (called)
Examined by MR DINGEMANS
Q. Can you tell his Lordship your full name? 
A. Vanessa Elizabeth Hunt.
Q. What is your occupation?
A. I am a paramedic.
Q. Were you on duty on 18th July?
A. Yes I was.
Q. What time did you start work?
A. 0700 hours.
Q. And where were you based at the time?
A. At Abingdon ambulance station.
Q. Did you have any calls that morning?
A. Yes, we did.
Q. Did you have any call relating to Dr Kelly?
A. Yes.
Q. What time did you get that call?
A. At 0940 hours to the ambulance station. 

The time of 9.40 is twenty minutes after Paul Chapman makes his 999 call.  Neither Dingemans nor Hutton investigate any reason for this delay.

Q. What were you asked to do? 
A. We were asked to mobilise towards Southmoor for a male patient but we were given no more details at that time.
Q. So, did you set off?
A. Yes, we did.
Q. In an ambulance?
A. In an ambulance with my colleague Dave Bartlett.
Q. And you drove to Southmoor?
A. Yes.
Q. Did anyone meet you there?
A. On the way we were given some more information on our data screens.
Q. What did that say?
A. It just said that we were attending the address -- Harrowdown Hill in Longworth for a male believed to be a kilo 1 which is actually deceased, and the Thames Valley Police were on the scene. 

It's not known who notified the ambulance service or how familiar they were with the geography.  I find it surprising though that Harrowdown Hill wasn't given as the original location rather than Southmoor.

Q. When you arrived on the scene was anyone there?
A. Yes, there were a number of police officers.
Q. Do you remember how many?
A. Just lots and there was police vehicles there as well. 

I'll comment on the significant police presence in a later post. 

Q. Did you drive off the public road?
A. We parked up at the end of the public road, I do not know the name of the road.
Q. And you proceeded on foot?
A. Yes. 
Q. Who had met you?
A. There was an officer in regulation clothing who directed us to two or three other officers in combat trousers and black polo shirts and we followed them along the track. 

It seems that the officer in regulation clothing was Sergeant Dadd and he directed them to PCs Franklin and Sawyer.

Q. You followed them along the track? 
A. Yes.
Q. And where did that lead to?
A. To a wooded area that was on the left of the track.
Q. And once you got to the wooded area did you stay on the outside of the wood?
A. Initially there were three people on the track, what I now know to be detective constable, one was the search and rescue and there was another gentleman there. The police officers that we had followed stopped and spoke to them and then we followed the two chaps up into the wooded area. 

The mention of 'the search and rescue' matches the evidence of Franklin and Sawyer who had stated in the morning session that they had met Paul Chapman.

Q. And when you got into the wooded area, what did you see?
A. There was a male on his back, feet towards us.
Q. Yes.
A. And no obvious signs of life.
Q. Was there anything marking your route in to the body?
A. As we walked into the wooded area the police officers were marking a route off with metal posts. We just walked behind them. 

This last answer confirms what was said by PC Sawyer about putting the poles in to mark out the common approach path ... as they were approaching the body. 

Q. And can you describe what was being worn by the man? 
A. It was -- it looked like a wax type jacket, dark colour.
Q. Yes.
A. A shirt and I believe jeans, but I cannot be certain of the lower clothing. He also had a pair of boots or trainer cross type footwear on.
Q. Could you see anything on the body itself?
A. On his left arm, which was outstretched to the left of him, there was some dry blood.

The description of the left arm being outstretched is very significant as will be discussed in a later post.  She refers to dry blood on the left arm rather than the hand or wrist, indicative of at least part of the arm being exposed.  Again this is a matter of some importance to look at in detail in due course. 

Q. Did you go towards the body? 
A. We stood behind the police officers while they took photographs. Then once they had taken the photographs I went to the right side of the body and my colleague went to the left side.
Q. And what was done to check for signs of life?
A. My colleague lifted the eyelids to check for pupil reaction, also felt the gentleman's neck for a carotid pulse and I initially placed the heart monitor paddles on to the chest over the top of his shirt. 
Q. Did you get any reading at all? 
A. There was some artefact reading I believed to be from myself as opposed to the body, so we said to the police officers would it be possible to place four sticky electrodes on to the chest, to verify that life was extinct. 
Q. What did the police say to you?
A. Could they just take some more photographs before we undid the shirt, which they then did. My colleague unbuttoned the shirt and I placed the four electrodes on to the chest, two on the upper part of the chest and two underneath the rib cage area.
Q. Did you connect those electrodes to anything?
A. To the heart monitor.
Q. What did that show?
A. That showed asystole which is a flat line.
Q. What does that mean?
A. It means there is no cardiac output and life is extinct.
Q. Did you declare life extinct?
A. We pronounced we were unable to certify but we said, yes, that, you know ...  

PC Sawyer's earlier testimony is matching her evidence well in this section.  I think that in her last answer she is trying to explain that she can, unofficially at least, confirm the body is dead but officially a paramedic can't certify death ... that would have to be done by a doctor.  

Q. What did you do with the strips from the machine? 
A. Took three strips and handed them all to the police officer.
Q. And what did the strips show?
A. Just a flat line.
Q. And having carried out those activities, what did you do then?
A. I said would they like us to leave the electrodes in situ, they requested that we did, remove the leads from the chest and left the shirt unbuttoned.
Q. Did you yourself move the body at all?
A. The only part of the body we moved was Dr Kelly's right arm, which was over the chest, to facilitate us to place the fourth lead on to the chest. It was just lifted slightly from the body. 

Louise Holmes stated in her evidence that the right arm was by the side, not over the chest. 

Q. Right. And do you recall, now, what Dr Kelly was wearing?
A. As I say, a dark coloured wax jacket, a shirt and I believe it to be jeans, but I am not certain.
Q. Right. And anything on his feet?
A. Trainers or cross trainer/boot type footwear.

Mr Dingemans likes to say 'Right' when he wants to move forward quickly.  Vanessa Hunt has already told him what Dr Kelly was wearing, why ask again?  Has he a reason to feel nervous?  

Q. Right. And did you see anything on the ground?
A. There was a silver bladed knife, a wristwatch, which was off of the wrist.
Q. Yes.
A. And, oh, a water bottle, a small water bottle stood up to the left side of Dr Kelly's head. 
Q. And did you note whether or not he had a mobile phone?
A. There was a mobile phone pouch clipped to his belt on his front but slightly to the right side, but you could not see if there was a phone within the pouch or not.
Q. Right. And what were you wearing while you were carrying out this?
A. My green squad suit and black boots 

It's interesting that he asks about the mobile phone.  As with Paul Chapman he asks the witness what she was wearing at the scene.

Q. And is there anything else that you know of about the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death that you can assist his Lordship with?
A. Only that the amount of blood that was around the scene seemed relatively minimal and there was a small patch on his right knee, but no obvious arterial bleeding. There was no spraying of blood or huge blood loss or any obvious loss on the clothing.
Q. On the clothing?
A. Yes.

This lack of blood flagged up by Vanessa Hunt (and later by Dave Bartlett) is very bad news for the "death caused by haemorrhage" hypothesis.  

Q. One of the police officers or someone this morning said there appeared to be some blood on the ground. Did you see that?
A. I could see some on -- there were some stinging nettles to the left of the body. As to on the ground, I do not remember seeing a sort of huge puddle or anything like that. There was dried blood on the left wrist. His jacket was pulled to sort of mid forearm area and from that area down towards the hand there was dried blood, but no obvious sign of a wound or anything, it was just dried blood.
Q. You did not see the wound?
A. I did not see the wound, no.
Q. You were not looking at the wound, then?
A. The hand -- from what I remember, his arm -- left arm was outstretched to the left of the body.

The jacket pulled up to the mid forearm area and confirmation of the left arm being outstretched.

Q. Yes.
A. Palm up or slightly on the side (indicates) and, as I say, there was dried blood from the edge of the jacket down towards the hand but no gaping wound or anything obvious that I could see from the position I was in.
Q. Were you examining the wrist for --
A. No, I was not. No.
Q. And were you examining the ground for blood or blood loss?
A. No.
MR DINGEMANS: Right. Thank you.
LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much Ms Hunt. Thank you. 

Mr Dingemans makes some sort of recovery here hinting that there could be blood loss but that the reason Ms Hunt didn't see it was because she wasn't examining the ground.  Good try Mr Dingemans but I'm afraid not good enough!  Whereas it's true that she wasn't at Harrowdown Hill to examine the ground she as an experienced paramedic would be mentally noting various bits of information at the scene not directly related to her checking for signs of life.  For instance she noticed some blood on the nearby stinging nettles.

If there was any significant amount of blood visible on the ground she would surely have seen it as she was squatting or kneeling in the area where the blood would be.

The description 'Palm up or slightly on the side' indicates the natural palm position when an arm is oustretched.           

Poor performance by Mr Dingemans

The 18th July 2003 was a very busy day in the Dr Kelly affair.  At about 9.15 that morning search dog Brock discovered Dr Kelly's body.  According to a press report Mrs Kelly told her brother that morning that her husband had committed suicide.  With the same certainty Mrs Kelly told the New York Times that the police had told her that her husband had committed suicide, all this before Dr Hunt had completed his post mortem and whilst the police were publically saying that it was an unexplained death.

On the legal front developments were equally swift.  Mr Blair very quickly agreed with Lord Falconer that there should be a judge led inquiry.  Although Falconer was to say that the number of suitably experienced judges available to him was in the tens he picked Hutton without any real consideration of the merits of others.  Hutton himself was no slouch because, before the day was out, he had appointed James Dingemans QC to be his senior counsel at the Inquiry.

What do we know of Dingemans?  There are some biographical details on the Hutton website http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/biogs/bio-3.htm  It is noticeable that his normal practice areas are unrelated to the task given him by Hutton.  I was also surprised to see that he was aged just under 40 at the time of the Inquiry which seems to me to be quite young for the responsibility demanded of him.

His performance at the Inquiry wasn't good enough.  This is part of his exchange with Mrs Kelly:

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.

At that point in time no evidence had been given in open court 'that a knife was used'.  Such factual inaccuracy by counsel in a public inquiry is completely unacceptable.

Moving on to the co-proxamol we have this:

Q. We have also heard that some co-proxamol was used.
A. Indeed.

A false statement again Mr Dingemans!  At that stage we hadn't heard.

The following exchange with Mrs Kelly, about the source of the co-proxamol, I have covered in this post http://drkellysdeath-timeforthetruth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/co-proxamol-4.html   In it I berated Dingemans for his leading question to the witness.

In another post http://drkellysdeath-timeforthetruth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/there-was-no-suicide-note.html  Dingemans latches on to the fact that the majority of suicides don't leave notes.  He completely ignores the character of the deceased in assessing the likelihood of the person concerned writing a note.  Dr Kelly had arranged to see one of his daughters Rachel that very day apart from the fact she was due to marry in a few months time.  It is ridiculous to ignore the personal circumstances at the time in question when discussing the lack of a suicide note.

In this post http://drkellysdeath-timeforthetruth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/mr-greens-absorbent-leaf-litter.html I had discussed Mr Green's totally speculative comment about the leaf litter having absorbed blood.  Dingemans played his part in the speculation by comparing the imagined absorption of blood by the leaf litter to the action of blotting paper.  He repeats that description in his closing statement and goes further by transforming Mr Green's speculation into fact.

It might be that Dingemans has spouted other inaccuracies, the ones quoted are familiar to me but others might well be lurking on the Hutton website.

There was no suicide note

For a coroner (or coroner's jury) to return a verdict of suicide there has to be evidence of intent to commit suicide.  Sometimes there is really good evidence for this ... such as the deceased leaving a note of his or her intention.  Then there is visual evidence, for instance someone throwing themselves off the platform in front of a train.  Another indicator might be a history of previous attempts to commit suicide.

There are cases where it looks like suicide has occurred but the intent can't be demonstrated and then the coroner falls back on an "open verdict".  So far as Dr Kelly is concerned there has never been proof that he intended to commit suicide.  Considering that one point alone it can be seen that Mr Gardiner should have resumed the inquest following his hearing of 16 March. 

Although the Hutton Inquiry was fairly clear about the absence of a suicide note I see that the subject was raised as part of a Freedom of Information request with Thames Valley Police http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/aboutus/aboutus-depts/aboutus-depts-infman/aboutus-depts-foi/aboutus-depts-foi-disclosure-log.htm  In the Investigations Log it can be read under reference item RFI2011000383 and is question 3:

Was a suicide note from Dr Kelly found at Harrowdown Hill, at the Kelly family home, or at any other location?      No.

At the Inquiry suicide expert Professor Keith Hawton is quizzed by Mr Dingemans on the question of there being no suicide note:

Q. And for older people, what is the sort of evidence of planning that you can see? 

A. Well, evidence of planning would be, for example, saving up medication to carry out an act, deliberately going and obtaining a specific method for the act, obviously seeking out a place to carry out the act, where one is least likely to be disturbed, and things such as a person putting their affairs in order, changing their will and so on. 

Q. And do you always have to communicate your intention to commit suicide? Is there always a note left? 

A. Not at all, no. In recent studies from the United Kingdom, somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent of people who die leave a suicide note or a suicide message, it is not always a note.
Q. So the majority do not leave a note?
A. That is correct. 

Not for the first time we see Mr Dingemans leaning his questions towards a conclusion that Dr Kelly committed suicide.  The clear inference is that as the majority do not leave a note then there is nothing odd at all about Dr Kelly not doing so.  I've no reason to disbelieve Hawton's statistics but obviously one should probe a lot deeper.  There are people who just don't write at all, there are very sadly some folk who commit suicide who feel so lonely and isolated that they have nobody to whom they can write a note.  These are examples of groups where you would be surprised to find a note.  Contrast them with Dr Kelly.  He had for instance arranged to meet one of his daughters, Rachel, later that day.  Not only that, he had been looking forward to her wedding in less than three months time.  Would he really have killed himself without leaving some sort of message for her?  Applying Hawton's bald figures without qualification is totally misleading.  I've no doubt at all that Dingemans was well aware of that.

Dingemans has form in driving the suicide hypothesis.  In questioning Mrs Kelly the day before Hawton made his first visit to the Inquiry he tried to link her supply of co-proxamol with the tablets Dr Kelly had allegedly taken.  I included that subject in an earlier post http://drkellysdeath-timeforthetruth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/co-proxamol-4.html 

Hutton was no doubt well pleased with his senior counsel carefully cultivating the ground so that a conclusion that Dr Kelly committed suicide could be readily reached.   

David Kelly laid to rest

This is the report on the BBC News website regarding Dr David Kelly's funeral on the afternoon of Wednesday 6 August: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3127605.stm

I added a comment to my last post but one in which I pondered about the presence of Lord Hutton and his senior counsel James Dingemans at the funeral.  Why did they turn up?  They didn't know David Kelly personally.  Surely, aged 72 at the time, Hutton would have realised that it wasn't the done thing to turn up at what was essentially a private gathering of mourners.

However, as his employer, it was right that the government were represented.  Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon had a long standing arrangement to be on holiday in the US according to this article and so John Prescott appeared instead: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-190956/Holidaying-Hoon-miss-Kelly-funeral.html  Under the circumstances described I don't have a problem with Hoon's decision in this instance and it sounds as if he discussed the situation with Mrs Kelly.  However his earlier decision not to cancel going to the British Grand Prix, a couple of days after the body discovery, was crass and insensitive.

There was a report, briefly alluded to in this article, that Dr Kelly's colleagues had been 'warned off' going to the funeral: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1289692/Dr-David-Kelly-The-damning-new-evidence-points-cover-Tony-Blairs-government.html  It looks as if Dr Kelly had rubbed shoulders with various spooks.  Perhaps there were people who might have turned up who had a little too much knowledge of Kelly, more than was good for them.

Hutton and Dingemans visit Mrs Kelly

Lord Hutton and Mr Dingemans visited Mrs Kelly on the morning of Saturday 26 July 2003.  This was at the instigation of Hutton.  At the Inquiry Hutton didn't reveal what was said between them.  The failure to do this was a matter raised by "The Doctors" when they applied to the Attorney General asking him to go to the High Court with the object of an inquest being granted.  Their application was by way of a "Memorial" which can be read via this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/07_01_11davidkelly1.pdf  It is paragraph 50 on page 22 which is particularly relevant to this discussion.

In a letter to the Attorney General dated 3 November 2010 Hutton replies to this criticism:

17.  Paragraph 50 claims that I committed an irregularity because "during his investigations, Lord Hutton visited Mrs Kelly at home".  Together with Mr James Dingemans QC I visited Mrs Kelly and her daughters at their home a few days after I was appointed to conduct the inquiry.  The sole purpose of my visit was to express my sympathy to her and her daughters and to assure them that I intended to investigate Dr Kelly's death fully and carefully.  I took no evidence from her.  The visit was well publicised and would have been well known to all the parties represented at my inquiry.  No objection was made, or could have been made, to the visit at the inquiry.  The only evidence which I took from Mrs Kelly was the evidence which I heard when she gave evidence over a radio link to my inquiry. 

In a press notice dated 28 July 2003 on the Hutton website the first paragraph says:

Lord Hutton had a meeting with Mrs Kelly, the widow of Dr David Kelly, in her home on Saturday morning, 26th July. The meeting took place at Lord Hutton's request. At the meeting he told Mrs Kelly that the Inquiry would meet any legal costs which she might incur in relation to it.


Number 37 in the schedule of responses to issues raised on the Attorney General's website is clearly a precis of the statement in Hutton's letter of 3 November above.


The retort by Hutton in his letter is at variance with what he himself told the Inquiry.  These are his own words in his opening statement on 1 August:

At my request I have been sent a considerable quantity of documents by the BBC, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office and I have also been given information by
Dr Kelly's widow when I met her at her home on the morning of Saturday 26th July. It is probable that more documents will be sent to me in the next few days. From the documents and the information given to me, the following outline of events can be seen and I now state
that outline in very general terms without, at this stage, attempting a comprehensive account or any degree of precision. Many of the matters have already been reported in the media.

I view Lord Hutton's statement in his letter as a piece of deliberate deception. I don't doubt that he expressed sympathy, he might well have assured her that he would investigate the death fully and carefully and, in the strictly legal sense of the term, he may not have taken "evidence" from Mrs Kelly.  However, by his own admission, she gave him information and goes on to say 'From the documents and information given to me ..'.  It is surely abundantly clear that his duty at the Inquiry was to state the information given to him by Mrs Kelly.

Lord Hutton makes a statement to the media

On the 21 July 2003 Nicholas Gardiner opened the inquest into he death of Dr David Kelly.  Five minutes later it was adjourned to an undefined date.

On the same day and fifty odd miles from Oxford Lord Hutton was taking somewhat less than five minutes to read out a statement to the cameras.  He took no questions from reporters.  This press notice includes the text of his statement:

Press Notices

21 July 2003

INVESTIGATION INTO CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING DR KELLY'S DEATH

STATEMENT BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD HUTTON (Issued through the Department for Constitutional Affairs Press Office)

The Government has invited me to conduct an investigation into the tragic death of Dr David Kelly which has brought such great sorrow to his wife and children.

My terms of reference are these:

"urgently to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly."

The Government has further stated that it will provide me with the fullest cooperation and that it expects all other authorities and parties to do the same.

I make it clear that it will be for me to decide as I think right within my terms of reference the matters which will be the subject of my investigation.

I intend to sit in public in the near future to state how I intend to conduct the Inquiry and to consider the extent to which interested parties and bodies should be represented by counsel or solicitors. In deciding on the date when I will sit I will obviously wish to take into account the date of Dr Kelly''s funeral and the timing of the inquest into his death.

After that preliminary sitting I intend to conduct the Inquiry with expedition and to report as soon as possible. It is also my intention to conduct the inquiry mostly in public.

I have appointed Mr James Dingemans QC to act as Counsel to the Inquiry and Mr Lee Hughes of the Department for Constitutional Affairs will be the Secretary to the Inquiry.


There isn't much I want to add.  Hutton made his opening statement at the Inquiry on 1 August and then waited until after the funeral before he started taking testimony on Monday 11 August.  I stand to be corrected but I believe this is the only time he makes reference to the inquest.  Lord Hutton was very quickly appointed to chair the Inquiry on the 18th and he acted with a similar turn of speed by asking James Dingemans QC to be his Senior Counsel on the same day.  Peter Knox had to wait a little longer ... his appointment as Junior Counsel was announced on the 24th July.

Some biographical details of Hutton, Dingemans, Knox and the Secretary to the Inquiry, Lee Hughes, can be found here  http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/biog.htm

I will be adding a little more to the biography of Hutton, information that the Blair government wouldn't have been keen to publicise I think.

The co-proxamol (4)

In 2003 Mrs Kelly was taking prescription co-proxamol to relieve the pain of her arthritis.  When Dr Kelly's GP, Dr Warner, was examined by Mr Knox at the Inquiry there is this exchange:

Q. Did you ever have to prescribe Coproxamol to Dr Kelly?
A. No.


If Dr Kelly had ingested co-proxamol tablets then his wife's supply would be the most obvious source, particularly, as I understand things, co-proxamol was available prescription only.


Mr Dingemans questioned Mrs Kelly about the co-proxamol:

Q. Do you take any medicine?
A. I do. I take co-proxamol for my arthritis.
Q. I think we are also going to hear that appears to be the source of the co-proxamol that was used.
A. I had assumed that. I keep a small store in a kitchen drawer and the rest in my bedside table.

That highlighted question was one of the most disgraceful in the whole of the Hutton Inquiry!  It seems to me that Dingemans was trying to nudge Mrs Kelly towards a favourable answer, he must have known that nobody would know for sure about the source of the co-proxamol or would give evidence about that.  He should have asked Mrs Kelly whether she had noticed any missing from her supply.  She was making an assumption, not certain how much she had perhaps.

We aren't told at the Inquiry how much co-proxamol Mrs Kelly had in her home.  However the responses to issues raised schedule does have an answer at number 18 http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Schedule%20of%20responses%20to%20issues%20raised.pdf

Subsequent to the body being found there were 4x10 packs in her bedroom drawer and, in the kitchen drawer, a full box of 10x10.  One would think, assuming the removal of 3 packs in one go, that she might have noticed that amount of depletion from her stock.  Although the full pack had come from the "White Horse Medical Practice" I'm aware of the fact that she had been getting supplies of the drug from a high street chemist.  My guess is that the Medical Practice had recently set up their own dispensary, a not unusual circumstance. 

As can be seen from this witness statement dated 11 November 2003 from DC Eldridge http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/tvp/tvp_17_0001.pdf the manufacturers of the co-proxamol were approached regarding the batch numbers of the tablets.  It looks as if DC Eldridge might well have been posing the wrong question, certainly he is quoting the "product licence" number in his statement rather than a batch number.  The subject is covered in this blog post by Dr Andrew Watt http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/death-of-david-kelly-possible-important.html