The co-proxamol (5)

The interview by Antony Barnett of the two ambulance team for the Observer of 12 December 2004 has plenty of interesting information  http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BAR412A.html

At one point Dave Bartlett says: I remember saying to one of the policemen it didn't look like he died from that [the wrist wound] and suggesting he must have taken an overdose or something else.

I have already mentioned number 18 in the schedule of responses to issues raised http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Schedule%20of%20responses%20to%20issues%20raised.pdf  This is part of it:


Following the discovery of Dr Kelly's body a search was made of his house.  Mrs Janice Kelly was present and was asked to show officers any medicines in the house.

Whether at that time Mrs Kelly felt there were any of her medicines missing I don't know; the only slight hint is her reply to Dingemans that she 'assumed' that the blister packs found on the body had come from her supply.

At the Inquiry there is this interesting commentary by PC Franklin responding to Mr Dingemans:

Q. When the forensic kit arrives and you start doing the fingertip search, do you start on the common approach path?
A. I actually, as police search adviser, do not do the search; that was run by PC Sawyer.
Q. You watched them all doing it for you?
A. Some of the time. As police search adviser I have to liaise with the senior officers about the policies for the search and what we hope to get out of it, so I was backwards and forwards.
Q. What were you hoping to get out of this search?
A. We have to speak to the DCI initially and he wanted us to look for -- if again I may refer to my notes -- medicine or pill bottles, pills, pill foils or any receptacle or bag that may contain medicines.
Q. You are doing a search for that. Are you also looking for anything else?
A. Yes. The police search teams I work with would pick up anything that would be dropped by a human or out of the ordinary. Those are the items that were just specified to us, but as a search team we tend to look for anything that should not be there.

It is strange isn't it that DCI Young makes that specific point that I have highlighted.  Did DCI Young go to Harrowdown Hill via the Kelly home at Southmoor?  Assuming that he was appointed the Chief Investigating Officer by ACC Page shortly after the body discovery then it seems that it was another two and a half hours approximately before he arrived at the scene.

The blood: PCs Franklin and Sawyer have their say

Leading the ambulance team to the scene of the body were PC Franklin and PC Sawyer.  At the Hutton Inquiry on 2 September Franklin was questioned by Mr Dingemans, then it was Sawyer's turn with his evidence taken by Mr Knox.

These are the extracts of their testimonies relating to the blood that they saw:

PC Franklin
Q. Did you see any signs of injury on the body?
A. There was a fair amount of blood to the left wrist area and on the left hand, and a fair amount of blood sort of puddled around.
Q. On the ground?
A. On the ground, yes.
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Q. And what did the knife look like?
A. The blade was open. It was some sort of lock knife. I cannot be that precise. I believe it had a curved -- slight curve to the blade. The blade was maybe 3 to 4 inches long.
Q. Was there anything on the blade?
A. Blood.

PC Sawyer

Q. Before the paramedics approached Dr Kelly's body, can you remember what position it was in?
A. Lying on its back with its head at the base of a tree, a large tree. The head was tilted to the left. The right arm was by the side. The left arm was palm down. There was a large amount of blood on the back of the left arm. There was a watch and a curved knife by that wrist.

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Q. What injuries did you see on the body itself?
A. I could not see any actual injuries because the injuries, I believe, were hidden by the wrist being turned down. But there was a large amount of blood there, and also from the mouth, the corner of -- the right-hand corner of the mouth to the ear there was a dark stain where I took it that Dr Kelly had vomited and it had run down the side of his face.
Q. What about on his face, were there any marks or stains on his clothes?
A. His jeans -- he was wearing jeans, they were pulled up slightly, exposing the lower half of his leg or his ankle. It looked as if he had slid down and his trousers had ridden up. I believe on the right-hand knee there was a patch of what I took to be blood, but I do not know what it was, but it had the appearance of blood.
Q. Did he still have his jacket on?
A. Yes.
Q. Were there any marks on the jacket, as far as you could see?
A. No, only the blood from his wrist.

In Annex TVP 3 on the Attorney General's website there are short extracts from the witness statements of these two police constables http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Annex%20TVP%203.pdf  No mention is made of blood in either of them.

Both Franklin and Sawyer get logged out of the scene for brief periods which I will detail later but other than that they are at Harrowdown Hill until after the hearse leaves with Dr Kelly's body.  If any blood was added to the scene after the departure of the ambulance team then they may have been aware of the fact.

Franklin's description of 'blood sort of puddled around' is very unsatisfactory.  Neither Dingemans nor Hutton sought to clarify what he said.  Coe and the paramedics failed to see the blood puddles; later I shall show that one of these, the pool of blood under the knife, would have been created after the paramedics left the scene.

PC Sawyer also sees the blood, or what he assumes to be blood, on the right-hand knee but that is all he observes on the clothing.

The knife at Harrowdown Hill

A knife was found at Harrowdown Hill to the left of the body.  The purpose of this post is to record the descriptions of the knife through the eyes of the witnesses.  

Although apparently close to the body the knife isn't mentioned by either of the civilian searchers at the Hutton Inquiry or in that part of their police statements that have been disclosed.  Neither the counsel to the Inquiry nor Lord Hutton ask Louise Holmes or Paul Chapman about the knife.  The searchers aren't asked about any of the other objects near the body nor do they volunteer information about them, suggesting that they were added after the searchers left the scene.  As will be discussed later the evidence is of the body being moved as well as each arm relative to the body.  Therefore the possibility of the various artifacts being added by a third party can't be ruled out.

This is DC Coe at the Hutton Inquiry:

Q. Did you notice anything about the body? 

A. I did.

Q. What did you notice?

A. I noticed that there was blood round the left wrist.  I saw a knife, like a pruning knife, and a watch. 

DC Coe police witness statement (from Annex TVP 1)

I could see that his left wrist had blood on it.  Close to the wrist was a small knife like a pruning knife together with a wrist watch.

PC Franklin at the Hutton Inquiry

Q. And what did the knife look like?
A. The blade was open. It was some sort of lock knife. I cannot be that precise. I believe it had a curved -- slight curve to the blade. The blade was maybe 3 to 4 inches long.
Q. Was there anything on the blade?
A. Blood.

PC Franklin police witness statement (from Annex TVP 3)

... the deceased had an apparent cut to his left arm, his wristwatch and a knife were lying close to the left arm ...

PC Sawyer at the Hutton Inquiry

There was a large amount of blood on the back of the left arm. There was a watch and a curved knife by that wrist.
Q. And you say a curved knife. Was it open? Was it a penknife?
A. It was open. I have seen gardening pruning knives which look identical. I would have called it a pruning knife.

The published extract of PC Sawyer's witness statement is very short and doesn't include any reference to the knife.

Paramedic Vanessa Hunt at the Hutton Inquiry

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.

The published extract of Vanessa Hunts witness statement in Annex TVP 3 just deals with the body position.

Ambulance Technician Dave Bartlett at the Hutton Inquiry

Q. What type of a knife was it? 

A. I think it was one of those silver quite flat ones with like a curved blade, more like a pruning knife. 

Dave Bartlett police witness statement (Annex TVP 3)

On the ground next to the left arm I saw a watch and an open penknife and an empty water bottle.

Forensic Pathologist Dr Nicholas Hunt at the Hutton Inquiry

Q. What about next to the watch?
A. Lying next to that was a pruning knife or gardener's knife. 

Q. Can you describe what type of pruning knife it was?

A. The make was a Sandvig knife. It was one with a little hook or lip towards the tip of the blade. It is a fairly standard gardeners' type knife.

Dr Hunt in his report 
Lying near his left hand, on the grass, was a black resin-strapped wristwatch; presumably a digital watch, lying face down and showing some bloodstaining.

Lying adjacent to this was a white metal 'Sandvik' pruning type knife, or gardener's knife, with its blade extended from the handle.  There was bloodstaining over both the handles and the blade and a pool of blood beneath the knife which was approximately 8-10 by approximately 4-5 cms.

Forensic biologist Roy Green at the Hutton Inquiry
Q. What else did you see around the body?
A. There was a bloodstained watch and a knife to --
Q. Was the knife bloodstained?
A. Yes, it was, yes. 

Mr Green's written statement 
The "Sandvik" knife (AMH.5) was a stainless steel penknife.  The single blade, which was curved and measured 7.5 cm in length, was exposed.  The blade and the handle were heavily stained with blood especially on the right side.

So what information can we draw from this?  The basic description of the knife is consistent between the various witnesses at Harrowdown Hill which is hardly surprising.  What is noticeable is that neither the ambulance crew nor DC Coe mention blood on the knife, by the time Mr Green sees it both the blade and handle are heavily stained with blood.  Even more theatrically Dr Hunt describes a pool of blood beneath the knife.  I shall explain later the evidence of the knife (and watch) having been moved between the time the ambulance crew are at the scene and the examination of the scene by Dr Hunt and Mr Green.

Mr Green, not surprisingly, gives us the most accurate description of the knife.  I have just made a measurement to see how wide my wrist is: it is almost exactly 7.5 cm across ... the same as the length of the blade.  The fact that the blade was curved demonstrates to me that its shape was far from ideal for the purpose.  I would have thought a knife of the "Stanley" type with a straight blade would have been far better for making incisions.

Some more interesting aspects of the knife to come in my next posts.

A short timeline for 18 July - on the ground and in the air

I'm a great believer in timelines in trying to focus on various events and their possible relationship.  Following my last post I thought it would be interesting to compare events on the ground at Harrowdown Hill from midday for the next two and a half hours with what was happening on Tony Blair's flight from Washington to Tokyo during the same period.

From a Freedom of Information request there is now information on when Blair and Falconer were in conference; the times I give I think are British Summer Time but I'm not sure so they may be liable to correction, however the duration is right.

Events on the ground are in blue, those in the air are in red.

12.00 Forensic pathologist Dr Hunt logged into outer cordon  

12.04 Dr Hunt is logged in at the inner cordon
12.06 DCI Young logged in at the outer cordon
12.10 to 12.13 Blair talks to Falconer
12.20 to 12.55 Blair again talks to Falconer
12.35 Dr Hunt goes to the body to confirm death then withdraws from scene
12.50 PC Franklin is asked by DCI Young to organise a fingertip search
13.08 Start of fingertip search
14.10 Dr Hunt, Mr Green and Dr Hickey go to the body to start the examination
14.17 Godric Smith goes to rear of plane to brief journalists
14.35 Blair's plane lands at Tokyo

This contemporary article in the Guardian usefully helps with the timing of the briefing by Godric Smith, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jul/19/uk.iraq2 

I'm fairly confident about the landing time for the Blair's plane at Tokyo.  I think that someone took a photo of the plane at that moment and there is a comment to that effect somewhere on the internet.  At the moment I can't find it. 

There may well be further timelines on this blog.