The death of Dr Kelly's mother

Keith Hawton, Professor of Psychiatry, was one of several witnesses to make a second visit to the Inquiry.  His return on 16 September appears to have been primarily concerned with the presumed suicide of David Kelly's mother while he was studying at university.  Mr Dingemans asked whether his mother's death might have had an influence on Dr Kelly committing suicide.  This is the exchange:

Q. You have given evidence to the Inquiry on 2nd September.  Had you, before you gave evidence, interviewed  Mrs Kelly? 
A. I had.
Q. And had she provided information to you to the effect that Dr Kelly had confided in her his belief that his mother, who had suffered a stroke, might have committed suicide although an open verdict had been recorded at the inquest?
A. Yes, she did.
Q. That was not adduced in your oral evidence to the Inquiry on 2nd September.  At that stage, what was your view about its possible relevance?
A. I think the relevance of that fact was extremely uncertain and would have been speculation to have put forward.
Q. Have you since you gave evidence on 2nd September received further information?
A. I have.
Q. And what is that further information?
A. I have received three items of information. One is a copy of a letter that was sent by Martin Hemming, legal adviser to the Ministry of Defence, to the solicitor for the Inquiry on 22nd September.  Another piece of information was a copy of the register of Dr Kelly's mother's death, the register entry I should say, and the third was a copy of an entry by a general practitioner in Leeds on Dr Kelly when he was a -- presumably a student at Leeds University in 1964.
Q. Turning first to the letter from the legal adviser to the Ministry of Defence. What relevant information does that disclose?

A. I will read what it says. It says: "I enclose two extracts from Dr Kelly's vetting file which were prepared based on a report prepared by the investigating officer handling his initial positive vetting clearance in 1985. The first records an interview on 20th November 1985 with Dr Kelly in which he referred to his mother's death."  The relevant passage, quoting from the letter, reads: "'Dr Kelly said his mother died by her own hand in 1964, never having remarried. For many years prior to her death she suffered from depression and he has little doubt that the verdict of the coroner at the inquest into her death that the balance of her mind was disturbed was correct.'"
Q. Was there any other information in the letter?
A. Yes, there is a -- as follows: "The second extract --
LORD HUTTON: I think there should be no reference to anyone's name, Professor Hawton, or to any particular locality.

A. I understand. The second extract reports an interview on 28th November with a friend of Dr Kelly who had known him for many years, who he had nominated as one of his character referees. I am quoting here. The relevant passage seems to be as follows:  "The main incident in their lives that had brought them ..."   Sorry: "He thought that the main incident in their lives that had brought them closer friendship was that their mothers each took their own life within a short period of each other. They were in many ways able to give each other encouragement and help following these tragedies, which helped them to develop a closer bond of friendship between them."  Then another following extract: "He recalls the death of his mother [here one assumes he is referring to Dr Kelly, Dr Kelly's mother], which occurred at a time during his student days at the University of Leeds and was known to be engrossed in his studies and whilst the tragedy distressed him, he appeared to ride the period well and at no time when [they] were together did he display any mental reaction to this unfortunate matter. In fact, the referee said 'he can be considered a well balanced person'."

MR DINGEMANS: Turning to the second piece of information which I think you have told us was entry on the death register. Can you identify any relevant and only relevant extracts?
A. This concerns, as I said earlier, Margaret Kelly's death, that is Dr Kelly's mother's death, on 13th May 1964, and the cause of death is stated as bronchopneumonia, that is a chest infection due to barbiturate poison, and an open verdict was given.
Q. So it was an open verdict?
A. Yes.
Q. And the final piece of information, I think you referred to some GP records.
A. Yes, there is a GP record just dated May 1964, the specific date is not given. I think one can deduce it was following Dr Kelly's mother's death. It reads as follows: "Insomnia following death of mother". Then there is an indication that a tranquilliser was prescribed.
Q. In what ways might this further information be relevant?
A. I think it is uncertain whether this adds anything further to the information that I had already had at the time of my previous appearance at the Inquiry.
Q. Are there three possible ways in which suicide in a family can potentially be relevant?

A. Yes, indeed. The first way is fairly clear, and that is through transmission through generations, in other words from parents to children, of severe mental illnesses which are known to be associated with risk of suicide, and the evidence suggests this is largely a genetic transmission. The sorts of illnesses one is referring to here are manic depressive illness, for example, severe depression, alcoholism and so on.
Q. From what we have heard about Dr Kelly there does not appear to be any evidence of that, is that right?
A. No, I do not think this applies. There is certainly no evidence that he had significant mental illness, either at the time of his death or previously.
Q. The second way in which it might be relevant?
A. Well, the second way -- and we get on to slightly less certain ground here -- is through transmission of -- through generations of certain personality characteristics which might increase the risk of suicide.
Q. In the past you told us that those characteristic traits would be, for example, aggression, impulsiveness.
A. Hmm.
Q. Is there any evidence that Dr Kelly had those personality traits?
A. Absolutely not, and indeed the reverse I would say.

Q. So we come to the third possible way. What is that?
A. Well, this gets into a much more uncertain area and this is whether having a suicide in a family can affect an individual within that family's attitude towards suicide. There is virtually no research on this somewhat for obvious reasons, in that it is difficult to ascertain attitudes particularly in people who have died by suicide themselves. But one can speculate that this could have an effect on an individual but it might work in one of two possible ways.
Q. What are those two ways?
A. Well, the first might be that if a person is in a situation in which they are faced by apparently insurmountable problems and are feeling hopeless and suicidal, having had a family member commit suicide might possibly make them somewhat more comfortable with
the idea of suicide. On the other hand, such a person is likely to have intimate knowledge of the terrible impact that suicide very often and usually has on families, which may indeed actually serve to decrease the likelihood of suicide in that individual.

There is the somewhat odd situation then that an open verdict was returned at the same time as the coroner stated 'the balance of her mind was disturbed'.  It seems to me likely that the coroner just couldn't be sure "beyond reasonable doubt" that there was an intention to commit suicide.  This is in marked contrast to Hutton's certainty about Dr Kelly's death.

It was three years later that Dr Kelly married Janice ... my assumption is that his mother's death occurred some time prior to him meeting his wife to be.

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.   

Were the "expert" witnesses competent and honest?

When Lord Hutton conducted his Inquiry he quite reasonably called a number of witnesses who one would expect to be expert in their specialisms.  We imagine these individuals are both competent and honest.  A person who is supposedly a forensic expert can pull the wool over one's eyes because most of us don't have the knowledge to immediately refute the expert's argument nor do we have the time to dissect what they have said or written.  The expert has had his say, and with a number of qualifications and in most cases years of experience who are we to say they are wrong?

I am not an expert but, as with certain other folk, I can pull an argument apart and am prepared to do so where necessary.  The following have all been found wanting: Assistant Chief Constable Michael Page, Forensic Pathologist Nicholas Hunt, Forensic Toxicologist Alexander Allan, Forensic Scientist Roy Green, Consultant Psychiatrist Keith Hawton and we musn't overlook Lord Hutton himself.  An expose of at least some of their failures will be a key feature of this blog.

It's worth noting at this point what Hutton was saying about expert witnesses and his Inquiry on 3 September 2010.  On this date he wrote to the Attorney General with an attached report, what he described as "a note" that he intended giving to the Lord Chancellor.  In response to criticisms he states at 1(b):
The inquiry was as full and thorough as an inquest, and was probably more so because a considerable number of expert witnesses gave detailed evidence including a Home Office pathologist, a forensic biologist and a forensic toxicologist.  The leading expert on suicide in England, Professor Keith Hawton of Oxford University, was also called to give evidence.

This paragraph by Lord Hutton is absolute nonsense!  It would have been open to the coroner to call all of these people including Hawton.  There would have been nothing at all to stop the Oxfordshire coroner doing this, whether he would have done so is a different argument, the point is he could have done.  Moreover, because they would have had to give evidence under oath at an inquest then it would be more likely if anything for the inquest to be better than an inquiry (or at least the casual sort of inquiry that happenned here).

The example just given of Hutton's musings demonstrates how poor his arguments can be.