Death and a single cut wrist artery

In my last post I had considered the illogicality of selecting the ulnar artery for incision if a person was contemplating suicide.  Previous to that post I had discussed the knife found close to Dr Kelly's body and pointed out that it wasn't a sensible choice for someone bent on cutting their wrist.  Even more important than these points perhaps is the question of whether someone can die from blood loss as a result of incising a wrist artery and it's this matter that I now want to address.

Prior to Lord Hutton publishing his report on 28 January 2004 some medical experts were already asking how it was possible to lose sufficient blood (in medical parlance "exsanguination") from a severed wrist artery to lead to death.  Although some people have said that it can and has happened I would want to see a pathologist's report to be convinced.

As with the medical experts I am talking about a deceased who doesn't have a blood clotting disorder, a person who cuts just one wrist artery and someone who isn't sitting in a bath with the wrist immersed in water to keep the blood flowing.  Moreover it needs to be a case where there isn't another major contributory cause to the death.

Prior to carrying out the post mortem on Dr Kelly's body Dr Hunt had performed thousands of autopsies as I pointed out in this post  http://drkellysdeath-timeforthetruth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/dr-hunt-had-conducted-thousands-of-post.html  Before 18th July 2003 it seems that he had never carried out a post mortem on a person who had died as a result of haemorrhage from cutting a single artery in the wrist, certainly not the ulnar.  Effectively he was in, to him, uncharted territory.

Attempted suicide by wrist slashing isn't that uncommon but usually the physical damage that results is quite limited.  This is what one of the ambulance crew, Dave Bartlett, said in a newspaper interview on 12 September 2010:

‘To me, people rarely commit suicide by slitting their wrists. They’ll usually do it and end up in hospital.’

The ambulance crew were interviewed for The Observer by Antony Barnett on 12 December 2004.  This is Dave Bartlett again:

Most of them are taken down the hospital and given a few stitches then sent straight back home. 

There is an interesting comment in the "Jack of Kent" blog by someone calling themselves "London Cardiologist" http://jackofkent.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/blogging-on-death-of-dr-david-kelly.html

This is the comment:

I am a hospital doctor who regularly needs to cut the radial artery in the wrist as part of planned therapeutic procedure. I perform this procedure 5-6 times per day, as do my colleagues.

None of us have ever seen anyone lose more than a small amount of blood from radial artery trauma, let alone bleed to death (as was the stated cause of death for Dr Kelly). Our personal experience is compatitble with all of the medical textbooks and current scientific literature.
The artery clamps down and spasms when it is cut - preventing further blood loss - which is presumably an evolutionary mechanism. Although the possibility of the occurance of fatal radial artery haemorrhage exists, its theoretical likelihood is very small.

Scientific knowledge would be advanced if the inquest notes here were in the public domain. The medical profession might change its practice and preconceptions about radial artery trauma with the information provided.

Put simply, one of the major functions of the inquest system is to advance the total sum of human knowledge. Until this information is in the public domain, it can't be critically appraised. These are the reasons why all skeptics should be drawing attention to this; the conspiracy theorists have nothing to do with it.

This doctor is talking about the radial artery but it is almost identical in size to the ulnar artery.  To all intents and purposes a single transected wrist artery out in the open and with the person having no blood clotting problems should not lead to sufficient blood loss to lead to death.

Hutton is seriously at fault once again in not asking about the likelihood of death resulting from a single cut artery.  Dr Hunt appears to have given little thought about whether this supposed cause of death stands up to scrutiny.  

At the moment then we have an unsuitable knife, the wrong artery being cut and the near impossibility of death from cutting a single ulnar artery.  As we shall see the evidence doesn't show that there was sufficient blood loss at Harrowdown Hill to support the official cause of death.

Why choose the ulnar artery

According to Dr Hunt the primary cause of Dr Kelly's death was

1a. Haemorrhage

1b. Incised wounds to the left wrist

This post won't discuss the near impossibility of dying from blood loss resulting from the severing of one wrist artery.  What I now want to focus on is the choice of artery to cut.

I have previously mentioned the failure of Lord Hutton and the Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner to look at the forensic evidence with a critical eye.  Hutton and Gardiner don't have medical backgrounds of course but that shouldn't prevent them from asking at least some penetrating questions of the "experts".  If I can see problems with the presented forensic evidence surely they can as well!  Unless of course they have reason to ignore problems and anomalies .... 

It is the arteries that bring fresh oxygenated blood to various parts of the body and the veins that return the blood.  The artery in the upper arm is the brachial and in the lower arm it becomes two branches: the radial artery and the ulnar artery.

At the thumb side of the wrist we have the radial artery and this is very close to the skin surface, not more than about 5 mm deep.  It is familiar to us in a way because this is where one would commonly check a wrist pulse.  On the little finger side of the wrist is the second artery - the ulnar.  The ulnar artery is about the same size as the radial, possibly slightly bigger.  Importantly it is very much deeper in the wrist than the radial and to cut it would mean getting through tendons and nerves first.  You might just be able to feel the ulnar pulse, I have managed to do it, but it is very much more difficult to feel than the pulse in the radial artery.

It's not just the fact that it's deep in the wrist though.  Assuming, like Dr Kelly, you are right handed present your left wrist in different positions: on your knee, against the chest, on a table in front of you.  In each case it is the thumb side of your wrist that is closer to a potential blade held in the right hand.  Thus it is barely believable that anyone would cut down into the ulnar whilst leaving the radial artery unscathed.  Yet Dr Hunt is asking us to believe just that in the case of Dr Kelly.

In his report Dr Hunt writes of a deep wound that was furthest away from the wrist (in the direction of the elbow);

The ulnar artery had been completely severed and the ulnar nerve had been partially severed.  The radial artery was intact as was the radial nerve.  The wound was up to approximately 1 - 1.5 cms deep. 

If it wasn't for the fact that the wound was so deep I would be wondering if he had got the two arteries mixed up!

A forensic pathologist should find it well nigh unbelievable that an individual would have cut through one of his ulnar arteries without touching the close to surface radial one.  In other words they should be saying to themselves "there is almost certainly foul play here".

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.

Mai Pederson and the knife

There is a fascinating article by Sharon Churcher who interviews Dr Kelly's friend Mai Pederson: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1050919/David-Kellys-closest-female-confidante-COULDNT-killed-himself.html  For the purpose of this post I'll just look at what Ms Pederson said about the knife, or at least a knife:

Ms Pederson said she believed she was familiar with the knife Dr Kelly is said to have used. 

‘He always wore a Barbour jacket and he kept a knife in his pocket,’ she said. ‘It had a folding blade and I remember him telling me he couldn’t sharpen it because his right hand didn’t have the strength to hold a sharpener. 

The date of the article is 31 August 2008.

Make of this what you will but seemingly Ms Pederson is contradicting the evidence given by Mrs Kelly that the knife was normally kept in a draw.

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.

 

The knife, gaffer tape and Tom Mangold

On 4 July 2010 freelance journalist Tom Mangold, who has described himself as a friend of the late Dr David Kelly, wrote an article in the Independent on Sunday.  Mr Mangold is very much a defender of the suicide hypothesis.

The article attracted a considerable number of comments, some of which were just juvenile name calling, others though were very interesting.  Someone had evidently drawn attention to the lack of fingerprints on the knife because Mr Mangold responded with a comment of his own:

The pruning knife used by David to cut his wrist was covered in gaffer-tape, as are many knives, to prevent the fingers slipping on to the blade and provide a firmer grip. It is almost impossible to retrieve finger prints from this kind of material. For what its worth, I believe that had the government allowed a normal inquest to take place then the fruit-cake theories would never have gained traction.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-kelly-murdered-yes-and-i-bet-you-believe-in-the-tooth-fairy-too-2017805.html#comment-60548168

This was something of a bolt from the blue because there had been no mention of any gaffer-tape at the Hutton Inquiry nor, so far as I was aware, had there been a reference to that effect from anywhere else.

Dr Andrew Watt, author of the "Chilcot's Cheating Us" blog wrote an open letter to Tom Mangold about this http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/death-of-david-kelly-open-letter-to-tom.html

This was Mangold's response:

Thank you for your enquiry.

Ever since the recent publication of the pathologists report and further details confirming beyond all doubt the suicide of David Kelly, I have decided to decline all further involvements of any sort from those who continue to believe in any other theory.

Tom Mangold

I think that might be described as a "non answer"!

Andrew Gilligan repeats the story about the gaffer tape in an article the following month http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7947544/David-Kelly-was-not-murdered.html#

The absence of fingerprints on the knife may be explained by the fact that the knife handle was reportedly covered in gaffer tape, which does not easily hold fingerprints

To obtain absolute clarity on the matter a Freedom of Information request was made to Thames Valley Police:

Question

The body of Dr David Kelly was discovered on 18th July 2003. Close to the body a knife was found. My FOI request is to be told whether there was any string, tape or any other material attached to the handle of this knife when this knife was examined subsequent to the discovery of Dr Kelly's body.

Response

There were no items or material attached to this knife.

Where then did Mangold get his information about the gaffer-tape?  Does he really know whether gaffer-tape is often attached to a knife handle?  The knife blade was retractable so obviously the tape couldn't go right round the handle.  Gaffer-tape of course is really sticky and I would have thought it very fiddly to apply it to such a small surface and to avoid the slot into which the blade retracts.

Was Mangold making it up?  Foolish surely because nobody had previously mentioned it and a simple FOI request demolished the claim.  Perhaps he was fed a line.

It's an interesting fact that throughout the summer of 2010 and into the autumn there appears to have been a determined effort to rebut the charges of dodgy evidence and cover up, something to discuss later.

The gaffer-tape story really was a bit of nonsense that went well over the top.
 

Perhaps a knife like this

I don't know exactly what the knife found near the body looked like but from the description this present day one would I think be similar.


                                               

The watch "just on top of the knife"

DC Coe gave his evidence to the Hutton Inquiry on 16 September 2003.  Although it was very terse for I believe understandable reasons there are nevertheless some nuggets in it worth close examination.  This exchange with junior counsel Peter Knox is exceptionally interesting:

Q. Where was the watch? 

A. If I remember rightly, just on top of the knife.

Q. And where was the knife?

A. Near to the left wrist, left side of the body.

What on earth was the watch doing in that position 'just on top of the knife'?   Dr Hunt, the next witness to appear, had speculated in his report that the watch was removed part way through the cutting process yet here was the watch "on top of the knife".

This problem has been raised with the Attorney General as can be read at number 90 in the "Shedule of responses to issues raised" http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Schedule%20of%20responses%20to%20issues%20raised.pdf

Issue

Dr Hunt relied on the removal of the watch as indicative of suicide.  However DC Coe's evidence was that the watch was on top of the knife.  If that is correct that knife was not used to make the cuts.  This discrepancy was not examined.

Response

DC Coe reported that when he first attended the scene he witnessed Dr Kelly's watch as being "on top" of the knife.  Dr Hunt sets out that the knife was actually "adjacent" to Dr Kelly's watch.  Photographs taken show that both descriptions could be considered accurate as a short section of the strap appears to rest on the handle of the knife whilst the bulk of the knife is adjacent.

This response to the issue raised fails.  Firstly if part of the wrist strap was on top of the knife handle both Dr Hunt and Mr Green should have recorded the fact; they both failed to do so.  Secondly, the fundamental question of why ANY part of the watch is on top of ANY part of the knife is simply not addressed.

My own belief is that the scene setters in arranging the various artifacts made a simple mistake in allowing part of the watch strap to be on top of the handle of the knife.  As I say a simple mistake but a telling one.

A final point for this post:  DC Coe sees part of the watch on the knife yet says he didn't check the knife (for blood).  He sees the watch strap but fails to spot the pool of blood under the knife.  As he said to journalist Matt Sandy:  'On the ground, there wasn't much blood about, if any'.

Is this credible?  I think you know the answer to that one!

The knife and DC Coe's newspaper interview

DC Coe gave a very informative interview to journalist Matt Sandy that appeared in the "Mail on Sunday" dated 8 August 2010.  To any "Dr Kelly" investigator this has proved to be a goldmine of information.  For this post though I shall only be looking at a small part of the piece, where Mr Coe talks of the knife http://www.pressawards.org.uk/userfiles/files/entries-01011-00568.pdf

This is part of a direct quote:

Near him was a pruning knife with a wooden handle and a curved three-inch blade.

In my previous post none of the witnesses spoke of "a wooden handle" to the knife.  The person who should have been most reliable in his evidence is, in my opinion, Mr Green who not only sees the knife in situ but subsequently the knife goes to his laboratory.  Mr Green though describes it as a stainless steel knife, if the handle was partly or wholly wood he would surely have mentioned the fact.

Two possibilities come to mind:

• After an interval of seven years DC Coe's memory is at fault on this particular point.
• The knife described by him is not the same knife that the later witnesses saw.

The evidence given by the two ambulance crew in my previous post if anything support the all metal knife description but they aren't specific about the nature of the handle.

Later in the Matt Sandy article we read:

DC Coe is clear on the amount of blood he saw.  He said: 'I certainly didn't see a lot of blood anywhere.  There was some on his left wrist but it wasn't on his clothes.  On the ground, there wasn't much blood about, if any.

'I didn't see any bloodstains on the bottle and I didn't check the knife.'

Is it really credible that he never noticed the blade and handle being heavily stained with blood as viewed by Mr Green, or Dr Hunt's 8-10 by 4-5 cm pool of blood?

I suspect that the heavy bloodstaining on the knife, and the pool of blood, weren't there when he first saw the body.  Later I will explain why the knife was moved ... this would be the time then to "create" the pool of blood. 

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.

Dr Kelly's wristwatch

One of the items found on the ground and to the left of the body was a wristwatch.   This is what Mr Green says about the watch in his report:

Wristwatch:  Item AMH.4 was a black plastic "Casio" digital wristwatch.  This watch including the strap was not obviously damaged, and it was in working order, displaying the correct date and time when it was examined.  This item was very heavily stained with contact bloodstains and/or blood splashes over most of its surfaces.  A full STR profile matching that of Dr Kelly was obtained from a sample of the blood.

Amongst the debris (AMH.4.1) from the watch was a hair that was similar in appearance to the reference sample of wrist hairs (NCH.54) from Dr David Kelly.

In my opinion the wristwatch was being worn when David Kelly's wrist was cut but may have been taken off part way through to access areas of the wrist covered by the watch.

There is a very interesting choice of words here by Mr Green: he uses the phrase 'when David Kelly's wrist was cut' rather than 'when Dr Kelly cut his wrist'.  In fact he is being objective at this point in not assuming that Dr Kelly had been necessarily doing the cutting.

We know that Dr Hunt had speculated that the watch had been removed part way through the cutting and it's quite possible that Mr Green suggested this scenario when they were working together at Harrowdown Hill on the afternoon of the 18th July.  See also my post and the comments here http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3634321588005420812#editor/target=post;postID=2250564181200068174  It does seem totally illogical for Dr Kelly to remove the watch part way through the cutting rather than before he starts.

The fact that the watch was of the make and material stated seems to me to be in keeping with what we know about Dr Kelly.  In other words his choice of watch owes more to a desire for simple functionality than to be a piece of expensive jewellery.

In the "Schedule of responses to issues raised" http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Schedule%20of%20responses%20to%20issues%20raised.pdf number 80 is illuminating:

Issue

Dr Hunt considered that the removal of Dr Kelly's watch by Dr Kelly is indicative of the fact that he removed it to facilitate the cutting of his wrists.  But he does not know when the watch was removed or by whom.

Response

No-one can know precisely what happened when Dr Kelly died but in the complete absence of any evidence of third party involvement in his death it is logical to assume that Dr Kelly removed his own watch.  It is also logical to assume that if he wished to cut his wrist he might want to remove his watch first.

The last sentence acknowledges that, contrary to the Green/Hunt hypothesis, Dr Kelly might want to remove his watch first.

The remark about 'complete absence of any evidence of third party involvement' is incorrect as will be discussed in a later post.  Importantly there is strong evidence that I can disclose that points to the watch and knife having being moved subsequent to the ambulance crew visiting the scene.

It will, I hope, be appreciated by the reader that there is a huge amount of detail in my investigations and that I am mindful of trying to avoid individual posts becoming too lengthy. So I need to stop here I think.

Dr Kelly's key fob and wallet

There isn't much to record about Dr Kelly's key fob.  As remarked by Dr Hunt at the Hutton Inquiry and noted in his report he found it along with Dr Kelly's spectacles, mobile phone and the three blister packs of co-proxamol in a pocket of the Barbour jacket.  The presence of the key fob wasn't mentioned by Mr Green in his statement ... I assume that this was just an oversight on his part.

No DNA or fingerprint tests were carried out on the key fob http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/aboutus/aboutus-depts/aboutus-depts-infman/aboutus-depts-foi/aboutus-depts-foi-disclosure-log/aboutus-depts-foi-disclosure-log-investigate/aboutus-depts-foi-disclosure-log-item.htm?id=168271

Dr Kelly's wallet wasn't found on the body at Harrowdown Hill but 'was found by his family on the dining table of his house prior to them reporting him missing'  http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/aboutus/aboutus-depts/aboutus-depts-infman/aboutus-depts-foi/aboutus-depts-foi-disclosure-log/aboutus-depts-foi-disclosure-log-investigate/aboutus-depts-foi-disclosure-log-item.htm?id=180863

The fact that Dr Kelly didn't have his wallet with him and that there is no recorded evidence of there being any loose change in his pockets suggests that perhaps he didn't purchase the Evian bottle en route on his walk unless he had the exact money or maybe he popped back home with it before going on his final walk.

I don't have a problem with him not carrying any ID with him on a local walk.  It seems to me that some people when they leave home will automatically take their wallet, others not.  Therefore I don't think any inference should be drawn from the circumstances here.  

If Dr Kelly had been minded to kill himself and leave a suicide note then putting such a note in his wallet would seem to be a way to do it.  The reasoning would be in my opinion that the wallet wouldn't be opened until he had had time to carry out the act and therefore he couldn't be stopped.   Having said this if it was suicide then it was a long and agonising process he chose to use.

Dr Kelly's spectacles

Like the Evian water bottle that my most recent posts have focussed on the spectacles are another thing worth blogging about I think.

Dr Hunt, in his report, describes finding a pair of bi-focal spectacles in a pocket of the jacket.  He again refers to them as bi-focal spectacles at the Hutton Inquiry.  The fact that they weren't on his face at Harrowdown Hill but in his pocket led Dr Hunt to speculate that their removal was indicative of Dr Kelly wanting to cause himself self-harm.  Oddly no spectacles case was found at the scene suggesting a possibility that he was otherwise wearing them.

In this earlier post I had commented on the spectacle wearing http://drkellysdeath-timeforthetruth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/dr-kelly-interview-germ-warfare.html   One would need to make a close inspection of the various photographs and videos of Dr Kelly to ascertain if it was obvious that he was a wearer of bi-focals.  If so I hadn't noticed.

Interestingly someone has made a Freedom of Information request to Thames Valley Police about these spectacles, particularly asking whether DNA and fingerprint tests had been carried out on them.  They had but nothing had been recovered.

What I found quite strange was that TVP tested for fingerprints on three separate days.  That seems to me to be a high level of concern.  The FOI result states that fingerprint tests were conducted on 20/7/2003, 29/7/2003 and 30/7/2003.

The first of these (20/7) is a Sunday and just two days after finding the body.  As described in an earlier post they were tested for marks by technician Renee Gilliland on 29/7.  Ms Gilliland goes on to say that all the articles were resealed and repackaged and that they were collected by hand on 1 August.  The FOI answer though says that they were tested on the 30th as well as the 29th.

The delay in testing the Evian bottle contents

An argument might be made along the lines of "whenever human beings are making decisions cock ups are likely to occur from time to time".  In the case of an unexplained death, such as that of Dr Kelly, there is a counter argument in my opinion that such an investigation will be carried out by professional people who should know what they are doing.

A nearly empty bottle is found near the body.  Notwithstanding the fact that toxicology tests were being carried out on samples from the body at a very early stage I would have thought that testing the remaining contents of the Evian bottle would have assumed a very high priority.

From Dr Allan's second report dated 18 August 2003 we learn that it isn't until 25 July, that's a week after the body discovery, that Dr Allan receives the decanted water at his lab.  Presumably the analysis of this then receives some priority.  The statement of 18 August does, to be fair, also deal with other toxicological matters.

However we have Dr Allan delivering his conclusion as to the analysis of the bottle contents on the same day as the Oxfordshire registrar is recording the cause of Dr Kelly's death.

As an aside I wonder how the bottle and its contents were transported from the scene to avoid spillage and contamination.  Surely the top would have to be bagged separately and indeed it has a different reference number. 

The position of the Evian bottle

Mr Green, the forensic biologist, seems to be certain that Dr Kelly died in the position in which he sees the body on the afternoon of 18th July.  Likewise Dr Hunt is sure that the dead body wasn't moved.  Each of them gives us some information about the position of the Evian bottle and this is reproduced below.

In his report of 25 July 2003 Dr Hunt states:

Lying propped against some broken branches, to the deceased's left and about 1' from his left elbow was an open bottle of 'Evian' water (500 mls).  The top lay close by but further away from the deceased.

Mr Green, in his report of 27 September 2003, describes the geography thus:

Next to the deceased's left shoulder was a Barbour cap (AMH.6).  Beyond this, approximately 25 cm from the left shoulder was an almost empty Evian water bottle (AMH.2) and 12 cm further on was its top (AMH.3).

Ambulance technician Dave Bartlett was interviewed by Matt Sandy for the Mail on Sunday (12 September 2010).  The article includes the following  paragraphs:

Mr Bartlett has another concern.  The Evian water bottle was standing upright no more than six inches from Dr Kelly's left upper arm, and he is amazed that he would not knocked it over while dying.

He said 'I said to the copper at the time, "Who stood the bottle of water up or has it been moved?"  They said it hadn't been moved.  'For someone lying like that on leaf mould with a bottle of water there, he would have knocked it over while dying, I would have thought.  It seemed very odd to me.'

Why did Mr Green and Dr Hunt, the forensic experts, fail to comment on the position of the water bottle?  It took Dave Bartlett, who was at the scene for 5 to 10 minutes, to point out the oddity of the bottle not getting knocked over.  Did Green and Hunt who were there all afternoon fail to spot this?  Clearly too Dr Kelly wouldn't have been able to reach the bottle in its final position whilst lying on his back.  

It was established that Dr Kelly was right handed.  Yet Barbour cap, knife, watch, the water bottle and its top are all found to the left of the body and the "experts" don't comment on the fact.  A possible scenario exists whereby Dr Kelly placed the bottle, propped up against some branches, whilst on his left side.  Somehow though he managed to toss the bottle cap another 5 inches further on and very carefully turned on to his back without disturbing the upright bottle.  Is this really believable?

I will just mention at this point that subsequent to the discovery of the body by "Brock", the search dog of Louise Holmes, the body was moved.  Not only that but the left arm was repositioned relative to the body as well.  These matters will have to await later posts for consideration. 

Forensic evidence relating to the Evian bottle

As noted in a previous post the fingerprint technician had recorded the presence of two marks on the neck of the Evian bottle.  The possible identity of the person who might have left the marks has not been revealed; it may be that the quality of the marks wasn't sufficiently good to come to a conclusion.

Mr Green's tests though do have something more detailed for us.  This is what he said about the bottle in his written statement:

Item RG.1 was a swab taken from the non bloodstained thread area of the Evian bottle (AMH.2).   STR profiling of this swab gave an incomplete STR profile whose components were present in the corresponding positions in the profile of Dr Kelly so this DNA, presumably from saliva, could have come from him.

Item AMH.2 was a 500 ml clear plastic Evian water bottle.  Airborne spots of blood and contact smears of blood were present on this item.  STR profiling of one of the smears and one of the spots of blood gave full profiles, which matched that of Dr David Kelly.  This shows that the bottle had been handled after Dr Kelly's wrist was injured.

The threaded top of the bottle and the inside thread of the Evian bottle top (AMH.3) were swabbed and the swabs combined.  A full STR profile was obtained from the combined swabs, which matched the STR profile of Dr Kelly.  This indicates that it was Dr Kelly that drank from the bottle.

The outside of the bottle top also bore faint smears of blood.  STR profiling of one of these smears and of a separate non-bloodstained area was undertaken but no profiles were detected.  Although it was not possible to determine from whom the blood originated it seems a reasonable assumption that the blood came from the same source as the blood on the bottle.  If this is the case then it indicates that the top was taken off the bottle after Dr Kelly had injured his wrist. 

Earlier in his report Mr Green explains that 'STR profiling is a sensitive DNA analysis technique' 

The toxicologist (Dr Allan) records his analysis of the liquid in the bottle in his second report dated 18 August 2003:

The liquid consisted of 111 millilitres of clear colourless fluid with the appearance of water and having no unusual odour.  The pH (acidity) was normal for water indicating that no corrosive material such as an acid or alkali was present.

Apart from a trace of dextropropoxyphene, nothing of else of significance was detected in the water.

Reading these forensic reports it seems as if the laboratory work has been thorough.  Assuming all necessary care was taken to avoid for instance contamination of samples then I would have little reason not to accept the results.  It is what is then inferred from these results that becomes critical.

For instance a trace of dextropropoxyphene (dp) was found in the bottle contents suggesting that dp was in Dr Kelly's saliva and thus he had swallowed some tablets.  The most obvious conclusion of course but not necessarily true.  A few drops of dp could have been added to the water by a "scene setter".  Unlikely - yes.  Impossible - no.

Again the DNA results from the STR profiling from swabs of the threaded part of the bottle and the threads in the bottle top suggest that Dr Kelly had drunk from the bottle.  But at Harrowdown Hill?  If it was an old Evian bottle with tap water in it then Dr Kelly might have drunk from it before leaving home.  Very unlikely - perhaps.  Impossible - no.

These are examples of instances where a forensic expert has to be incredibly careful about arriving at his conclusions.  Where there is any reason for doubt then that doubt ought to be expressed.

Was 389 ml of water enough?

In my last post I noted that there was 111 ml of water left in the half litre Evian bottle.  If Dr Kelly had indeed ingested 29 tablets he used only 389 ml of water with which to do it, assuming he started with a full bottle.  This works out as an average of a measly 13 ml per tablet, presupposing that the tablets were swallowed individually.  Putting it a more intelligible way: this amount of water is barely the capacity of an English tablespoon which is 15 ml.

I raised this as a concern with the Attorney General's Office.  This can be seen at number 27 in the "Schedule of concerns and responses":

Given the amount of water left in the bottle by the body, he would not have been able to swallow 29 pills.

Dr Shepherd expresses the view that in his opinion it is "entirely possible to ingest 29 or more objects (including tablets) and particularly those that are designed to be swallowed, using only 300 mls of water"

I totally disagree with Dr Shepherd.  It might be possible to swallow a tablet with one tablespoon of water.  In the real world Dr Kelly wouldn't be able to restrict himself to this small amount of water for each of 29 tablets, there would be some where he would be using more of his ration than 13 ml.  Clearly then this would have to be compensated by using less than the 13 ml for some other tablets.

Shepherd talks of a lesser quantity of 300 ml which would make the swallowing all the more challenging.

In an earlier post I had mentioned that alcohol rather than water would be used if one is trying to commit suicide by co-proxamol ingestion.  When the toxicologist Dr Allan gives his evidence he reads out the warnings that come with co-proxamol tablets.  This includes "Avoid alcoholic drink"  As ever Hutton fails to react to the information he is given.

Dr Kelly left one tablet and 111 ml of water

Dr Hunt gave his evidence to the Hutton Inquiry on 16 September 2003.  During the course of questioning from Mr Knox Dr Hunt reveals the discovery of the co-proxamol blister packs:

Q. What did you notice about the clothing?  
A. He was wearing a green Barbour type wax jacket and the zip and the buttons at the front had been undone.  Within the bellows pocket on the lower part of the jacket there was a mobile telephone and a pair of bi-focal spectacles. There was a key fob and, perhaps more significantly, a total of three blister packs of a drug called Coproxamol. Each of those packs would originally have contained 10 tablets, a total of 30 potentially available.
Q. And how many tablets were left in those packs? 
A. There was one left. 
LORD HUTTON: Did you actually take those blister packs out? Did you discover them in the pocket yourself?
A. Yes, as part of the search, my Lord.
LORD HUTTON: Yes, I see.

So what reason could there be to take so many but leave one?

The volume of water left in the bottle was 111 ml or 22% of the original contents.  Nearly a quarter not drunk then ... would he really have left so much?  

The origin of the Evian water bottle

A 500 millilitre bottle of Evian water with 111 ml of water remaining was found near Dr Kelly's body.  There are a number of unanswered questions about this humble object that need to be addressed.

A very basic piece of investigation that Thames Valley Police should have carried out was to try and ascertain where this bottle had come from.  Did they do this?  There is no public record of them so doing.  As we have come to expect Hutton never considered this issue either.

Whether a shop in Southmoor had half litre bottles of Evian water for sale on 17 July 2003 I don't know.  But I understand that there is a shop that sells Evian water and I believe at one time they had their own labels on the products they were selling.  

If the public narrative is accepted then probably the last time Dr Kelly went for a walk from his home (prior to 17 July) was on the evening of 8 July following his return from RAF Honnington.  The possibility, maybe probability, was that Dr Kelly purchased the water on the 17th ... unless the bottle was provided by a "scene setter".

So why didn't ACC Page mention any TVP investigation into when and where the bottle was purchased?  Why didn't Hutton question him on this subject?  If Dr Kelly had bought a bottle of Evian water on the 17th and in Southmoor then that might have helped with a time line of events that day.  There would also be another witness who could have commented on his demeanour.  He was of course well known in Southmoor.

Did TVP investigate the source of the bottle?  Or did they have reason not to? 

Roy Green's statement was available to the Inquiry

Number 56 in the "Schedule of responses to issues raised" on the Attorney General's website is short and sweet but makes interesting reading nonetheless http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Schedule%20of%20responses%20to%20issues%20raised.pdf

The stated concern reads: 'Roy Green's final report was not before Lord Hutton' 


This is the response: 'Roy Green's statement of 27th September 2003 was available to the Inquiry'

I haven't been able to find any record of the report having been sent to the Inquiry.  Roy Green of course was a key witness and in normal circumstances one would have thought that the police would have forwarded the statement to the Inquiry automatically.  The way I read the response above is that Hutton would had to have asked for it, we don't know though whether he did so.  Certainly he made no reference to it in writing his report.


In an attachment to a letter to Mr Grieve dated 3 September 2010 Hutton says:


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.

I have previously pointed out that a coroner could have readily called the same witnesses.

Mr Green appeared at the Hutton Inquiry on 3 September 2003, more than three weeks before making his police witness statement.  His testimony at the Inquiry was sparse in detail and he told Hutton that his tests were still ongoing at that time.  So why wasn't he recalled for further questioning and why apparently wasn't his report sent to Hutton?


One clue as to why the police might not have been too enthusiastic about sending his report can be found in the very last sentence he wrote before Appendix (1):


My findings provide no support for an assertion that Dr Kelly died at the hands of another person (although it is not possible to completely eliminate this as a possibility).


Compare and contrast this with what Mr Grieve said to MPs on 9 June 2011:


There is no possibility that, at an inquest, a verdict other than suicide would be returned.


Mr Grieve quite clearly misled the House of Commons on 9 June 2011.

Fingerprints and Annex TVP 2

On 9 June 2011 the Attorney General Dominic Grieve made a statement in the House of Commons saying that he wasn't going to go to the High Court to apply for an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly.  On the same day a considerable body of written material was published on the Attorney General's website relating to his decision  http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Pages/DrKelly.aspx  It can be seen under the sub-heading "Thames Valley Police (TVP) statements" there are seven links; the first six links are titled Annex TVP 1 to 6.

Bearing in mind the wording of the sub-heading referred to then it might reasonably be assumed that a police officer from TVP authored the six annexes.  That is not the case though: we now know from a Freedom of Information request that they were drafted by Kevin McGinty, a senior civil servant in the Attorney General's Office.

Mr McGinty's "Annex TVP 2 Fingerprint and DNA evidence" is the one relevant to this post  http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Annex%20TVP%202.pdf   It is quite a brief document so should be read as a whole, however it is only the part dealing with fingerprints that I will concentrate on in this particular post.


Superficially it may appear to be fine but I want to point out my concerns about it.

At point number 7 Mr McGinty states 'It should be pointed out that these figures and the fingerprint statistics that follow are from a fairly small sample'.   The question that needs to be asked is how small is 'fairly small'?  We just don't know.  If a police force is involved in a cover up then how do we know whether or not the 'fairly small sample' has been weighted in some way.  Again we just don't know.  Really the statistics Mr McGinty then goes on to quote do not necessarily add up to very much.


Another matter not addressed is that a person intent on suicide would normally have little motivation to avoid leaving fingerprints.  Contrast this with a planned assassination say where I suggest the murderer or murderers could be very keen not to leave fingerprint, or DNA, evidence!  Without him being aware of the circumstances of the event leading to the possible procurement of fingerprint evidence how can Mr McGinty make a valued judgement from the statistics provided?


It is worth reading paragraphs 2 and 3 together.  Effectively I think they are saying that because no third party DNA or fingerprints were found at the scene that doesn't in anyway exclude the possibility of third party activity at Harrowdown Hill.  Assistant Chief Constable Michael Page made the point at the Hutton Inquiry that there was no evidence of third party involvement in Dr Kelly's death.  Clearly then the lack of third party DNA and fingerprints on its own couldn't exclude the possibility of third party presence.  


One area in which Mr Page's reasoning lets him down at the Inquiry is that because he can't find evidence of third party activity at the scene then no third party activity took place.  Hence Dr Kelly wasn't murdered, hence he committed suicide.  This line of argument is demonstrably nonsense!


In many ways the testimony given by Mr Page is very poor, no doubt I will be looking again at what he said at the Inquiry in later posts.

The lack of fingerprints

No comment was made at the Hutton Inquiry about whether there were fingerprints on the knife found near the body.  Nor indeed about fingerprints on any of the other items at Harrowdown Hill.  But Norman Baker asked Thames Valley Police about prints on the knife at least.  After some delay he received a response on 27 February 2007 stating that 'no fingerprints were recovered from the knife'

More recently it has been discovered via freedom of Information requests that similarly there were no prints on the spectacles, mobile phone, watch or from two of the co-proxamol blister packs.  (Although there were three blister packs one was retained for DNA checking - as the packets had been in a pocket of the Barbour jacket it is not too surprising that DNA believed to be that of Dr Kelly was found on it).  The packet with one tablet left was one of the two tested for fingerprints.

I have now had a witness statement dated 4 August 2003 sent to me.  This is by Renee Gilliland, a "Fingerprint Development Technician" employed by Thames Valley Police.  It is clear that she looks for fingerprints or other marks, photographs them and then these photographs are examined by someone else.  There has been understandable confusion about the process, the fact that there is a record of no fingerprints has been interpreted by some as being no identifiable prints.  Ms Gilliland has to report on any marks, it could be say a third of a smudged thumbprint, or less ... it doesn't matter. 

On Tuesday 29 July she examined and chemically treated the following objects as described by her:

AMH/2        Evian water bottle
AMH/5        Sandvik knife
AMH/4        Watch from left hand side body near left hand
NCH/17/2   Co-proxamol blister packets
NCH/17/4   Glasses
NCH/8         Belt
NCH/4         Right shoe
NCH/5         Left shoe
NCH/17/1    Mobile phone

I don't know why the belt and shoes were tested.  The first three items had a reference AMH because they were the preserve of Scenes of Crime Officer Andrew Hodgson, the remainder have a Nicholas Hunt reference.

With all this testing she found just two marks: these were near the mouth of the bottle.  Black and white photographs of the marks were forwarded to the force fingerprint bureau.  She gives a date of 4 July 2003 which is clearly way out - perhaps she was thinking of America's Independence Day for some reason!  Maybe she meant to say 4 August but would it take almost a week to have the photographs developed and sent?

She has to report on ANY marks that are revealed.  I find it difficult to believe that all she got out of the testing were two marks on the neck of the water bottle.  We don't know if  any significant conclusions were drawn from the presence of the two marks. 

Dr Hunt had conducted thousands of post mortems

In earlier points I had highlighted what I consider to be an important fact: it looks almost certain that Dr Hunt hadn't seen a death from a single transected ulnar artery before conducting the post mortem on Dr Kelly.  Probably not a death from any sort of incised wounds to a wrist and subsequent haemorrhage.

Norman Baker, in his book, states that Dr Hunt had only been a Home Office appointed forensic pathologist since 2001.  He makes the point that Dr Hunt had little experience in that position, certainly compared with most of the other forensic pathologists on the list.  In fairness though Dr Hunt stated at the Hutton Inquiry that he had been practising full time pathology since 1994.  

Dr Hunt was the forensic pathologist who gave evidence at a reported inquest in 2002 as can be read here http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2002/jun/19/broadcasting2  It can be seen that the deceased died of a very rare brain disease.

The fourth paragraph of the piece states that this was only the third instance of this rare disease that Dr Hunt had come across, 'despite carrying out thousands of autopsies'

As he had been engaged in full time pathology since 1994 I am not surprised that he had carried out thousands of autopsies.  If in all that time he had never had a case of death from a cut wrist then that would be indicative of the extreme rarity of this type of fatal injury I suggest.

Lord Hutton repeats a speculation of Dr Hunt

On the morning of 1 August 2003 Lord Hutton made his opening statement at the Inquiry.  In such a statement one expects the chairman to outline the relevant chronology so far as it's known and to give some pointers as to the evidence that he will be taking.  This process is followed by Hutton for much of his opening statement.

However he decides to repeat a speculative conclusion reached by Dr Hunt as can be seen:

37. A post-mortem examination was carried out by Dr Nicholas Hunt, a Home Office accredited forensic pathologist and his post-mortem report dated 19th July has been sent to me by the coroner. A toxicology report has also been sent to me by the coroner. The post-mortem report will be referred to in greater detail at a later stage in this Inquiry. However, it is relevant to state at this stage that it is the opinion of Dr Hunt that the main factor involved in bringing about the death of Dr Kelly was the bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist. Dr Hunt also states:
"The fact that the watch appears to have been removed whilst blood was already flowing suggests that it has been removed deliberately in order to facilitate access to the wrist. The removal of the watch in this way and indeed the removal of the spectacles are features pointing towards this being an act of self harm."


What on earth is Hutton doing inserting a piece of Dr Hunt's speculation into the middle of a list of facts?  It seems to me that there are two possibilities:

1. Hutton wasn't experienced at running public inquiries and was totally out of his depth here.  Having said that I would have thought there would have been an element of commonsense and that he would have realised that you don't record a speculative comment when setting out a list of facts, insofar as you know them.

2. Hutton had already made up his mind that Dr Kelly had killed himself and that repeating that particular piece of speculation from Dr Hunt acknowledged this. 


I think that "2" is the more likely explanation.


Whatever the reason it really isn't acceptable for Hutton to have done this.


It looks as if Hutton had yet to receive Dr Hunt's final report of 25 July.  We do know though from what Hutton said that Dr Hunt had already arrived at his speculative conclusion regarding removal of watch and spectacles when he wrote his 19 July report.

Dr Hunt speculates

A forensic pathologist is not permitted to state for instance that someone has committed suicide.  That is the job of the coroner (or a coroner's jury if called).  The pathologist or any expert giving evidence can voice an opinion though, indeed many people would expect him to I think.  

Our forensic expert would obviously report on the examination he has made and record the results of any relevant tests.  It might be that he could usefully give an opinion but the problem then is that the coroner or the person chairing an inquiry might receive that opinion without submitting it to critical appraisal.  In the case of Dr Kelly's death it seems that both Mr Gardiner and Lord Hutton accepted what Dr Hunt said - there is no evidence at all that they scrutinised his report with a view to raising questions about it.

I particularly want to draw attention to conclusions 7 and 8 in Dr Hunt's final report dated 25 July 2003.  They are reproduced below:

7. The fact that the watch appears to have been removed whilst blood was already flowing suggests that it has been removed deliberately in order to facilitate access to the wrist.  The removal of the watch in this way and indeed the removal of the spectacles are features pointing towards this being an act of self-harm.

8. Other features at the scene which would tend to support this impression include the relatively passive distribution of blood, the neat way in which the water bottle and its top were placed, the lack of obvious signs of trampling of the undergrowth or damage to clothing.  The location of death is also of interest in this respect as it is clearly a very pleasant yet relatively private spot of the type that is sometimes chosen by people intent upon self-harm.

These conclusions are totally speculative.  If there had been a murder and it was decided that the murder scene be made to look like suicide then Dr Hunt's observations would similarly apply I suggest.  There is no evidence that Dr Hunt considered the possibility that here was a murder dressed up as suicide.

If carried out with a degree of professionalism then it can be readily understood that, with no witnesses to the death, a murder could be made to look like suicide.  It is the case of course that a coroner isn't depending solely on "forensic" evidence if he is considering a verdict of suicide ... he MUST also see proof of intent.  All of the proof, forensic and evidence of intent has to be "beyond reasonable doubt".

The possibility that Dr Kelly could have been incapacitated and carried to the spot where he was found cannot be ignored.

Dr Hunt refers to 'the neat way in which the water bottle and its top were placed'.  In a later post I shall explain why this is highly suggestive of third party involvement.

Dr Hunt had written a preliminary (unpublished) report on 19 July 2003  and a final report on 25 July, this latter one was the one published on the internet on 22 October 2010.  As I shall explain in my next post we know at least that he had arrived at conclusion 7 on the 19th.

It is quite extraordinary that Dr Hunt was able to come so definitively to conclusions 7 and 8 and to be seemingly convinced that this was an act of self-harm.