The Hutton Inquiry

PROFESSOR AVERY: Thank you, my Lord.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Roger John Avery.

PROFESSOR AVERY: I am an administrator and scientist at Virginia Tech University in the United States.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes, I have. My formal education was in England.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes, I did.

PROFESSOR AVERY: I met him at the University of Warwick when I took my first faculty position as a lecturer. It was either in 1971 or 1972.

PROFESSOR AVERY: He was a post doctoral Fellow studying in another laboratory at the same university.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes. We did some joint research projects together and through that became close friends.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Until 1983.

PROFESSOR AVERY: No, he left the university before I did, as I recall to go to the Institute of Virology in Oxford. I do not recall the exact date that he left.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes, we did. We visited back and forward and continued our joint research together.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes, I did.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes, I did. We maintained contact throughout the last 30 years; and we did have some contact while he was at Porton Down.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Only in very general terms. I knew that he was working on defensive approaches, if you will, to biological weapons, but I have no knowledge of the detail.

PROFESSOR AVERY: "Assist" is probably too strong a word. He did ask me to be an adviser to him, but only asked my advice on one occasion, as I recall, and the matter was a scientific one; I did not understand the relationship of it to his work.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes, I had to be vetted to get some sort of security clearance. This would have been in about 1984.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Well, I went backwards and forwards several times. I imagine you could say I moved permanently in 1986 when I took a position at Cornell University.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes. David actually had a long-standing collaboration with an institute at Cornell University so he came to see me there maybe two or three times. I do not remember exactly.

PROFESSOR AVERY: It was mostly by telephone calls and by the occasional visit and the very occasional e-mail.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Sorry, have I talked about his work?

PROFESSOR AVERY: Never in any detail no.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes, I did. I am sure I spoke to him on the phone on occasions. I did not see him since May. And I know I spoke to him on the phone about a week before he died.

PROFESSOR AVERY: His usual self.

PROFESSOR AVERY: The last phone call -- actually there were two of them -- was somewhat unusual in that I, on Thursday -- I will just have to check the date to make sure I have the correct date -- Thursday 10th. Thursday 10th July, as I was about to leave my office at about 5.15 I received a phone call from the press telling me that Dr Kelly was involved in the current dispute that was going on between the BBC and the British Government over the dossier and could I give them his telephone number. Of course I did not do that.

PROFESSOR AVERY: No, this was the English press -- a reporter for The Times.

PROFESSOR AVERY: No, I did not, but I did immediately call Dr Kelly on his mobile phone. I vaguely remembered that he told me he was hoping to go back to Iraq. So when he answered I said, "Where are you?" thinking he would say, "In Iraq", and he said, "I am at Weston-Super-Mare". Then I asked what he was doing in Weston-Super-Mare and he told me that he had had a phone call telling him he should leave home within a few minutes because the press were about to descend on him; and so he and his wife, Janice, had actually done that.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Do you know, I have been trying to remember that. I cannot remember whether he told me or whether I learned afterwards that it was the Ministry of Defence.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Well, it is very difficult to judge because it was an extremely short phone call, probably only lasted a couple of minutes. That in itself was a little bit unusual in that we usually talked for some time when we made contact. However, he did not seem unduly distressed and did say something like: I will give you the details later.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes. The following morning I received more calls from the press and so called him again and, in fact, gave him a reporter's telephone number at that time and asked him -- obviously said to him, you know: here is the telephone number should you want to call the press. He sort of chuckled and said: no, I do not want to speak to the press.

PROFESSOR AVERY: No. That phone call, as the one on the previous day, was extremely short and we really -- I have more or less covered the complete exchange in what I have said to you. So it did strike me as unusual that he did not want to talk more because, as I say, we usually did. But I did not at that time read any significance into that, other than that it was inconvenient for him to talk.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Not at that timescale, as I -- during that particular time, as I recall, no.

PROFESSOR AVERY: In very general terms. He would talk about personal experiences that he had had in Iraq, how he had enjoyed meeting ordinary Iraqis and talk in very general terms. He never spoke in any detail about his work. He was a man of great integrity and would not have done that, I do not think, even to me.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Yes, we did. I was somewhat envious in the fact he was expecting to retire in the next year or two and unfortunately I will not be for a few years. We did talk about retirement, the sorts of things we might do and the financial implications and that sort of thing.

PROFESSOR AVERY: I think he was -- he did not describe any details of his financial situation but I think he was concerned that he would be able to make ends meet after retirement.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Sadly, no.

PROFESSOR AVERY: I do not believe so because unfortunately I was not in contact with David during that last critical week.

PROFESSOR AVERY: Thank you, my Lord.

MS KELLY: Yes, I can.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: He did, yes. I think he left probably late morning and he planned to get to me for early evening. As I sort of said earlier, I had actually been working that day and I actually left work a little bit early so I could get back in time for when Dad arrived because I wanted to be able to share supper with Dad and David, my partner.

MS KELLY: I got home about 7 o'clock.

MS KELLY: Yes, he had already arrived. And when I actually first came in, I came into the house and I was in the kitchen and I think Dad had just popped out to get something from his car. He then came back into the house. And when I first looked at him there was a really strong expression on his face that really shocked me and I was actually quite distressed to see the hurt that I could see in his face. It was a particular look. There was a lot of distress and anxiety, perhaps a bit of humiliation. He was seeing his daughter for the first time since all this news about his work had broken and I was just very surprised. And he almost -- he did not seem quite like a broken man, that is probably too strong a term, but he was certainly very distressed but putting on quite a brave face. It was really that one look that gave me an insight as to how he was feeling.

MS KELLY: It was a very long look. It was quite a loving look, if you like. I loved my father very much and as a daughter I was very concerned to see him showing me this sort of vulnerable side to him; but his eyes seemed quite sort of dilated and quite sort of liquid, quite deep. It was a really strong expression, but then the moment passed, and I was aware that he seemed very gentle, more childlike. I was very conscious that our roles seemed to be reversing, that I needed to look after him and he needed to be looked after. As I said, the moment passed. I showed Dad up to his room. Then we just tried to relax. I took him out to my garden. I have a small garden and Dad always quite liked it. I showed him all my plants. I was just keen to try to look after him and provide some comfort to him. One thing I remember thinking was that I would never compromise his dignity, and that is probably what prevented me from seeing that he needed perhaps more help than I alone could give him. By that time I knew, from Mum and from Dad, that he would have to face these two Committees the coming week. And I think both of us accepted he did not have any choice but to go in front of them. And Dad certainly saw it as his duty. I mentioned earlier about his strong sense of duty as a civil servant. He would not have questioned that. He would have done what he had to do in order to fulfil that role for him.

MS KELLY: He did, yes. He seemed particularly -- he really was quite distressed. He was composed on the outside but underneath I could see he was really very, very deeply traumatised by the fact that the second one would be televised live, and that did seem to be playing on his mind.

MS KELLY: Just he told me in very simple terms it would be televised live. I actually tried not to press him too hard on what was coming up in front of him because I wanted him to relax and I just did not want to cause him any more stress. I was just conscious he seemed to be under a lot of pressure. He was actually quite relieved to arrive with us. He had had a long drive and was tired, so it was a chance for him to sit down and relax and talk to us.

MS KELLY: A little. I think my question was along the lines of: was he getting much support from them? He replied he was getting support from friends and colleagues. He was not really able to articulate any actual support. I just remember feeling there was a lack of moral support for him because he could not tell me about it. He certainly said that people were recognising he had been through the mill. He just seemed very, very tired, very exhausted and under a lot of pressure.

MS KELLY: No. I think he knew -- he was hoping to go out to Baghdad shortly and we again spoke of his need to have some holiday. He recognised himself he really needed to have some holiday but that he was planning on going out to Iraq either on the Monday or the Friday of the following week, so that was sort of at the back of his mind. We talked about the coming week, and Dad had originally planned he might stay in hotels in London but he did not really want to do that and be on his own if he could avoid it. I just said that he was very welcome to stay with me and I actually gave him a key so that he could just come and go.

MS KELLY: We did, yes, all together. We had actually a really nice meal. It might sound odd now but we enjoyed each other's company. We had an enjoyable evening. Dad began to relax a bit more. We had a pleasant evening.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: He probably went to bed about 10 o'clock -- just after 10, perhaps. David had left us after supper to go for a walk so that we had a chance to talk, but we talked mainly just of his visit to Cornwall, mainly because we had been to the same places -- I had been there the previous year to Heligan. So we just talked about that; and Dad had obviously enjoyed visiting Heligan.

MS KELLY: Sorry, of course.

MS KELLY: Yes, I was.

MS KELLY: I was catching the train to Banbury.

MS KELLY: Yes he did. He was planning to go off and catch the 9.15 train. We both got up quite early, showered and joined each other for breakfast.

MS KELLY: He again seemed quite quiet, quite nervous, but composed on the outside. I just felt there was a huge amount of tension within him. I remember he was standing in the kitchen whilst I was making coffee and preparing the breakfast. Again, I just tried to be of comfort to him so that he did not worry too much. We actually enjoyed breakfast with each other and were enjoying each other's company. I then had to dash off to go and catch my train.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: Yes, I did. When I got home -- I actually should have been out that evening with work and we actually managed to reschedule that. So I got home and I had sent Dad a text message to say that I would be home early after all. When I got home Dad was already there, he was sitting on the sofa and waiting for me. He just seemed very gentle really, very pleased to see me. He was as normal really, quite composed, quite relaxed. He had obviously been home for about an hour.

MS KELLY: At that point he seemed more relaxed, but I was conscious that I needed to go up to the local supermarket just to get a few things for the next couple of days, including some milk, so I suggested we go for a walk up to the local supermarket.

MS KELLY: Yes, he did. Yes.

MS KELLY: Initially again a little quiet, but talking normally to me. He was asking after my day. Then we walked over a stream that is near my house, and we just stopped and looked and listened to the water. It is actually quite a pleasant spot to watch, and Dad just seemed lost in his thoughts. He just was transfixed by the water. I chatted for a bit then realised he just wanted to be quiet. He just seemed under an overwhelming amount of stress, that is the only way I can describe it, that there was something on his mind. I would guess he was contemplating the day ahead of him the next day, but he also seemed to be finding it almost painful to think about it. He was just very withdrawn, and I was just very, very concerned about him.

MS KELLY: Yes, a little. As I say, we went up to the supermarket. On the way back we talked a little bit more and he told me that he would be facing the Committees alone the next day and he said because it would be too difficult for someone to be with him. I think he tried to find somebody but there was not anyone available who would be able to sit with him.

MS KELLY: He seemed disappointed that he would be on his own, but equally he did not complain about it, he just accepted it; but I think he would have preferred very much to have more moral support sitting alongside him.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: We then went back home and had tea. Dad did have several phone calls from friends, generally he would either take them in the kitchen or perhaps sit in the garden. I remember one comment I overheard was that he was very depressed by the media coverage. He seemed very averse to the media coverage.

MS KELLY: Yes. He was really unhappy he could not get to his home. He felt he did not want to run the gauntlet of the press. He had not been at home so he was not really quite sure if there was anything to worry about. He had heard from both myself and the pub opposite that there had been a lot of interest. He felt very, very uncomfortable with that, and I think that added extra stress to the situation that he was going through.

MS KELLY: Yes, I was. I was working as normal.

MS KELLY: Again, I left probably about 8 o'clock to go to work --

MS KELLY: Yes, we again had breakfast together.

MS KELLY: At breakfast, fine. We had coffee and normal breakfast. He was -- I think he was just trying to enjoy his time with me possibly rather than think ahead to the day. He had done his thinking perhaps the night before. My partner David came down and we were all quite happy with each other.

MS KELLY: Yes, he was planning, I think -- every day I think he caught the 9.15 train.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: Yes, I did. When I got home I phoned him to see where he was, and he was actually just arriving at Oxford station so I went over to meet him.

MS KELLY: Yes, I did, yes.

MS KELLY: He was very, very pleased to see me, hugely relieved to be back home and he just seemed utterly exhausted. He was really, really tired. He told me a little of the way the day had gone just whilst we walked back.

MS KELLY: He said he had expected two Committees, which I knew, one I think at 12.30 then the televised one at 3 o'clock. I know he was glad the televised one was going to be second so he would perhaps have had a practice by then. When he arrived he was told -- he arrived in London to find the second one was cancelled, so he went along to the first one. When he got to the first one he found out that actually it was that one that was cancelled, and therefore it was just the televised one. It was an incredibly hot day, I do not know if you remember the day, but when he went to go to the 3 o'clock one there was a bomb scare which prevented him getting to this meeting. I know he had to walk down. He said he was late by this time. He was very, very uncomfortable at walking through the press which he had hoped to avoid. That really bothered him. He was very, very hot. He arrived hot and bothered but was unable to arrive any other way. He was a man who very much preferred to arrive so that he could arrive, you know, composed rather than having to run the gauntlet of the press.

MS KELLY: No, I tried not to press him on that. I realised he probably had had a really difficult day. I had not seen the Committee myself and I had not seen any of the coverage. I actually felt, because I knew he did not want to be televised, I actually felt a little bit uncomfortable if I had tried to watch it. So I deliberately tried not to watch it, and in any event I was at work, so I could not. Dad said it was very, very hard, those were his words when I just said: how did it go?

MS KELLY: I got the impression that the questioning had been quite tough. He did make a particular comment about one man, about the strength of his questioning.

MS KELLY: I must admit I was surprised he said it. He said it very quietly, with some feeling, and that was that this man was an utter bastard, because of the nature -- not the questions he asked but because of the manner in which he asked them, I think. I hate to say that because I am very conscious that this gentleman has perhaps had some adverse publicity since, and I would hate to inflict any more on him. But Dad did not name the person and by this time we had got home.

MS KELLY: It was an incredibly hot day and Dad -- when I got home I would always offer him a drink anyway, but he was incredibly thirsty so I offered him a drink. He said, yes, he would have water to rehydrate. He was very dehydrated. Then he had another very large glass of orange juice, for energy he said. He was just exhausted and was just needing some refreshment.

MS KELLY: He seemed relieved that it was over. I think he was still on some sort of adrenalin high almost. He was -- it was -- he was happy to be home and happy to receive phone calls from friends to express how it had gone.

MS KELLY: That night -- there were a couple of messages on my phone I had not actually picked up for a while. There was one from Sarah.

MS KELLY: My Aunt Sarah who spoke earlier.

MS KELLY: Yes. And also one from a work colleague, whose name I forget. But I then needed to go back to my parents' house to look after the cats and the greenhouse. I left Dad in peace for a bit so he could have a chance to relax.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: Yes, he was. I got back home at about 8 o'clock. Dad was in the garden and just coming off the phone from Sarah. I had actually phoned Sarah from Westfields, from my parents' home, just to let her know how Dad was, and I know she was keen to talk to Dad so I knew she would be phoning him.

MS KELLY: He seemed quite cheerful almost. He was just relieved that the worst one was over. He took a few more phone calls. I prepared tea. Whilst it was cooking he actually came in and was just sitting on the sofa. We did talk a little bit about him being named as a source. I think he was always quite incredulous that they had considered him to be the principal source because although he recognised obviously he had had a conversation with Andrew Gilligan, he seemed to think it was a very minor part and he could only recognise one element of it, which was the reference to 30 per cent about the probability of weapons.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: Well, he was really struggling because he was finding it very, very hard to recall conversations he had had about six weeks earlier and he was being very hard on himself because he could not recall them. He also said that because of the last couple of weeks he just felt mentally shattered. I think he was just unable to process his mind as he was usually able to. He was unable to recall, for example, the Gavin Hewitt conversation, that had come up but he was unable to recall that under questioning.

MS KELLY: Not one that we talked about on that evening, although with hindsight I have since seen some of the reports in the press and the questioning at the Foreign Affairs Committee Select Committee about Susan Watts struck me, and just to echo really what Sarah said earlier, that the Committee asked him a specific question about Susan Watts and they referred him to a meeting, a face to face meeting he had had. That was in November, which he correctly identified. But they asked him -- they put a quote to him and asked did he recognise those words. He said that on that occasion he could not believe he had said that, and he was right, it was not on that occasion he had had it. Had they asked him about a telephone conversation then he might have searched his mind differently and come up with a different answer.

MS KELLY: Yes. He referred again to Andrew Gilligan and just -- his feeling was that he had accumulated this information over time and he could not understand how Gilligan could make such forceful claims from the conversation that they had had. But it was not a lengthy conversation, I did not want to press him on the matters of the day because I wanted him to be able to relax. He took more phone calls. We did not eat actually until about 9.20 because I had got home quite late. He was really, really hungry. We actually had a pleasant meal by that time because we were just relaxing and enjoying each other's company.

MS KELLY: Yes, very well.

MS KELLY: Yes, I actually asked him directly because I was concerned that he might not be, and his reply to me was that he was so exhausted he was sleeping very well indeed.

MS KELLY: I did, yes. I myself had actually had trouble sleeping and I was up quite early, so we had a little bit more time to talk to each other. Again, with hindsight, we were not watching the news so I did not realise what an ordeal Dad had actually gone through on that Tuesday, just to come back to the Tuesday for a moment. My own expectation of a Select Committee was perhaps something quite gentlemanly and in fact what Dad had gone through was a real ordeal. He was nervous, the heat, the logistics where the meetings had got muddled up, the TV cameras and the intensive questioning made it a real ordeal and I just did not realise that that is what Dad had gone through, so my approach to Dad was really to just try to make him relax in the time that he was with us.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: We did, yes. We had breakfast together, and we had spoken to Mum the night before and Mum was arranging she would come back on the Wednesday evening, because she had no car down in Cornwall and was keen to come home.

MS KELLY: She was going to come back on the train to Oxford to meet Dad, and it was convenient to come to my house.

MS KELLY: That was on the Tuesday night. I phoned Mum on the Wednesday morning. Dad and I wanted to check what time she would be arriving. Actually, whilst she was on the phone she mentioned to me that they were talking about Dad on Radio 4, and after the conversation had finished I mentioned to Dad that they were talking about him. And Dad was leaning against the side in the kitchen and he sort of shrank, he cringed, and he really did not want to hear that he was being discussed on the radio. He was really averse to it, and really quite upset. He shook his head and just did not want to hear it. I regretted mentioning it to him because I was conscious it upset him.

MS KELLY: Yes. Again, I had cancelled the paper at Mum and Dad's house so I was not reading it there and I had not had any time at home to read the paper, so I was not keeping up to date with it. I did speak to someone who said that the coverage was generally positive for Dad, so I was not worrying too greatly about it. But Dad did not want to watch the news and he did not want to read the paper. He just read the sports section.

MS KELLY: On that day he did seem more relaxed, mainly because it was going to be behind closed doors. I think he thought it would be a lot more along technical lines, so he was more comfortable with what he would have to say to them.

MS KELLY: I actually left for work a bit later that day, I was working in a different location and left for work about 8.30 and I got back home about 5 o'clock, having called back in at my parents' home first just to make sure everything was okay there.

MS KELLY: Yes, he did. Yes. Again, I think he phoned me when he got to Reading on his way home, and then I knew what time he would be arriving at Oxford so I went over to meet him.

MS KELLY: I think it was about 6 o'clock, I am not sure, perhaps a little bit earlier.

MS KELLY: No, she was not due home until about 7.15, but she was actually late; she missed her connection at Reading so she was a little bit later.

MS KELLY: Again, I met him at the train station, he was again just very relieved to get home. He said that the Committee was much more gentlemanly that day. But he also referred to a report he had to do the next day. He did not say what it was but I would guess with hindsight that was the one to tell them about the journalists.

MS KELLY: Yes. Yes.

MS KELLY: He did not tell me much about the report but he was very anxious to get home because he needed his computer, and bearing in mind he had been away from home for a whole week by now, he just -- I remember him saying he needed to get home to use his computer. But I insisted they both stay for tea because I was concerned if they went home there might not be any food in the house and I wanted Dad to eat first.

MS KELLY: Again just exhausted. The pressure seemed to have lifted a little bit when he met me at the station, he seemed more relaxed. We got home and I made tea and he had a few more phone calls and we talked about Mum coming home.

MS KELLY: Mum got home about 8.30. She was later than I thought but I went over to meet her as well, just to carry her bag for her.

MS KELLY: From the station yes.

MS KELLY: She was okay, she was very pleased to be home and she was actually very anxious about Dad, wanting to know that he was all right and how he was. She was quite anxious about the situation that we had been through and she was concerned about me as well, having to look after Dad.

MS KELLY: We did. We actually had a nice evening. It was the four of us; it was David, Mum, Dad and myself. And we did relax and enjoy it. Dad was quiet but again joining in, interested and seemed to be more cheerful and obviously looking forward to going home.

MS KELLY: I did actually. As I mentioned, there was a foal that Dad and I used to walk down to see and we wanted very much to go and see it, so I arranged that I would go and meet him the next evening. I did not give a time, I was not sure what time I would be home.

MS KELLY: Yes, I was going home.

MS KELLY: During the evening he had seemed more relaxed, but when he left -- it is hard to describe, I think I recognised that the pressures seemed to be returning to him a little bit. He seemed to be looking ahead to the next day, and I again felt that he was under this enormous stress and tension and I was a little bit concerned about him once again as he left. He did say his stay with me was very much appreciated, and that was the last time I saw my father.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: I did, yes. I came over -- Mum told me that Dad had gone for a walk; and we are actually quite a private family and I assumed that after all he had been through he would want to find some solitude, which I quite understood. I thought he had perhaps gone for a walk down to the river. I could quite understand that need in him. So initially I did not worry. But When he then -- I could not reach him on his mobile phone, which did make me worry because I could always reach him. I then dashed home and was talking to my sisters. Mum actually was not very well and I was torn between leaving Mum and going to look for Dad. Initially I walked down -- I just assumed he would be coming home by now and I walked down to see if he was coming. Then I went back home and then went out in the car and just searched all the local routes. I went actually down to Harrowdown first, that was my first thought, and looked at the track but I could not see him coming. I promised I would not leave the car and start walking as it was starting to -- it was quite an overcast night. From Harrowdown I searched along from Hinton and then went down to Duxford. At Duxford it was starting to get dark. I did get out of the car there and walk along the lane. Then I came back to the car and it occurred to me for the first time then that Dad might not be coming home and I thought about looking in the barns, but I did not because I was too nervous. I drove back up the hill, by which time I was really quite upset and I remember phoning both my sisters.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MS KELLY: No, not in terms of evidence, no.

MS KELLY: Yes, there is. My heartfelt wish is that as a result of your Inquiry, my Lord, that people will learn from the circumstances surrounding my father's death and show more compassion and kindness in future to those around them. My sisters and I loved our father very much and we are immensely proud of his achievements. His loss to us is immeasurable and we will always miss him. Thank you.

MR WILKINS: Yes, it is David John Wilkins, my Lord.

MR WILKINS: Company director.

MR WILKINS: That is correct, yes.

MR WILKINS: Well, that would have been some years ago. I would say in the late 1990s. 1996 or 1997, which is when my relationship with Rachel first began.

MR WILKINS: My impression of him was that he was a quiet man. I knew he was dedicated to his work. He was obviously a family man, the house and the garden, but primarily he was dedicated to his work. I knew he was a man of some importance. I knew he had been decorated by the Queen. He was very, very polite. He was always polite. He was very kind, always civil, very considerate towards me.

MR WILKINS: No, it was something I never raised with him and we only ever spoke about it in very general terms. And it was -- I really never felt it was appropriate for me to ask him questions about it because I knew that he was -- that there was a very strong element to what he did that was highly secret and sensitive and it was not appropriate for me to talk about it.

MR WILKINS: I would say as he generally had done previously to that, which was to say -- I mean, he was actually quite a quiet man; and in a social setting it would very often be -- it would very often be his wife, Mrs Kelly, who would be very much sort of more to the fore and would sort of take the lead as far as sort of social occasions went. But in general terms I would say he seemed very normal and calm, as he always had done.

MR WILKINS: No, that was not a period where we had a great deal of contact other than just on the telephone, when he would -- most of the time -- certainly when he was in England he would phone to speak to Rachel, probably most evenings I would say. My contact with him was really limited to just a bit of chitchat as he telephoned before I just passed the phone over to Rachel for him to talk to her.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: It was in fact.

MR WILKINS: On the Sunday we -- I met him at probably 6.15 or so in the evening, 6.30 in the evening. That was after a fairly long journey, having driven back from Cornwall. He seemed tired having driven back from Cornwall but very much as somebody would do after a long journey. He did not seem sort of overly agitated or under stress at that particular point. I should say that such was our relationship that he -- I do not think had he felt under stress, I do not think he would have wanted me to know that. I think that was not in the dynamics of our relationship.

MR WILKINS: Yes, I think that is exactly right.

MR WILKINS: No.

MR WILKINS: No.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: Not relating to the -- no, not relating to anything sort of pertinent to the Inquiry, I would not say, no.

MR WILKINS: Not that particular evening, no. The following evening I just happened to mention I had seen some of the Sky coverage, but that was really it.

MR WILKINS: On the Sunday evening I said that we had the papers and would he like to read them. He said no, he did not particularly want to. He said it in a rather rueful sort of way. I did not take it that was an admission that he had done something wrong at that point.

MR WILKINS: Exactly, yes.

MR WILKINS: Yes, I did. Yes.

MR WILKINS: He seemed okay. I mean, I asked him whether he had slept well and he said he had. We did not actually eat together because I then just went out to work. I think Rachel had been up before me and had had breakfast with him beforehand. But I just sort of came downstairs and said a good morning and then I disappeared off to the office.

MR WILKINS: No. I thought it was a sensitive topic. Clearly it was not appropriate for me to raise it and I would only talk about if he raised it with me, which he did not.

MR WILKINS: Yes, I thought that was appropriate, on the Sunday certainly, because they had not seen each other for a few days. I knew that it was a stressful period and I knew there was a lot happening in the background, and I thought it was more appropriate for me to disappear so they could talk frankly. I knew if I was there he might want to have more forthright conversations with Rachel than he would have with me being present.

MR WILKINS: Yes, I did.

MR WILKINS: He seemed fairly relaxed, to be honest. I mean, it was -- I knew -- as I say, I knew it was a period where he was under a lot of pressure. I mean, I came in from work and in fact I then went out to a gym and did not get back home until about 8 o'clock, and then we just had supper and then went to bed. I mean, it was a fairly sort of normal evening in that respect. I think he had spent some time with Rachel beforehand sort of talking but, as I say, I did not really want to go over any ground they had already covered. So that was really the extent of that evening.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: Not at breakfast, but just immediately afterwards where I was just sort of getting ready for work. We just exchanged pleasantries and then went. I do know that that meeting was something that he certainly was not looking forward to because we had spoken about that previously.

MR WILKINS: Just because he did not really relish the glare of publicity, as I am sure has been said before. He was a very private person. Again, it was not an admission -- at that point I was not even aware there was any sort of disciplinary aspect, potentially, to what he was going through at that point. But I knew that he was not relishing the prospect of going just because he knew it was going to be televised and it would be beamed live around the world, and consequently I think he felt a bit exposed and I do not think naturally he was somebody who would -- he never sort of pushed himself to the fore in that way. I mean, he never -- I knew he was very important in what he did for the Government and the MoD and so on, but he would never come out and say that. He would never sort of push himself forward in a self-important way, it just was not his way.

MR WILKINS: He carried a briefcase.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: Well, the evening I remember as being slightly different in that -- when he arrived back he was very happy to be home; quite obviously he was very happy to be back home. I think he had a change of clothes and then he spent some time talking to Rachel and so on. But what was significant about that evening, it seemed to me, was that after or during the supper that we had, he did seem at that point -- this is probably the only time it really happened in a noticeable way, he seemed at that point to be very withdrawn within himself and he was difficult to engage in conversation. He was not very communicative and he just, that evening in particular, he seemed to be -- it was almost as though -- as if it was the case that he was sort of putting on a public front as far as I was concerned, for my benefit, because he did not want me to be in any potentially embarrassing situation in my own home as he was a guest there. I think possibly just that evening I think it became too much for him and that just slipped a bit. It was noticeable he was, at that point, going through some personal trauma.

MR WILKINS: Just very thoughtful, very reflective. He was -- as I say, he was difficult to engage in conversation and he just seemed to be very sort of lost in his own thoughts.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: He maintained that he was, yes.

MR WILKINS: On the Wednesday, I did, yes.

MR WILKINS: My recollection is that again it was fairly normal.

MR WILKINS: Yes, he did. He said that his colleagues -- he said that colleagues had been "tremendously supportive", that is a direct quote. I remember him saying that, that they had been tremendously supportive. I did get the impression that it was not all colleagues. I cannot remember his exact wording, but the implication and the impression I was left with was that it was some but not all.

MR WILKINS: I have to say he did not, no, not to me.

MR WILKINS: Mrs Kelly was coming back from Cornwall in the evening that Wednesday.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: No, Rachel and Dr Kelly were at home. Mrs Kelly, I think, had missed a connection and therefore her train had been delayed or her arrival had been delayed, so she did not arrive back until later, I think possibly 8 o'clock or so.

MR WILKINS: Again, I would say he seemed to be quite calm at that point. I think -- as I say, I think in this period of the few days that we are talking about, the very difficult period for him, I think, was the -- if we are talking about one period in isolation, was the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing --

MR WILKINS: -- that he attended on the Tuesday. Other than that, he seemed to me -- he seemed quite calm and he did not seem sort of particularly agitated.

MR WILKINS: They did not, no. They went home. We ate and they went home at about 10 o'clock is my recollection, yes.

MR WILKINS: Yes, I did, yes. I loaded or helped them load the cases into their car, which had been parked outside our house.

MR WILKINS: Quiet but not -- that was quite sort of in his character anyway. He thanked Rachel and I for what we had done. Rachel had been going backwards and forwards to their family home to feed the cats and sort of water the garden and that sort of thing. So he thanked Rachel particularly but both of us for what we had done during that period. Then we stood outside the front door and they turned the car round and we waved them off.

MR WILKINS: Mrs Kelly seemed relieved to be back in Oxford and about to go home. It had been a long day for her and a difficult period, clearly. She seemed -- she was certainly very pleased to see Rachel and so, no, I would say she seemed to be quite relaxed.

MR WILKINS: No. No, I had not.

MR WILKINS: Yes, I would say so. Yes.

MR WILKINS: No, I did not. No.

MR WILKINS: Yes.

MR WILKINS: I do not think so. Thank you.