The Hutton Inquiry

MRS BOSCH: Olivia Marriott Bosch.

MRS BOSCH: Currently Senior Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House.

MRS BOSCH: In the summer of 1996 I was a UN inspector in Iraq for destruction mission for the biological weapons facility at al-Qa'qa'.

MRS BOSCH: I began to know David Kelly from the autumn of last year after the Iraqi crisis re-emerged in August. At that time the media were interested to speak with former UN inspectors such as myself. It was during that time that I saw David Kelly at a conference at one of the research institutes in London, that is the International Institute for Strategic Studies where I was working at the time.

MRS BOSCH: I had never worked with him. He was involved more with the interview and discovery processes regarding Iraqi biological weapons programmes. I was on a destruction mission, which is a different kind of process.

MRS BOSCH: Right, yes.

MRS BOSCH: He did more interviews of senior Iraqi officials and he did a lot of the discovery process of what the Iraqi WMD programmes were about in the early 1990s throughout to the late 1990s.

MRS BOSCH: Right. And I was only there one time in the summer of 1996. David Kelly was continuously going out to Iraq from 1991 to 1998 during the UNSCOM period.

MRS BOSCH: Right.

MRS BOSCH: There was a conference at the IISS; and I saw him there. I knew of him because of his reputation as an expert on Iraqi programmes. And he had also heard of me. So we had actually heard of each other but never had actually met. And because of the media interest in -- as to what the inspectors were doing, I went up to him and introduced myself and asked if I might be able to telephone him on occasion to seek his technical expertise for background information, if I needed it, for media interviews.

MRS BOSCH: He had no problem with giving the phone number and we spoke -- began to speak on the telephone from that point on.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, there were about three or four meetings; at some of the research institutes they have general meetings and also at his talk at the Foreign Office open day in November, he was giving a talk there and I attended that. He came to Chatham House as well, at a talk I was giving there.

MRS BOSCH: We always spoke about Iraq and the programmes of weapons of mass destruction.

MRS BOSCH: Well, we were trying to examine the programmes, what they were. At that time, he had -- he had mentioned to me once that he had done some historical background preparation for the UK dossier, and in a way both of us agreed that the dossier was a very necessary document because the public and the media and politicians really were not aware of what was going on inside of Iraq. It had been four years since inspectors were there, and the activities that the Iraqis had done during the UNSCOM period, in terms of their deception and concealment plans, were rather below the radar so there was not much press coverage. So in effect, by the time September -- the autumn of 2002, it seemed that everyone was learning for the first time what was going on in Iraq.

MRS BOSCH: We both did, in that sense. Yes, he would have. It was seen as a document to inform the public. And it would not have been a document similar to that that the IISS had produced, which was very good in facts and figures and analysis and would not have been as reader-friendly as perhaps the UK dossier would have been, because it was much shorter -- something that the public could pick up and read much more easily than the IISS document.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, because that then began the period -- the inspections had begun in Iraq in November. The Iraqi regime had prepared declaration in December and it was part of the November 1441, which was the UN Security Council resolution, that Hans Blix and his colleague, or counterpart at the IEA were to give regular reports to the UN Security Council to assess the progress that the inspectors were making in Iraq.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. I was all this time in the UK. And maybe we met in -- again at some of the -- particularly at Chatham House because at that time, in February 2003, I had moved to Chatham House. We had several general meetings at Chatham House which discussed the preparation to go into war in Iraq and David would come to those. I alerted it to him. In fact, he became a member of Chatham House so he could easily attend these general meetings. There were about three, I think, he came to in the beginning part of the year, prior to May 1st.

MRS BOSCH: I think his views were very well stated in The Observer article that was published this past Sunday. We had very similar views, and that while it was unfortunate that war might have to be done, the use of military force would seem to have been the only way for this particular regime to be able to deal with its obligations. The Iraqi regime was not complying to its UN obligations; and while the US and the UK had threatened the use of force throughout the autumn and early 2003, and this threat was very effective and we both thought, and I particularly thought that this was the main reason why the Iraqi regime had brought -- allowed the inspectors to come back. And any kind of perceived concession which the Iraqis were giving -- it was only in process -- was due to the threat of use of military force.

MRS BOSCH: I think you can check on the telephone records, but two or three times a week, possibly more; and we spoke more on the phone, pretty much. That was the type of relationship we had. In terms of e-mails, that would be exchange of information, if there was a press article here or some kind of news item that we thought significant. We had a very interactive rapport and at one time he said he liked talking with me because I had an international security perspective; it was in contrast to but complemented his technical background.

MRS BOSCH: During the conflict we spoke actually on a daily basis at that point because we were trying to watch out for the moment or at any time that weapons of mass destruction might be used or found; and so we had -- we would be assessing press coverage. In fact, that is the only thing I had to go on, what was in the press regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq during the conflict. So then, after the conflict, well the war was over so we did not quite talk so much. We had established a rapport. We would maybe talk three times a week or so. There were issues of post-conflict reconstruction, the SARS outbreak occurred and because he has a speciality in virology that was something I was interested to seek his views on in terms of the nature of the virus that SARS was. Then around May or so, mid May, the focus went back again to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, because press and politicians were wondering where they were.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, because the media, again, and politicians were wanting to assess where the weapons were; and we were both talking about it and we were always talking about that there was to be an emphasis on the programmes, that the press and everyone was somewhat too focused on the weapon as a smoking gun because that really was not the issue, it was the programmes. Because programmes imply intent to have a capability. And that was quite important and had not really seemed to be brought out in any of the coverage. And it was -- we would talk about what trends the journalists were pursuing and what some of the themes were. And there were, I guess, about three occasions when he was concerned about press reporting of him.

MRS BOSCH: Well, one in particular that named him. He mentioned that he did speak to journalists -- let me, if I may, look to my notes on something now.

MRS BOSCH: Okay.

MRS BOSCH: I had not actually seen that article but what he did mention, and it was about that time that David -- he told me he was surprised to find that a journalist he had known quite well had quoted his name in an article. He did not tell me who that journalist was, although I know from the Inquiry who it is.

MRS BOSCH: He did not mention -- at that time he did not mention to me the name of the journalist.

MRS BOSCH: He would be very discreet often in that manner.

MRS BOSCH: Right.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, because he said it would a rather contentious statement -- that it would be interpreted to be contentious. He remarked to me that his understanding with journalists was he would only give background briefings and that his name was not to be mentioned. He had mentioned to me that he had to reassure his Foreign Office minder about this news reference. He was having to deal with his Foreign Office minder about this.

MRS BOSCH: He seemed fairly relaxed about it. He seemed to enjoy talking with the press and giving them background information. He knew that they were seeking information to better understand what some of the processes were that were going on in Iraq. And if I refer to my second statement, where I mention that in terms of an approach he said that the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence had different approaches. And I started -- and I kind of led -- I said: do you mean that you do not talk -- sorry: with respect to the Ministry of Defence, is it that you do not talk to journalists or the press unless there was a reason to do so, whereas the Foreign Office was more relaxed? And in effect -- and then I started -- that you could speak -- he was saying: unless there was a reason not to. So they had slightly different emphasis in terms of what it was. But, on the whole, I understood that he recognised -- and he said he would need pre-authorisation for that but on occasion, sometimes, he would speak on the telephone for a quick answer or something like that that he might not get that pre-authorised, but the Foreign Office was much more relaxed in his dealings with them.

MRS BOSCH: Well, he mentioned in his -- I am not sure of the time sequence but if I go through here. It was another time towards mid May he told me he had an unauthorised meeting with Andrew Gilligan, someone he had met a couple of times before but did not know that well. And he said he was -- he was taken aback by the way Andrew Gilligan tried to elicit information from him. I said: yes, but that is what journalists do. He understood that, but he said he had never experienced it in the way that Gilligan had tried to do so, by a name game was the term.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Okay, and this was with reference to the September dossier and I do not recall exactly what aspect of it. It was the name game bit was what reminded -- what sticks in my mind. He said that Gilligan wanted to play a name game as to who was responsible for inserting information into the dossier, and that if I understand correctly Gilligan said to him: I will name you some names. Apparently David had said that Gilligan very quickly -- the first name he mentioned very quickly and immediately was Campbell. David told me he could neither confirm nor deny. David said as he was a civil servant he could not provide Government names, least of all to a journalist. We kind of laughed there. Nor could he deny as Gilligan would continue listing names or could continue listing names until the right name came up.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, then he said what he actually said. Because he could not confirm or deny but he thought he had to give an answer so he said "maybe".

MRS BOSCH: Right.

MRS BOSCH: Right. It is part of this name game that Campbell -- sorry, that Gilligan had quickly put up Campbell. It did not give David time really to think about what was going on in that way.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, the very first name.

MRS BOSCH: I am not clear. He might have said to Gilligan that he cannot give names but I am not clear. I cannot remember exactly.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, right on that. In terms of this kind of process.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, he did.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, because we would just talk kind of freely about journalists who you would see, whatever, and I believe that he had come back -- I do not know if it was that very night he mentioned it or whatever. But we had -- he had, in previous conversations, mentioned authorised and unauthorised.

MRS BOSCH: And he had mentioned this was an unauthorised meeting.

MRS BOSCH: So confiding, I suppose, in a way.

MRS BOSCH: This was over the telephone.

MRS BOSCH: Some time in May. It does not really stick with me because, in a sense, this did not come to mind until after this whole -- until he died.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Hmm.

MRS BOSCH: No, I was abroad at a conference and was not back until after the 31st. I heard the one on 4th June.

MRS BOSCH: I understood that Gilligan also had a Today Programme on 4th June, right. But I remember Gilligan mentioning something to the effect about -- that there were persons who disagreed with the 45 minutes, that kind of -- the whole issue on that.

MRS BOSCH: Right.

MRS BOSCH: On the 28th.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, it would have been before that.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, in terms of that conversation with David, that is quite possible, yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. And -- yes, go ahead.

MRS BOSCH: I am assuming -- yes, yes.

MRS BOSCH: On the radio, I listened to the --

MRS BOSCH: No, no.

MRS BOSCH: Because the manner of the report was one in which it appeared that there was an attempt to whistle blow or to reflect concerns that were against Government policy and I would never have expected, in all the conversations with David, that that was something he would do. Again, his -- the article in The Observer that was printed last Sunday very much captures the conversation -- the types of perceptions he had and that we talked about.

MRS BOSCH: Right.

MRS BOSCH: Right.

MRS BOSCH: No. Let me -- if I might add something to this. On 3rd June David had telephoned -- I think he telephoned me, I was at work, and so I would have just come back, not hearing what was going on, on whatever hoo-ha that was going on in the UK. I do not recall that David had mentioned that to me, the 29th May conversation. But what he mentioned to me was that he was concerned that some of the people he was having to deal with in the intelligence community did not seem to appreciate or recognise that intelligence was not an exact science. I had mentioned an article that I had which I could send him to help explain the difference about information used for purposes of evidence, such as what law enforcement would require as opposed to information that might be used and assessed for intelligence purposes. And he said: oh that seemed really good, could you fax it to me? And I said, well, as I was at work, I had it at home so I could post it. He said: well, I am actually travelling tomorrow, which is 4th June, and would not actually receive it but go ahead and send it anyway. And I have the title, the name and it would be amongst -- I sent it to him and it should be amongst the documentation that he had, if you are interested.

MRS BOSCH: And it was an article called "Should spies be cops?" by Stewart Baker in the journal Foreign Policy number 97, winter 1994/95.

MRS BOSCH: Okay. So then he went away on the 4th. That morning of the 4th -- I heard the programme, but he was away. But when he came back he -- I mentioned: oh well, you picked a good time to go away because everyone is looking for rogue elements in the Intelligence Services (kind of jokingly) you were away at the time but everyone in the UK is talking about all this. So he escaped having press attention. But it was not because of Gilligan on that. At that time, I had no -- did not at all think that it was him.

MRS BOSCH: Nothing. He did not make any kind of comment on that. And then I mentioned that they were looking for a person in charge of the dossier and a senior member -- by that time some concern was a senior member of the Intelligence Services; and David said: I am not any of those. Both of us, we did not pay any more attention to the debate because it was a very narrow debate. We thought it was politicisation and internal politics, so we did not really pay any attention to it because we were more interested in what was going on in Iraq.

MRS BOSCH: Hmm.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, I went to four of them. I was interested to hear what some of the witnesses would be talking about regarding the programmes in Iraq. I heard Terry Taylor, Professor Inge, al-Marashi and Andrew Wilkie. I thought I would hear what they might have to say.

MRS BOSCH: No, I did not go to any of the politicians -- any of the politicians' evidences because again this -- there was internal politics; I wanted to hear more about what was going on in the Iraq.

MRS BOSCH: Or journalists, in that sense. It was a politicised debate. There was -- I must say, the four that I heard, three in particular, were very enlightening on what was going on in Iraq and I was quite surprised that there was -- there were very few journalists there, or if they were, in the case of one, that the press had not reported on some interesting information about what was going on in Iraq. The press reporting tended to be on the Gilligan and Campbell debate.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, because -- at this time, too, I say that David Kelly was going to the States. The whole week from about 15th to 21st or so David was away during most of the Foreign Affairs Committee and he said: well, Olivia, I can count on you to tell me what happens, when he gets back. So, I mentioned some things when he did get back, but again, during -- in that week after the 21st there was even more heated debate about what was going on between Gilligan et cetera and I thought: I better just read to inform myself exactly what it was that he was supposed to have said.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, that Gilligan had said at the Foreign Affairs Committee.

MRS BOSCH: So I went to the Foreign Affairs Committee website and looked in the oral evidence side and I was reading through it. And then he mentioned a person he had interviewed on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes and I thought: oh, this could be David.

MRS BOSCH: Because there was a discussion about Campbell and the dossier; and I remember that David had mentioned that Gilligan had tried to talk to him about the dossier and Campbell.

MRS BOSCH: It was pretty much in the beginning part of the evidence; and I -- that is what I thought of. And I thought, well, David has been away and I did not get the feeling that he was necessarily keeping up with all the press; and so I e-mailed him, I am pretty sure it was the -- I think it was 24th June but the computer forensics will be able to find this for sure. I e-mailed him and said: you might want to look at this. And then that was --

MRS BOSCH: I e-mailed him the web link to his oral evidence as it was on the Foreign Affairs Committee website.

MRS BOSCH: That is right, a short message on that.

MRS BOSCH: Do I have to push a button here?

MRS BOSCH: Okay.

MRS BOSCH: Oh 25th, okay. Oh, you found it. Yes, that is it.

MRS BOSCH: Well, I spoke to David that evening, because I sent the e-mail; and then -- and I said to him -- I said: well -- because I was -- I said: David, there might be some turns of phrase that you might have in there; and David mentioned what those might have been. He was saying the reference to the size of the programmes in there. And it was a way just -- you know, I sent him that because if he had any concerns, that it was a way for me to flag up to David that there was this debate and that possibly that might be him, and it was in case David had any concerns about it having been an unauthorised meeting. But I did not really recognise David's phrasing, not really. My -- the main thing was the Campbell discussion he had with Campbell (sic) on that. But in terms of what Gilligan had said, there was not much of David's phrasing that I recognised.

MRS BOSCH: Yes; and then it was -- and I am not sure exactly, but maybe a day or two later or so, he mentioned that he was thinking -- I think he said he was going to go to his line manager and mention that he had an unauthorised meeting with Gilligan so that he could clear the matter in his own mind.

MRS BOSCH: Well, he had mentioned that he did speak to his line manager. I did not know he had written the letter. In fact, I did not know he had written a letter until after his death and one of the Sunday papers had mentioned that a colleague had made him aware of Gilligan's evidence, this is one of the Sunday papers. And I read that and I thought that might be me.

MRS BOSCH: Well, because I did make him aware of Gilligan's evidence; and also he said that a colleague at RUSI -- and we often had a joke because somehow he had this thing in his head that I was at RUSI. I thought: oh yes, that is me. It sounds like it was. And I joked about previously, months before, he would mention RUSI, I would say it is Royal Institute of International Affairs, it is RIIA, it is Chatham House and we would be joking. So Sunday newspapers I saw it in there and that Monday, if I just might add, after he died I did go to a colleague of his in the MoD immediately and say: I think that is me. So ...

MRS BOSCH: Yes, right. And they asked, you know, was that to deflect the press? I said: no, he just had this thing in his head to call me RUSI, it was a mistake, a misattribution.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: (Pause). Oh, let me see. Is that 3rd July? I think press were referring to -- I think, if I recall, that the -- you can help me with the press -- the programmes -- I think there was a -- programmes of -- weapons of mass destruction programmes might have been what the Government was using and so everyone fed -- let me see -- hold on. Let me see. The request is about a project that we were working on.

MRS BOSCH: Right, okay, yes. Let me see ... (Pause). Yes, the press would have asked me what my views were about the Foreign Affairs Committee report or when -- or about the -- yes, I did not think -- I do not think I did that interview.

MRS BOSCH: No, I think I was just letting him know that the press were interested in this topic. I would often say: here is a line of thinking that the press were interested in.

MRS BOSCH: Is that 3rd July?

MRS BOSCH: And that is right -- foreign is interesting, that is right, because it was a foreign news -- broadcasting company that was interested in British politics, right. So it seemed that there was politics outside the UK were interested in what the Foreign Affairs Committee was doing. Right.

MRS BOSCH: Right, yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Oh yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. He mentioned -- I think when he was training he had to go back -- he had an interruption to go to London, I think on the Monday; and then training -- hold on ... (Pause). So the training would have been on --

MRS BOSCH: Yes. Right, the 7th and 8th. That is right, the training. He had an interruption, he had to go back to London on the 7th.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, to recall the day of the week, because the trainings were on a Monday and a Tuesday.

MRS BOSCH: Hmm, hmm.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: I remember on the 9th, when I sent that e-mail on the 9th at 2 o'clock, I sent it and then I had to go to a meeting. I sent it from home. I had a meeting to go to. I did not actually read his e-mail until I returned later that evening.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: I would have spoken on the 7th and the 8th and the 9th. And on the 9th I did as he said, I called him.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, I called him on that evening, yes.

MRS BOSCH: Around 7-ish or so, 7/8 -- 7-ish.

MRS BOSCH: I probably would have used -- started on -- what did it say -- did it say mobile? I would normally have called, first instance, his land line. There were some problems in the village at some point; I think in one of the earlier e-mails where I said I tried to call him on the Sunday, the village had problems and everyone's phone line was down. So I would have tried anyway his home -- sorry, the land line. Then I -- there was no answer machine. Then I tried his mobile and he picked up.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: I said: hello, and he said: I have cut and run. I said: what? I was not sure what he said. He said: I have cut and run. It was not a phrase that I expected him to use.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, he said that he was advised that he should go because the press were coming to his house and that he would have to be leaving his home.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, he was with his wife. Hmm, hmm.

MRS BOSCH: I am not sure if he was in a car or a train but he was moving, yes. He was on the road or whatever, yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, he said he had meetings in the MoD about the situation and that, if I recall, he had been given -- he was kind of quiet and he said -- a reprimand and they even -- there was something to the effect about his pension and his clearance might be affected. He had been with his wife. He had been offered like a safe house but he did not want to take that up.

MRS BOSCH: I do not recall, I cannot remember, no.

MRS BOSCH: I thought he said they talked about his pension or clearance might have been taken away; and I did not know, you know, about any of the meetings he had and all that.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, he mentioned that.

MRS BOSCH: No. I assumed it was about the Gilligan -- because the day before he mentioned that he had been pulled over on the side of the road to talk about a press statement that was being drafted, I think it was on the 8th when he was --

MRS BOSCH: He was driving at some point and someone from the -- I think he said MoD, they were drafting -- doing a draft statement and had a correction and wanted his assessment of that; and I thought that -- I think that was on the evening -- the 7th -- I thought that had to do with something in -- when he was with his training, during the time that he was doing his training.

MRS BOSCH: No, no, no. He got a telephone message on his mobile, and to be able to understand it he drove off the road into a place --

MRS BOSCH: A lay by, so he could listen to what was being read to him.

MRS BOSCH: I thought that was something -- I thought maybe it was when he was on -- related to his days of training.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, he was speaking --

MRS BOSCH: He was not expressing any excitement or disgust or anything like that.

MRS BOSCH: I do not recall. I do not think so, no.

MRS BOSCH: Hmm, hmm.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, because at -- during -- at the end of our conversation on 9th July he says: well, keep in touch with me and let me know what happens, vis a vis the press.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, we spoke through the next -- about every day during that time.

MRS BOSCH: Well, I remember talking to him, I think it was the next day, the BBC had put -- sorry, the MoD had put out a statement and then the BBC had put out a counterstatement, and then -- sorry, I -- there was a BBC counterstatement and another MoD statement; and I was -- I had two of those. One of the MoD statements and the BBC one -- I do not remember but I could go through -- I was reading through to him, and we kind of were trying to make sense, you know, what were they trying to correlate. It seemed a bit confusing or so, but at one point he did say, because I mentioned in the BBC statement that Susan Watts was brought in there, the BBC statement had mentioned Susan Watts --

MRS BOSCH: Hmm, oh yes, okay.

MRS BOSCH: We might want to go back to that one, but yes.

MRS BOSCH: Right, yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. That was it, yes. I commented to him that notes were deposited in the BBC legal department and, you know, had he seen those, because I do not know what the nature of correspondence was between whatever. And also I mentioned that -- I read that section out to him, and he was very -- somewhat indignant and said: well, what does she have to do with this?

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: "What we do know is that Mr Gilligan's notes and account of what he was told are very similar to the notes of a conversation Susan Watts, science editor of Newsnight, had with her source which led to the Newsnight reports of June 2 and 4."

MRS BOSCH: And he says: what does she have to do with this?

MRS BOSCH: Hmm.

MRS BOSCH: Hmm.

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, I did on, I think, two occasions. I am not sure that I mentioned this article at that time. I would have mentioned this article when he knew he was going to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee, though I might have -- let me see. Hold on. (Pause). Can you please scroll down a little bit on this? (Pause). Yes, I might have -- at some point I mentioned that they said it was a lunchtime meeting, and during the course of the weekend I e-mailed him, because I was not quite sure where he was in the early part of that week anyway -- when he was away, weekend. And they were referring to ... (Pause). Yes, this is the line: "Richard Sambrook, Director of News, had been told the name ..." And I read this out to him at some point during this time: "While the post held by the source is known also to Greg Dyke, the corporation's Director General ..." I read that to him and I said they are said to have been assured by his knowledge, with one executive boasting that disclosure of his identity would transform the debate. And I said to David, I said: well, you do not have a wide public persona, in a sense, so I wondered what it was, because the implication of that statement was that this person was so well known by the public that when that person spoke they would be transforming the debate. But David was not well known to the public in the scientific kind of way. So I thought that indicated that David was not the source.

MRS BOSCH: He did not say anything.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. Let me just, if I might refer to my notes here. Yes, when it became -- when he knew he was going to do that, on several occasions he was concerned about having someone accompany him to the hearing so that that person might be able to deflect questions that he thought might be sensitive or he felt he might have to say no in front of all the cameras. He did not think that would look good in front of all the TV cameras if he had to actually say he could not answer a question.

MRS BOSCH: On the 14th, the Monday -- David and I spoke on the 13th, several other times we spoke. I did mention on the 14th I had occasion to speak with one of his colleagues on a totally separate matter. I very casually mentioned -- because I had not spoken to anybody in the MoD about this, there was not any reason. I just casually mentioned that David had queried about having someone with him, because I did not feel it was my place to talk about this matter with them. I assumed that David was doing whatever necessary preparations were required. And I did not explain why, but the person said -- reassured me that he was going to have company during the Foreign Affairs Committee.

MRS BOSCH: John Clark.

MRS BOSCH: No.

MRS BOSCH: Well, the evening before, David and I spoke on the phone and he kind of -- he said he was going to have a meeting on the 14th -- he was going to see the MoD.

MRS BOSCH: And so we talked through various points. We might have talked about these various articles.

MRS BOSCH: In a way, a kind of a list of homework questions he would have when he went to the MoD for his meeting. I said: ask them. Ask them about what kind of accompaniment you might have to deal with that concern he had. I assumed he would be discussing that with them. On the 14th it so happens I had an occasion to speak with Jonathan Clark about a totally matter. I knew Jonathan Clark was a colleague, that he got on very well, John had gone to Iraq with him, David liked him and I said: John, David just kind of brought up about having company; and I did not want to go into it because I assumed that David would have explained that, but I just wanted to make sure that someone in MoD was aware -- because I did have the sense, during the weekend, I began to have the sense that I was not sure exactly who David was talking to about this, in terms of his own self in all of this.

MRS BOSCH: There are two types of conversations I recall having. One time is when he called me and this is the third journalistic experience that irritated him. This one was the most. I had never heard David so excited and so frustrated and angry; that he said that the -- he was peeved and excited about the start of a second sentence in an article that Nick Rufford wrote for the Sunday Times.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, the only thing that seemed to concern him in the second sentence there: "In his first public comments since the row blew up..." That was what concerned David because --

MRS BOSCH: Other -- generally -- just briefly that he was not supposed to be talking to the press and this would -- this was an indication that it appeared that he was giving an interview to the press when he was not. In fact, he said he had told Nicholas Rufford to go away. Nicholas had appeared on his doorstep and he had asked him to go away.

MRS BOSCH: Well, he was really upset; and then he says -- yes, he said: well, how can a journalist write that? I said: well, journalists do that kind of thing. As I had not seen the article I said I would find a copy and see, you know, what words of caveat because journalists would caveat and, you know, massage their statements. David said: well, I am never going to speak to him again.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, he rang me up at midday. He was at some gardens, and he mentioned a word which I did not hear correctly but it was the Gardens of Heligan. He said he had a chance to relax and had some time to spend with his wife in that. I had a feeling he at least had a day to kind of get away from the whole thing.

MRS BOSCH: I would not say normal self, he was aware of what was going on. Depression or anything negative like that did not come across but he was under certain kind of pressure, obviously.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. And I think on the 13th as well as the 14th I said well, I would come to his session and give him moral support, be there. And he had mentioned that someone from his office would be attending as well. And he was kind of working up, you know, what he was going to be saying. But he never told me any of what he was going to say. I just kind of assumed that he knew what he would be saying.

MRS BOSCH: I told him. I reminded him: I went to four of these Foreign Affairs Committee sessions. And I said: the Committee members ask all the pertinent questions but they also do bad cop/good cop; so he could expect all sorts of approaches coming from them.

MRS BOSCH: No, but he did leave me two telephone messages on my work answer machine and he -- and it was about the Committee sessions, days and times being changed and being changed back again. I do not recall which message was which and with reference to which Committee. But in any event the second one was -- yes, the Foreign Affairs Committee meeting will be meeting that afternoon. I had plans anyway to go to that.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, I did. I left a little bit early to go to that and there was a lot of traffic. One of the roads was blocked off. There was some police -- the police had blocked off the road so I had to walk all the way, another way to get there. And --

MRS BOSCH: Yes.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, and I remember them reading that out; and I was reading that and I remembered at some point in the past that David had used a lot of that. I recognised a lot of that, David had mentioned to me. But I do not remember if it was in the context of him having said he had spoken to Susan Watts or any other journalist or just separately.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, I recognised it, yes. And I could not hear all of his answer but I did hear him say: "First of all, I do not recognise those comments." I was sitting in the back of the room and it was difficult to hear what he said, and often I would rely on the Chairman who would say what Dr Kelly had said or the MPs would repeat what he had said. So that was one way I could find out what he had actually said.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, he spoke that evening. Just about the first thing he said was he was thrown by the reference to Susan Watts. He rhetorically asked me: is that the kind of thing I could have said all in one long go? I understood he thought it was a direct quote. I got the feeling that he was having second thoughts about it.

MRS BOSCH: That he had actually said those words. He said "no" during the Committee I understand: no, he did not recollect. My intuition or feeling was that he thought he might actually have said them to Susan Watts.

MRS BOSCH: I said: well, I do not know. And I was feeling, at this time, a bit confused. I -- because I was not -- I could not understand some of the answers that he was giving in light of what I had known that he had said before.

MRS BOSCH: I got the feeling he did not feel he had performed quite well. I mentioned to him I thought that he had replaced the "it is unlikely" or perhaps he should have said "likely" with respect to the 45 minutes. He kind of -- kind of like a hmm, you know, I do not know, a somewhat resigned matter. Then I mentioned too that Ben Bradshaw MP had just been on the radio and said that he had thought David Kelly was the source until the BBC said otherwise; and David Kelly asked -- you know: he still said that? You know: he still said that? From that I understood that David must have really believed he was not the source.

MRS BOSCH: Hmm.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. He said that the appearance before the ISC was much more relaxed. He said obviously he could not tell me what they had talked about but it was a much more relaxed occasion.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, this would be telephone conversation.

MRS BOSCH: Well, if I recall, that was a -- we had a long telephone conversation. I think he might have said at some point to call him later to -- around 7 or so, the previous time, and I was working in a library, public library. So I called him and I chatted about programmes of weapons of mass destruction and in particular a radio programme that I had been on earlier that day, because I was trying to get him to think about the things he liked, which was about doing inspections in Iraq.

MRS BOSCH: Yes; and in part because I wanted to offer him too an opportunity that if he felt at all frustrated that he could vent out anything. I said: well, this panel programme on weapons of mass destruction that we had, lots of people were all grilling each other. I thought that might elicit from him a sense: oh yes, I know what grilling is about. He did not say that. I mentioned a lot of people on the programme he knew of, et cetera. He said: well, that sounded fun, which was not quite what I had expected because I thought I was giving him an opportunity to, well, express any dissatisfied feelings he might have had at that time.

MRS BOSCH: He did not. He seemed in a much more regular kind of mood. He seemed okay.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. He telephoned me about mid morning. I think it was around 10.45 or so, but the telephone records may show me perhaps. And he telephoned me because he was preparing a list of journalists, which he had to do for the Foreign Affairs Committee. And he asked me to help him with the name of a journalist that he thought I would know. It was someone he met a long time ago and had moved on. I was able to help him with that name. He was telling me he was preparing a list. He seemed in a quandary because he says: well -- we were talking about this, and he said: well, I think I am just going to mention all of them. It was a tone of voice I never really heard him speak about.

MRS BOSCH: It was kind of like a spite or revengefulness: I am just going to list them all, kind of thing. I never heard him be like that. Almost immediately he would call back and in a matter of seconds he then came back and he says: but -- then he said: but not all of those would be relevant to the --

MRS BOSCH: The question that he had to deal with.

MRS BOSCH: The same conversation. I am saying in the sentence where he expressed this unusual feeling, in a few seconds he changed -- he seemed to have come away from it. Of course, I am -- that is the -- I felt that at the time, but in light of some of the evidence given by the professor several days ago, this also heightened me -- heightened my attention to it. And he was not sure what to do because not all the journalists that he was listing would necessarily be relevant to the question that he had to answer. And I suggested: well, why do you not just add a sentence at the bottom?

MRS BOSCH: Saying something to the effect that if any -- so that he could say to journalists: if they saw the list, saw their name on it and were concerned why their name was on there, then I said: you could always say you had written a sentence qualifying their names, you know, that not -- which he could say: well, not all of the above journalists were relevant to this question or something to that effect.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. Again, I thought -- I wanted to get him to talk about Iraq -- no, sorry, he mentioned that the MoD had asked him to go out to Iraq the next day, he was ready to go out but he thought that -- he said he was not going to because he needed time to clear his head and then, as he would be going for a fairly long time, he just needed time to prepare. And I thought this seemed very reasonable. He was matter of fact about it, it made sense; and from my perspective it was as if the worst had passed and he was trying to move on to the next phase. Then also I tried to get him to talk about inspections and I was -- I said to him I had e-mailed him an article about some Iraqi officials who had recently been interviewed and there was an article on that. I said: you know, have you -- if he had seen that. He said: no, I have not seen that. And you know, we talked about what might be going on in Iraq and inspections. I was trying to get him on a topic that he liked. And then I asked him again about the 10th July.

MRS BOSCH: Right, yes.

MRS BOSCH: Then -- because if I might just backtrack for one second. When I had spoken to him once about this 10th July article before he appeared at the Foreign Affairs Committee, so it would have been the weekend when he was away, and I asked him, I said: when you give your evidence, will you be saying when you met with him? And he thought that the Foreign Affairs Committee would not go into that kind of detail. And I did not probe, but I thought that was strange for someone who might just want to clear up what had happened. So therefore I came back to him on this day and I said: you know that 10th July article, it says you did not meet over lunch.

MRS BOSCH: I said: the article said that you met over lunch. He said: no, we did not meet over lunch, it was much later, over an orange juice. I said the article referred to Gilligan having a Palm Pilot. I said: did he have a Palm Pilot? He said: no. I said: was he writing notes? He said: yes, he was writing notes. Because in my mind it was still unclear about when these meetings were, et cetera. Then I realised we were on the phone a long -- not a long time but it appeared to be getting on because he had still to do his list for the Foreign Affairs Committee and he had to submit by noon. So we ended that conversation.

MRS BOSCH: No. That evening I tried to call him because I had called him -- we called -- we spoke with each other every day and after the Channel 4 News I tried to telephone him. His land line did not have the answer machine on so I thought maybe there was a problem in the village as before. I tried his mobile phone and some message came up to the effect that the line was not working or you could not get through, or something to that effect.

MRS BOSCH: Yes, yes.

MRS BOSCH: It was after the Channel 4 News, so about 7.45 or so that night. So I would have talked about the news coverage of the day with respect to what was going on.

MRS BOSCH: I just tried that one time. I assumed from our conversation that morning he was finding time to himself.

MRS BOSCH: I had a television news editor who phoned me, he woke me. We had a joke about that. He asked me for a comment on the disappearance of David Kelly. I was somewhat surprised. I said I did not know anything about it. And we were kind of talking it through to assess what kind of comment, if any, might be necessary. And I said: I think it is perhaps too early to speculate because he had mentioned that -- because I said: perhaps -- I did not say David had told me, but I said: perhaps David Kelly needed time away and so maybe he is taking some time off.

MRS BOSCH: Around 8 o'clock in the morning, about that time.

MRS BOSCH: Hmm.

MRS BOSCH: No, not at all.

MRS BOSCH: No. At some point, I think before his name actually came out, he mentioned that he had, in his meeting with the MoD, that they had told him that his name might come out. And that evening when I spoke to him he says: well, you know -- he was somewhat resigned to the fact that his name would be coming out, at that time, yes.

MRS BOSCH: Well, he seemed -- accepted -- this would have been around 9th -- the meeting he -- it was a meeting he had at the MoD where it was discussed.

MRS BOSCH: This is backtracking now.

MRS BOSCH: He understood that his name was likely to come out.

MRS BOSCH: Whenever it was the day that he had the meeting where I think in the previous testimony we heard discussions where he was at the MoD and there was --

MRS BOSCH: Hmm.

MRS BOSCH: The training course day?

MRS BOSCH: The second one, I think.

MRS BOSCH: Yes. The first one I surmised that something was up, but he did not tell me anything about it. He did not mention anything, no.

MRS BOSCH: No. I find it all very sad and it was all very unexpected and I was unaware of some of the other issues that have come out in terms of his concern about pay. He never raised that kind of aspect with me. I did not know about the statement in the reprimand letter about not speaking to any more press. Again, that has come out since the evidence. So through the course of the Inquiry I see there are other facets that he would not have discussed with me, but putting out -- I think Professor Hawton had mentioned about the e-mails coming to him on the 9th on the morning, about more Parliamentary Questions about disciplinary proceedings; and it may be I would have thought that that might have affected him.

MRS BOSCH: No, he did not mention those, no. I do not know when he would have read it or whatever.

MRS BOSCH: Thank you.

MS POTTER: It is Leigh Mary Potter.

MS POTTER: I am a student.

MS POTTER: Yes, I work at the Wagon and Horses in Southmoor.

MS POTTER: Directly opposite.

MS POTTER: Only as people who live in the village, only by sight.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: Not to my knowledge. I had never seen him in there.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: Okay.

MS POTTER: No, he came in the front entrance, which is directly opposite his house, and approached the bar and asked me whether Graham and Lindsay, the landlord and landlady, were in.

MS POTTER: Quite normal.

MS POTTER: No, it was actually their evening off. He asked me -- he was quite -- he asked me to leave -- if he could leave a message that he will be going away for a few days and the press were going to pounce.

MS POTTER: Yes, to the best -- that is the wording I can remember.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: There was a chap at the bar, he was not a regular, who made a facial expression towards me as I was bemused at quite an odd statement.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: I said that I would pass the message on that he was going away and he thanked me with -- he made a nod or some sort of gesture, and left the pub through the front entrance again.

MS POTTER: Well, I actually -- I saw him walk in, so we made eye contact straightaway, so probably about 30 seconds.

MS POTTER: To the best of my knowledge it was Wednesday 9th July.

MS POTTER: I am assuming it is between 8 and 9 o'clock.

MS POTTER: Well, when the police came round and we were clarifying dates and times, it worked out the chap who was at the bar was an away Aunt Sally player.

MS POTTER: An Aunt Sally -- it is an Oxfordshire game.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: He was in the away team. They do not generally arrive until at least 8 o'clock in the evening.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: The reason I thought it was the Saturday was because I could not recall having anyone working with me at the time, and on Saturday afternoons I work on my own. As it happens, on the Wednesday Graham and Lindsay had the day off and the managers were about but they were not actually present at the time Dr Kelly came in. It was basically through talking to the police and them commenting on how they -- that they had spoken to this player -- this Aunt Sally player who was actually at the bar at the time. As I had seen him and --

MS POTTER: -- recalled him and the description matched the person I had seen, so that is how we came to it.

MS POTTER: Yes.

MS POTTER: No, not to my knowledge, no.

MS POTTER: I recalled the press arriving -- one member of the press arriving on the Thursday evening.

MS POTTER: Yes. Yes, because I had a friend coming to stay and she noted on the press being outside the pub.

MS POTTER: By the Thursday evening there were possibly three or four.

MS POTTER: Yes. I remember we were almost joking at the fact that he was not there as he had informed us he was going away.

MS POTTER: Not that I know of.

MR MANGOLD: Thomas Cornelius Mangold.

MR MANGOLD: Journalist and author.

MR MANGOLD: Yes.

MR MANGOLD: Yes.

MR MANGOLD: Usually defence and intelligence.

MR MANGOLD: I think the first time we met was in Manhattan, when I was researching a book on biological warfare; and I met him at the United Nations at the UNSCOM rooms. I think that was the first time.

MR MANGOLD: I think we are looking about 1998.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, he played a significant part in that and was really one of my principal interviewees.

MR MANGOLD: He really painted a full background of the UNSCOM inspectors' work in the Soviet Union, as it then was, and in Iraq; and he really told me anything I have ever learned about biological warfare.

MR MANGOLD: Extremely high. He was always known to me, and they spoke about him in Manhattan, as the inspectors' inspector.

MR MANGOLD: It was not that frequent. I spoke to him whenever I had a query about biological warfare or occasionally chemical warfare subjects. But it was not a frequent relationship.

MR MANGOLD: Sometimes they were; but the major interview for the book he came to my home and I spoke to him for about eight hours in one day and that was on the record, that was attributable.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, yes.

MR MANGOLD: I would say, on balance, maybe twice a year.

MR MANGOLD: Always.

MR MANGOLD: But I spoke to him on the phone much more than I met him.

MR MANGOLD: Biological warfare.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, yes.

MR MANGOLD: No, not at all.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: I do not recall a conversation of that kind. There may have been one, but I do not recall it.

MR MANGOLD: Decent and honourable, and well informed.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: Not before, no.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, yes.

MR MANGOLD: Yes. Gavin called me and asked me if I knew anybody who could address the subject of the earlier Today Programme and I recommended David immediately. David was always accessible to journalists, he gave them time, and I said: call him wherever he is and if he can talk to you, he will.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: Yes.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, we had a brief conversation about it; and I was not on assignment so I had no particular interest in the matter. We often -- not often, occasionally we just gossiped on the phone and on this occasion we gossiped about the 45 minutes claim because I thought it sounded risible to me, and I wondered what David felt about it.

MR MANGOLD: He thought it was risible too.

MR MANGOLD: Well, we just discussed -- I mean, it was a question of which verb was supposed to be used; and he did not feel that the weapons could be deployed or activated within 45 minutes and we spoke about the length of time it might take just to fill a munition. That alone would take 30 to 45 minutes. If you have the bacteria here and the warhead there, it still takes all that amount of time, and we spoke about the temperatures at which these things have to be kept. He just laughed about the 45 minutes claim.

MR MANGOLD: No, because it is an answer that no-one can give. It depends entirely where the stuff is. I mean if the warheads are in one place and the bacteria in another place and explosives in the third location, and it depends again on keeping the material at the right temperature, it is almost impossible to make an assessment. My understanding of the 45 minutes claim was that it did not really concern deployment, but that it was a communications matter.

MR MANGOLD: Risible.

MR MANGOLD: No, not really.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: I submitted an article that I wrote on spec for The Times. I asked him to check it.

MR MANGOLD: That is the one.

MR MANGOLD: That is the one, yes.

MR MANGOLD: No, that came from other sources.

MR MANGOLD: Yes.

MR MANGOLD: I did not know until he sent an e-mail back saying: looks good to me. Then he referred me to the Rolf Ekeus piece in the Washington Post.

MR MANGOLD: Well, the significance is quite considerable, because the Ekeus piece argued why weapons of mass destruction might never be found, and why the idea that, sort of in inverted commas, smoking guns would be discovered was not on. And my understanding is that David was always an Ekeus man in that sense, and that he believed there was a far more complicated weapons programme, with the accent on the programme, going on in Iraq than people generally believed. So whereas my piece was sort of halfway in that direction; and I was grateful that he had cleared it. I did then go on to read the Ekeus piece and I made a lot of phone calls after that, and began to establish that there were really sort of two camps; there was the September dossier camp and then there was the Rolf Ekeus camp.

MR MANGOLD: Well, obviously Ekeus because he would never refer me to the piece if he did not approve of it.

MR MANGOLD: I think I may have done, but if I did, I did not make a record of it.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: I cannot. I did not keep a copy of The Times article, but you did not have to be Plato to work out that it would be David Kelly. It is quite a small word, the biological warfare world, and there are not many UK inspectors who are that closely identified with it. I only know of another four or five; and of those, only David Kelly spoke to the press. The others spoke to me privately but nobody spoke as much as David did.

MR MANGOLD: Yes.

MR MANGOLD: Absolutely.

MR MANGOLD: Yes.

MR MANGOLD: No. Why would I want to do that?

MR MANGOLD: I think that is an unlikely theory. There were a number of journalists who I would have thought would have recognised that the source was David Kelly and would immediately have gone after him. That is the nature of the trade.

MR MANGOLD: Say again?

MR MANGOLD: You did not need to have personal contact, there was enough information in that Times piece, now that you have refreshed my memory, for anybody who has been involved in this particular discipline, which is a small one, really, biological and chemical warfare and WMD in Iraq; there are not many people who do it. Most of the people involved in that would have understood almost immediately it was David Kelly. I am sure that one of them or several of them would have gone chasing after the story. It had by then become a major matter.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, my Lord, yes.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, I do. Yes.

MR MANGOLD: No, I do not think there was.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, I did, yes. I received a phone call on that day, somewhere around 9 to 9.15, telling me that David Kelly was missing.

MR MANGOLD: Yes. I sat down and thought about that quite carefully; and then I spoke to Jan, yes.

MR MANGOLD: Well, I had very mixed emotions on that day. I knew the moment I got the phone call at 9 o'clock in the morning, I knew that he had to be dead because David Kelly did not go missing. If he was missing, he was dead. So I had a slightly difficult phone call with Janice. She was still fairly upbeat and felt that he must have had a heart attack or a stroke and was -- she felt he was lying in a field, you know, waiting to be found.

MR MANGOLD: Yes, she said he had been very unhappy. As I recall it, I did not make a note of the conversation, I was a bit emotional myself at the time, but she said something to the effect that the FAC hearing had not been the catharsis he had hoped it would be, I think that is what she said, and that he had been unhappy and depressed.

MR MANGOLD: I think she may have done, yes.

MR MANGOLD: Yes.

MR MANGOLD: Yes.

MR MANGOLD: Well, I have to tell you that I had two or three conversations with Andrew; and to the best of my knowledge they were all confidential calls. They were non-attributable. That was the assurance I gave him, so that unless he clears me to talk about them, it would be indiscreet of me to talk about them now.

MR MANGOLD: No.

MR MANGOLD: Thank you.

MR TAYLOR: Yes, good afternoon my name is Richard Charles Hyde Taylor.

MR TAYLOR: I am special adviser to the Secretary of State for Defence.

MR TAYLOR: That is Mr Hoon, that is correct.

MR TAYLOR: Since January 2001.

MR TAYLOR: No, I am a consumer of intelligence information to advise my role in defence policy. I am not a producer or a drafter of intelligence information.

MR TAYLOR: The first time I was aware that an official had come forward, having had contact with Mr Gilligan, was on the early evening of Tuesday 8th July.

MR TAYLOR: No, I was not.

MR TAYLOR: Again, I was not.

MR TAYLOR: I was not aware of those discussions. Perhaps I can qualify it, in that in the first instance this matter was a personnel issue in the department. I would not expect to be consulted on it.

MR TAYLOR: On the Ministry of Defence putting out the press statement. I was not in the office at the time, but I heard it on the news.

MR TAYLOR: Yes.

MR TAYLOR: I had not been shown the -- a draft of a statement, no.

MR TAYLOR: No, I did not see any draft Q and A material.

MR TAYLOR: I was at home, on my way to a private function.

MR TAYLOR: It would have been early evening, 7.30/8 o'clock.

MR TAYLOR: I did not. I was on my way to a private function.

MR TAYLOR: Yes. On the morning of Wednesday 9th July I attended the routine meeting in the Secretary of State's office to discuss media issues of the day.

MR TAYLOR: Yes, it happens most days. It starts each morning with looking through press cuttings for the day and considering whether there is any follow up which may be required by the Ministry of Defence.

MR TAYLOR: To the best of my recollection, yes.

MR TAYLOR: No.

MR TAYLOR: On that day, Wednesday 9th July, the routine press meeting was attended by the Secretary of State, by his principal private secretary, Mr Peter Watkins, by the Director of News, Pamela Teare, and me.

MR TAYLOR: The meeting started, as always, with looking at the press cuttings, and the key issue that morning, the broadcast media as well, was the MoD statement of the previous evening and the BBC's reply, both to the press statement and in a separate parallel process Mr Davies' reply to Mr Hoon's letter of 8th July.

MR TAYLOR: On 8th July?

MR TAYLOR: I did not, no.

MR TAYLOR: The discussion focused primarily on how to respond to Mr Davies' letter, given the substance of his reply that he would not agree to the offer to confirm or deny the source, in his view on the basis of source protection. And also given the tone. It was clear that he was not wishing to try and reconcile any differences the BBC may have with the Government through this letter.

MR TAYLOR: My advice, together with that of the Director of News, was that we should write again to Mr Davies, in private, and to include the name in that letter.

MR TAYLOR: I was part of a discussion in the media meeting about whether or not to include the name in that second letter and I recommended that it should be. I did not draft the letter. I did speak with the principal private secretary later that morning to check the draft and advise that the contents should be very short. I did not see that proposed draft that you are referring to from the Garden Rooms.

MR TAYLOR: Not on that day, no.

MR TAYLOR: I offered my advice on the basis of wishing to move the argument forward with the BBC. There was an alternative view proposed at that meeting, my Lord, which suggested that maybe we should repeat the previous day's offer to the BBC that we would give them the name in return for them confirming or denying it. I did not believe that that was tenable for the next 24 hour period and that to move forward we should disclose the name in private in the letter.

MR TAYLOR: In terms of trying to reconcile the differences with the BBC and to see if there was a way in which it could be resolved, whether this official who had come forward was indeed the source to Mr Gilligan's story. And indeed, whether the BBC were confident in reliability of their reporting of that source.

MR TAYLOR: As far as I knew at the time, and it is inevitably speculation too because those events did not happen, but the hope was that if Mr Davies accepted the offer then there would be an opportunity to explore further the nature of the contact which Dr Kelly had had with Mr Gilligan and whether, indeed, he was the primary source and therefore whether the disputed report of 29th May could be clarified for the public record.

MR TAYLOR: Our hope had been, in the first letter on 8th July, and it was discussed again that morning on 9th July, that this would provide an opportunity for agreement between the BBC and the Government as to who the source was. As I said, my advice was that I did not think it would be tenable for another 24 hours to repeat the offer or, given the tone of Mr Davies' reply and the BBC statements, that they would change their mind and agree to the offer. So it was put in private and I understand measures were taken to ensure that it was sent privately to Mr Davies.

MR TAYLOR: Not specifically about the press statement.

MR TAYLOR: At the end of a discussion on how to follow up the letter to Mr Davies there was a brief discussion on what we should do if journalists were to ring and put the name directly to the Department of who the official was. I would not call it a discussion of the Q and A material. There was a discussion of one of the questions, which I have since learnt was in the Q and A material.

MR TAYLOR: No, not --

MR TAYLOR: No, to the best of my recollection we only discussed the rationale for what to do if the name was put directly to the department.

MR TAYLOR: The Director of News outlined the approach which had been agreed the previous evening for use by the press office as the statement was published.

MR TAYLOR: She did not at the time say who had agreed it. She was outlining material which she, as Director of News, and her press office were using. I, at the time, would have assumed it was written by her. I would not have questioned its approval.

MR TAYLOR: Not in that discussion. It was a brief discussion about the rationale for the approach of what to do if a journalist rang directly with Dr Kelly's name.

MR TAYLOR: I have only learnt through the course of the Inquiry that she discussed it with the Permanent Secretary's office, but not at the time.

MR TAYLOR: I did not see the question and answer brief until after Dr Kelly had died; and I did not therefore ask any questions about it in this timeframe.

MR TAYLOR: In my perception, having heard the Ministry of Defence statement and the BBC's response the previous evening and then seen the reply from Mr Davies, and in the course of that discussion that morning, and I had -- I had not -- I was aware that Mr Hoon had been to see Mr Sambrook as well on the previous day, we were trying to find a way in which the differences between the Government, including the Ministry of Defence, could be resolved with the BBC. And as I said previously, in my answer, then I did not see any merit in repeating the offer. And in order to try to perhaps present the offer in a different way, we would reveal the name in private to Mr Davies so that he could make his own inquiries within the BBC; and that in itself may have elicited the response which I have just speculated about, in terms of trying to resolve the differences.

MR TAYLOR: There was a discussion that morning about that approach; and we explicitly talked through if a direct name was put then it was agreed that it would be not tenable to say "no" because that would be to lie.

MR TAYLOR: This is the meeting on the morning of 9th July, with Secretary of State, Pam Teare and the principal private secretary --

MR TAYLOR: -- and me.

MR TAYLOR: Correct.

MR TAYLOR: As I said earlier, Pam Teare outlined the approach which the press office were using since the issuing of the statement the previous evening. She said that if journalists rang and put the name directly to the Department then, yes, they would confirm it. The discussion explored the rationale for that; and if people had said "no" in answer to the name "Dr David Kelly" that would be a lie, and that would be unacceptable for the Department to respond in that way.

MR TAYLOR: I would not, in the hypothetical question that you are posing --

MR TAYLOR: To that hypothetical question I would ask for circumstances in which I would need to confirm that. I think it is fair to say that on Wednesday 9th July, given the MoD statement and the tone of the BBC's response, that the -- who the unnamed official was was going to be of increasing media interest; and there was a concern expressed that morning, which is why we were considering, again, the rationale for what to do if someone came forward with the name. That that was a question likely to be asked by journalists and given, for example, the article in The Times on the previous Saturday it was becoming increasingly likely that the name would be put.

MR TAYLOR: It did not. The other option which we considered was whether it was tenable to offer a: no comment.

MR TAYLOR: No. Perhaps I can speak from my experience of talking to journalists.

MR TAYLOR: If I offer a "no comment", usually in my experience the immediate follow up question is: does that mean you know and you are not telling me or you do not know? And if it is the former, that you know and you are not telling them, then they would take that as a tacit "yes". So to offer a "no comment" as discussed at that meeting would appear to be a tacit confirmation of a name.

MR TAYLOR: Yes. If you were given a list of three contacts then, yes, I think it is fair to speculate you could perhaps attempt, first of all, to offer: no comment. When we were talking about a circumstance in which a journalist rings up and asks you just one name as a direct question of fact, in those circumstances and in my experience on other issues on single direct questions of fact it is very difficult to say: no comment.

MR TAYLOR: I was not aware of that in terms of the press office calls. I am sure we will come on to the journalist who I spoke to.

MR TAYLOR: To my recollection there would only have been brief discussion on that because the first topic of the conversation was how to reply to Mr Davies. Having agreed to include the name in a private letter to him, the aim there was we hoped that they would come back to us and that the name would remain confidential and not immediately enter the public domain. This discussion was only to clarify that question of journalists putting the name directly.

MR TAYLOR: It was a very brief discussion. There was another meeting following straight after. It is a routine media meeting. The bulk of the conversation was on the letter to Mr Davies. Very briefly, at the end, we discussed this rationale of confirming the name if it was put directly to us. We did not go into greater detail at that time.

MR TAYLOR: It is a simple "no" to that question, but I am only trying to give you -- this was not a meeting why -- this was not a meeting specifically about the BBC or specifically about Dr Kelly. This was a routine meeting which the Secretary of State has to go through media issues.

MR TAYLOR: No, I did not see that Q and A until after he died.

MR TAYLOR: I was contacted that evening by a journalist asking me the name.

MR TAYLOR: It was at about 10 to 6 that evening. I recall the time well because the 9th July is my wedding anniversary and I met my wife at a quarter to 6 outside Charing Cross station and took the call a few minutes later while I was walking along The Strand.

MR TAYLOR: The journalist was Chris Adams of the Financial Times.

MR TAYLOR: He put the name to me directly. I said: yes; confirming it and consistent with the approach of the press office.

MR TAYLOR: No, because there has not been a similar circumstance like that in the time in which I have been special adviser to the Secretary of State.

MR TAYLOR: Yes.

MR TAYLOR: No, I do not think there is.