The Hutton Inquiry

COE: It is Graham Peter Coe.

COE: I am a police officer.

COE: I am stationed at Wantage in Thames Valley.

COE: I was called out at 6 in the morning.

COE: I went over to Longworth.

COE: Abingdon police station. I went out to the Longworth area.

COE: Go and make some house to house inquiries in the area where Dr Kelly lived.

COE: We spoke to a witness who lived more or less opposite, who had seen Dr Kelly on the afternoon, the Thursday afternoon, and myself and a colleague went to the area where she had last seen him and made a sort of search towards the river.

COE: It is the River Thames. We decided -- from what we were told, since the previous afternoon Dr Kelly was missing we decided to try to find the shortest route to the River Thames.

COE: Mrs Ruth Absalom, I believe, my Lord.

COE: We did not get so far as the river.

COE: On the route to Harrowdown Hill I met the two people from the volunteer search team, a female and Mr Chapman.

COE: Mr Chapman told me that they had found a body in the woods.

COE: Detective Constable Shields.

COE: Yes.

COE: I went with Mr Chapman to Harrowdown Hill to the woods where approximately 75 yards into the set of woods he showed me a body.

COE: It was laying on its back -- the body was laying on its back by a large tree, the head towards the trunk of the tree.

COE: I did.

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

COE: On its back.

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

COE: Near to the left wrist, left side of the body.

COE: I did, a water -- a small water bottle. I think that was the left-hand side of the body as well, towards the top left-hand shoulder.

COE: I could not tell you.

COE: He did. He was fully dressed.

COE: He was wearing a Barbour jacket. There was a cap, a pair of trousers and think walking boots, but I cannot be certain on that.

COE: That I cannot remember -- I have a feeling the cap was off, but I cannot be sure.

COE: I saw blood around the left wrist area.

COE: Just standing upright, I did not go over the body. I made a thing -- I observed the scene.

COE: 7 or 8 feet.

COE: Until other officers came to tape off the area. I would think somewhere in the region of about 25 or 30 minutes.

COE: Yes, two other police officers arrived, I took them to where the body was laying and then they made a taped off area, what we call a common approach path for everybody to attend along this one path.

COE: They did, yes.

COE: I can, if I use my pocket book. Can I?

COE: I have 10.07 here.

COE: Pronounced death, but they might have arrived just prior to that.

COE: Yes.

COE: No, I left and left the other officers there, and I left the actual area of the scene.

COE: I did not.

COE: Yes, I was. I went to the premises and at that time I had an attachment with me who acted as an exhibits officer at the house and I oversaw what he did. I made no search whatsoever of the premise.

COE: Nothing whatsoever.

COE: Thank you, my Lord.

MR HUNT: Certainly. Nicholas Charles Alexander Hunt.

MR HUNT: I am a Home Office accredited forensic pathologist.

MR HUNT: I have been on the Home Office list since 2001. I have been practising full time pathology since 1994.

MR HUNT: I received a telephone call on the morning of the day in question and was asked if I could attend the scene by officers of the Thames Valley Police.

MR HUNT: Approximately midday.

MR HUNT: Yes. Initially I was taken to the outer cordon at the edge of the copse or the woods where Dr Kelly's body was found. I was then escorted, having seen the scene video, up to the immediate scene where his body was located. He was lying on his back fully clothed with his boots on. His left arm was towards his side and his right arm was over his chest area.

MR HUNT: Yes.

MR HUNT: Yes, it showed the approach path to the body. It showed a deceased man lying on his back, with visible bloodstaining around his left wrist.

MR HUNT: I arrived and was logged into the outer cordon, my Lord, at 12.00 hours; and then approximately 10 minutes later went up to the body.

MR HUNT: Yes, from the point of view of looking at the body rather than touching anything at that stage.

MR HUNT: Yes.

MR HUNT: 12.35 hours is the time I noted as having confirmed the fact of death.

MR HUNT: Yes, after that there was a fingertip search conducted by police of the common approach path, and the view taken was that we would await the arrival of the scientist, the biologist and his assistant from the laboratory.

MR HUNT: Yes, I did.

MR HUNT: I was logged back into the scene at about 10 minutes past 2 that afternoon, to begin the definitive scene examination.

MR HUNT: Yes, a scene tent had been erected over the body. Although it was in very dense woodland there were obvious concerns to preserve the dignity of the deceased.

MR HUNT: Yes, there was indeed, my Lord.

MR HUNT: That was on the edge of the woods and is a tent that has become familiar, I think, through the reporting of the incident. It is the large white tent on the outside of the woods.

MR HUNT: It was erected really to give us protection from the elements. It was felt that rain may be on its way and we needed somewhere, as the people dealing with the scene, to have a base where we could complete paperwork and the like.

MR HUNT: Yes, certainly. He was laying on his back near a tree. The left arm was extended out from the body slightly, closer to shoulder level, his right arm was laying across his chest area and his legs were extended out straight in front of him.

MR HUNT: He was, yes.

MR HUNT: I recall that his head was quite close to branches and so forth, but not actually over the tree.

MR HUNT: No, they were not on his face.

MR HUNT: He was wearing a green Barbour type wax jacket and the zip and the buttons at the front had been undone. Within the bellows pocket on the lower part of the jacket there was a mobile telephone and a pair of bi-focal spectacles. There was a key fob and, perhaps more significantly, a total of three blister packs of a drug called Coproxamol. Each of those packs would originally have contained 10 tablets, a total of 30 potentially available.

MR HUNT: There was one left.

MR HUNT: Yes, as part of the search, my Lord.

MR HUNT: He was wearing a striped shirt. The upper four buttons of that were undone but there was no sign of them having been ripped apart or damaged in any way.

MR HUNT: Yes, there was one visible at that stage over the left upper chest area.

MR HUNT: Yes.

MR HUNT: He was wearing a pair of blue denim jeans; they were done up. There was a belt in place in the belt loops and again the buckle was done up.

MR HUNT: Yes, a pair of beige socks, and he was wearing a pair of walking boots and the laces had been done up in double bows.

MR HUNT: Yes.

MR HUNT: Yes. The procedure we adopted was to retrieve as much what I would call trace evidence as possible, potential trace evidence, any -- looking for fibres, looking for DNA contamination by a third party. That sort of evidence was obtained at that stage.

MR HUNT: Yes.

MR HUNT: Yes, there were a number of areas of bloodstaining on the clothes, including over the front of the shirt, over the Barbour jacket itself, including in the sleeve of the Barbour jacket on the left.

MR HUNT: Yes, there was some bloodstaining over the trousers; and, in particular, there was a patch of bloodstaining over the right knee.

MR HUNT: There was some staining, as I have said, over the left arm. That was the heaviest staining, really, including within the sleeve of the jacket. And there was some bloodstaining over the back of the left elbow.

MR HUNT: The most obvious area of bloodstaining was around the left wrist, where it was relatively heavy.

MR HUNT: Yes. Over the palm of the right hand and the fingers of the right hand there was further bloodstaining.

MR HUNT: His face appeared, firstly, rather pale but there was also what looked like vomit running from the right corner of the mouth and also from the left corner of the mouth and streaking the face.

MR HUNT: It suggested that he had tried to vomit whilst he was lying on his back and it had trickled down.

MR HUNT: Yes, there was some vomit. There was some vomit staining over the left shoulder of the jacket and also on the ground in the region of his left shoulder.

MR HUNT: There was a small bloodstain over the right side of his neck, which we sampled at the scene. And two further smaller areas of bloodstaining over the right side of his face; again, they were sampled at the scene.

MR HUNT: Yes.

MR HUNT: There was a Barbour flat-type cap with some blood on the lining and the peak near his left shoulder and upper arm. In the region of his left hand lying on the grass there was a black resin strapped wristwatch, a digital watch, which was also bloodstained.

MR HUNT: It was face down.

MR HUNT: Lying next to that was a pruning knife or gardener's knife.

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

MR HUNT: Yes, over both the handle and the blade.

MR HUNT: Yes, there was. There was blood around the area of the knife.

MR HUNT: It was around the knife and underneath it.

MR HUNT: Yes, there was a bottle of Evian water, half a litre.

MR HUNT: Yes, there was some remaining water. I do not recall what volume exactly.

MR HUNT: Yes, it was lying propped against some broken branches to the left and about a foot away from his left elbow.

MR HUNT: Yes, there was some smeared blood over both the bottle itself and the bottle top.

MR HUNT: It indicated that he had been bleeding whilst at least placing the bottle in its final position. He may already have been bleeding whilst he was drinking from it, but that is less certain.

MR HUNT: There was. There was an area of bloodstaining to his left side running across the undergrowth and the soil, and I estimated it was over an area of 2 to 3 feet in maximum length.

MR HUNT: Yes. In addition to the trace evidence gathering I also, having completed that, carried out a rectal temperature assessment.

MR HUNT: That reading was made at 19.15 hours or quarter past 7 in the evening.

MR HUNT: His rectal temperature was 24 degrees Celsius.

MR HUNT: Yes, from the very first moment I entered the scene to the end. The protective clothing is a standard hooded scene suit, protective over-shoes, protective latex gloves and a mask.

MR HUNT: I left the scene at about 19.19 hours or nearly 20 minutes past 7.

MR HUNT: Yes. At the scene I could see that there were at least five what I would call incised wounds or cuts to his left wrist over the what is anatomically the front of the wrist, but that is the creased area of the wrist.

MR HUNT: No, there was nothing at the scene.

MR HUNT: Yes, they were.

MR HUNT: Thank you.

MR HUNT: I did, yes.

MR HUNT: The examination started at 21.20 hours or 20 minutes past 9 that evening.

MR HUNT: That was in the mortuary at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford.

MR HUNT: There were, yes.

MR HUNT: He appeared to be a relatively well-nourished man of average height and weight; and there was nothing to suggest that he was particularly ill from the external examination or anything of that nature.

MR HUNT: Yes, he showed cooling of blood really over the back of the body, that is referred to as hypostasis medically. The significance of that is really that it was consistent with the position that his body was found in, in other words lying on his back.

MR HUNT: I did. I was able to note in detail the injuries over his left wrist in particular.

MR HUNT: Yes.

MR HUNT: Certainly. There was a series of incised wounds, cuts, of varying depth over the front of the left wrist and they extended in total over about 8 by 5 centimetres on the front of the wrist. The largest of the wounds and the deepest lay towards the top end or the elbow end of that complex of injuries and it showed a series of notches and some crushing of its edges. That wound had actually severed an artery on the little finger aspect of the front of the wrist, called the ulnar artery. The other main artery on the wrist on the thumb aspect was intact. There were a number of other incisions of varying depth and many smaller scratch-like injuries over the wrist. The appearance that they gave was of what are called tentative or hesitation marks, which are commonly seen prior to a deep cut being made into somebody's skin if they are making the incision themselves.

MR HUNT: I did. Over the left side of his head there were three minor abrasions or grazes to his scalp, and of course that part of his head was relatively close to undergrowth. In addition to that --

MR HUNT: They were entirely, my Lord; particularly branches, pebbles and the like. There was no bruising deep to those, I should add, at this stage.

MR HUNT: Yes. Those were only revealed during the dissection part of the examination. There was a bruise below the left knee. There were two bruises below the right knee over the shin and there were two bruises over the left side of his chest. All of these were small and affected the skin but not the deeper tissues.

MR HUNT: They would have occurred following a blunt impact against any firm object and it would not have to be a particularly heavy impact. They may be caused -- some of them may have been caused as Dr Kelly was stumbling, if you like, at the scene. They may have been caused well before he got to the woods. It is not possible to age them so precisely.

MR HUNT: No, there were no signs of defensive injuries; and by that I mean injuries that occur as a result of somebody trying to parry blows from a weapon or trying to grasp a weapon.

MR HUNT: If somebody is being attacked with a bladed weapon, like a knife, then cuts on the palm of the hand or over the fingers where they are trying to grasp the knife, or cuts or even stabs on the outer part of the arm as they try to parry a blow.

MR HUNT: I did.

MR HUNT: Yes, thank you.

MR HUNT: Yes, in terms of significant positive findings, there was evidence that at the time of his death Dr Kelly had a significant amount of narrowing of the arteries to his heart, his coronary arteries by a process called atherosclerosis or, colloquially, hardening of the arteries. That was the only positive evidence of natural disease, but I could not find evidence that he had had a heart attack as a consequence of that.

MR HUNT: Yes, in the mouth there was a small abrasion on the lower lip. This was of the order of 0.6 by 0.3 centimetres, so very small; and there was no significant reaction to it.

MR HUNT: With the particular appearance and location of this abrasion then it may have been caused by contact with the teeth, in other words biting.

MR HUNT: When I examine the stomach contents my examination is relatively cursory compared to the detailed examination that the toxicologist would undertake. But I could see no obvious signs of tablet residue. So in other words, there was not a great volume of tablet material in the stomach.

MR HUNT: The examination concluded actually at quarter past midnight on the morning of Saturday 19th July.

MR HUNT: They were, yes.

MR HUNT: Yes, I was. It was the report of Dr Alexander Allen.

MR HUNT: After the examination.

MR HUNT: It showed the presence of two compounds in particular. One of them is a drug called dextropropoxyphene. That is an opiate-type drug, it is a mild painkiller, and that was present at a concentration of one microgramme per millilitre in the blood.

MR HUNT: Yes, it did. It showed the presence of paracetamol.

MR HUNT: 97 milligrammes per millilitre.

MR HUNT: It was also present in the stomach contents, as well as the blood.

MR HUNT: Yes, I did. I examined small samples of all the major organs under the microscope.

MR HUNT: No, it did not. It showed minor changes in his lungs and brain, which would be consistent with the way in which he died.

MR HUNT: Yes, within certain limits, using a particular technique based upon the rectal temperature.

MR HUNT: The estimate is that death is likely to have occurred some 18 to 27 hours prior to taking the rectal temperature, and that that time range was somewhere between quarter past 4 on 17th July and quarter past 1 on the morning of the 18th July.

MR HUNT: That was taken at quarter past 7 in the evening of the 18th.

MR HUNT: Yes, certainly. I found that Dr Kelly was an apparently adequately nourished man in whom there was no evidence of natural disease that could of itself have caused death directly at the macroscopic or naked eye level. He had evidence of a significant incised wound to his left wrist, in the depths of which his left ulnar artery had been completely severed. That wound was in the context of multiple incised wounds over the front of his left wrist of varying length and depth. The arterial injury had resulted in the loss of a significant volume of blood, as noted at the scene. The complex of incised wounds over the left wrist is entirely consistent with having been inflicted by a bladed weapon, most likely candidate for which would have been a knife. Furthermore, the knife present at the scene would be a suitable candidate for causing such injuries. The orientation and arrangement of the wounds over the left wrist are typical of self inflicted injury. Also typical of this was the presence of small so-called tentative or hesitation marks. The fact that his watch appeared to have been removed whilst blood was already flowing suggests that it had been removed deliberately in order to facilitate access to the wrist. The removal of the watch in that way and indeed the removal of the spectacles are features pointing towards this being an act of self harm. Other features at the scene which would tend to support this impression include the relatively passive distribution of the blood, the neat way in which the water bottle and its top were placed, the lack of obvious signs of trampling of the undergrowth or damage to the clothing. To my mind, the location of the death is also of interest in this respect because it was clearly a very pleasant and relatively private spot of the type that is sometimes chosen by people intent upon self harm.

MR HUNT: Yes, and knowledge of the literature. Many of the injuries over the left wrist show evidence of a well developed vital reaction which suggests that they had been inflicted over a reasonable period of time, minutes, though, rather than seconds or many hours before death.

MR HUNT: A vital reaction, my Lord, is the body's response to an area of damage. It manifests itself chiefly in the form of reddening and swelling around the area.

MR HUNT: Thank you, my Lord. There is a total lack of classical defence wounds against sharp weapon attack. Such wounds are typically seen in the palm aspects of the hands or over the outer aspects of the forearms. It was noted that he has a significant degree of coronary artery disease and this may have played some small part in the rapidity of death but not the major part in the cause of death. Given the finding of blister packs of Coproxamol tablets within the coat pocket and the vomitus around the ground, it is an entirely reasonable supposition that he may have consumed a quantity of these tablets either on the way to or at the scene itself.

MR HUNT: That he had consumed a significant quantity of the tablets.

MR HUNT: (Pause). Really the only other thing in addition to that was the coronary artery disease that could have had a part in the rapidity of death in these circumstances.

MR HUNT: Yes.

MR HUNT: Yes. The minor injuries or abrasions over the head are entirely consistent with scraping against rough undergrowth such as small twigs, branches and stones which were present at the scene.

MR HUNT: Yes, indeed, my Lord. The substances which one thinks of, as a pathologist, in these terms are volatile chemicals. Perhaps chloroform is a classic example. So in order to investigate that --

MR HUNT: I retained a lung and also blood samples until the toxicology was complete.

MR HUNT: To examine for any signs of a volatile chemical in the blood or, failing that, in the lungs.

MR HUNT: Certainly. The minor reddened lesions on the lower limbs are typical of areas of minor hair follicle irritation or skin irritation, so they were not injuries in particular. They were not puncture wounds.

MR HUNT: I had undertaken subcutaneous dissection of the arms and the legs and there is no positive evidence of restraint-type injury.

MR HUNT: There is no positive pathological evidence that this man had been subjected to a sustained violent assault prior to his death.

MR HUNT: Yes, my Lord. Yes, particularly around the areas of the ankles and the wrists.

MR HUNT: There was no positive pathological evidence to indicate that he has been subjected to compression of the neck, such as by manual strangulation, ligature strangulation or the use of an arm hold.

MR HUNT: There is no evidence from the post-mortem examination or my observations at the scene to indicate that the deceased had been dragged or otherwise transported to the location where his body was found.

MR HUNT: I did, yes.

MR HUNT: There were no significant findings.

MR HUNT: It is the haemorrhage as a result of the incised wounds to his left wrist.

MR HUNT: He may not have done at this time, with that level of dextropropoxyphene.

MR HUNT: As with the drug dextropropoxyphene, it would have hastened death rather than caused it, as such.

MR HUNT: In the formulation, the cause of death is given as 1(a) haemorrhage due to 1(b) incised wounds of the left wrist. Under part 2 of the formulation of the medical cause of death, Coproxamol ingestion and coronary artery atherosclerosis.

MR HUNT: No, there was no pathological evidence to indicate the involvement of a third party in Dr Kelly's death. Rather, the features are quite typical, I would say, of self inflicted injury if one ignores all the other features of the case.

MR HUNT: Nothing I could say as a pathologist, no.

MR HUNT: Thank you, my Lord.

MR HOWARD: I am Martin Lloyd Howard.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I have, twice.

MR HOWARD: I am.

MR HOWARD: I have.

MR HOWARD: I was, yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I am.

MR HOWARD: No, it is very usual.

MR HOWARD: The purpose of a question and answer brief, or Q and A brief as it is often called, is to anticipate possible questions that journalists or others may put to a department, particularly a press office, and to identify factual and accurate answers which could be given in response to those. It is usually provided to a press office and is particularly useful for those press officers who are perhaps not familiar with the issue that it is related to. It is usually prepared at the same time -- it is always associated with an announcement. One prepares an announcement about a particular issue and one usually prepares a Q and A brief at the same time. The reason why it is important that it is made available to press officers who are perhaps not familiar with the issue under question is, for example, in the case of the MoD we operate 24 hours a day and duty press officers come on overnight or at weekends. They use Q and A brief if a journalist were to ring up with a question on that particular topic. That is the main purpose.

MR HOWARD: It is not. It is used purely within the press office.

MR HOWARD: As I recall, on the 8th July, which was a Tuesday, I went down to Sir Kevin Tebbit's office in the Ministry of Defence, I think at around about noon, I cannot be entirely sure. The purpose of going down there, I had been asked to attend, was to consider the terms of a public announcement in relation to the fact that an official had had contact with Andrew Gilligan. When I arrived, I stayed in the outer office and had a discussion with Ms Pam Teare, who is Director of News at the Ministry of Defence, about a Q and A brief that she had drafted. I cannot remember precisely but she may have had it either in front of her on the screen or on a piece of paper in front of her.

MR HOWARD: The private secretary, Dominic Wilson, may have been in the office at the same time but it was essentially between Ms Teare and myself.

MR HOWARD: We talked for about 20 to 30 minutes, as I recall. I offered some factual points for inclusion in the Q and A brief. These would, for example, have related to Dr Kelly's title and would also have filled in information about the sequence of events that took place between Dr Kelly writing to his line manager and the position we were at then.

MR HOWARD: Well, it was just that, providing the factual information for inclusion.

MR HOWARD: I do not recall that being a significant part of the discussion at the time. My presumption, I have to say, at the time, was that if a journalist had put the correct name to the press office that the press office would confirm it.

MR HOWARD: Well, I felt that it would be very difficult to do otherwise. The purpose of the Q and A brief is to provide truthful and factual answers.

MR HOWARD: Well, I have talked about my initial discussion with Pam Teare at around about noon or thereabouts. Subsequently, we moved into Sir Kevin Tebbit's office, I think this would have been about the time that perhaps Sir Kevin Tebbit returned from his visit to Portsmouth and possibly a meeting at No. 10 Downing Street. We then spent most of that afternoon considering the precise terms of a public statement. During that time, I was present, Sir Kevin Tebbit was present, Ms Teare was present. From time to time Peter Watkins, who is principal private secretary to Geoff Hoon, would attend.

MR HOWARD: I should think something like three or four hours. I cannot be exactly precise about that.

MR HOWARD: That was essentially Sir Kevin, Ms Teare, myself; Dominic Wilson was also present as Sir Kevin Tebbit's private secretary. As I mentioned, Peter Watkins from time to time would come into the office.

MR HOWARD: At around about that time we returned to the Q and A brief. I remember Ms Teare showing it to Kevin Tebbit. He read it, and I said I had seen it and I had agreed it.

MR HOWARD: Oh yes. The statement having been completed, it was agreed that Richard Hatfield would put the terms of the statement to Dr Kelly. As I understand, this was done by e-mail, because Richard Hatfield was in a different building from where we were, and I think the statement was sent to him by e-mail. Either in that e-mail or by telephone he was asked to clear the terms of the draft statement as agreed in Sir Kevin Tebbit's office with Dr Kelly.

MR HOWARD: Yes, at some time between 4.30 and 5 o'clock, as I recall, Dominic Wilson came back and confirmed that Richard Hatfield had spoken to Dr Kelly and -- by telephone -- had read over the statement to him and reported that Dr Kelly said he was content.

MR HOWARD: I think by then it had reached the final form which has been made available to the Inquiry. As I recall, at that time, having dealt with the statement, Pam Teare showed the draft -- well, the Q and A in that form, to Sir Kevin Tebbit. Sir Kevin looked at it pretty quickly and approved it.

MR HOWARD: No, there was not.

MR HOWARD: No, not that evening; and the following day I travelled to the Middle East.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I have. Perhaps I should preface that by saying that I think all of us were surprised that the issue of confirming the name became a point of media criticism and media controversy, but it clearly did. I have therefore thought quite hard about what alternative approaches could have been taken. To my mind there were three. The first would have been to deny that this was Dr Kelly. That would, of course, have been a direct lie to the media and I think would have been unacceptable behaviour for a Government department and we would rightly have been heavily criticised for it. The second option would have been to say "no comment" to any name that was provided to the press office. That may well have prevented Dr Kelly's name coming out. I am not sure it would have stopped it completely because it was quite likely that his name would be speculated about. But I felt that in those circumstances unwarranted suspicion would fall on others who might well have been speculated about and that those others might have been subject to unwanted media intrusion. I subsequently discovered, in conversation with Ms Teare, that this was not just a theoretical concern. A particular individual who had not had an unauthorised contact with Mr Gilligan and who was also the subject of a security threat was contacted by a tabloid newspaper on 9th July before Dr Kelly's name was revealed. Indeed, that same tabloid newspaper sent a reporter round to his home. The other point is that in those circumstances I suspect the department would have been criticised for being evasive. The final option I considered was that we could have denied other names if other names were put to us and said no, that was not the person, and then offered no comment in the case of Dr Kelly. This seems to me to be intellectually dishonest and evasive and would in any case have led to the identification of Dr Kelly in the same way.

MR HOWARD: No, I was not.

MR HOWARD: Yes, because that was in the Q and A brief, yes.

MR HOWARD: No, I was not.

MR HOWARD: Well, I have again considered this and again, with hindsight, I feel that the press office or the Director of News would have had again very little option but to confirm that if the correct name were put forward that it would be confirmed, simply because that was a decision that had been taken, and I have set out the reasons why that would be. If we had suggested otherwise, I think we would have been accused of being misleading or indeed lying.

MR HOWARD: Absolutely not.

MR HOWARD: I can, yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes, that is my handwriting.

MR HOWARD: This was a draft press release which was prepared in Richard Hatfield's office on 7th July, which was -- and it was prepared before the meeting that Richard Hatfield had with Dr Kelly, at which I was present along with Dr Wells. Richard Hatfield showed this to me in advance, and I inserted that addition as a suggestion that should go into the press release.

MR HOWARD: As I recall, it was -- a copy was given to Dr Kelly at the end of his interview on 7th July. He looked at it and said that he was content with it. This followed a point made by Richard Hatfield that it was very likely that the Ministry of Defence would have to make some sort of public statement. As I recall, Dr Kelly retained the press statement at the time, this draft at the time.

MR HOWARD: No, I did not.

MR HOWARD: I first heard of this on the afternoon of 14th July. I had been asked to have a meeting with Dr Kelly, by Sir Kevin Tebbit, to help him prepare for his appearances before the Foreign Affairs Committee and the ISC -- the Intelligence and Security Committee, I should say -- and also Sir Kevin had asked me to check he was up to appearing before those Committees.

MR HOWARD: At the beginning of the meeting I recall that Dr Wells said that Dr Kelly had expressed a preference for someone to sit alongside him at the meeting. Dr Kelly, I understand, had consulted the Clerk to the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Clerk to the Foreign Affairs Committee had said that in those circumstances someone sitting beside Dr Kelly would have to be regarded formally as a witness before --

MR HOWARD: Dr Wells.

MR HOWARD: That is fine. This was clearly a potential complication, in that there had been discussions between the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee which set out the areas that it was appropriate to question Dr Kelly on. These were areas that really only he could give answers to and another witness would not be able to deal with it. It also seemed possible that members of the Foreign Affairs Committee might take amiss someone sitting beside him and another witness advising Dr Kelly at the time.

MR HOWARD: This was raised at the beginning of the meeting. I did not reach a decision on that. I said we would return to that at the end of the meeting. At the end of the meeting, having taken Dr Kelly through what was likely to happen and discussed areas of questioning with him, Dr Wells asked him whether he wanted to continue or pursue the idea that someone should sit next to him. Dr Kelly said that he was now content not to pursue that. He recognised and I recognised that he would, of course, be accompanied to the evidence session by Dr Wells, by Wing Commander Clark and by Kate Wilson, the chief press officer, and those individuals sat behind at the time of the evidence session.

MR HOWARD: I do, yes.

MR HOWARD: I cannot recall exactly when. It must have been in the week beginning 14th July because I was actually in Qatar and Iraq at the end of the previous week and had only got back that weekend. To the best of my recollection, the first time I saw it -- I am not saying it was not in the office at the time, but the first time I actually laid eyes on it was at a time I was already putting together advice for the Secretary of State before his forthcoming appearance.

MR HOWARD: The purpose of the advice was to deal with the likely interest of the Intelligence and Security Committee on two issues: firstly, the mechanisms by which members of the Defence Intelligence Staff can express concerns about the misuse of intelligence or indeed anything else; and secondly, they were likely to ask whether those mechanisms had been evoked at the time of the September 24th dossier.

MR HOWARD: That is right.

MR HOWARD: The advice I gave was to set out to the Committee the process by which individuals can express concerns on, as I say, in this particular case, the possible misuse of intelligence. That process is exactly the same for members of the defence staff as it is for anyone else in the Ministry of Defence, which is that concerns should be expressed up to the line management chain. Ultimately that can go to the Permanent Secretary and beyond that to the Cabinet Secretary. I said we should say to the Intelligence and Security Committee that at the time of the dossier there had been a very wide variety of views expressed about particular pieces of intelligence -- or the use of particular pieces of intelligence in the dossier, and the detailed drafting of that. I said that in the context -- and that was quite normal, that was what was to be expected, indeed encouraged. I said we should say in the context of that that two individuals had expressed concerns, particular concerns, to their line manager about particular use of language on specific forms of intelligence. I said that the Secretary of State and Sir Joe French, who was formerly the Chief of Defence Intelligence, should raise this if the ISC raised a question of this sort. If they did not, my advice was that the Secretary of State should write to the ISC separately to set that out.

MR HOWARD: Yes, it was.

MR HOWARD: They were.

MR HOWARD: Yes, it was.

MR HOWARD: I circulated it to David Omand, who is the intelligence coordinator, to John Scarlett, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, to Sir Joe French, who was going to be attending the evidence session with the Secretary of State, and also to Simon Webb, the MoD Policy Director who would also be attending.

MR HOWARD: Yes. I recall on the late afternoon of I think it must have been 17th -- no, 16th July -- 16th or 17th July, I cannot remember exactly when, I had a meeting with David Omand and John Scarlett. I think Julian Miller was also present, chief of the assessment staff. We discussed the advice. In the light of the points made at that meeting and also written points I had from other people, I submitted the advice on 18th July.

MR HOWARD: In my note I sent to the Inquiry or my solicitor to the Inquiry on 8th August I sent the minute with its annexes. At that stage my solicitor said in the letter that we had not included the attachments at that point, you know, to avoid overburdening the Inquiry with paper, but if the Inquiry would like to have them they would be made available. In fact, they have subsequently been made available.

MR HOWARD: I did, yes.

MR HOWARD: I said to Dr Jones I was grateful that he had written to me. I said that I assumed that the document he referred to was the minute which he had actually sent to his line manager, a copy to my predecessor Mr Cragg. I said he had done that quite properly. I said that this issue and his document had been brought to the attention of the Secretary of State and the former Chief of Defence Intelligence in the context of their appearance before the Intelligence and Security Committee, and that in my view, therefore, he had done nothing wrong, he had done nothing culpable, which was the concern he set out in his letter, and that he need take no further action but that if he wanted to discuss it further with me he could.

MR HOWARD: Yes, informally I showed it to Sir Kevin Tebbit, along with my draft reply.

MR HOWARD: He was content for me to write as I proposed.

MR HOWARD: It has.

MR HOWARD: I think it is hard to sort of say that any one person said he should be publicly identified. The fact that his name would be confirmed was set out in the Q and A brief, and that was approved by Sir Kevin Tebbit.

MR HOWARD: He was certainly part of the process of agreeing that we would confirm the name if it were put to us.

MR HOWARD: I was not aware, at the time, that the Secretary of State was part of the decision, no.

MR HOWARD: Correct.

MR HOWARD: Absolutely.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: I do not think I agree entirely. I did not -- was not involved in the PMOS briefing, so I have no idea how that came about. I was travelling to the Middle East at the time. The press statement was indeed agreed by Dr Kelly. The Q and A material provided some additional points, but I did not regard them as providing significant additional clues or pointers towards Dr Kelly's identity. I should make this point: that the Q and A brief was not intended to provide such clues.

MR HOWARD: I think it -- those details, particularly the ones that appeared on 9th July, may well have helped. I am not sure they would inevitably have been the only way that they would have identified Dr Kelly.

MR HOWARD: I have read that evidence, yes.

MR HOWARD: No, there was not.

MR HOWARD: Well, again, I have thought about this, with hindsight. I think that the reason that he was not named in the press statement was that we had told him the previous day that his name would not appear initially. That was the point made by Mr Hatfield when we met on 7th July.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: No, that is not it. The press statement that was given to Dr Kelly was the one that was pushed up on the screen by Mr Lloyd-Jones just a few moments ago.

MR HOWARD: No, I mean the one that had a sentence inserted in my handwriting.

MR HOWARD: That is right, yes.

MR HOWARD: It seems to be, yes.

MR HOWARD: That is the record of the meeting. As I recall, the actual words used by Mr Hatfield were rather stronger than that.

MR HOWARD: I think he used the word "likely" rather than just "may" become known.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: But the MoD did not publish the name, it responded to a journalist asking if this was the correct name.

MR HOWARD: Well, no, not in that sense.

MR HOWARD: The publication of the name was when the MoD answered the question.

MR HOWARD: Possibly. I had not seen this at the time.

MR HOWARD: Well, that is the approach that was taken. What is not in here is a question which was obviously considered later, is how the department should react if a journalist put the correct name to the department. That was inserted in later versions of the Q and A brief.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: It is worth saying that the previous version had another formulation for how to deal with what would happen if the correct name was given. I believe it said we would need to consult before confirming it. I think the presumption in the earlier version would be we would confirm the name if the correct name was given.

MR HOWARD: That appears here as well. This one is, if you like, a development but is consistent with the previous version.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: Well, I do not know for sure but I imagine that this was a development of the Q and A brief from 4th July where they had inserted additional questions, i.e. these two, what if it is the wrong name, what if it is the right name, and have put in suggested ways in which that could be answered.

MR HOWARD: I think that would have been done by Ms Teare and Ms Wilson.

MR HOWARD: I do not recall seeing this particular draft. It could well be this was the one in front of Ms Teare when we discussed it in Sir Kevin Tebbit's outer office on 8th July but I do not know that for certain.

MR HOWARD: I do not regard it as a sea change but it is just that people, having seen the first Q and A brief, would have said: how do we respond if they actually put a name to us? That was not dealt with in the first Q and A brief. It is a perfectly reasonable question to expect from journalists. I imagine either over the weekend or on Monday morning Ms Teare and Ms Wilson thought about that: this is an additional question we might have to deal with, and this was a proposal for how we should.

MR HOWARD: I see it as an addition of an important additional question that might be put to the department by journalists, yes.

MR HOWARD: It did not have any, though -- any provision for how to deal with the question of: is it X? Or is it Y? And that was --

MR HOWARD: Version 1 was not intended to identify Dr Kelly, no, it had nothing at all in there about his name.

MR HOWARD: It was not intended to identify him. It was intended to give an answer to a question, "Is it Dr Kelly?" from a journalist.

MR HOWARD: We had interviewed Dr Kelly on 7th July and, as we have already discussed, we made it plain that if we made an announcement it was likely that his name would come out.

MR HOWARD: No, I do not accept that. I think that the Q and A brief as finalised on 8th July was entirely consistent with what we had said to Dr Kelly the previous day, which was that it was likely his name would come out once an announcement was made.

MR HOWARD: Firstly, because Richard Hatfield, the previous day, had said that we would not need to put his name in the initial announcement. So it would have been contrary to what had been told to Dr Kelly. If we had done so, obviously we would have had to get his agreement to doing so. The net result would have been his name would come into the public domain that much earlier. He would have had less time to prepare. It was for that reason that we stuck with what we had agreed with Dr Kelly on 7th July.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I think it was.

MR HOWARD: I think it was entirely consistent. It was not a procedure for naming Dr Kelly. It was a procedure designed to deal with how we should respond to a journalist who put the correct name to the Ministry of Defence.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: We are not responsible for how the media put their questions to the press office.

MR HOWARD: No, it was not that either.

MR HOWARD: I would disagree with that completely.

MR HOWARD: He was not consulted over the terms of the Q and A brief, as I understand anyway.

MR HOWARD: I do not believe he was asked in those terms, but he was told that it was likely his name would come out.

MR HOWARD: The Q and A material had a number of points in it, but the issue about his being named was consistent with what had been said the previous day. The rest of it was factual information which was either in the statement or which was known to those who were preparing the Q and A brief, and therefore there was no need to consult Dr Kelly over that. If there had been material in the Q and A brief which needed Dr Kelly to provide a factual response to that, he would be consulted.

MR HOWARD: Well, I do not regard it as a change.

MR HOWARD: No, I do not agree.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: That is an argument I considered subsequently.

MR HOWARD: Well, as I said earlier, the production of a Q and A brief is actually a relatively routine piece of work in connection with an announcement. We did not spend a huge amount of time on it, as I have already given evidence, on 8th July. As I said, I have considered in retrospect what other approaches we could have made. I have set out my analysis of that.

MR HOWARD: We recognised that if his name became public, which we regarded as very likely, that he would come under pressure. But that point had already been put to him on the previous day.

MR HOWARD: I am not quite sure what you mean by "risk assessment".

MR HOWARD: We did not carry out a formal assessment in that sense. We considered that if the name came out Dr Kelly would obviously need to be advised on how to deal with it. We did not think that the risks associated with that were any greater, necessarily, than the risks associated with other people being accused unnecessarily.

MR HOWARD: Well, I personally did not know Dr Kelly very well at all.

MR HOWARD: Two or possibly three occasions.

MR HOWARD: I am not aware of anything beyond what was said to Dr Kelly in his interviews on 4th and 7th July. As I say, I personally was not involved and had no -- had little close contact with Dr Kelly.

MR HOWARD: No, I was not involved in decisions on whether or not he should appear before those Committees.

MR HOWARD: I had no view particularly about whether it was desirable or otherwise. I felt that once we had made an announcement, that it was very probable that his name would come out.

MR HOWARD: Not in my case, no.

MR HOWARD: Well, I think that there was an issue about correcting the public record of what had been said about a claim made by the BBC back at the end of May, and that it was possible that the fact that an official had come forward and admitted talking to Mr Gilligan may help in that respect. But not, in any sense, did I feel that the actions that were taken were designed to discredit Mr Gilligan or anyone else.

MR HOWARD: The suggestion had been made. It was factually wrong in terms of the allegations made and reported by the BBC on 29th May. The fact that what Dr Kelly said he had said was different from what Mr Gilligan said his single source had said was relevant. In that sense, it would have been important, and I think Sir Kevin Tebbit has testified to this effect, to correct the public record in that respect.

MR HOWARD: The earlier drafts of the dossier were, of course, confidential and classified. They were -- that issue was, at that time, before Lord Hutton started his Inquiry, being addressed by the Intelligence and Security Committee, whose inquiry was ongoing at that time, and to a lesser extent by the Foreign Affairs Committee. To my mind it would have been quite improper to reveal earlier drafts of this to the media whilst those inquiries were going on. These are matters really for the Cabinet Office and the Foreign Office rather than me.

MR HOWARD: Well, I was not party to those decisions, but I believe that the essential difference was the establishment and the conduct of Lord Hutton's Inquiry.

MR HOWARD: That is correct, yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I think that is correct.

MR HOWARD: At that time?

MR HOWARD: I do not believe he was, no.

MR HOWARD: Well, it is possible. I knew that he was out of the country on 16th June because I had spoken to him in New York at that time. I was not aware of when he came back. I apologise, he may well have been. That is not something I would have known about at the time.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I understand he was, yes.

MR HOWARD: By Dr Wells.

MR HOWARD: Yes indeed, because the time was fixed. Dr Wells was going to attend.

MR HOWARD: I did not tell him directly. I understand from Dr Wells that what he said to Dr Kelly was that it was about his contacts with the media, that he was not more specific than that, but that is what I heard from Dr Wells rather than knowing that directly.

MR HOWARD: I do not know precisely when that was. I was not involved in that process. I would imagine it would have been towards the end of June or early July. I am not really very sure exactly when that happened.

MR HOWARD: I think it is reasonable to presume by the time of the interview on 4th July and certainly by the time of the interview on 7th July that that aspect had been dealt with and he was no longer possibly linked to that leak inquiry.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: That is to my directors in the Defence Intelligence Staff, yes.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: His explanation for his meeting or ...?

MR HOWARD: Certainly his account was accepted, yes.

MR HOWARD: I think he decided that it need not go further to a formal disciplinary process.

MR HOWARD: Well, I wrote my letter on 4th June before we knew anything about Dr Kelly having spoken to Andrew Gilligan.

MR HOWARD: The decision taken on 4th July and 7th July was one for Mr Hatfield.

MR HOWARD: No, not particularly.

MR HOWARD: Well, I certainly would not agree that it was comparatively unimportant. As you say, I think these are questions you really ought to put to Mr Hatfield, but it is worth pointing out that the circumstances in which Dr Kelly's contact with Mr Gilligan was established was because Dr Kelly came forward voluntarily to offer this information. That may have been a factor in Richard's mind when he decided what disciplinary or other action should be taken.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: I should say straightaway I did not see this minute before the meeting which took place on 7th July, the one I attended. So I was not aware of its existence at that point. It did not -- it was not raised in precisely those terms but the question of a public statement was raised with him, as I have already given evidence to that effect.

MR HOWARD: We did not discuss with Dr Kelly a public statement which named him. We said we needed to make a public statement and it was likely his name would come out subsequently.

MR HOWARD: As I say, I had not seen this minute before the meeting on 7th July. All I can give you is my recollection of the meeting that took place.

MR HOWARD: I saw Sir Kevin Tebbit the following day.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: He never said anything to me in that respect. He may have spoken to Mr Hatfield, I do not know.

MR HOWARD: The issue of a public statement was dealt with at the meeting, but in the way that I have described.

MR HOWARD: No, there was no discussion of a plea bargain.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: Absolutely not.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: I have no idea. Nothing like that was said at the meeting on 7th July which I attended; and there is nothing in the record on the 4th July meeting either.

MR HOWARD: That is correct, yes.

MR HOWARD: No, I went straight from home to the airport.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: He was not present at any meetings I was associated with. His private secretary, as I said before, did attend from time to time, and it could be that he was briefing Mr Hoon but I do not know that for certain.

MR HOWARD: That is correct.

MR HOWARD: That is right.

MR HOWARD: I was, yes.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Certainly not. I should say that I did give evidence at some length on this on my appearance before the Inquiry on 14th August.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Well, I do not recognise I said that at the time. My main recollection of that meeting was my reporting back my visit to Iraq; and this was a record that was produced subsequently by Mr Smith. The first I saw of it was when I appeared before the Inquiry on 14th August.

MR HOWARD: Well, I do not recall saying anything like that. It is possible Mr Smith may have misinterpreted what was said. I do not have any recollection of exactly what words I used at the time. I know what I intended to do at the meeting of 14th July.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: No, I was not -- well, I was aiming to assist him but not to give him -- steer him in any particular direction.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: The three areas I described as "tricky", that was a colloquial term for what was a very informal meeting, certainly no sinister intent. There were three areas I thought I wanted to give him advice on how he should respond if the Committee asked him. The first was on whether the Committee should ask him about what he, Dr Kelly, thought of the Government's case for war, what he thought -- how he thought the Government had behaved at producing the dossier. I said that to me it seemed to be reasonable that in those circumstances he could say: this is a matter that ought to be addressed to Ministers. It is worth remembering that he was not appearing as a representative of Ministers, which is what usually happens when an official appears before a committee. The second area was that if the Committee were to ask him what is his personal view on Iraq's WMD, I said that strictly speaking that was outside the area of questioning which had been agreed between the Defence Secretary and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but I said: in practice it would be very difficult for you not to respond to that if you wanted to and that you should respond how you wished. The third area was if he was asked: are you Mr Gilligan's source? And I said to him: you could reasonably say this is a matter that is best addressed to the BBC, as they would know, or indeed to Mr Gilligan. He, at that point, said: would it be all right for me to express my own opinion that I was not the source? I said it would, of course, be right if his conscience told him that was the right answer.

MR HOWARD: No. I raised that because it was rather tangential to the main point of the meeting. But just before that meeting, or in the previous week, the issue of Susan Watts' article on Newsnight in early June had been cited by the BBC in support of Andrew Gilligan's original report. And I recalled, from the meeting on 7th July, that Dr Kelly had said he had spoken to Susan Watts since then. So I simply asked him: you mentioned you spoke to Susan Watts, what did you talk about?

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Well, this, I think, is attributed to me. I personally do not recall saying it but others have told me that I said something to that effect, so I accept that. If I did say it, it was on the basis of second-hand information. It was possible I had spoken to Bryan Wells that morning, but I do not particularly recall. It was not on the basis of any meeting with Dr Kelly. I had not seen Dr Kelly since 7th July. I did not meet him again until the afternoon of the 14th.

MR HOWARD: No, I think he was reporting what was said at the meeting.

MR HOWARD: Well, no, I am afraid I do not, except I think it is possible that I spoke to Dr Wells that morning and maybe he told me that. But I really cannot recall precisely.

MR HOWARD: He asked me to see if he was -- to satisfy myself that he was up to appearing before the FAC and the ISC, that is right, yes.

MR HOWARD: I arranged to see him that afternoon with Dr Wells.

MR HOWARD: That is right.

MR HOWARD: I felt the main way of establishing that Dr Kelly was all right was first of all to explain how the Committees worked, the differences between them. I also explained the areas of questioning that he may well be subjected to; and I identified those which he should -- where the Committee could legitimately expect proper factual and accurate answers from him. And, as we have already discussed, I mentioned those areas which strictly speaking fell outside the areas which had been agreed between the Defence Secretary and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The purpose was to reassure Dr Kelly before he went to give evidence. At the end of the meeting I felt that he was composed, obviously nervous, which is expected, but I saw no evidence to say that he was not ready for the meeting. And in fact he did thank me for the time I had spent with him that day.

MR HOWARD: Indeed. I mean, I also relied on Dr Wells. Dr Wells at no time suggested that he was not ready -- that Dr Kelly was not ready.

MR HOWARD: No. I did what Sir Kevin Tebbit asked me to do, which was to come back and report to him directly, which is what I did.

MR HOWARD: Dr Kelly was -- I believe that Dr Wells spent quite a bit of time the previous week and during the 14th and 15th in providing support to Dr Kelly. I believe he cancelled his trip to New York specifically to do that, so that he could do that, so that he could support Dr Kelly. He accompanied Dr Kelly both to the Foreign Affairs Committee and to the ISC.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: Hmm.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I did.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I did.

MR HOWARD: He was certainly a senior intelligence expert. Whether he was the most senior and experienced, I am not sure. I was not in post at the time that Mr Jones actually occupied the post in the DIS. But he was certainly an important individual.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: That is correct.

MR HOWARD: No, he would be one level up from that.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: The first point is he did not write direct to Mr Cragg, he wrote to his line manager and he copied the minute to Mr Cragg.

MR HOWARD: Certainly, yes.

MR HOWARD: He wrote formally. He may well have regarded it in that way. But only Dr Jones can answer that clearly as to whether it was a complaint.

MR HOWARD: That is true.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: I think to distance himself from certain conclusions.

MR HOWARD: Hmm.

MR HOWARD: I think it is clear he saw it that way.

MR HOWARD: He put it in writing, so I imagine he saw it that way, yes.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I think it had.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: That is my recollection, that is when I saw it. It may have been in the office before that.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Yes, I think it is reasonable he would reach that conclusion.

MR HOWARD: I think that is fair. When I drafted this, I was talking about the perfectly legitimate action was his minute he wrote on 19th September. Certainly implicit in this, and certainly what I thought, was that nor should he regard himself as being culpable for the fact he had not revealed it to a Parliamentary Committee. If that is not clear from this, I apologise for some sloppy drafting.

MR HOWARD: He would certainly have been under the impression they had been briefed on the detail.

MR HOWARD: He may have done, yes.

MR HOWARD: It is certainly a reasonable reading of the letter, yes.

MR HOWARD: Not particularly.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Almost certainly I did. In fact, I had attached to it the draft which I circulated to them, which was the basis of the discussion -- do you mean the letter from 8th July?

MR HOWARD: No, I did not have that with me, no.

MR HOWARD: No, I did not.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: My feeling was that this dealt with correspondence, internal correspondence to the DIS which had happened last September, Dr Jones' minute and another minute from another individual who worked with him. I was as clear as I could be, on the basis of the documentation available to me, that those concerns had been properly considered by the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence and possibly by the Chief of Defence Intelligence and that, therefore, having been dealt with and that the concerns were not pursued further after the publication of the dossier, that in those circumstances it would not be appropriate to reveal, as I say, what was internal correspondence to the ISC.

MR HOWARD: As I say, it had been dealt with within the line management chain. I saw no reason for the ISC to have the details. It is worth saying that the substance of the points made by Dr Jones in his minute were actually set out in this brief and, indeed, were available to be deployed to the ISC. So, actually having access to the minute would not have aided them in any substantive way.

MR HOWARD: 238?

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: My decision to do what?

MR HOWARD: I do not think it would have made any difference to the briefing I provided to the Defence Secretary, no.

MR HOWARD: Certainly not.

MR HOWARD: As I recall, that is right, yes, that was.

MR HOWARD: Well, he copied it to DCDI.

MR HOWARD: That is right, yes.

MR HOWARD: We could have told the ISC that. I do not think it added very much to the point. The point was he had made his concerns known to his line manager, which is the appropriate thing to do.

MR HOWARD: I do not think that word appears in here. It may appear in the brief --

MR HOWARD: No, I think the word "formally" does not appear but the actual minutes were attached to the brief.

MR HOWARD: No, but the minutes were attached to the brief.

MR HOWARD: I believe that is implicit in here; but it does not say that explicitly in here, I agree.

MR HOWARD: No. No, not at all.

MR HOWARD: I do not know. He was on leave at that time, so he may not have done.

MR HOWARD: No, I was not present at that meeting.

MR HOWARD: They were supplied just before we saw them on 3rd September, I think, yes.

MR HOWARD: The essential change was the establishment of Lord Hutton's Inquiry. The fact I was called as a witness in particular about what happened at the time of the dossier. My judgment in early August was although the issue seemed to me to be tangential to the main thrust of the Inquiry, it would be proper for his Lordship to be concerned that these concerns were expressed. I therefore provided the brief that I gave to the Secretary of State to him, and as a matter of courtesy I arranged for the Secretary to the ISC to be told of this, because it related to a previous appearance by the Secretary of State before their Committee.

MR HOWARD: I am not sure he gave --

MR HOWARD: He gave evidence on several occasions to the ISC so I really do not know.

MR HOWARD: No, no, in fact I asked a unit in the Ministry of Defence, our tribunals and inquiries unit, to tell the Clerk. I think you wrote to the Clerk. So I did not speak to the Clerk directly.

MR HOWARD: As I understand it, there was. I do not have that available, my Lord.

MR HOWARD: It was the latter rather than the former.

MR HOWARD: No, I do not accept that. The point of the brief was to set out the substance of his concerns, which it did. Giving his name and giving the actual minute would not have added to that.

MR HOWARD: Well, I disagree with you, sir.

MR HOWARD: That is right, yes.

MR HOWARD: Well, I have looked at this, and of course I was not around at the time, and I made an error in saying that this was before the Joint Intelligence Committee finally met to review the final text because they had met on 18th September. However, the final draft was circulated to members of the Joint Intelligence Committee for -- and there was an opportunity to comment on it. I felt, again from the record, not being involved personally at the time, that these concerns had been expressed to DIST, had been copied to DCDI. DCDI is a full member of the Joint Intelligence Committee. It was open to him, there was time to raise those with the Chairman and indeed colleagues on the JIC. He could have called for a meeting. The fact is he chose not to.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: Strictly speaking, that is right, yes.

MR HOWARD: They set out very similar concerns to Dr Jones.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: My military assistant. Well, then Tony Cragg's military assistant.

MR HOWARD: The names have changed.

MR HOWARD: I think that is the position occupied by Dr Jones.

MR HOWARD: Sorry, my Lord?

MR HOWARD: That is the main addressee here, DIST.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: Not on its own merits. Not to say: we must get his name out. I think people thought it was inevitable, but not in that sense.

MR HOWARD: Nothing that was said to me, no.

MR HOWARD: The press statements were produced and I was involved in drafting them; and, yes, the idea of a press statement was indeed -- one of the reasons for doing so was to avoid allegations of a cover-up.

MR HOWARD: The other reason, as I mentioned, my Lord, was the view expressed certainly by Sir Kevin Tebbit, which I shared, that there was an opportunity to correct the public record on the allegation that the BBC had reported on 29th May.

MR HOWARD: Hmm.

MR HOWARD: Certainly not.

MR HOWARD: Well, I mean, I personally deprecate that sort of approach --

MR HOWARD: Most people I deal with yes, but years of experience in dealing with the media suggests that these things happen.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: It could be interpreted that way, but I knew nothing of that. It certainly was not part of any of my consideration in dealing with the press statement or the Q and A briefing.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: It had very few details. I think I added a sentence which suggested what he was not.

MR HOWARD: Yes.

MR HOWARD: That is right.

MR HOWARD: That is correct.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: Well, I was not party to all those discussions earlier on. The first I saw of a longer press statement was when I arrived at Sir Kevin Tebbit's office. All I know was that once it had been completed -- and it still was not that long, it was less than a page long, two-thirds of a page -- that it was read over completely to Dr Kelly on his way back from RAF Honnington and he agreed. Perhaps I could add something here: that we could, of course, have retained Dr Kelly in London to consult him over these things, but we agreed that he should go to RAF Honnington to complete his training because he was very anxious to go to Iraq and he needed to complete this training so he could do so. Mr Hatfield had deliberately made a decision to allow him to carry on with his training so as not to rule out the possibility of his deploying to Iraq, which was what he wished to do.

MR HOWARD: I was not party to the phone call between Mr Hatfield --

MR HOWARD: I think if he had said that we would certainly have had to take that into account, but he did not.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: I am not sure I agree with your description of the second draft. It did not say: with consent; it says that we would need to tell him that we would have to confirm the name, as I recall. The net result was effectively the same, and I repeat what I said earlier, that we had to decide how our department was going to respond if the correct name were put to it; and the view taken, and I agree with this, is that we should confirm it.

MR HOWARD: Hmm, hmm.

MR HOWARD: I cannot comment on how that changed. I did not recognise the second draft as one that I had actually seen.

MR HOWARD: Well, it was -- I believe it was either on the screen or in front of Ms Teare when we had our conversation on 8th July. I assume it was that version. But I do not actually recall having had it in front of me as a piece of paper.

MR HOWARD: No.

MR HOWARD: I do not recall a discussion about that, no.

MR HOWARD: You can certainly ask Ms Teare, yes.

MR HOWARD: I saw that. I believe I agreed it. I thought it was an accurate description of what I understood Dr Kelly's position to be.

MR HOWARD: Dr Kelly had set out his involvement in the dossier in some detail in his letter of 30th June. He said something very similar in his interview with Mr Hatfield on 4th July, and also in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I had no reason to think what he said was wrong.

MR HOWARD: With hindsight, it is possible that some material in the Q and A brief could have helped; but I thought it was inevitable that the name would come out, for all sorts of other reasons. I note that evidence given by Mr Rufford, for example, he said he had concluded or thought it was very likely that Dr Kelly was the source before we issued the press statement even.

MR HOWARD: Earlier than that he did say in his evidence that he thought it was likely that Dr Kelly was the source of --

MR HOWARD: Yes, that is right, but before --

MR HOWARD: You would have to ask Mr Rufford about that, but his evidence implies that he seemed pretty sure it was.

MR HOWARD: I do not think that is fair. He had been told that his name was likely to come out. As I understand from evidence given by Mrs Kelly, when he saw the fact that a press statement had been made he thought it was inevitable his name would come out. I agree it would not be possible to confirm -- say to him that it will come out at 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock because we were in a position of responding to journalists' enquiries.

MR HOWARD: It would have been possible to tell him that, yes.

MR HOWARD: It certainly was not done on 8th July. I believe the judgment at the time was that the fact we were going to confirm the name which, as I said, was telling the truth in response to a query, was consistent with what he had been told the previous day, which was that his name was going to come out, or we thought his name was very likely to come out.

MR HOWARD: It was not done. It was not considered at the time.

MR HOWARD: We did not consider he was being treated unfairly at the time.

MR HOWARD: No, my Lord, I do not think he said that. What was said was that it probably would not be necessary to put his name in the initial announcement but that it would come out later. He accepted that. I do not recall him saying: I would like time to prepare, or anything like that.

MR HOWARD: What he said, my Lord, was that first of all he agreed with the press statement, he was happy with that. Secondly, he accepted his name would come out and what he said was that one of the reasons he had written was that a colleague from RUSI had linked words used by Andrew Gilligan in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 19th June with things that he, Dr Kelly, may have said in the past. I took that to mean that, you know, people outside MoD were already beginning to think that he was the one. So in a sense he was reinforcing the point that Mr Hatfield said to him.