The Hutton Inquiry

LORD HUTTON: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, Mr Dingemans.

MR DINGEMANS: My Lord, can I just announce a few changes in the timetable? Mr Wilding and Mr Sammes, computer experts who were going to give evidence this morning before Mr Gilligan gave his evidence, are in the course still of meetings and they will not be available to give evidence until tomorrow afternoon. What will happen therefore will be that Mr Gilligan will give his evidence as planned, and after the computer experts have given their evidence tomorrow afternoon he will give some further short evidence. One reason there is space available tomorrow afternoon is that Sir Kevin Tebbit has just undergone an urgent eye operation and is not available, for medical reasons, tomorrow afternoon. The final change in the timetable is this, my Lord: on Thursday 25th September the lunch adjournment will take place between 12 o'clock and 1.15.

LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much, Mr Dingemans.

MR DINGEMANS: My Lord, that is therefore Ms Rogers.

LORD HUTTON: Yes, thank you very much. Ms Rogers; and Mr Gilligan, would you be good enough to take a seat please.

MS ROGERS: Mr Gilligan, it has been some time since you were in the witness box, going back to Day 3 on the 12th August. As you have heard, the computer experts are going to give evidence tomorrow and we are going to deal with any points that arise on that about your computer notes after that. There are a few points I would like to go back over before you are asked questions by Mr Sumption on behalf of the Government. The first matter is your meetings with Dr Kelly. You have already given evidence of your first meeting in early 2001 of which you have manuscript notes, your second meeting on 11th April 2002, of which you have a diary entry and some manuscript notes; and then there is a matter which arose from what Dr David Kelly had said, relating to a meeting which he believed had taken place in September 2002 and it emerged he thought he had met you at an IISS event. Have you carried out any further checks since you last gave evidence on that matter?

MS ROGERS: I think the dates of that event are thought to be 12th to 14th September.

MS ROGERS: You are right about that. That, we believe, is on the system at ANG/2/20. I can see your home address is on that document, perhaps that should have been taken off.

LORD HUTTON: I hope no-one will make a note of that. I am sure they will not.

MS ROGERS: I am sure it will be blanked out. One sees the start date, 13th September, and finish date of the 16th. This is a confirmation letter that you were perhaps a year ago on holiday.

MS ROGERS: We also have a letter from the IISS, not on the system yet, that has been produced to the Inquiry confirming that Mr Gilligan was not at the conference. There was another meeting which Dr Kelly thought had taken place in February 2003, although we have not been able to find any date that Dr Kelly -- Dr Kelly did not give a specific date. Again, have you been able to check anything further as to the likelihood of a February meeting?

MS ROGERS: So do you believe you met David Kelly at that time?

MS ROGERS: We all agree there was a meeting on 22nd May and your organiser notes have been produced to the Inquiry. I am not going to go back to those now. You mentioned in your first evidence that you also produced a longer manuscript note. Can you say when you produced that?

MS ROGERS: Can you throw any further light on what has happened to that note?

MS ROGERS: In addition to your organiser notes, there is a note that you produced for Miranda Holt, which is at BBC/7/61. Do you remember whether or not you had the manuscript note at the time you prepared this note for Ms Holt?

MS ROGERS: Can you remind the Inquiry why you made this note?

MS ROGERS: Is the handwriting at the top of this note yours?

MS ROGERS: Why did you not send your organiser note or manuscript note to Ms Holt?

MS ROGERS: Would you normally send original notes to the day editor or to the overall editor before doing a Today item?

MS ROGERS: Were you asked by anyone to send your original note prior to the broadcast?

MS ROGERS: Now, in terms of what you then reported, you have already explained in your evidence why you regarded Dr Kelly as an authoritative source. You have also explained the steps you took after speaking to him. I am not going to go back over that. But I wonder if you could, since it has been a long time since you were here last, whether you could summarise in a few words what it was you wanted to report and why, in relation to your conversation with Dr Kelly?

MS ROGERS: We have lost the Miranda Holt note, but I think it is right that all of those points were reflected in the note to Ms Holt, BBC/7/61.

MS ROGERS: Had Dr Kelly said to you in terms that the Government knew that the intelligence was wrong or unreliable?

MS ROGERS: Looking back at the broadcast, we find the transcript at BBC/4/222. I am not going to go over this in great detail because I anticipate that is going to happen a little later. But you said in your first evidence that certainly viewed with hindsight it would have been better to script the 6.07 item.

MS ROGERS: Can you scroll down to the bottom of that page? I anticipate what you are referring to is the sentence or phrase in the middle of that paragraph, which has been highlighted very much in this Inquiry, that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes figure was wrong.

MS ROGERS: You also refer, if we go over the page -- you use the word "ordered". Again, is that an exact word Dr Kelly had used?

MS ROGERS: In terms, also, of the reason for the non-inclusion of the 45 minutes, you say in this part of the broadcast, it is at the top of BBC/4/223, which I think is up, that the reason for the non-inclusion was that it had only come from one source.

MS ROGERS: It arrived late, but it was single sourced?

MS ROGERS: Again, what this broadcast has been said to be is equivalent, essentially, to a charge of dishonesty.

MS ROGERS: Is that how you saw it at the time?

MS ROGERS: If you had seen it as an allegation of out and out dishonesty, would you have done anything different in preparing the story?

LORD HUTTON: That is if there is a specific and express allegation of dishonesty?

MS ROGERS: Can you give an example from your own experience of having to go through that procedure?

MS ROGERS: Was it suggested to you by anybody else, as part of the editorial team, that you should be using, we will call it the lawyered process?

MS ROGERS: If we scroll on down from the 6.07 unscripted item, we get to the 7.32. It starts on page 225. We see there John Humphrys giving the time and then introducing the item. If we look at the end of Mr Humphrys' words: "Are you suggesting, let's be very clear about this, that it was not the work of the intelligence agencies?" You go on to say: "No, the information which I'm told was dubious did come from the agencies..." Can you explain why you use those words? That is, as I understand it, before you get to the scripted part?

MS ROGERS: Perhaps I will leave that. I will come back to that. You report on this story not just on the 29th but in later broadcasts, and I am sure that the Inquiry has them and you may be asked about some of them. But, in fact, is it right that the next day, the 29th itself, you were not reporting on this story at all?

MS ROGERS: Did you speak to anybody at the MoD about that story?

MS ROGERS: Do you remember what date you would have spoken to her?

MS ROGERS: The only other matters I wanted to deal with, very briefly, in fact is the question of the 28th June, so we are moving on to a month after this broadcast, when there is a Today broadcast on a Saturday morning where Ben Bradshaw has an interview with John Humphrys.

MS ROGERS: Do you remember whether you heard that broadcast at the time?

MS ROGERS: What did you do after you had heard it?

MS ROGERS: Do you remember who you spoke to?

MS ROGERS: And why did you do that?

MS ROGERS: I know that you are aware that Kate Wilson gave evidence about that call yesterday; but what was your purpose in ringing Kate Wilson on 28th May prior to the broadcast?

LORD HUTTON: To tell them what, Mr Gilligan?

LORD HUTTON: Did you give any details of the story you were going to run?

MS ROGERS: It is right that you have no notes of that conversation?

MS ROGERS: All we know is it lasted 7 minutes 24 seconds.

MS ROGERS: Had you spoken to Ms Wilson about cluster bombs on previous occasions?

MS ROGERS: It is Ian Watson who is the cluster bombs story.

MS ROGERS: Had you done any work on Ian Watson's story?

MS ROGERS: One final matter before I leave you to Mr Sumption. We have heard, since you gave your evidence last time, about an e-mail that you sent on 14th July to some members of the Foreign Affairs Committee Select Committee. I hesitate to have it called up, but it is BBC/12/22. Is there anything you want to say about that e-mail to this Inquiry?

MS ROGERS: Thank you, Mr Gilligan.

MR SUMPTION: Mr Gilligan, I would like to ask you first about your 6.07 broadcast, where you said that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes figure was wrong even before they put it in. You made a point a few minutes ago about the difference between dishonesty and spin. If a Government puts into a dossier which it lays before Parliament a statement which it probably knows to be wrong, is that an allegation that they are dishonest, in your book?

MR SUMPTION: But when you said that the Government probably knew that it was wrong, you were actually saying, whether you intended to or not, that they were dishonest, were you not?

MR SUMPTION: And the reason why you should not have said them is that they did, in fact, accuse the Government of dishonesty, whether or not that was your intention.

MR SUMPTION: I think you accepted on the last occasion that you gave evidence here, and more or less accepted this morning, that that particular allegation, that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes figure was wrong, was something that you could not support?

MR SUMPTION: You accept, I think, that it was expressed by you as something that your source had said, whereas in fact it was an inference of your own?

MR SUMPTION: The same is true, is it not, of the word "ordered"; that was not something that Dr Kelly had said, it was Gilligan speaking not Kelly, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: You have suggested in your evidence, on a number of occasions, a few minutes ago, for example, that you did not intend to make it at 6.07 and you expressed yourself in different terms at 7.32. I want to turn to what you did say at 7.32. You probably have in front of you, in fact I can see you do, a blue folder with a hard copy of your evidence last time.

MR SUMPTION: I am just pointing that out now. I will want to refer to it from time to time. It has also been scanned so it can be put on the overhead screen. What you actually broadcast at 7.32 was a slightly different allegation of bad faith, was it not? Namely, that the Intelligence Services did not want the 45 minutes point in the dossier because they thought that their informant had got it wrong. You said that the Government overruled them and put it in anyway. That was the substance of your statement, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: No, it is the substance of it. Would you like to see the actual words that you did use?

MR SUMPTION: For the benefit of everyone else, it is at BBC/1/5.

LORD HUTTON: What were the particular words you are referring to, Mr Sumption?

MR SUMPTION: If you have the transcript of the broadcast, at 7.32 we first of all have an introduction by John Humphrys. Then you say at the bottom of the page: "No, the information which I'm told was dubious did come from the agencies, but they were unhappy about it, because they didn't think it should have been in there. They thought it was, it was not corroborated sufficiently, and they actually thought it was wrong, they thought the informant concerned [I take that to be the Intelligence Services' informant] had got it wrong, they thought he'd misunderstood what was happening." Over the page, you go through some of the background, the circumstances in which the dossier was published: "This is quite a serious document. It dominated the news that day and you open up the dossier and the first thing you see is a preface by Tony Blair that includes the following words, 'Saddam's military planning allows for some weapons of mass destruction to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to deploy them'. Now that claim has come back to haunt Mr Blair because if the weapons had been readily to hand, they probably would have been found by now. But you know, it could have been an honest mistake, but what I have been told is that the Government knew that claim was questionable, even before the war, even before they wrote it in their dossier." Do you not regard that as being an allegation of bad faith?

MR SUMPTION: What you are saying, in that last sentence, is it could have been an honest mistake but what you have been told is that it was not, because the Government realised the claim was questionable when they put it in. That is my paraphrase, but it is quite plainly what is being conveyed in that sentence, is it not?

MR SUMPTION: But you just told us, Mr Gilligan, that it was not something that Dr Kelly said, it was an inference of yours.

MR SUMPTION: You had read the dossier, of course, had you not?

MR SUMPTION: And you realised, did you not, that the dossier had said, in terms, that it reflected the views of the Intelligence Services. You did realise that, did you not?

MR SUMPTION: And the executive summary said that it reflected their views.

MR SUMPTION: What you were saying, in both your broadcasts, was that when the Government put forward the dossier as being based on the views of the Intelligence Services, that was untrue because the 45 minutes point did not in fact reflect the view of the Intelligence Services as expressed to them. That is what you were saying on both occasions, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: You did realise that the dossier had claimed to be based on the views of the Intelligence Services and in both your broadcasts you were saying that that was wrong because the Government had in fact been given views from the Intelligence Services that were inconsistent with it.

MR SUMPTION: Is it the BBC's policy that when a serious allegation is made against public figures as coming from an anonymous source, it should be an authoritative source?

MR SUMPTION: Would you agree that is a basic principle of reputable journalism?

MR SUMPTION: Would you agree that one reason for that is that when you broadcast an allegation as coming from an anonymous source you are not just saying: I have met a man who has said these things, you are putting his allegations into the public domain as worthy of belief. Would you accept that?

MR SUMPTION: Not as worthy of belief?

MR SUMPTION: You would not regard it as reputable journalism, would you, to broadcast an anonymous allegation which you did not think was worthy of belief?

MR SUMPTION: You had a number of meetings with Dr Kelly before 22nd May; and you knew, did you not, that he worked in the Ministry of Defence?

MR SUMPTION: In the BBC database of contacts he is described as working for the Ministry of Defence, is he not?

MR SUMPTION: You knew he was a scientist and a senior adviser to the Ministry of Defence on chemical and biological warfare?

MR SUMPTION: Yes. And that was in substance, I am not quoting the exact words, how he described himself, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: In your broadcasts on 29th May in the Today Programme you described your source as one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier; do you remember that?

MR SUMPTION: Could we have up the actual text, please, at BBC/1/5 and following? That description suggests, does it not, that he not only contributed advice relating to his own special field but actually had managerial responsibility for putting the document together, he was part of the editorial team as it were? Would you agree that is what one would deduce from your description of him?

MR SUMPTION: Are you saying Dr Kelly actually described himself as one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier?

MR SUMPTION: That is substantially the same as the evidence that you gave in phase 1; and as I understand what you said, both in phase 1 and just now, this came up at the end of your meeting on 22nd May?

MR SUMPTION: He had not at any earlier stage of the meeting said that he was one of those in charge of the drawing up of the dossier?

MR SUMPTION: In the other dossier?

MR SUMPTION: Right.

MR SUMPTION: He was talking about an earlier version of the dossier or an earlier dossier, but in fact what your note says, I can have it up on the screen if you would like, is "Kelly role to advise on all CBW claims in dossier"; that is what you are referring to, is it?

MR SUMPTION: That is very far from saying he was in charge of drawing it up.

MR SUMPTION: I would like to get some impression of this discussion that occurred at the end of your meeting of 22nd May. At the end of the meeting you were getting his agreement to the use of particular phrases?

MR SUMPTION: And when you came to the description of himself, as I understand your evidence, you offered him two alternative descriptions of himself: "one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier" and "the senior official in charge of drawing up the dossier". That is right, is it not?

MR SUMPTION: Let us just have a look at the transcript of the evidence that you gave last time. You will find it at page 136 of the hard copy and I think arrangements can be made to flash that up on the screen.

LORD HUTTON: Mr Sumption, would you be good enough to give me the paragraph numbers at some stage?

MR SUMPTION: In the internal numbering it is page 136. In the top numbering it is page 19 of 37 in my version, but --

LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you very much.

MR SUMPTION: The answer I have in mind is at line 11: "At the end of the meeting I agreed, as part of the quote agreement process, how I would describe him in any report that I did and I offered him two alternatives, one of the senior officials involved in drawing up the dossier or the senior official in charge of drawing up the dossier and he said 'both fine'. He just said either was fine." Is that evidence you wish to correct?

MR SUMPTION: Tell us what the correction we should make is.

MR SUMPTION: What exactly are you doing in this discussion? Are you agreeing a description of Dr Kelly which will disguise his identity or are you agreeing a description which will accurately describe his role?

MR SUMPTION: I am a bit puzzled by the fact these descriptions came from you. As I understand your evidence, he had not described himself in this way earlier in the meeting and yet at the end of the meeting you make suggestions to him as to how he might properly be described when he had not in fact said anything of that sort to you before?

MR SUMPTION: Well, you did not ask him how he wanted to be described, you suggested to him a description.

MR SUMPTION: He left you with the alternatives. You could take your pick between them, could you?

MR SUMPTION: What do you see as the difference between the two alternatives?

MR SUMPTION: So there is a difference, you accept?

MR SUMPTION: And you were allowed to choose which description you were going to use, were you, even though they were different?

MR SUMPTION: No, but the other one is much weaker, is it not?

MR SUMPTION: As I understand your evidence, Mr Gilligan, you are saying that at a time when Dr Kelly had said nothing about his role in this dossier, you proposed two different alternative methods of describing his role, which were different, and he calmly said to you: you can choose whichever you like best. That is basically your evidence, is it not?

MR SUMPTION: Is that really a credible version of events? You are suggesting that he left to you the decision of how you were going to describe his role as between those two alternatives?

MR SUMPTION: Which one of those two did you think was accurate?

MR SUMPTION: Dr Kelly, as you said a moment ago, was a modest man; he never made such extravagant claims about his own role, did he?

MR SUMPTION: To you, I mean. He never made such extravagant claims to you about the particular role which he had played in the drawing up of the dossier.

MR SUMPTION: You are thinking back again to the April meeting about the four country dossier?

MR SUMPTION: It is not recorded in your personal organiser note or in the note that you gave to Miranda Holt on 28th May that Dr Kelly had this very prominent role, managerial role, in the preparation of the dossier, is it?

MR SUMPTION: If you were making a note of the most important things that he had to say to you and he really had claimed to have been one of those in charge of the process, you would surely have recorded that, would you not?

MR SUMPTION: He never said any such thing to you, did he?

MR SUMPTION: Did you appreciate that if you did describe him as one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier people would take your report more seriously?

MR SUMPTION: Do you accept that Dr Kelly never described himself to you as a member of the Intelligence Services?

MR SUMPTION: You accept that?

MR SUMPTION: Could we have up, please, BBC/1/18? This is a transcript of your Radio 5 Live broadcast on 29th May, shortly after the Today broadcast. If you look about eight lines up from the bottom of the page you say: "... what my Intelligence Service source says is that essentially they were always suspicious about this claim..." Why did you describe him as your Intelligence Service source?

MR SUMPTION: Is that right?

MR SUMPTION: Did you realise if you described him as an Intelligence Service source people would find your report both more exciting and more credible?

MR SUMPTION: Were you aware that the World at One on 29th May described your source as "a member of the Security Services"?

MR SUMPTION: You were not?

MR SUMPTION: Were you aware that Richard Sambrook, the Director of News, in his interview on the Today Programme on 26th June, described your source as "a senior and credible source in the Intelligence Services"?

MR SUMPTION: And when he had said it, did you suggest that there should be some correction?

MR SUMPTION: And was it corrected?

MR SUMPTION: Do you know why not?

MR SUMPTION: Yes, but I am asking you whether you know why not. If you do not, say no.

MR SUMPTION: Were you aware the Governors of the BBC described him as "an intelligence source" in their press release following their meeting of 6th July?

MR SUMPTION: Were you happy with that?

MR SUMPTION: You could suggest it was time for a corrective statement, could you not?

MR SUMPTION: You were perfectly happy, were you not, that your reports should carry the spurious authority of a senior member of the Intelligence Services when you knew they were not entitled to that authority, is that not the position?

MR SUMPTION: Do you remember telling the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, when you appeared before them for the first time, that your source was in the Intelligence Services?

MR SUMPTION: Could you be please be shown FAC/2/166? This is part of your transcript of your evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee first time round. Question 559, the Chairman of the Committee asks you: "Can I sum up the position as this: you approached, on your initiative, a source in the Intelligence Services?" And your answer is "Yes". "Is that correct? "Absolutely, yes. Well, I would characterise this source in the same way as a characterised him on the programme." Are you not giving evidence to this Committee that your source was in fact in the Intelligence Services?

MR SUMPTION: Why, when the Chairman asked you whether you had approached on your initiative a source in the Intelligence Services, did you say "yes" instead of correcting him?

MR SUMPTION: You did not correct him, you allowed him to think that you had said in your broadcasts, as indeed you had said in at least one of them, that your source was in the Intelligence Services.

LORD HUTTON: What do the words "Absolutely, yes" mean, Mr Gilligan?

MR SUMPTION: If you realised you had been giving him the impression he was in the Intelligence Services, surely the right way of correcting it is to say: I need to correct that statement, Mr Chairman, he was not in the Intelligence Services.

MR SUMPTION: In other words, you were reluctant to say to them that he was not in the Intelligence Services in spite of previously having said that he was?

MR SUMPTION: Could you, please, be shown FAC/5/26. This is part of your evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, second time round, on 17th July. At this point of your evidence you are saying -- let us read what you did say: "Based on a comparison of my evidence to the Committee and Dr Kelly's evidence to the Committee, the Committee has already come to the judgment that Dr Kelly was not the source." That was a reference to the Committee's earlier report and to the evidence which had been given by Dr Kelly the day before. You then go on: "He met me in an hotel, okay that is the same; he said he did not have access to intelligence information about the 45 minutes; he said he did not bring up Alastair Campbell's role in the dossier; he said he was not a member of the intelligence community; he said he was not in charge of drawing up the dossier, he said we did not start off by talking about the railways. I really do have nothing to add to my evidence or the evidence of Dr Kelly." Now what you are doing here is you are pointing to a number of things that Dr Kelly had told the Foreign Affairs Committee when he was giving evidence which were not consistent with what you had said about your own source. That, in summary, is what you were doing here, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: We will come to your motive in a moment. Were you seeking to say to the Foreign Affairs Committee that there were differences between Dr Kelly's role as he had described it and your source's role as you had described it?

MR SUMPTION: Each of these points that you list here from Dr Kelly's evidence is a point on which you were saying Dr Kelly did not resemble your source; that is right, is it not?

MR SUMPTION: No, but you are -- sorry.

MR SUMPTION: What you are doing is pointing to inconsistencies between the description of your source and Dr Kelly's description of himself; you agree, do you not?

MR SUMPTION: One of the inconsistencies that you pointed out in your evidence to the Committee was that Dr Kelly had said that he was not a member of the intelligence community. You pointed that out because you had said that he was, and that was therefore an inconsistency between the two descriptions. Is that not right?

MR SUMPTION: You knew Dr Kelly had given evidence he might not be your source because he was not a member of the Intelligence Services; and you were seeking to throw dust in the eyes of the Committee by challenging that account as a description of your source, were you not?

MR SUMPTION: Mr Pope deduced from what you have just said, if you look at question 268: "What you are suggesting is that Dr Kelly was not the source." That is what you were suggesting, is it not?

MR SUMPTION: There is a world of difference, is there not, between protecting your sources by saying nothing about them and telling lies about them?

MR SUMPTION: You sought to mislead.

MR SUMPTION: Would you, please, look at a press release which you authorised to be issued on your behalf on 20th July, which you find at BBC/6/261? Would you like to read the first substantial paragraph there, the one under the heading "Statement issued on behalf of Andrew Gilligan": "I want to make it clear that I did not misquote or misrepresent Dr David Kelly. Entirely separately from my meeting with him, Dr Kelly expressed very similar concerns about Downing Street interpretation of intelligence in the dossier and the unreliability of the 45 minutes point to Newsnight. These reports have never been questioned by Downing Street. Although Dr Kelly had close connections with the intelligence community none of these reports ever described him as a member of the Intelligence Services, but as a senior official closely involved in the preparation of the dossier." That statement that none of the reports had ever described him as a member of the Intelligence Services was wrong, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: The truth of the matter is this, Mr Gilligan, is it not: you had made this statement in your 5 Live broadcast and you had allowed your superiors in the BBC to repeat it on a number of occasions; you kept up the pretence that your source had been a member of the Intelligence Services because you were quite happy with it, until the BBC decided, after Dr Kelly's death, that they would have to disclose that he had been your source; at that point you changed tack and said you had never said otherwise, because you now realised you were going to be found out.

MR SUMPTION: Your evidence was, I think, that you had told Mr Sambrook on the afternoon of his broadcast on the Today Programme on the 26th that he had not in fact been a member of the Intelligence Services?

MR SUMPTION: We will ask Mr Sambrook about that.

MR SUMPTION: Can I turn to a slightly different subject and ask you whether you would agree that the normal practice, at any rate in the case of the BBC, when you are about to broadcast damaging allegations against Government is to notify the department concerned in advance so that they can, if appropriate, respond?

MR SUMPTION: I simply would like to ascertain first of all what is the normal practice. Is it the normal practice, when you are about to make serious allegations against the Government, to notify the Government concerned in advance?

MR SUMPTION: It is not just a question of fairness to the department and allowing them to respond, is it? You might get a response from the Government which would cause a reputable journalist to think again before broadcasting the allegations, at any rate in the form originally envisaged; do you agree?

MR SUMPTION: You would not have modified your 6.07 broadcast in any way if you had known that the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee had supported the Government's denial and accepted that he was happy with the dossier as it was finally produced? That would have made no difference to you; is that right?

MR SUMPTION: It featured very soon afterwards, did it not?

MR SUMPTION: No, it featured on the same day as the broadcast.

MR SUMPTION: The department concerned in this story was not the Ministry of Defence, it was No. 10, was it not? They were the people who were alleged to have sexed up the dossier?

LORD HUTTON: Mr Sumption are you suggesting to Mr Gilligan that it was made public that the Chairman of the JIC associated himself with the denial at an early stage?

MR SUMPTION: I will check my facts on that. I was suggesting that. Mr Gilligan has denied it and I need to look back at it.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

MR SUMPTION: I was not referring to a statement by the Chairman of the JIC but a statement by No. 10 that the JIC had endorsed the denial. I will look into that. It is a matter of record.

MR SUMPTION: Mr Gilligan, you accept that the department concerned was No. 10. You accept, as I understand it, that you never gave advance notice to No. 10?

MR SUMPTION: Could you look, please, at BBC/5/153. This is a letter from Richard Sambrook to Ben Bradshaw shortly after the interview which was referred to in your evidence-in-chief a few minutes ago. One of the things that Mr Sambrook says when he recites the facts about this advance notice to the Ministry of Defence is: "At 6.30 pm Andrew Gilligan spoke to Kate O'Connor [that is the same as Kate Wilson], the MoD press officer, about the cluster bomb interview and added there would be another story running on WMD." Was that an accurate statement?

MR SUMPTION: This statement was based on what you told Mr Sambrook, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: Mr Gilligan, there was no written record of this conversation, so the only place where Mr Sambrook could possibly have got it from was you.

MR SUMPTION: What is being said here and what I suggest what you had told your superiors within the BBC is that you spoke to Ms Wilson about the cluster bomb interview and added that there would be another story on WMD.

LORD HUTTON: Mr Gilligan, can I ask you: what was your purpose, then, for ringing Ms Wilson?

LORD HUTTON: Why did you refer to the cluster bombs story? Was it just, as it were, as an introduction?

LORD HUTTON: Because you knew Adam Ingram was coming on for that purpose.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

MR SUMPTION: You also said to your superiors within the BBC, did you not, that what you had said about WMD was that it was not a matter for the MoD but for another Government department. Do you remember that?

MR SUMPTION: Let me remind you of my question: I did not ask you what you had told the MoD, I asked you what you had told your superiors within the BBC, which was rather different.

MR SUMPTION: Did you say to Mr Sambrook that you had said something to the MoD to indicate that the WMD story was not an MoD story? Do you follow me?

MR SUMPTION: Just focus on my question, please, Mr Gilligan. Did you say to Mr Sambrook: I told the MoD that I was working on a WMD story, but it was not a matter for the MoD? Did you say that to him or words to that effect?

MR SUMPTION: Could we have, please, BBC/6/105? Just to explain what this is, this is part of the minute of the Governors' meeting of the BBC on 6th July. It is a meeting most of which was attended by Mr Sambrook, among other senior executives of the BBC; and there is a heading, halfway down the page: "Contacts with the Government." Stephen Whittle was also present: "Stephen Whittle said achieving clarity on the contacts between the Today team and Government departments on this occasion was difficult because a full note had not been kept ... In addition to the information already provided by Richard Sambrook about requests for an interview with Adam Ingram, he reported that Andrew Gilligan spoke to an MoD press officer (mobile to mobile) at around 6.30 pm to inform them that the interview would be extended to include WMD. The MoD's account of this contact was different, claiming that Andrew Gilligan mentioned only the cluster bomb story and only upon being asked said there was another issue but this was not a matter for the MoD. Andrew Gilligan agrees he said something to indicate that the WMD issue was not principally an MoD story, but claims that he only spoke about WMD during the conversation and not cluster bombs." You did agree when you were asked by -- I suggest it was probably Mr Sambrook but it might have been Mr Whittle, you did agree, did you not, that you had said something to the MoD to indicate to them that the WMD story was not a matter for them?

MR SUMPTION: So Mr Whittle has got this wrong when he was talking to the Governors, has he?

MR SUMPTION: It was not a matter for the MoD, was it, which is why you would not in fact have discussed it in any detail with Ms Wilson, who was an MoD press officer?

LORD HUTTON: Mr Gilligan, if you ring up the MoD about the Minister coming on to the Today Programme and you say that you wish the Minister to speak about a particular subject, would you also, at that time, ask the MoD press officer for a response? I mean, it would seem to me, just on the first impression, that on that occasion you would not be looking for a response from the MoD press officer?

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

MR SUMPTION: On the last occasion that you gave evidence to this Inquiry, Mr Gilligan, when you were asked what you had said to Ms Wilson, you replied -- the question was: "Question: In the early morning broadcast you have referred to the Government knowing that the 45 minute claim was wrong before it was put in. Did you put that allegation to the Ministry of Defence press officer?" Your answer was: "I do not believe I did put those specific words, no. As I say, I cannot remember exactly what I said. I gave them an outline of the story, a summary of the story but I cannot remember exactly what I said to them." When you gave evidence in answer to questions from Ms Rogers this morning you produced a complete string of precise statements about what you had said. What has happened since the last occasion to wake up your memory on this point?

MR SUMPTION: I suggest that you did not in fact say anything about the story at all other than that there would be a story about the WMD issue, which was not a matter for them.

MR SUMPTION: What do you say?

MR SUMPTION: When on 28th June you rang up the MoD press officer to remind them, as you put it, that you had said something about this to Kate Wilson, you were doing that because you realised that there was unlikely to be any record of this conversation at the MoD because you had said no such thing and you were trying to generate a record within their system a month after the event, were you not?

MR SUMPTION: There is one other matter I want to ask you about --

LORD HUTTON: I think we should give the stenographers a break.

MR SUMPTION: I do apologise, my Lord.

LORD HUTTON: I will rise for five minutes.

MR SUMPTION: Yes, my Lord. The facts about disclosure of the endorsements by the Chairman of the JIC are that the authority was actually obtained on 29th itself but the first occasion when it was announced that the JIC Chairman endorsed the denial was on the following day, in a press statements made in Poland which were reported in certain of the media straightaway.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

MR SUMPTION: When I say the following day, it was on 1st June. The reference for that, though I am not asking for it to be put up on the screen, is CAB/1/158.

LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much, Mr Sumption.

MR SUMPTION: The other matter I want to ask you about, Mr Gilligan, concerns a document which is at BBC/3/25. This is a press release issued by the BBC on 9th July. Just to explain the background, I am not asking you to comment on it but just to give you some context, this is a press release from the BBC about the Ministry of Defence's announcement that an unnamed official had come forward as a possible source for your story. It deals with the question whether the unnamed official described in the MoD's press statement of the previous evening was the same as your source. And it its relevance is that it is the main reason why the Prime Minister's spokesman had to deal later on the day, the 9th July, with questions from the Lobby about what sort of person this official was. The press release notes the Ministry of Defence statement in the first paragraph and it says, in the second paragraph: "The description of the individual contained in the statement does not match Mr Gilligan's source in some important ways. Mr Gilligan's source does not work in the Ministry of Defence and he has known the source for a number of years not months." It was not true, was it, that your source did not work in the Ministry of Defence?

MR SUMPTION: Mr Gilligan, were you consulted about this press statement?

MR SUMPTION: Who by?

MR SUMPTION: Who were they?

MR SUMPTION: Of those three people, you were the only one who actually knew who your source was, I think?

MR SUMPTION: The other two who knew who he was were Kevin Marsh and Richard Sambrook?

MR SUMPTION: Were you entirely happy with the BBC putting out a press release saying that your source, who we now know to be Dr Kelly, does not work in the Ministry of Defence? Did that strike you as an honest statement to make?

MR SUMPTION: Oh come off it, Mr Gilligan, you knew perfectly well and you told us at the beginning of your evidence that he was a senior chemical and biological warfare adviser to the Ministry of Defence. What are you doing here allowing the press release to go out saying he does not work for the Ministry of Defence in it?

MR SUMPTION: Do you agree that this press statement was quite plainly designed to give the impression that it could not be Dr Kelly, because Dr Kelly worked in the Ministry of Defence whereas your source did not? That is what you were trying to convey.

MR SUMPTION: The relevance of making this point was to suggest that the person who had come forward as described in the Ministry of Defence press statement was not necessarily the same as your source. That was the purpose of making this statement, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: Right.

MR SUMPTION: But you knew who he was, of course, and you were consulted about this press statement.

MR SUMPTION: You were not under an obligation to protect him by approving a press statement on behalf of the BBC which contained a plainly misleading statement, namely that your source did not work in the Ministry of Defence.

MR SUMPTION: The point of this press release was not to explain where Dr Kelly or where the source was physically working from, it was to explain who his employer was, who he worked for in a broad sense. It was to contradict the Ministry of Defence's statement that somebody who might be your source had come forward who was an official at the Ministry of Defence.

MR SUMPTION: You thought that was a distinction that would be immediately grasped by anybody reading this press release, did you?

MR SUMPTION: You did not need to say anything about him at all which was not strictly true. You had the choice, did you not, of simply keeping quiet?

MR SUMPTION: You see, it was because that statement was issued that the Prime Minister's official spokesman in the afternoon Lobby briefing was obliged to field questions about the contradiction between the BBC's statement and the MoD's statement in the way that he did.

MR SUMPTION: That description was right, was it not?

MR SUMPTION: You have no basis for saying the Government provided those. And your organisation, later in the afternoon, contradicted it by saying: no, he was not at the Ministry of Defence.

MR SUMPTION: You have no knowledge of that.

MR SUMPTION: Thank you, Mr Gilligan.

LORD HUTTON: Now Mr Gompertz.

MR GOMPERTZ: Mr Gilligan, I hope I can be very brief for three reasons. First of all, you have made, today, a number of concessions; secondly, almost all ground has just been covered by my learned friend Mr Sumption; and, thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the Kelly family do not want you or anybody else to be subjected at their hands to an ordeal comparable to that endured by Dr Kelly; do you follow?

MR GOMPERTZ: Just a couple of matters. First of all, I believe the first thing you did after meeting Dr Kelly on 22nd May was to make a manuscript note of the conversation --

MR GOMPERTZ: -- while it was still fresh in your mind.

MR GOMPERTZ: You have now lost that note?

MR GOMPERTZ: Before you lost it, did you use it as a basis for your broadcasts on 29th May?

MR GOMPERTZ: So that note to Miranda Holt came first, followed by the broadcast on 29th May, and then The Mail on Sunday article on 1st June?

MR GOMPERTZ: And where did you keep that note?

MR GOMPERTZ: By "in my bag" do you mean a briefcase in which you carry documents around or what?

MR GOMPERTZ: So when did you last see this note?

MR GOMPERTZ: Did anybody else ever see it?

MR GOMPERTZ: So you never showed it to anybody?

MR GOMPERTZ: Could you look, please, at the document you were shown just a few minutes ago, BBC/3/25, the press statement on 9th July? If we can go down the page there is a paragraph which begins in the middle there: "For the single conversation which led to the Today story Mr Gilligan took comprehensive notes during the meeting with his source which do not correspond with the account given in the MoD statement." Just pausing there, which notes are being referred to?

MR GOMPERTZ: The organiser notes?

MR GOMPERTZ: The next sentence reads: "These notes have already been deposited with the BBC legal department."

MR GOMPERTZ: Was there ever a third set of notes compiled by yourself?

MR GOMPERTZ: If you take the Miranda Holt note into account then it would be a fourth set. Was there ever such a document?

MR GOMPERTZ: When you discovered that you had lost the manuscript note made just after your meeting, did you ever attempt to reconstruct it?

MR GOMPERTZ: Yes.

MR GOMPERTZ: So the position is this: that the manuscript note has not been seen by anybody else, and we have only your word for what it contained?

MR GOMPERTZ: Thank you. Of course, you tell us that the note for Miranda Holt was based upon it.

MR GOMPERTZ: Could you look, please, at BBC/7/61? This note, which seems to have been sent to Miranda Holt on 28th May -- is that correct?

MR GOMPERTZ: That is how it is endorsed at the top.

MR GOMPERTZ: It is headed "What my man said".

MR GOMPERTZ: There are then set out a number of questions and answers, I think four questions initially and four answers, going to about two-thirds of the way down the page; is that right?

MR GOMPERTZ: Is that right?

MR GOMPERTZ: And they are in inverted commas, are they not?

MR GOMPERTZ: Quotation marks?

MR GOMPERTZ: Does that not imply that the questions were as asked by you and that the answers were as given by Dr Kelly?

MR GOMPERTZ: It is because of your previous evidence that I ask you this. There is a difference, is there not, between a summary and a verbatim transcript?

MR GOMPERTZ: If you set out questions and answers as you have on this page, in inverted commas, that purports to be a verbatim transcript, does it not?

MR GOMPERTZ: Were they?

MR GOMPERTZ: Let us just look at two examples. In the first answer you record that he said, second sentence: "It was transformed in the week before it was published, to make it sexier."

MR GOMPERTZ: I think you have conceded, have you not, that those last four words "to make it sexier", were introduced into the conversation by you and not by him?

MR GOMPERTZ: That is not what this document shows, is it?

MR GOMPERTZ: The other passage to which I will direct your attention, if I may, comes in the next answer -- we will not go all the way through it, but do you see that the penultimate sentence is: "What we thought it actually meant was that they could launch a conventional missile in 45 minutes." That statement does not appear, does it, in your text file?

MR GOMPERTZ: So that sentence was taken from the manuscript note, which obviously we cannot check.

MR GOMPERTZ: You say, do you, that anybody looking at this document would know that this was not purporting to be a verbatim account of what was said, but simply a summary of the main quotes?

LORD HUTTON: When you say this is what Dr Kelly said, do you mean by that it was the gist of what Dr Kelly said?

LORD HUTTON: But when you say they were his words, you have said it is not a verbatim transcript. If they were his words, do you mean that the answers are a verbatim account of what he said?

LORD HUTTON: Although perhaps in a slightly different order?

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

MR GOMPERTZ: There is another example, is there not, in this document where the word was spoken first by you and not by him, and I am referring there to the name "Campbell".

MR GOMPERTZ: I suggest to you, on the documents that we have seen in this Inquiry, that it was the other way round, that it was in fact yourself who introduced that name.

MR GOMPERTZ: Have you read or heard the evidence of Mrs Olivia Bosch?

MR GOMPERTZ: You will recollect that it was her evidence that Dr Kelly told her that you introduced names to him to attempt to elicit who was responsible for embellishing the dossier; that is a summary of what she said.

MR GOMPERTZ: Is there anything in that account which you recognise?

MR GOMPERTZ: In your text file, BBC/7/57, if you want to refresh your memory, you agreed a short time ago with Mr Sumption that there is no record of the conversation that you had with Dr Kelly about how he wished to be described.

MR GOMPERTZ: And you said that was because by that stage you had put your organiser away.

MR GOMPERTZ: I suppose the same applies, does it, to the conversation which you claim you had with him as to which parts of the interview with him you could use and which parts he did not want you to use?

MR GOMPERTZ: That does not appear, does it, in the text file?

MR GOMPERTZ: Nor, indeed, in any other document that we have.

MR GOMPERTZ: You were going to Iraq earlier this year to cover the war.

MR GOMPERTZ: Had you been to Iraq before?

MR GOMPERTZ: Once or more than once?

MR GOMPERTZ: Many times?

MR GOMPERTZ: Dr Kelly had very considerable experience of the country, had he not?

MR GOMPERTZ: When was it that you went to Iraq? This year?

MR GOMPERTZ: Did you not want to meet Dr Kelly before you went, to talk over matters which would be useful to you in your time in Iraq?

MR GOMPERTZ: I have no doubt. Did you not meet him in fact some time in February to discuss Iraq in general?

MR GOMPERTZ: He had a considerable interest in Iraq and indeed in the Iraqi people, did he not?

MR GOMPERTZ: Was the reason why the meeting was arranged on 22nd May that he wanted to hear about your experiences in Iraq; is that right? Is that fair?

MR GOMPERTZ: You went to that meeting on 22nd May unequipped with a tape recorder or any recording device?

MR GOMPERTZ: So you did have means of recording the conversation that you had with him but you did not choose to employ it; is that right?

MR GOMPERTZ: That is all that I want to ask you, Mr Gilligan, thank you.

LORD HUTTON: Thank you, Mr Gompertz.

MR DINGEMANS: I will not repeat my earlier questioning nor indeed the earlier cross-examination. Can I just take you to some passages of the 29th May broadcast at the start and ask whether you contend these were accurate representations of what Dr Kelly had told you? BBC/1/4, if I may. The first part I want to draw your attention to is in the first paragraph: "... what we've been told by one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up that dossier was that, actually the Government probably erm knew that that 45 minutes figure was wrong, even before it decided to put it in." Do you now accept that was not based on what Dr Kelly had told you?

MR DINGEMANS: And he did not suggest that to you?

MR DINGEMANS: The bottom of the page: "... and the reason it hadn't been in the original draft was that it was, it was only erm, it came from one source and most of the other claims were from two, and the intelligence agencies say they don't really believe it was necessarily true..." That was not the reason it had not been in the original draft, do you now accept that?

MR DINGEMANS: And Dr Kelly gave you nothing to suggest that was the reason.

MR DINGEMANS: The next page. Just before "End of first recording": "Clearly, you know, if erm, if it, if it was, if it was wrong, things do, things are, got wrong in good faith but if they knew if was wrong before they actually made the claim, that's perhaps a bit more serious." Suggesting that Dr Kelly had suggested to you that the claim was false.

MR DINGEMANS: If you knew that this was not right you would have said so. It was not your suggestion that they knew that it was wrong, was it?

MR DINGEMANS: And neither had he suggested it?

MR DINGEMANS: Scrolling down the page, Mr Humphrys picking up on what you are saying, fourth line down: "Now our defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, has found evidence that the Government's dossier on Iraq that was produced last September, was cobbled together at the last minute with some unconfirmed material that had not been approved by the Security Services." Dr Kelly did not say that to you, did he?

MR DINGEMANS: That was Mr Humphrys' understanding of your earlier broadcast no doubt.

MR DINGEMANS: He is hardly likely to have made it up.

MR DINGEMANS: BBC/1/6 towards the bottom of the paragraph: "Now that claim has come back to haunt Mr Blair because if the weapons had been that readily to hand, they probably would have been found by now. but you know, it could have been an honest mistake, but what I have been told is that the Government knew that claim was questionable, even before the war, even before they wrote it in their dossier." Dr Kelly never told you that, did he?

MR DINGEMANS: Can I take you to BBC/1/15? It is a reference you have not been taken to so I will take you to it, if I may. Mr Humphrys, four paragraphs down, and he is talking to Mr Ingram, he says this: "What we have here is a source, within the Intelligence Service." In fact, that is the first reference to, as it were, the source being within the Intelligence Service. Who told him that?

MR DINGEMANS: Did he infer that from your earlier broadcast?

MR DINGEMANS: Did you put him right?

MR DINGEMANS: Did you read this transcript at any time before giving evidence?

MR DINGEMANS: When did you become aware that it had been said?

MR DINGEMANS: But you did not correct it then?

MR DINGEMANS: Can I take you to BBC/4/205? This is Miranda Holt's transcribed note. Can I take you to an entry four lines down: "'Sexed up' 45 minutes -- added at Campbell's behest." Then there is this: "MI6 -- defector. 'to set up missile'." This is a note she had made of a conversation with you, is that right?

MR DINGEMANS: Did you refer to MI6 at all in that conversation?

LORD HUTTON: When did this conversation take place?

MR DINGEMANS: So there are those errors you accept in your transmission on 29th May?

MR DINGEMANS: In fact, on 29th May there was an allegation made against the Government of conscious wrongdoing; do you accept that?

MR DINGEMANS: So you thought you would join in?

MR DINGEMANS: Is that right, Mr Gilligan?

MR DINGEMANS: I did not say you created it, Mr Gilligan. I am asking you about 29th May. Did you think you would join in with that morning's headlines?

MR DINGEMANS: BBC/4/202. This is a note before the programme goes out. It says this at the top: "Gilligan -- has a v good story he hasn't stood up yet. I'll explain in the meeting. ET." Somebody has helpfully told us who ET is. Did you stand up the story before it was broadcast?

MR DINGEMANS: But it was two days after you met Dr Kelly.

MR DINGEMANS: Have you in the time since you gave evidence been able to identify what other story that may have been?

MR DINGEMANS: The proper construction of the words used on 29th May was an allegation of conscious wrongdoing, you accept there was no support for that?

MR DINGEMANS: Is that why you never corrected the original charge in the original broadcast?

LORD HUTTON: May I just ask you, Mr Gilligan, if we look at BBC/1/5, that is the broadcast at 7.32, if that could just be turned up, please. At the end of his introduction there Mr Humphrys says: "Are you suggesting, let's be very clear about this, that it was not the work of intelligence agencies?" You replied: "No, the information I'm told was dubious did come from the agencies, but they were unhappy about it..." et cetera. Do I understand from an earlier answer you gave that at the end of your first broadcast at 6.07 am you realised that you may have given the wrong impression in what you said and then you deliberately set out to correct it in that second broadcast at 7.32 am?

LORD HUTTON: Yes. Then I understand that you realised at the end of the first broadcast that you may have given the wrong impression; is that right?

LORD HUTTON: Yes. I had understood your earlier evidence to be, I just want to be quite sure about this, that you had actually appreciated at the end of the first broadcast that you may have given the wrong impression, but is it perhaps more accurate to say that you were concerned to make it clear in this second broadcast that the intelligence was real intelligence?

MR DINGEMANS: Having introduced that, over the page at page 6 you go on to say that the Government knew that the claim was questionable. It is not much of a retraction, is it, Mr Gilligan?

MR DINGEMANS: You did not give adequate notice of this proposed broadcast to your editor on the Today Programme, did you, Mr Gilligan, partly because you had no intention of making the charges that you did the night before?

MR DINGEMANS: It was intended to run this story as a "chatter in the air" piece, was it not?

MR DINGEMANS: BBC/5/124. This is a letter of 27th June. You realise you have made a mistake after the first broadcast, you tell us. 7.32 you say you put it right. This is the letter of 27th June. The BBC are specifically asked: "Does it still stand by the allegation made on that day that both we and the intelligence agencies knew the 45 minute claim to be wrong and inserted it despite knowing that?" The answer is given: "Andrew Gilligan accurately reported the source telling him that the Government 'probably knew that the 45 minute figure was wrong' and that the claim was 'questionable'." That is simply untrue.

MR DINGEMANS: You were involved in drafting this letter, were you?

MR DINGEMANS: This was a very serious charge, as it turned out, or a matter of great public interest, where you broadcast words simply unscripted. Do you accept that that was unfortunate?

MR DINGEMANS: You did not give notice of the matters in your broadcast to No. 10, did you?

MR DINGEMANS: You did not to No. 10. As to the MoD, all you said to the MoD was that there was going to be a discussion of weapons of mass destruction; you did not give any notice about the 45 minutes claim being the subject of the broadcast, did you?

MR DINGEMANS: You wrote an article in The Mail on Sunday, and we have seen it, it is BBC/1/27, which someone has said gave the story "booster rockets". It was headlined: "... why Blair misled us all over Saddam's WMD. His response? One word ... Campbell." Part of the reason for the headline was surely this: in your earlier broadcast you had suggested conscious wrongdoing and that was picked up by the headline writer, was it not?

MR DINGEMANS: Did you correct the headline or article afterwards?

MR DINGEMANS: Mr Humphrys gets it wrong in saying "Intelligence Services", The Mail on Sunday get it wrong in "saying Blair misled us all" and yet you do not do anything about these errors other people are making on your story?

MR DINGEMANS: Can I take you to BBC/5/110, 27th June, and suggest one reason why you did not get the letter of 27th June accurate? Because here is a memo you are sending to Kevin Marsh, Mark Damazer, Richard Sambrook and others. And you say this: "Everyone. "As well as responding to the Government's questions today it is perhaps worth considering being slightly more proactive and also putting some questions of our own to the Government, with the aim of turning the focus back on the central issue..." You, at this stage, had lost all objectivity, is that fair?

MR DINGEMANS: Because if you read through this e-mail what you are proposing to do is a whole series of points to make against the Government, perhaps well founded, perhaps not well founded, rather than concentrating on the questions you have been asked about your broadcasts.

MR DINGEMANS: Did you tell any of those responsible for the letter that the notes you had made did not support the allegations of conscious wrongdoing that had been made early in the morning?

MR DINGEMANS: So the answer is yes?

MR DINGEMANS: Let me take you to the e-mails, finally. FAC/6/223. At the bottom of this e-mail you describe -- scrolling down the page -- Dr Kelly as the source: "He also told my colleague Susan Watts, science editor of Newsnight ..." If we go over the page, you set out what is said in Susan Watts' broadcast. Do you accept there you were purporting to tell someone who Susan Watts' source was?

MR DINGEMANS: I am grateful.

LORD HUTTON: Any re-examination, Ms Rogers? Re-examination by Ms Rogers

MR DINGEMANS: There are one or two points I would like to pick up and I would like to do it before lunch, if I may. First of all, just dealing with one of the points that was made towards the end of this, the suggestion that you did not give adequate notice to your editors at the Today Programme about the story you intended to publish. First of all, have you had any complaint from Kevin Marsh, who is the editor, or anybody else about a lack of notice?

MR DINGEMANS: Could we have up BBC/8/1? This is an e-mail from Kevin Marsh to you sent on 30th May, that is the day after the broadcast. Can you just read the beginning part of that?

MR DINGEMANS: I think you can stop there. That represents what Kevin Marsh said to you?

MR DINGEMANS: Going back over what was broadcast on the 29th, there is only one point I want to pick up because this ground has been very heavily gone over. In the transcript at BBC/4/226 -- before I ask you to look at the transcript, can I just clarify one point: had you seen the headlines or any of the newspapers that were going to be published on the 29th at the time that you prepared the story?

MR DINGEMANS: Could we scroll down the page a little, just to the end of your contribution. I think we see it now before the JH there, at the end of the item. We have the words: "Now the forty five minutes really is, is not just a detail, it did go to the heart of the Government's case that Saddam was an imminent threat, and it was repeated a further three times in the body of the dossier ..." That is a point you made earlier on.

LORD HUTTON: Sorry, Ms Rogers, what broadcast is this? MS ROGERS: It is the 7.32 item. There are two versions of this transcript. I am afraid I have been using this one; I know there has been reference to the other one. The reason for using this one is it sets out the actor voicing Dr Kelly's words. It is just before Mr Humphrys says: "Andrew Gilligan, many thanks." I wonder if you could look at, in the context of the suggestion you are making a serious charge, can you just read out the words from "and I understand".

MR DINGEMANS: What was your understanding about the potential investigations at that time?

MR DINGEMANS: I think you have referred before as to whether your broadcast is a definitive judgment or a contribution to the debate.

MR DINGEMANS: We will not go over that. Looking at the question of adequacy of notice of Downing Street. We know that Downing Street listens to the Today Programme and they had rung in with a denial at some point in the morning before the 7.32 because Mr Humphrys refers to it. In terms of further correspondence with Downing Street, we know there is a letter of complaint at CAB/1/154, which is the Ann Shevas letter. Scrolling down this letter, I think it is right you did not see this at the time?

MR DINGEMANS: But do you see anything in there that is an additional contribution by way of statement from Downing Street on this story, in terms of substantive comment on the story?

MR DINGEMANS: Mr Sumption refers to what was said in terms of Government denials. We are given a reference; I would like, please, to have it turned up, it is CAB/1/158. This is a Government document. I cannot give you the date on which it is produced, but in terms of what was being reported could we just look briefly? We have the Prime Minister's statement in Poland, which is the first one, where there is a denial. There is no reference there to Mr Scarlett. If we scroll on down there is a reference to the Joint Intelligence Committee on the 1st. But if we scroll on down right to the bottom entry, the reference is made there -- I think you said you thought it was 3rd or 4th June. We see that the Prime Minister's quote in Hansard: "I have discussed it, as I said, with the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee..." That is the point at which we have a reference to a statement from the Joint Intelligence Committee itself?

MR DINGEMANS: We can read for ourselves the denial there. It is the statement that says: "... the 45 minute claim provoked disquiet among the intelligence community..." is said to be "... completely and totally untrue." Moving on to what your function is when you are reporting a conversation. I hope I will be forgiven for stating the obvious. You are a journalist, and you are not a transcriber of court proceedings. The function of the LiveNote reporter is to get down every last word. Do you regard it part of your function as a journalist to report conversations in the same way that the LiveNote reporter transcribes evidence?

MR DINGEMANS: Do you regard it that if you report the substance of the questions, the substance of what is said, that that is as accurate as saying: this was the question, this was the answer?

MR DINGEMANS: There is another matter about the practicality of being a journalist and what the function is. If you are dealing with a source you cannot name, and we know that Dr Kelly spoke to you on an unattributable basis, which meant you could not say who he was or what his precise role was, if you had been free to name Dr Kelly and tell your listeners what his status was, would you have wanted to do so?

MR DINGEMANS: We know, from your previous evidence, that you had researched what his status was; and I think you have referred to Plague Wars, he is the senior adviser on biological defence, the West's leading biological warfare inspector, and so on. I think he had also told you, for the record the reference is Day 3/101, that he interpreted intelligence for the Intelligence Service?

MR DINGEMANS: So it is a problem when you cannot --

LORD HUTTON: I think this is a little leading, Ms Rogers. MS ROGERS: I am sorry. Mr Gilligan explained if you cannot identify the source, you do not want to do it by jigsaw identification --

MR DINGEMANS: What was put to you while you were being questioned was a summary question from your FAC evidence where one of the MPs referred to what you said earlier. I would like, if I may, to have FAC/2/136. At question 417, which is at the foot of the page, we have Mr Maples asking you about various sources. Your answer is over the top of the next page.

MR DINGEMANS: At the end of that first answer you are recorded as saying: "I really cannot characterise the source any further than I already have done because it would compromise him."

MR DINGEMANS: You are pressed in question 418. Could we just look at your answer in full there?

MR DINGEMANS: Then again you are pressed in 419. Your answer?

MR DINGEMANS: So the reference back is the reference back to that evidence. That is to put it in context. The FAC come back, when you go back for your second set of evidence, and they are still pressing about your source. The line you still want to take is you do not want to identify your source. I just wanted to put in context the part of the evidence that was put to you by looking at FAC/5/4. Can you just explain -- there was a reference immediately above to this being an opening statement. Was this something that was unscripted and live or was it prepared?

MR DINGEMANS: Can you explain what you are doing by making that statement or seeking to do?

MR DINGEMANS: Just finally, on the question, then, of identifying Dr Kelly, there are many distinctions that can be drawn. I understood from your evidence when you were being questioned by Mr Sumption for you to be drawing a distinction between someone who could be a member of the intelligence community as distinct from somebody who is a member of the Intelligence Services.

MR DINGEMANS: And I took it that your definition was the intelligence community was wider than the Intelligence Services.

MR DINGEMANS: Can I ask you this: can you be a source about intelligence without being a member of the Intelligence Services?

MR DINGEMANS: And can you be a source about the Intelligence Services without being a member of the Intelligence Services?

MR DINGEMANS: Can we just look at the beginning of the Radio 5 Live broadcast? BBC/4/240.

LORD HUTTON: Ms Rogers, I am not rushing you at all. Would you like to adjourn now for lunch and resume in the afternoon or will you be finished quite soon? MS ROGERS: I will be finished very soon indeed. I will be, I hope, about 2 minutes.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. MS ROGERS: I just wanted to draw attention to the opening words of this broadcast. Is your source described at the start of that broadcast?

MR DINGEMANS: Not obviously there as a member of the Intelligence Services. Can we go over to, I think it is the top of the next page? Do you describe Dr Kelly there as a member of the Intelligence Services?

MR DINGEMANS: Do you describe him as a member of the Intelligence Services?

MR DINGEMANS: The final point I have is this: this is the question of how you described Dr Kelly in your evidence. I just want it to be made clear. It may be that the error is mine. I had heard it suggested that you had changed your evidence. Can we be clear about the position on the transcript at Day 3, page 137? What was flashed up on the screen was a version of the transcript as put out overnight.

MR DINGEMANS: We see that the transcript there referred to you saying that you had described Dr Kelly as "the senior official in charge of drawing up the dossier". Had you in fact ever said that?

MR DINGEMANS: And I think the Inquiry is aware that the LiveNote services very kindly checked, at our request, whether the word "the" or "a" had been used.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. MS ROGERS: It is accepted that it was a rare slip by LiveNote that the word Mr Gilligan had used was "a", not "the".

LORD HUTTON: I certainly accept that. MS ROGERS: It is not a suggestion that you had changed your evidence.

LORD HUTTON: No. MS ROGERS: Mr Gilligan, thank you.

LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much, Mr Gilligan. Thank you, Ms Rogers. I will rise now and sit again at 2 o'clock.