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The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003
judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by
Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the
Labour government to investigate the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of
Dr David Kelly
David Christopher Kelly (14 May 1944 – 17 July 2003) was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare (BW). A former head of the Defence Microbiology Division working at Porton Down, Kelly was part of a joint US-UK team that inspecte ...
, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.
On 18 July 2003, Kelly, an employee of the
Ministry of Defence, was found dead after he had been named as the source of quotations used by
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
journalist
Andrew Gilligan
Andrew Paul Gilligan (born 22 November 1968) is a British policy adviser and former transport adviser to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister between 2019-22. Until July 2019, he was senior correspondent of ''The Sunday Times'' and had also served ...
. These quotations had formed the basis of media reports claiming that the government had knowingly "
sexed up" the "
September Dossier
''Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government'', also known as the ''September Dossier'', was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to dis ...
", a report into
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Coun ...
. The inquiry opened in August 2003 and reported on 28 January 2004. The Hutton report cleared the government of wrongdoing, while the BBC was strongly criticised, leading to the resignation of the BBC's chairman
Gavyn Davies and director-general
Greg Dyke
Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a British media executive, football administrator, journalist, and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has had a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing ' ...
. The report was met with scepticism by the British public,
and criticism by British newspapers such as ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', ''
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
'', and the ''
Daily Mail'', though others said it exposed serious flaws within the BBC.
Background
Kelly had been the source for reports made by three BBC journalists that the government, particularly the press office of
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
, the
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
, had knowingly embellished the dossier with misleading exaggerations of
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
's military capabilities; specifically, a claim that Iraq had the ability to launch a strike using "weapons of mass destruction" within 45 minutes.
These reports were aired by
Andrew Gilligan
Andrew Paul Gilligan (born 22 November 1968) is a British policy adviser and former transport adviser to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister between 2019-22. Until July 2019, he was senior correspondent of ''The Sunday Times'' and had also served ...
on
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
's
''Today'' programme on 29 May 2003, by
Gavin Hewitt on the Ten O'Clock News the same day and by
Susan Watts on
BBC Two's ''
Newsnight
''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...
'' on 2 June. On 1 June, Gilligan repeated his allegations in an article written for ''
The Mail on Sunday
''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first pub ...
'', naming government press secretary
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist known for his roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director ...
as the driving force for alteration of the dossier.
The government denounced the reports and accused the BBC of poor journalism. In subsequent weeks the corporation stood by the report, saying that it had a reliable source. Following intense media speculation, Kelly was finally named in the press as the source for Gilligan's story on 9 July.
Kelly committed suicide in a field close to his home on 17 July. An inquiry was announced by the British government the following day. The inquiry was to investigate "the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly".
The inquiry
The inquiry opened on 1 August. Hearings began on 11 August. The first phase of the inquiry closed on 4 September. A second session of witness-calling began on Monday 15 September, where some witnesses from the first session, such as Andrew Gilligan,
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon
Geoffrey William Hoon (born 6 December 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire from 1992 to 2010. He is a former Defence Secretary, Transport Secretary, Leader of ...
, BBC chairman Gavyn Davies and
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist known for his roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director ...
were recalled for further questions arising from the first phase, and some witnesses were called for the first time. The taking of evidence closed on Wednesday 24 September. The inquiry heard evidence on 22 days, lasting 110 hours, from 74 witnesses. Examination and cross-examination came from five
Queen's Counsel
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister o ...
. Representing the Inquiry was James Dingemans QC (now Mr. Justice Dingemans) and Peter Knox (now QC). Representing the government was
Jonathan Sumption
Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption, (born 9 December 1948), is a British author, medieval historian and former senior judge who sat on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2018. Sumption was sworn in as a Jus ...
(now Lord Sumption). QC Andrew Caldecott represented the BBC.
At the conclusion of the Inquiry there was widespread approval of the process conducted by Hutton. The Inquiry had provided exceptional access to the inner workings of the UK Government and the BBC. Virtually all the documentation provided to the Inquiry was quickly provided to the public on the Inquiry's website.
British ambassador David Broucher reported a conversation with Dr Kelly at a meeting in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
in February 2003, which he described as from "deep within the memory hole". Broucher related that Kelly said he had assured his Iraqi sources that there would be no war if they co-operated, and that a war would put him in an "ambiguous" moral position.
Broucher had asked Kelly what would happen if Iraq were invaded, and Kelly had replied, "I will probably be found dead in the woods." Broucher then quoted from an email he had sent just after Kelly's death: "I did not think much of this at the time, taking it to be a hint that the Iraqis might try to take revenge against him, something that did not seem at all fanciful then. I now see that he may have been thinking on rather different lines."
The report
Hutton initially announced that he expected to be able to deliver his report in late November or early December. The report was eventually published on 28 January 2004.
[
] It ran to 750 pages in 13 chapters and 18 appendices, though this was mainly composed of excerpts from the hundreds of documents (letters, emails, transcripts of conversation, and so on) that were published during the inquiry. The main conclusions were:
* Nobody could have anticipated that Dr Kelly would take his life
* There was "no underhand
overnmentstrategy" to name him as the source for the BBC's accusations
* Gilligan's original accusation was "unfounded" and the BBC's editorial and management processes were "defective"
* The dossier had not been "
sexed up", but was in line with available intelligence, although the
Joint Intelligence Committee, chaired by
John Scarlett
Sir John McLeod Scarlett (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Commit ...
, may have been "subconsciously influenced" by the government
* The Ministry of Defence (MOD) was at fault for not informing Dr Kelly of its strategy that would involve naming him
The report exonerated the government much more completely than had been expected by many observers prior to its publication. Evidence presented to the inquiry had indicated:
* That the wording of the dossier had been altered to present the strongest possible case for war within the bounds of available intelligence
* That some of these changes had been suggested by Alastair Campbell
* That reservations had been expressed by experts within the Intelligence Community about the wording of the dossier
* That David Kelly had direct contact with dissenters within the
Defence Intelligence Staff and had communicated their reservations (and his own) to several journalists.
[
]
* That, following Dr Kelly's decision to come forward as one of Gilligan's contacts, Alastair Campbell and Geoff Hoon had wanted his identity made public
* That the Prime Minister himself had chaired a meeting at which it was decided that Dr Kelly's name would be confirmed by the Ministry of Defence if put to them by journalists
* That Dr Kelly's name had been confirmed after journalists had made multiple suggestions to the MOD press office.
Despite this evidence, Hutton's report largely cleared the government of any wrongdoing. In large measure this was because Hutton judged that the government had not known of the reservations in the intelligence community: it seemed they had been discounted by senior intelligence assessors (the Joint Intelligence Committee) — thus Gilligan's claim that the government "probably knew" the intelligence was flawed, was itself unfounded. Furthermore, the Inquiry heard that these were not the words used by Gilligan's source, but Gilligan's own inference. However, the judgement that No. 10 was not aware of the reservations of the intelligence community was not supported by other evidence contained in the report, such as the transcript of an interview given by David Kelly to BBC journalist Susan Watts. In addition to clearing the government, Hutton determined that any failure of intelligence assessments fell outside his remit, and the Intelligence Services thus also escaped censure.
Instead the report placed a great deal of emphasis on evidence of the failings of Gilligan and the BBC, many of which had been explicitly acknowledged during the course of the Inquiry. Gilligan, for example, admitted and apologised for surreptitiously briefing politicians on a
select committee in order to put pressure on Dr Kelly. Gilligan, whilst disagreeing with the overall thrust of the report, also admitted that he had attributed inferences to Dr Kelly which were in fact his own.
[
]
The Inquiry specifically criticised the chain of management that caused the BBC to defend its story. The BBC management, the report said, had accepted Gilligan's word that his story was accurate, in spite of his notes being incomplete.
Davies had then told the BBC Board of Governors that he was happy with the story, and told the Prime Minister that a satisfactory internal inquiry had taken place. The Board of Governors, under Davies' guidance, accepted that further investigation of the government's complaints were unnecessary. In his report Hutton wrote of this:
:The Governors should have recognised more fully than they did that their duty to protect the independence of the BBC was not incompatible with giving proper consideration to whether there was validity in the Government's complaints, no matter how strongly worded by Mr Campbell, that the allegations against its integrity reported in Mr Gilligan's broadcasts were unfounded and the Governors failed to give this issue proper consideration.
There was considerable speculation in the media that the report had been deliberately written to clear the government, a claim disputed by Lord Hutton at a later press conference. Many people remain convinced that this was the case. Suggestions of whitewash were supported by Hutton's careful choice of language at certain points in the report. For example, he argued that the use of the phrase "
sexed up" by Gilligan would have been taken by the general public to indicate an outright lie rather than mere exaggeration, and thus the claim was untrue.
Aftermath of publication
It was because of the report's criticism of his actions that
Gavyn Davies resigned on the day of publication, 28 January 2004. Reporters from rival news organisation ITN described the day of publication as "one of the worst in the BBC's history".
Greg Dyke
Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a British media executive, football administrator, journalist, and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has had a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing ' ...
, the director-general, resigned two days after the publication of the report, following a meeting of BBC Governors where it is reported he only retained the support of one-third of the board. However, after announcing his resignation, Dyke stated:
:I do not necessarily accept the findings of Lord Hutton.
Andrew Gilligan
Andrew Paul Gilligan (born 22 November 1968) is a British policy adviser and former transport adviser to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister between 2019-22. Until July 2019, he was senior correspondent of ''The Sunday Times'' and had also served ...
resigned because of his part in the affair on 30 January. However, in his resignation statement he questioned the value of Hutton's report:
:This report casts a chill over all journalism, not just the BBC's. It seeks to hold reporters, with all the difficulties they face, to a standard that it does not appear to demand of, for instance, Government dossiers.
Blair, who had been repeatedly under fire for the "sexing-up" allegations, told the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
in the debate following the release of the report that he had been completely exonerated. He demanded a retraction from those who had accused him of lying to the House, particularly
Michael Howard, the
Leader of the Opposition:
:The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on WMD is itself the real lie. And I simply ask that those that made it and those who have repeated it over all these months, now withdraw it, fully, openly and clearly.
Howard sidestepped the demand for an apology. However, immediately after the Board of Governors had accepted Dyke's resignation, Lord Ryder, as Acting Chairman of the BBC, apologised "unreservedly" for errors made during the affair. Dyke, who had not given the conclusions of the Hutton report his full backing, said that he "could not quite work out" what the BBC was apologising for. ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' subsequently reported that the BBC governors had ignored the advice of BBC lawyers that the Hutton report was "legally flawed". Although this was denied by the BBC, it was confirmed in 2007 when the BBC was forced to publish minutes of a governors meeting at the BBC that took place directly after the Hutton report.
At the end of the report Hutton recalled how the final part of David Kelly's life had not been representative of his entire career in the civil service:
:The evidence at this Inquiry has concentrated largely on the last two months of Dr Kelly's life, and therefore it is fitting that I should end this report with some words written in Dr Kelly's obituary in ''The Independent'' on 31 July by Mr Terence Taylor, the President and Executive Director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Washington DC, and a former colleague of Dr Kelly: "It is most important that the extraordinary public attention and political fallout arising from the events of the past month do not mask the extraordinary achievements of a scientist who loyally served not only his Government but also the international community at large."
Deliberately or otherwise, Dr Kelly had raised wider questions about the quality, interpretation and presentation of intelligence that Hutton had left unanswered. Some of these were to be addressed in a
new inquiry, announced by the government on 3 February 2004. Amongst other things, the Butler Report concluded that "the fact that the reference to the 45 minute claim in the classified assessment was repeated in the dossier later led to suspicions that it had been included because of its eye-catching character".
Andrew Gilligan
Andrew Paul Gilligan (born 22 November 1968) is a British policy adviser and former transport adviser to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister between 2019-22. Until July 2019, he was senior correspondent of ''The Sunday Times'' and had also served ...
claims that this has vindicated his original story that the dossier had been "sexed up".
Over a dozen years later, the
Chilcot Inquiry came to different conclusions. The ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...
'' reported, "Every previous inquiry into Britain's decision to invade Iraq has swiftly been condemned by the public as a "whitewash". Such a description hardly applies to the monumental inquest that has been published by Sir John Chilcot."
Leaking of the report prior to publication
The report was leaked by an unknown party to ''
The Sun'' the night before the official publication date. The ''Sun'' and consequently most other newspapers in their later editions ran with the leaked version of the report. Delivered by an unnamed source over the telephone to ''Sun'' political editor
Trevor Kavanagh
Trevor Michael Thomas Kavanagh (born 19 January 1943) is a British/Australian journalist and former political editor of '' The Sun''.
Early life and career
Kavanagh was educated at Reigate Grammar School before leaving school at 17 to work fo ...
, the leaked version accurately described the report's main findings. All sides involved in the Inquiry denounced the leak. Lord Hutton launched a further inquiry into how the report came to be leaked. This second inquiry, carried out by a solicitor, reported on 11 August 2004, but failed to find the source of the leak. It also said there were "no particular weaknesses" in the security of the report and so offered no suggestions of how a similar leak might be prevented in the future.
Media reaction to the report
Several national newspapers judged the report to be so uncritical of the government that they accused Hutton of participating in an "establishment whitewash". The ''
Daily Mail'' wrote in its editorial "We're faced with the wretched spectacle of the BBC chairman resigning while
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist known for his roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director ...
crows from the summit of his dunghill. Does this verdict, my lord, serve the real interest of truth?". ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' included a large, mostly empty, white space above the fold on its front page containing the word "whitewash?" in small red type.
The ''
Daily Express'' headline read "Hutton's whitewash leaves questions unanswered" — referring to the fact that an investigation into Britain's reasons for joining the war in Iraq was beyond the scope of the inquiry. None of the newspapers presented evidence of a cover-up, but they questioned whether the conclusions were supported by the evidence.
Other newspapers such as ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', ''The Sun'' (both owned by
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...
and usually critical of the BBC) and ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' concentrated on the behaviour of the BBC criticised in the report and called for Greg Dyke to resign, as he did later that day (29 January). ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' depicted Lord Hutton as the
Three Wise Monkeys
The three wise monkeys are a Japanese pictorial maxim, embodying the proverbial principle "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". The three monkeys are
* Mizaru, who sees no evil, covering his eyes
* Kikazaru, who hears no evil, covering ...
who would 'see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil'.
The reactions of papers supportive of the
Conservative Party, such as ''
The Daily Mail'' and ''The Daily Telegraph'', in part reflected the Conservatives' disappointment that the report did not find that Blair had misled the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
or the public, which might have precipitated his resignation. On the other hand, left-wing newspapers such as ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and ''
The Daily Mirror'', while supporting Blair against the Conservatives, strongly opposed British participation in the war in Iraq, and sympathised with what they (and many others) saw as the anti-war stance of BBC journalists such as Gilligan. While they probably did not want Blair forced from office, they would have welcomed a finding that
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist known for his roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director ...
had falsified the
September Dossier
''Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government'', also known as the ''September Dossier'', was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to dis ...
.
Martin Kettle wrote in ''The Guardian'' on 3 February: "Too many newspapers invested too heavily in a particular preferred outcome on these key points. They wanted the government found guilty on the dossier and on the naming, and they wanted Gilligan's reporting vindicated. When Hutton drew opposite conclusions, they damned his findings as perverse and his report as a whitewash. But the report's weakness was its narrowness, and to some extent its unworldliness, not the accuracy of its verdicts."
Thousands of BBC workers paid for a full-page advertisement in ''The Daily Telegraph'' on 31 January in order to publish a message of support for Dyke, followed by a list of their names. The message read:
An
ICM public
opinion poll
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinion ...
, commissioned by the ''
News of the World'' and published on 1 February 2004, showed that 54% of respondents believed Tony Blair's reputation had deteriorated. Only 14% thought his status had improved after being vindicated in the report.
In some countries the reputation of the BBC in fact improved as a result of its attacks on the British government during the Kelly affair. The BBC's willingness to accuse the Prime Minister and the
Ministry of Defence so publicly of wrongdoing, despite the mistakes the BBC itself acknowledged it had made, boosted its credentials as an impartial and unbiased news source.
Hutton himself defended the report, speaking before a Commons select committee on 14 May 2004. He stated he had not thought it appropriate to embark on a study of the pre-war intelligence: "I had to draw the line somewhere." He felt the allegations against Gilligan were "far graver" than questions concerning the quality of the intelligence, and that it was right that a separate inquiry, the
Butler Review, was being conducted. In November 2006 he dismissed the media claims that his report was a whitewash, saying:
The notoriety of the Hutton Report received a boost when
Cherie Blair was reported to have auctioned off a signed copy of the report for £400 for the benefit of the Labour Party in May 2006.
Criticism
Fatality of ulnar artery cuts
Although suicide was officially accepted as the cause of death, some medical experts have raised doubts, suggesting that the evidence does not support this. The most detailed objection was provided in a letter from three medical doctors published in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', reinforced by support from two other senior doctors in a later letter to the newspaper. These doctors argued that the
post-mortem finding of a transected
ulnar artery
The ulnar artery is the main blood vessel, with oxygenated blood, of the medial aspects of the forearm. It arises from the brachial artery and terminates in the superficial palmar arch, which joins with the superficial branch of the radial ar ...
could not have caused a degree of blood loss that would kill someone, particularly when outside in the cold (where
vasoconstriction
Vasoconstriction is the narrowing of the blood vessels resulting from contraction of the muscular wall of the vessels, in particular the large arteries and small arterioles. The process is the opposite of vasodilation, the widening of blood vess ...
would cause slow blood loss). Further, this conflicted with the minimal amount of blood found at the scene. They also contended that the amount of co-proxamol found was only about a third of what would normally be fatal. Dr Rouse, a British
epidemiologist wrote to the ''
British Medical Journal'' offering his opinion that the act of committing suicide by severing the wrist arteries is an extremely rare occurrence in a 59-year-old man with no previous psychiatric history.
In December 2010 ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' reported that Kelly had a rare abnormality in the arteries supplying his heart; the information had been disclosed by the head of the Academic Unit of Pathology at Sheffield University Medical School, Professor Paul Ince, who noted that the post-mortem had found severe narrowing of the blood vessels, and said that heart disease was likely to have been a factor in Kelly's death as the cut to the wrist artery would not itself have been fatal. Vice-President of the British Cardiovascular Society Ian Simpson said that Kelly's artery anomaly could have contributed to his death.
Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, the two
paramedic
A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research.
Not all ambulance personnel are p ...
s who were called to the scene of Kelly's death, have since spoken publicly with their opinion that there was not enough blood at the location to justify the belief that he had died from blood loss. Bartlett and Hunt told ''The Guardian'' that they had seen a small amount of blood on plants near Kelly's body and a patch of blood the size of a coin on his trousers. They said they would expect to find several pints of blood at the scene of a suicide involving an arterial cut. Two forensic pathologists, Chris Milroy of
Sheffield University and Guy Rutty of
Leicester University
, mottoeng = So that they may have life
, established =
, type = public research university
, endowment = £20.0 million
, budget = £326 million
, chancellor = David Willetts
, vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah
, head_label ...
, dismissed the paramedics' claims, saying it is hard to judge blood loss from the scene of a death, as some blood may have seeped into the ground. Milroy also told ''The Guardian'' that Kelly's heart condition may have made it hard for him to sustain any significant degree of blood loss.
On 15 October 2007 it was discovered, through a Freedom of Information request, that the knife had no fingerprints on it, nor were fingerprints retrieved from the medication blister pack or Kelly's mobile phone.
Alternative theories for Kelly's death
The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
broadcast a programme on Kelly on 25 February 2007 as part of the series ''