Dr David Kelly and the need for an inquest (100th blogpost)

Follow @JohnPlatinumG A group of dedicated and informed individuals simmered in London temperatures, outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London, to bring attention to the fact that it has been ten years without an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. Among television companies covering the event Press TV was there as well as TV Spain. Then along came Jushua with bottles of mineral water which he distributed among the protesters. It was most welcome and refreshing. By that time people were starting to find shade round the side of the building but those passing by stopped to find out what it is all about.

It was a well-attended event with between 50 and 75 people silently protesting in the course of the afternoon. I found it is not an easy place to get to by public transport especially when the coach from Birmingham was delayed by more that an hour due to a motorway accident, but it was a great credit to those who worked behind the scenes, Margaret, co-organising the event, getting leaflets printed and sewing up (by hand) some twenty gags, Jayne and Lyndsey for their inputs with posters and design, and lots of others who made a special effort to make it a special and memorable day. There was an impressive large black cloth poster laid out on the paving stones at the entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice, which could not be missed, but I wasn't sure who produced it.

Gags were worn to demonstrate that in this instance the truth had been gagged by Lord Hutton's Inquiry, more often referred to as a "whitewash". The time has come to make public the details of photographs which might determine if the body was moved. The time has come to investigate the original post-mortem conducted by Dr Nicholas Hunt. People are working behind the scenes, some who were on the demonstration, others who prefer alternative methods, to bring this unresolved affair before the public eye. Thank you everybody who attended and those who were supporting us from home.

Why Dominic Grieve should resign (II)

Follow @JohnPlatinumG

In December last year I raised an Epetition calling for the resignation of Dominic Grieve because he took it upon himself to investigate the death of Dr David Kelly, the arms inspector who brought attention to the 'dodgy dossier' which took us into an illegal war with Iraq. There was never a proper inquest into Dr Kelly’s death. In fact Dominic Grieve, at the behest of Michael Howard, had himself backed an inquest into Dr Kelly’s death in 2010 providing sufficient evidence warranted such an inquest. But instead he looked into the death himself and concluded that on the ‘evidence’ he had seen there was nothing which led him to believe anything but the Hutton Inquiry’s conclusion that Dr Kelly took his own life.

To begin with the Hutton Inquiry, or any other inquiry, has no legal authority to establish the death of any person dying from unnatural causes. That is the role of a coroner. The Hutton Inquiry was further hampered by the fact that witnesses were not sworn in, and were only marginally cross-examined – if at all. Likewise the Attorney General’s legal background relates to occupational and safety law, and in fact he is rather a career politician than a lawyer. Coroners have profession-specific training and qualifications which it is unlikely either Dominic Grieve or Lord Hutton possess, leaving neither of them in a position to replace a coroner, but which both of them appear to have done. 

·         Coroners have to be available 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

·         Coroners need to have medical-training and very often possess forensic knowledge.

·         Coroners need to keep up to date with changes in Coronial Law – a discipline on its own.

The Attorney General is advisor to the government and the highest legal authority in England and Wales. The last three Attorney Generals, Peter Goldsmith, Patricia Scotland and the current one, Dominic Grieve, have each exceeded their authority. In an email to the Attorney General’s office on 18 May 2011, Christopher Stephen Frost, a specialist in diagnostic radiology, sought reassurance that due process would take place in establishing an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. As I've mentioned before, in his email he pointed out that due process had not ensued with both Grieve’s predecessors, “Lord Goldsmith over his twice changed Iraq War legal advice and Baroness Scotland over the twice cancelled Serious Fraud Office investigation of British Aerospace”.

On 19 December 2011 Justice Nicol attempted to bring to an end any chance of an inquest into the death of Dr Kelly, which is alarming since there never was a proper inquest. Instead the findings of the Hutton Inquiry, which dealt with this unnatural event clumsily, was allowed to stand. To add to the lack of justice from what was more correctly labelled “a whitewash” Hutton prohibited papers and photographs related to Kelly’s death from public scrutiny for 70 years, a decision subsequently upheld by Dominic Grieve, and Justice Nicol. Some details of the police investigation and post mortem reports have been released but the all-important photographs, which, in conjunction with an inquest would help establish the truth, are still being withheld.

By not releasing photographs of Dr Kelly’s body and the position where it lay does nothing to allay suspicions that the body was moved at some time between being found and the arrival of the paramedics. There are conflicting reports as to where the body lay when it was discovered and a short time afterwards. Paramedics, David Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, on their arrival at the police-scene, applied electrodes to the body while the police took photographs. The body at this time was lying flat on the ground far enough away from the tree for a person to walk between the tree and body. The paramedics pronounced Dr Kelly dead at 10.07 a.m. Earlier Ms Holmes and Paul Chapman, who were searching the area found Dr Kelly slumped back against the tree, where the police-dog-team also mentioned they had seen the body. These discrepancies were ignored by the Hutton Inquiry. No coroner in the land would have ignored such a conflict of evidence without cross-examining the witnesses.

A group of dedicated medical experts, who have long questioned Hutton’s finding of suicide in Dr Kelly’s death continue to call for an inquest. Their latest request, made a few days ago, raises the issue about the moving of the body. A proper inquest, when it is granted, will almost certainly establish that the body was moved. Who moved it? When? Why? Those are likely to be the more important additional questions.

---

Why Dominic Grieve should resign over the death of David Kelly

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Even if you do not get time to read the following post please sign the epetition (UK residents only) and distribute it widely. Liberty is at stake.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/26133

Over the last decade there has been an erosion of civil liberties and a breach of civil and human rights in the UK. These range from the abandonment of habeas corpus to the creation of foreign prisons where interrogation and torture can be committed without due scrutiny or legal representation. Habeas corpus is a long-established legal tenet to ensure that anyone imprisoned, should be brought before the court. Prior to Tony Blair’s second term as prime minister habeas corpus had only notably been suspended during the Treason Trials of 1790s, at a time when Britain was at war with France, and when it was feared that revolution might spread across the channel. Now President Obama has just signed off a bill to imprison “American citizens without charge or trial”.

A lack of human rights, and the overriding of legal procedures, is even worse today. The Attorney General is advisor to the government and the highest legal authority in England and Wales. The last three Attorney Generals, Peter Goldsmith, Patricia Scotland and the current one, Dominic Grieve, have each exceeded their authority. In an email to the Attorney General’s office on 18 May 2011, Christopher Stephen Frost, a specialist in diagnostic radiology, sought reassurance that due process would take place in establishing an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. In his email he pointed out that due process had not ensued with both Grieve’s predecessors, “Lord Goldsmith over his twice changed Iraq War legal advice and Baroness Scotland over the twice cancelled Serious Fraud Office investigation of British Aerospace”.

On 19 December 2011 Justice Nicol effectively brought to an end any chance of an inquest into the death of Dr Kelly, which is alarming since there never was a proper inquest. Instead the Hutton Inquiry dealt with this unnatural event clumsily and without properly cross-examining unsworn witnesses, as former MP Norman Baker, ably argues in his searching account The Strange Death of David Kelly. To add to the lack of justice from what was more correctly labelled “a whitewash” Hutton prohibited papers and photographs related to Kelly’s death from public scrutiny for 70 years, upheld by Dominic Grieve. If this stands when the documents are released it will be tantamount to the Clintons apologising for the United States’ experiments into the effects of syphilis on blacks and Guatemalans. A glib apology is hardly going to help anyone some sixty years from now when most people will have forgotten that Dr Kelly died because he told the truth that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and that there was no forty-five minute capability for Iraq to deploy long-range missiles which threatened the United Kingdom. These were prime ministerial lies.

Suspending habeas corpus has led to the imprisonment of a British subject, Babar Ahmad, for more than seven years without charge. Another former prisoner, Algerian-born Hider Hanani, was held for more than seven years without charge and on his eventual release from Long Lartin prison was effectively put under house arrest. Long Lartin, Belmarsh and Woodhill are our Guantanamos, except they are on UK soil, whereas Guantanamo Bay is not in the US, so in that respect, before Obama’s latest deplorable contravention of the Bill of Rights, we were more culpable in our disregard for habeas corpus and the rule of law. Tony Blair labelled Guantanamo Bay an ‘anomaly’ and the Attorney General, William Goldsmith, called for its closure in 2006, without either addressing our own anomalies. Our reputation worldwide is probably as low as it has ever been in the last hundred years. I would like to see that reputation restored. That is another reason why I am calling for Dominic Grieve to resign.