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‘Not much blood’: Dr Kelly detective casts new doubt
Mystery of Dr Kelly’s death deepens as police officer admits there was a ‘third man’ at the scene
Doubt has been cast once more on the official version of events surrounding the death in 2003 of Dr David Kelly, the scientist who apparently committed suicide a week after he was unmasked as a government whistleblower. It was Kelly who told the Radio 4 journalist Andrew Gilligan that Tony Blair's government had "sexed up" the evidence that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.
Now, in an interview with the Mail on Sunday, a retired police detective, Graham Coe, who guarded Dr Kelly's body alone for 25 minutes in woodland on Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire in July 2003, has said there was "not much blood, if any" at the scene. He has also admitted there was a 'third man' with him and his partner that day – a claim that had previously been dismissed.
The Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr Kelly found that the government scientist had committed suicide by severing the ulnar artery in his wrist with a pruning knife. His body was found a day after he told his wife he was going for a walk.
DC Coe gave evidence to the Hutton inquiry, but many feel he was not questioned in sufficient detail. For example, Dr Kelly's body was found by two volunteer searchers, who said that when they met DC Coe and his partner, DC Shields, there was a third man with them.
At the inquiry, DC Coe said only he and DC Shields were present, a discrepancy that has led to speculation that if there was indeed a third man present, he was an MI5 or MI6 agent. DC Coe has now admitted to the Mail on Sunday there was a third man with them. But he claims he was a trainee police constable who is no longer with the force. He would not reveal the man’s name.
On the lack of blood at the scene - one of the mysteries surrounding the case - DC Coe said at the Hutton inquiry that he saw blood on Dr Kelly’s left wrist. But he was not questioned about the presence or lack of blood anywhere else at the scene.
Now, DC Coe says: !I certainly didn't see a lot of blood anywhere. There was some on his left wrist but it wasn't on his clothes. On the ground, there wasn't much blood about, if any."
His version of events appears to tally with the testimony of Vanessa Hunt, one of two paramedics who attended the scene. After expressing her doubts at the 2003 Hutton inquiry, she said in 2004 that it was "incredibly unlikely that [Dr Kelly] died from the wrist wound we saw".
She added: "There just wasn't a lot of blood. When someone cuts an artery, whether accidentally or intentionally, the blood pumps everywhere."
The paramedics' opinion is backed by various medical experts, including Dr Bill McQuillan, who was a consultant at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary, and for 20 years dealt with hundreds of wrist accidents.
"I have never seen one death resulting from cutting an ulnar artery. I can’t see how he would lose more than a pint of blood by cutting the ulnar."
At the Hutton inquiry, the lack of blood was explained by Roy Green, a forensic biologist who attended the scene: he said it had seeped into the ground.
DC Coe's new account of the day Dr Kelly's body was found is just the latest in a series of reports that casts doubt on the validity of the Hutton inquiry’s conclusions.
Last month, a former KGB agent said a man with links to MI5 had told him Dr Kelly was "exterminated" by British secret agents. The previous month, an American friend of Dr Kelly claimed the weapons expert would not have had the strength to cut his own wrist because of an old arm injury. ·
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There were many factors which made this episode suspicious. There were no fingerprints on the knife for one thing - unusual in a suicide. Lord Hutton's extraordinary move last January, ordering all files relating to Dr Kelly's post mortem remain secret for 70 years for reasons which he himself and the Ministry of Justice have not explained, must have caused Dr Kelly's family further anguish, adding substantially to the deeply troubling inconsistencies surrounding his death .
There is a substantial body of evidence which shows that Dr Kelly did not consider Iraq a threat. His main concern at the time of his death, was the exaggeration of the threat in the Dodgy Dossier - particularly the 45 minute claim. He was clearly used as a expedient diversion by Alistair Campbell in 2003, in focusing the Foreign Affairs Select Committee's attention on the BBC and away the false basis on which Tony Blair had taken the country to war, for which he too had worked so hard. Dr Kelly subsequently spoke of "many dark actors playing games" to A New York Times journalist. There are just too many unanswered questions.
It is therefore hardly surprising that his suicide still continues to provoke controversy. There still appears to be a cover up, which could be easily resolved by making all reports available to a coroner, and conducting a proper inquest.
"not adding anything useful to the debate." No? Despite writing in good plain English and never stooping to abuse - unlike several who appear here regularly - I am repeatly blocked. Try this. Dr David Kelly spent months inside Iraq searching for and finding WMDs - after the 1991 war. This U.N. led team discovered a completely unsuspected embryonic Iraqi nuclear programme. Asked to give evidence on camera at a special meeting of the Common's Select Committee (photographed above) just prior to his death Dr Kelly replied without hestitation that Saddam was extremely dangerous and had to be removed. Alive then, Dr Kelly was actually an informed and experienced expert well able to support the central argument of the then government's own declared and active policy on Iraq! No one knows why Dr Kelly ended his own life. Hardly we ever do understand even when this happens to someone close to us. Could we stop and think of Dr Kelly's family just once?
Dominic Wynn: We *do* allow alternative points of view - hence the Daily Mail's tin-hat conspiracy theories are allowed space. On your point about your comments not being allowed through: You are not the only one. Comments are deleted for a variety of reasons, including libel, extreme racism - or just not adding anything useful to the debate.
Why carry on reprinting the Daily Mail's tinfoil hat conspiracy theories?
1) the additional person present is a trainee policeman. Wow.
2) There are plenty of other pathologists who disagreed Vanessa Hunt, including Dr Chris Milroy at Sheffield University who pointed out amongst otherthings that Dr Kelly's heart problem would make even a minor slash dangerous, and account for little blood loss.
I don't understand why tFP continues to print this stuff: even a cursory background investigation shows that none of the conspiracy theories stand up.
I also am fairly intrigued as to why my comments are never published by the moderator. Fairly disappointed in the tFP on this one: firstly by just operating as a Mail filter, and secondly for refusing an alternative point of view..
Those crazy vampires!