The Irish Examiner
The first policeman to see Dr David Kelly’s body after the weapons expert’s apparent suicide was giving evidence to the Hutton Inquiry today.
UK Detective Constable Graham Coe was a member of a police team who met the search and rescue volunteers who found the body in a secluded beauty-spot at the base of Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire, UK.
His evidence was set to be followed by that of pathologist Nicholas Hunt.
The inquiry has heard that Dr Hunt’s report found that Dr Kelly had taken an overdose of Co-proxamol but died from blood loss from a number of slashes to his left wrist.
Lord Hutton was then hearing from Britain's deputy chief of defence intelligence Martin Howard, the first witness in the 17-day inquiry to face cross-examination.
He will be examined by lawyers for the inquiry itself, and by barristers for Dr Kelly’s family, for the BBC and by his own lawyer.
Mr Howard was likely to face questioning on five key areas of his evidence, including Dr Kelly’s second interview at the UK Ministry of Defence – after the weapons expert came forward to admit his contact with BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan – and the MoD’s "naming strategy" for releasing Dr Kelly’s personal details to journalists.
He was also likely to be questioned on his briefings for Dr Kelly and UK Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon prior to their evidence to parliamentary committees.
Mr Howard has already appeared twice in Court 73 at Britain's Royal Courts of Justice, when he told the inquiry that two members of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) had written to him during the dossier drafting process last September, voicing concerns about the language of the document.
Mr Howard told the inquiry that the 45-minute claim about Saddam’s WMDs was "perfectly respectable intelligence".
The other witnesses giving evidence today were Dr Andy Shuttleworth of the Defence Science Technology Laboratory – the research arm of the Ministry of Defence, and Dr Kelly’s employer – and UK Ministry of Defence official Kate Wilson.
Det Con Coe told the inquiry that on July 18 he was called out at 6am to go to the Longworth area to make house-to-house inquiries near Dr Kelly's home.
He said he spoke to one witness who had seen the scientist on the Thursday afternoon, and explained that was Ruth Absalom , Dr Kelly’s neighbour.
From there he and a colleague went towards the River Thames and then towards Harrowdown Hill where they came across two members of the volunteer search team.
Det Con Coe said one of the members of the team, Mr Chapman, told them they had found a body and he went with the volunteer into the woods.
Asked by Peter Knox, junior counsel to the inquiry, what he saw, the officer said he saw Dr Kelly’s body lying on his back against a large tree with his head towards the trunk.
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