Gulf Of Mexico: Oil And Corexit Is Killing Everything In Its Path! Photos

Aquariusnation.com
June 8th, 2011

The pictures speak for themselves…

photo by Laurel Lockamy

photo by Lori Deangelis

Auschwitz Entrance Sign Theft: A Mossad 'Sleeper Cell' Fiasco?

by Trowbridge H. Ford

In today's ongoing world war by subterfuge, misdirection, and stealth, 'false flag' operations are still one of the leading favorites, especially by lesser powers, as they cost little, and carry only slight risks while promising considerable rewards. Their best source is some real or assumed grievance which has resonance with the world at large, like Madrid's apparent sinking of the USS Maine while it was on a good will mission to Cuba during the final days of the Spanish empire - what sparked the Spanish-American war. It put the apparent culprits of a very heinous action in an almost untenable position by, it seems, requiring them to prove that they were not guilty of actions that they seemingly committed. It's like asking a person to prove that he or she is innocent of some terrible felony. While major powers do not usually engage in them as they have enough visible means of power to get done what is wanted or required, lesser ones, especially those like Teddy Roosevelt's imperial-minded America, are their usual practitioners.

The most common 'false flag' operation is the assassination of a figure who is proving a great thorn in the side which commits it, though making it look like it was done by others or self-inflicted. The political assassinations which come to mind are those of troublemakers like Serbia's Zoran Djindjic who sent war criminal Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague - what threatened others like Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his cohorts, especially the Mossad Director Meir Dagan, to a similar fate. Britain's WMD Dr. David Kelly and Sweden Foreign Minister Anna Lindh were also assassinated because they threatened the whole neocon re-designing of the Middle East to suit Israel's essential interests. Kelly threatened to expose the whole, fraudulent basis of the exercise, and Lindh vigorously supported an EU agenda which promised to punish Tel Aviv most seriously for what it was engaged in. Then there were political murders of Holland's Pim Fortuyn and Austria's Jörg Haider because they promoted a much more conservative, inward-looking agenda for the European Union. Even New Zealand's former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark was under the gun because of her wanting to have the Anzac countries opt out of what the Israelis wanted.

These murderous acts should not blind one to others which can accomplish similar results by more conventional means. In Israeli's case, the activities which most readily come to mind are the continuous exploitation of the atrocities committed during The Holocaust, starting over 70 years ago. While one would expect the tragedy to be less often exploited as time passed, it has become more often used because of the increasingly difficult position Israel is placed in. The last, pathetic participants in it are

being hunted down while laws are being enforced which punish those who deny it - what well might soon become sanctions against those who allegedly even think it. And Israeli agents and supporters are increasingly trying to exploit what anti-semites say and do about The Holocaust while attempting to entrap other people who seemingly support such ideas by their attendance of conferences dealing with it, association with people known to be so, and just folks whose hobbies smack seemingly of supporting neo-Nazism. Of course, the Israeli government uses such experience as a pawn when other powers, especially the United States, want its support for some more traditional end.

The case which comes to mind in this regard is Israel's exploiting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's apparent dishonesty about the subject, seemingly inventing it when it suited his election chances. During the height of his campaign to get more benefits for disorientated veterans, he mentioned the mental disorder that his uncle, unlike his grandfather who was also fighting with George Patton's Third Army, had incurred while liberating Auschwitz from the Nazis. To help obtain more medical assistance for current troops who are suffering from post-taumatic stress disorder because of America's increasing wars, the Illinois Senator said to a 2008 Memorial Day celebration in Las Crucas, New Mexico that his uncle was so upset by what he witnessed at Auschwitz that when he returned to the States, he withdrew for six months into the attic of his house to recover from the horror.(1)

While these mistakes were soon corrected by the Obama campaign, they were seized upon by his worst critics, especially those who doubted the legality of his even holding the office. It turned out that this was another example of faulty memory to gain political support, especially amongst Jewish supporters, for what he thought all psychologically crippled veterans deserved but the Americans never reclaimed Auschwitz from the Nazis - the Soviets did in Poland- and it wasn't Obama's uncle, but one of his great uncles, Charles W. Payne, he was referring to. He had been a member of K Company of the 89th Infantry Divisions's 355th Regiment, recruited from Kansas. It helped George Patton's Third Army capture Buchenwald from the Germans. Still, the mistake was no big deal, soon forgotten by most of Obama's critics.(2)

Once he was elected, and had increased his political influence by being declared the Nobel Peace Laureate for 2009, he made a point of visiting the Buckenwald Concentration Camp on his way back from a tour of the increasingly unstable Middle East where his great-uncle had helped secure a part of it from the Germans. Accompanied by German Chanellor Angela Merkel, fellow Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, and Buchenwald survivor Bertrand Herz, the President made a most impassioned speech that the world should never again experience such evil against any people. In doing so, he made clear what his own family had actually done in helping stop The Holocaust.

The trip and its explanation only enticed extreme neo-Nazi and anti-semite James von Brunn to take drastic action five days later. He had been becoming more rabid in his ideas ever since he served in the US Navy during the closing stages of WWII in the Pacific as a PT-boat commander after joining Navy ROTC while going to college at St. Louis's Washington University. Von Brunn thought that he had fought on the wrong side during the war. He took out all his rage about it on Jews and blacks, claiming that they were gaining the benefits that real whites had made sacrifices for. He wrote a book for his enemies, entitled Kill the Best Gentiles. He predicted in 20 to 30 years, the country would be ruled by blacks, and the media would be owned by the money-grabbing Jews. On the 40th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he attempted to make a citizens arrest of the Federal Reserve's board of directors, including Director Paul Volker, while armed with a handgun, claiming that it was just helping the enemies of the white man - what he served six and a half in federal prison for. During the rest of the 20th century, he earned his way by distributing the Liberty Lobby's Spotlight, the infamous white suprematist publication while living in Annapolis, Maryland.

After 9/11, von Brunn became even more paranoid in his attacks, claiming on his website www.holywestern.empire.org that it was simply an "inside job" to help Jews in the West, and Israelis in the Middle East. He even joined the 9/11 Truth Movement, and when Obama started pulling away from the Democratic pack in the 2008 presidential campaign, he became a Birther, the group which contests his claim of having been born in the United States. When Obama became President, von Brunn espoused the same anti-semitism and hatred of Jews which JewHate.com became so noted for that opponents tried to get Google from posting its URL. It has been suspected by many that JewHate had Israeli backing as it helped divide people to extremes on questions pertaining to them. If it didn't have Mossad support then, von Brunn would soon make it so.

No sooner did von Brunn hear what he considered self-serving propaganda in the black President's Buchenwald speech than he decided to end his own life. "with his boots on", against those who were exploiting what mainly whites had allegedly done for America since WWII. A neighbor even noticed how he had become even more outspoken, and committed to a violent showdown after the speech. On June 10th, von Brunn walked into the U. S Holocaust Memorial Museun in Washington with his rifle blazing, killing black security guard Stephen T. Johns while being criticially wounded by others in the process. While it seemed that von Brunn had gotten his wish in the shootout, he managed somehow to survive being shot in the face, and the Mossad seems to have gotten its wish - i. e., this rabid, anti-semitic, white suprematist being tried for his life during which his extreme views and experience would have even the most extreme Zionist wanting nothing more. It was so convenient for Israel's supporters and the President's opponents that he was called upon to reassure Jews about their security..The assault seems to have been the source of Mossad

Director Meir Dagan's most belated, parting gift from office to Israel.

The only trouble with the arrangement is that von Brunn surprisingly developed a deadly illness while in the federal correctional institution at Butner, North Carolina just before his trial was to begin. In November, he was taken to the Watauga Medical Center in nearby Boone with such physical problems that the prison's medical facilities could not cope with them. He seems to have been poisoned with something like minute doses of arsenic or hemlock, and by the time when was taken to the state hospital, he was in a terminal, incredibly painful condition, dying on January 6, 2010. His death was the last thing the Mossad wanted, leading one to suspect that at Butner he had been conveniently killed by personnel in either their public or private capacity. It seems more likely the former as his federally-appointed lawyer, M. J. Kramer, neither knew nor cared about the cause of his demise, and the circumstances during which it occurred. An autopsy was not performed on his body.

In light of Obama's apparent political expediency in dealing with such serious matters regarding The Holocaust, it was hardly surprising that Dagan took steps to exploit any recurrence of such failings in future. The covert operator - known for his ability to create conditions, or anticipate ones which served his purposes - moved immediately to make up for the policy vacuum that von Brunn's unanticipated demise had created. What better substitute for a vile denier of The Holocaust than an assault on the place best known for the genocide itself - Auschwitz! And what better represented it than the entrance gate sign which announced that work would make its entrants free ("Arbeit Macht Frei") when, in fact, its promised all their demise. Well over 1,000,000 men, women, and children, almost all Jews, were exterminated at its three camps, the largest that the Nazis maintained.

The Israeli secret intelligence service certainly had the human and physical assets for such a mission. It could easily put together of body of people who could steal the sign, and see that it was taken wherever the Mossad wanted. A sleeper cell - led by the right handler, dupes who had been recruited for various false or illegal reasons, and just plaim criminals who had been hired for just another hesit - could easily steal the sign, hide it until transport was arranged to take it out of Poland, and then take it to a neo-Nazi who wanted such memorabilia or seemed to want it, the more likely possibility. A 'false flag' operation of this sort was just what the circumstances called for. The problems would center on getting the sign out of Poland, and to a likely buyer who would be identified to the proper authorities before he realized what was going on.

The easiet of these concerns is setting up an unsuspecting victim, as I learned when I was going to graduate school. During WWII, my father was a division artillery commander during the assault on Nazi Germany, and after it capitulated, he brought back to the States all kinds of Nazi memorabilia as trophies, and they were lying around our summer house for years. One day my mother decided to liven up the rooms by putting Nazi flags up for curtains in one of them, and they were still there when I brought my girl friend down to meet the folks. She, a militant anti-Nazi, went bananas when she saw the curtains, and no amount of explaining could undo the damage. She decided that we, especially me, were closet Nazis, and that was really the end of the affair. Just show an interest in such things and you will be judged a neo-Nazi no matter what the circumstances, and your protestations.

In this case, the Mossad had many possible targets for such a set-up if it could only get the sign to them. It could easily be cut up into pieces, and shipped as just some artistic metal work to some unsuspecting target. An ideal target had just become Marc Garlasco, a Human Rights Watch military investigator who specialized in the crimes surrounding the Palestinian question. A former Pentagon official, he was increasingly demonized by supporters of Israel, especially Omri Ceren who had just updated his criticism of him. Ceren could just not believe that Garlasco's criticisms, particularly of Tel Aviv, could not be connected to his obsessive collections and publications about Naiz memorabilia, especially that of the Luftwaffe.(3) The biggest problem was just getting the entrance sign somehow to him.

In southern Sweden, the Mossad apparemtly persuaded a converted neo-Nazi Anders Högström to help arrange the transport of the theft, believing that real neo-Nazis like Swedish millionaire Lars Göran Wahlström wanted it, and that it was in Israeli interests to infiltrate and catch the culprit. Högström's family has an estate in Bleklinge in southern Sweden and a house here in Lidingö, and quit the National Socialist Front in 1999 because of its criminal acts against opponents, especially the assassination of trade unionist Björn Söderberg, forming a group called Exit to help others escape from the cluthes of National Socialism. Högstrom believed that Wahlström had been reporonsible for Söderberg's killing because he had caused the firing of neo-Nazi Robert Vesterlund from the trade union Sveriges Arbeteras Centralorganisation's newspaper Arbetaren because of his subversive allegiances, and thought that the Israeli set-up would be proper punishment for Wahlström.

On Friday, December 17, 2009, a team of five men cut down the entrance sign at Auschwitz, cut it up, and hid it nearby in southern Poland, awaiting instructions from Högström, it seems, about when and where to move them. He was totally surprised by the delay, believing that they would be already on their way to Sweden to entrap Wahlström where they would be surprisingly delivered to his Skåne doorstep, the police waiting nearby to recover them, and nab him. The theft was allegedly being used to help fund neo-Nazi attacks, especially on Sweden's Riksdag.(4)

Högström seems then to have been told that the sign pieces were to be shipped out of an airport in lower Poland on a Corendon airliner, a Turkish carrier, and the sign pieces should be addressed to one Thomas Salme. Airports in Lódz. Krakow, and Katowice are a long way from Sweden, and they did not have scheduled flights to places like Sweden. In short, Högström was convicted that the plan had been changed, and he was being set-up for the crime, resulting in his informing the Swedish police of where the sign had been hidden, and Salme's role in the process, though he, perhaps, had not idea of who he really was.

The Swedish authorities informed the Polish ones where they could recover the sign pieces, but were panicked by Högström's claim that Salme was involved, as its Transport Authority (TA) knew all too well about the former Royal Swedish Air Force fighter pilot who had been flying for 13 years with a recently forged Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL) - what captains of multi-engined, passenger jets must obtain. Salme only had his military experience, and a long-expired Commercial Pilot License. He had left the service when it was vastly slimming down during the 1990s, and had joined civilian carriers when they were rapidily expanding with few questions asked of its applicants. He joined the Italian carrier Air One shortly after its first full year of operation in 1996, thanks to his having flown Boeing C-130s during his time in service. It had the same avionics as Air One's Boeing 737s which all the airlines Salme flew with had.

Then it was just a question of flying enough hours to maintain his active status, and undergoing any periodic test required - what seemed most unlikely, given his flying cargo assignments. A few years later, he transferred to the English cargo carrier, Channel Express, in the Midlands, and stayed with it until it was taken over by Jet-2 and wound down the cargo business. Then Salme flew tourist flights for Apollo Airlines to places around the Mediterranean, especially Greece, and then did the same thing for Air Sweden, an airline so unobservant of EU rules about operating in the Community that the Swedish Transport Agency is trying to force its closure - what its experience with Salme might well have had something to do with. It had tried to stop Salme in 2007 because of his lack of proper qualifications. But he had left the carrier and the country by then, settling in Milan, and starting to work for Corendon - a tourist agency run one, working out of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport - and the TA just forgot about it all. Salme's secrets about flying might well have been the cause of his, it seems, being blackmailed into the plot.

Högström's tipoffs, of course, sent Polish, Swedish, and Dutch authorities into absolute tizzies. Warsaw, while most happy to have retrieved the terrible sign, was most desirous too of getting its hands on him so the whole fiasco could be quickly quashed. They even claimed that the sign had been recovered at the other end of the country when it was found near Auschwitz.(5) Stockholm, while pleased at having located where the sign had been hidden, was most opposed to any revelations about how it was tipped off, particularly what Högström had said about Salme. In fact, it wanted to dispose of Salme's difficulties before ever really admitting that it was taking the case against Högström seriously, as the police only mounted his heavy arrest here in Lidingö at his family home after two months as if he were a fugitive on the run. The Dutch wanted to take steps to prevent damaging blowback when Salme was finally outed so as to limit injury to the airline, its tourist industry, or its authorities. It especially wanted it to appear that the only problem was Salme's apparent lack of an ATPL - what it conveniently managed to overcome when it replaced him in the cockpit with a qualified captain without any delay in a flight to Turkey when he was finally outed on March 3rd.(6)

By this time, the Mossad had well mended its reputation, having an all-Israeli covert operation take out Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh when he visited Dubai in mid-January 2010. (7) Meir Dagan was not going to go out on such a sour note where Swedish, Polish, and Dutch second-thoughts and dithering led to such a fiasco, one which is still unfolding. This time, the Mossad operation was a classic, though most belated, eye-for-an-eye one. It replaced public interest in what had happened to the Auschwitz sign. While Högström was finally prosecuted in Krakow, and sentenced to 32 months in prison, provided it would be served in Sweden, Stockholm was continuing to make light of Salme's failures, having the publishers Norstedt's contract his autobiography, 13 Years in Heaven, which the established reporter Stefan Lovgren is helping him with. Norstedt's published Steig Larssons' World of Millennium which has sold welll over 50,000,000 copies worldwide.

Not bad to end up being associated with such writers rather than in the company of just jailbirds, like Högström!.

References:

1. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-502443_162-4127479-502443.html

2. For more, see: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/01/obamas-great-uncle-says-president-visiting-military-camp-site-political/

3. For more, see: http://www.mererhetoric.com/2009//08/marc-garlasco-is-hrws-anti-Israel-investigator-a-nazi-obsessed-collector/

4 For more, see: http://www.digitaljournal/article/284804

5 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/20/auschwitz-gate-sign-stoen_n_398775.html

6 For more about how he was discovered, and what he had been doing, see this link: http://www.thelocal.se/25330/20100303/

7 For more, see: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,739908,00.html

Susan Lindauer – Warning: This Message Contains Democracy!

The Intel Hub

By Susan Lindauer
June 2nd, 2011

No great civilization is ever destroyed from without, or conquered by external forces, until it first destroys itself from within. America’s leaders should have thought long and hard about that before voting to extend the Patriot Act last week.

Unhappily it’s official. We the People are the enemy. We have dared to prod and examine government policy too closely.

We have questioned government leadership when we should rightly have obeyed without challenge. Some of us have exposed wrongful government practices and deceptions, expecting to hold Congress and White House leaders accountable to voters. Foolish us!

Last week Congress set the record straight. Breaking campaign promises to defeat the Patriot Act, Congress blocked hearings and debate on amendments that would fix problems in surveillance rules, and rammed a four year extension on the American People. Only 31 Republicans and 122 Democrats voted against the Patriot Act in the House.

IMPORTING GESTAPO LAW

It’s no exaggeration, unfortunately, that the Patriot Act is more dangerous to our way of life than any foreign enemy.

Most ominously, entire sections of the Patriot Act are verbatim and identical to two of the most frightening laws in World History:

• The 1929 Bolshevik Communist Criminal Act established Communist control in the age of Joseph Stalin.

It created a security apparatchik unparalleled in its intrusion into the lives of ordinary, non-political families. For enforcement, it created the Gulags, which quickly filled with intellectuals and dissidents, poets and hard luck Russian people who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was enough for a neighbor to point a finger secretly for that individual to disappear to the Siberian work camps for life. Secret charges, secret evidence, secret accusations figured prominently— identical to the Patriot Act.

• It’s a toss up if that’s worse than its commonality with Germany’s Enabling Act in 1933. Such comforting words, “the Enabling Act” established the legal framework for Nazi Fascism. The Enabling Law lay the parameters for the Third Reich of Adolph Hitler.

According to history buff, Alan Batterman, the German word for “Gestapo” is an acronym of GEheim STAdt POlezi.

Translation: “Homeland Security.”

Unhappily, for free thinking Americans, Batterman’s analysis is correct. Paragraph for paragraph, clause for clause, laws establishing fascist control over the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany are replicated in the Patriot Act today.

Like the iron fist of the Nazis and Communists, Americans must submit to “roving surveillance” and warrantless searches, without the requirement of a Judge’s authorization. Surveillance laws are part of a larger arsenal of weapons against political dissidents and whistle blowers.

Most Americans don’t know the Patriot Act authorizes secret charges relying on secret evidence and secret grand jury statements. Under the Patriot Act, Americans have no right to know who has accused them of what criminal activities, or the dates of the alleged offense.

They’re not even told what law was broken. The government has power to lock up Americans on military bases or other prisons without a hearing or trial. We can be detained indefinitely without any rights of due process at all.

Perhaps it’s fitting, therefore, that Nazi Leader, Herman Goering, should explain the New America to us, as we tread into this new age so dangerous to freedom:

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy enough. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Powerful words of warning, indeed.

Think it won’t come to that? It won’t happen? It already has.

That’s what they did to me—not because I plotted some terrorist conspiracy, but because I opposed the Iraqi War. And my knowledge of the truth posed a grave threat to their lies– about Iraq, 9/11, anti-terrorism overall.

Congress made up a story about the boogey man. And Congress likes that story. They think it gets them votes. (Perhaps they’re right.)

Legalizing Government Deception

Come to discover the Patriot Act has proven most valuable for legalizing government deceptions. When the government desires to hide from the people, the Patriot Act provides a framework for arresting those who know too much of the truth, and might expose government fraud and corruption. Leaders are thus protected from the consequences of their decision-making.

That’s what motivated the attack against me. In January, 2003, I took two actions that would perplex the Courts for five years, through two Presidential elections. First, in a warm hearted letter, I warned White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, my second cousin, that War in Iraq would result in a catastrophic Occupation.

Secondly, a week before his big speech at the United Nations, I told Secretary of State Colin Powell that, as the Asset who handled preliminary talks on resuming the weapons inspections with senior Iraqi diplomats, I considered it most unlikely that Iraq possessed WMDs.

Worst of all, I told Secretary Powell that a comprehensive peace framework with Iraq, hammered out by the CIA, could accomplish all U.S. objectives, including democratic reforms, without sacrificing the life of a single American soldier or Iraqi child.

That was enough to make me Public Enemy Number One.

Think about it. What if the American people had learned that every goal could have been achieved in Iraq without sacrifice? A lot of White House officials and members of Congress (in both parties) would be out of a job.

Ah, now you see, those are the Americans who count under the Patriot Act! The law exists to protect the access of the elite. My arrest coincided with a White House decision to blame the unpopular war on “incompetent” Intelligence Assets. Congress liked that story.

They liked it very much. It kept them employed. And so I got arrested, accused of “incompetence” myself, and thrown in prison for a year, while the Justice Department argued for the right to detain me indefinitely.

Mercifully, Judge Michael Mukasey refused. But for one horrified Judge I would still be locked in prison on Carswell Air Force Base.

During the five years of my indictment, Congress complained bitterly that Assets like myself had not come forward to correct mistakes in the assumptions of their war planning. Both Party leaderships scorned the Intelligence Community.

They actively deceived Americans and the International Community. But so long as I was tied up on the Patriot Act, they were free to invent any story they wanted. That’s exactly what they did.

Enemies of Freedom

The enemies of freedom won this round. They beat us.. But Americans must understand that we cannot give up this fight to stop the Patriot Act. It cannot be over.

Yes, it’s Nazi Germany in the 1930s. They’re getting everything in place — They’re testing the waters with a few scattered arrests of activists and troublesome truth tellers here and there. Nobody has really protested, right? So far so good. It’s all in the open for anybody paying attention, but if you complain, they say you’re paranoid.

The fight is on! Congress might hope this is over, and we’ll “get over it.” But the threat to our freedom is so extreme that we must now wake out of our drifting slumber, or we will stay comatose through the end of the American Century. T

These Tea Partiers promised to defend freedom. They championed the Constitution when it was politically convenient, and abandoned the Constitution when they no longer needed public support to get elected.

Enough of us are vigilant that we can stop them— even now.

Really, this is a fight that we cannot lose. What Congress has forgot, we must remember. No great civilization is destroyed by external forces, until it first destroys itself.

Susan is a former Asset Covering Iraq and Libya, and the second non-Arab American Indicted on the Patriot Act.

Mystery helicopter claim over Dr David Kelly death

Details released under the Freedom of Information Act reportedly disclose that the aircraft stayed on the ground for five minutes before leaving.

According to its flight log, the helicopter - said to have been hired by Thames Valley Police - landed at Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire at 10.55am on July 18 2003, 90 minutes after Dr Kelly's body was found by search teams.

The purpose of the flight and who was on board have not been established because details of the flight log have been heavily redacted, the Daily Mail reported.

Dr Andrew Watt, who has raised doubts about the circumstances around Dr Kelly's death, told the paper: "If the purpose of the helicopter flight was innocent, one has to ask why it was kept secret."

Today Thames Valley Police declined to comment on whether the force had hired the aircraft or the reasons behind doing so and why the flight log had apparently been redacted.

Full story...

Louise Holmes' Testimony Shows Kelly's Body Not Found At Harrowdown Hill

Hearing

6
1 LORD HUTTON: Very well. Thank you very much indeed,
2 Dr Warner.
3 MR KNOX: My Lord, the next witness is Ms Holmes, please.
4 LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you.
5 MS LOUISE HOLMES (called)
6 Examined by MR KNOX
7 Q. Ms Holmes, could you tell the Inquiry your full name?
8 A. It is Louise Holmes.
9 Q. And your occupation?
10 A. I am a hearing dog trainer.
11 Q. Sorry?
12 A. I am a hearing dog trainer.
13 Q. For how long have you done that?
14 A. The past two years.
15 Q. And who are you employed by to do that job?
16 A. I am employed by the charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf
17 People.
18 Q. How much experience do you have of foot searches for
19 missing persons?
20 A. I have been a member of my local search and rescue team
21 for nearly two years now.
22 Q. On Friday 18th July did you go to Abingdon police
23 station?
24 A. I did, yes.
25 Q. At what sort of time did you go?

7
1 A. I arrived there around quarter past/half past 7.
2 Q. When you got there, what were you told?
3 A. I was given a briefing, the name of the person that we
4 were looking for, a description of what he was wearing
5 when he was last seen and I was given an area to go and
6 search.
7 Q. And who gave you this briefing?
8 A. It was done by a police officer and SEBEVs Control
9 manager, Neil Knight.
10 Q. Were you given a photograph of the person you were
11 looking for?
12 A. Yes, we were given a photograph and an A4 piece of paper
13 with the name and a description of the missing person on
14 it.
15 Q. Were you told anything about the person you were looking
16 for, in particular?
17 A. Nothing other than what we were told. We were not given
18 any other details. It was made -- it was mentioned it
19 would probably become clearer during the day that it was
20 somebody who was fairly important, but other than that
21 we were not -- I had no idea of who he was.
22 Q. And you were given the name, Dr Kelly; is that right?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And were you in fact aware of Dr Kelly, who he was,
25 before this or had you read about it in the press?

8
1 A. Not until after the search when somebody said: who is
2 this guy? And then I went: oh yes.
3 Q. Who was assisting you when you went on this search?
4 A. I had Paul Chapman with me and then my search dog,
5 because I was out searching with my dog.
6 Q. Your search dog was called Brock, I understand?
7 A. Brock, yes.
8 Q. What sort of a dog was he?
9 A. He is a border collie crossed with an Australian
10 shepherd.
11 Q. You were at the police station initially, then where do
12 you drive to?
13 A. We drove to the start of our search area, which was at
14 the bottom of Common Lane in Longworth.
15 Q. That is where you had been told to go by the police
16 initially?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You parked and got out of the car?
19 A. We parked the car at the bottom of the search area and
20 then started our search from where we had parked.
21 Q. About what time did you arrive at the search area?
22 A. It was about 8 o'clock.
23 Q. And what type of search was it that you were going to
24 do? Could you describe the method you were going to
25 have to adopt for this search?

9
1 A. Well, I was working with the search dog, so it was
2 a search with the dog and we did it purely as an air
3 scent exercise, so the dog is trained to pick up on
4 particles of human scent and then follow them to their
5 source.
6 Q. Who was on this search?
7 A. Me, the dog and Paul.
8 Q. No-one else had joined you?
9 A. No.
10 Q. And where did you initially go, after you got out of the
11 car? Can you remember?
12 A. We walked up the track that runs north, I am told, on my
13 map of Common Lane up towards the River Thames.
14 Q. Can you describe, generally, how the search went
15 initially? Where did you go?
16 A. We were given the track to search north up to the
17 River Thames as our boundary and the area of wood to the
18 left of the track. So we did the bottom half of the
19 track, the south boundary of the woods before we were
20 forced to turn back because of a bashed wire fence. So
21 we then searched through the bottom half of the woods
22 which the fence ran all the way through. We then came
23 back out on to the track, continued up the track to
24 the -- to where our boundary was, came back down the
25 track and did the north perimeter of the wood, and then

10
1 went into the wood from the north.
2 Q. Did you at any point go along the River Thames?
3 A. We went up to where we -- where our boundary of our
4 search area was on the Thames and spoke to some people
5 there who were just moored on a boat on the Thames.
6 Q. What did you say to them?
7 A. Well, Brock had found them because he obviously is just
8 trained to pick up on human scent, so he went off and
9 indicated on them and so I had a game with him as
10 a reward. They just said: what are you doing? We said
11 we were assisting the police in the search for a missing
12 male person and if they saw anything to contact the
13 police.
14 Q. Did they say they already had seen anything?
15 A. They said they had seen the helicopter up the previous
16 night but they had not seen anybody or anything other
17 than that.
18 Q. Did you eventually manage to get into the wooded area?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Can you remember roughly what point that was? Was that
21 from the north or the south?
22 A. We did the north boundary of the wood. The wind was
23 blowing south to north and Brock was scenting in towards
24 the woods. So we came around and came in from the east
25 side of the wood.

11
1 Q. Then are you still with Mr Chapman at that point?
2 A. Yes, Paul was with me.
3 Q. What happened once you got into the wood?
4 A. We went into the woods a little way and Brock started to
5 pick up -- he gets quite excited when he gets on to
6 something. And he went off at a quicker pace so
7 I quickened to try to keep up with him, and I just
8 carried on following him and letting him work the area
9 and followed on until he went so that he was nearly
10 almost completely out of my vision, but I could see his
11 tail wagging and he went into the bottom of a tree and
12 then came running back at me barking to indicate that he
13 had found something.
14 Q. How far into the wood, roughly, was this from the point
15 that you had actually mentioned to get in, a mile or
16 less than that?
17 A. No, probably only about 200 metres.
18 Q. Before Brock had found this person, had you noticed
19 anything unusual in the woods? Was there anything in
20 particular you had spotted?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Had Brock identified anything before that?
23 A. Nothing, no.
24 Q. When Brock comes running back towards you, what do you
25 then do?

12
1 A. He is trained that when he comes back when he has found
2 something he will come back and bark at me, and then
3 I just say: show me. He is trained he will turn round
4 and go back and lead me straight back into what it is
5 that he has found. But he came back and he was barking,
6 so I just said: good boy, where is it? He just sort of
7 laid down and looked at me, at which point I thought: oh
8 okay, he has found something but there is something
9 obviously not quite the same as a normal search or
10 a normal training exercise. So I just went from the
11 direction of which he had come until I got first visual
12 on the body.
13 Q. So in other words you walked ahead in that case?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Presumably Brock followed along afterwards?
16 A. He did not actually, he stayed sitting where he was.
17 Q. What did you see?
18 A. I could see a body slumped against the bottom of a tree,
19 so I turned around and shouted to Paul to ring Control
20 and tell them that we had found something and then went
21 closer to just see whether there was any first aid that
22 I needed to administer.
23 Q. And how close up to the body did you go?
24 A. Within sort of a few feet of the body.
25 Q. And did you notice anything about the position of the

13
1 body?
2 A. He was at the base of the tree with almost his head and
3 his shoulders just slumped back against the tree.
4 Q. And what about his legs and arms? Where were they?
5 A. His legs were straight in front of him. His right arm
6 was to the side of him. His left arm had a lot of blood
7 on it and was bent back in a funny position.
8 Q. Did you see any blood anywhere else?
9 A. Just on the left arm and the left side.
10 Q. Could you tell whether or not this was the person you
11 had been asked to look for?
12 A. Yes, the person matched the description that we had been
13 given.
14 Q. And could you tell whether he was alive or dead?
15 A. As far as I -- I was happy in my own mind that he was
16 dead and that there was nothing that I could do to help
17 him.
18 Q. What about Mr Chapman, he was obviously with you at this
19 point, I take it?
20 A. He was further back than I was.
21 Q. He was further back when you first saw the body?
22 A. Yes, and he stayed there to ring Control while I went to
23 check whether there was ...
24 Q. How long did you spend looking at the body before you
25 went back?

14
1 A. Probably only a couple of minutes, if even that. Just
2 enough to check for any signs of life, make myself happy
3 that there was none and that there was nothing I could
4 do; and then I went to go and reward my dog for his
5 find.
6 Q. I take it you did not actually go up to the body itself
7 and feel the pulse?
8 A. I did not touch it, no.
9 Q. And when you went back to Mr Chapman, which path did you
10 take?
11 A. I walked as best as I could back out the path I walked
12 in.
13 Q. I take it from that there was a specific path you had
14 walked in; was it actually a track?
15 A. No, there were no tracks in the wooded area we were
16 searching, no definite tracks anyway.
17 Q. Were there any tracks, as it were, around the wooded
18 area you were able to see, where the body was, or had
19 the person obviously walked in through the woods?
20 A. Not that I remember seeing, but ...
21 Q. When you got back to Mr Chapman, what happened next?
22 A. Paul had tried to ring Control but had been unable to
23 get to them on the number we had for Control so we
24 decided to ring through to ask to speak to Abingdon off
25 a 999 call. So Paul rang the 999 and said we had some

15
1 information relating to that search, and somebody from
2 Abingdon rang us back and we arranged to walk back to
3 the car to meet the police officer to take them and show
4 them where the body was.
5 Q. When you say someone from Abingdon, would that be
6 Abingdon hospital?
7 A. Abingdon police station.
8 Q. And what did you then do?
9 A. We walked back towards the car. On the way to the car
10 we met three police officers and Paul took them back to
11 show them where the body was, and I went back to the
12 car.
13 Q. Did you meet the police officers in the woods or after
14 you got out of the woods?
15 A. No, on the track, just between the woods and the car.
16 Q. What did you tell the police officers?
17 A. They identified to us who they were. We said who we
18 were and we were involved in the search and we had found
19 the body, and they went with Paul to see.
20 Q. So in other words, Paul Chapman goes back with the
21 police to show them where the body is?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. What did you do?
24 A. I went back to the car to sort the dog out and then when
25 I got to the car further police officers and personnel

16
1 came up to the car to take over, take over the scene.
2 Q. Did you then go back to the scene at all?
3 A. No.
4 Q. So you presumably drove back?
5 A. Yes, I was around about my car and car area for a while;
6 and then I was taken back to Abingdon police station to
7 give a statement.
8 Q. Did you have to wear any special clothes or special
9 shoes or anything?
10 A. I just wore my normal walking shoes, trousers.
11 Q. Did you hand in any of your clothes or shoes?
12 A. A print was taken of my shoes but they did not retain my
13 shoes, they just took a copy of the soles.
14 Q. The print was taken by the police, I take it?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Is there anything else you would like to tell this
17 Inquiry about the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death or
18 indeed the circumstances in which you found his body?
19 A. No, I do not think so.
20 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Holmes. Thank
21 you.
22 Mr Dingemans, I understand that Mr Chapman is going
23 to give evidence. Would he like to give evidence from
24 where he is sitting?
25 MR DINGEMANS: I think Mr Chapman wants to go into the

17
1 witness box, my Lord, but he has broken his leg so it
2 will take a bit of time to get there.
3 LORD HUTTON: Very well, I will just rise.
4 (11.00 am)
13 A. Initial search was we progressed north up the path,
14 Brock ahead of us searching and us searching, checking
15 the ditches either side and the pathway, until we
16 reached the southern perimeter of Harrowdown Hill wood.
17 We then entered the field by the wood, did a search of
18 the southern perimeter of the wood until we reached
19 a barrier, the barbed wire fence halfway round the other
20 side.
21 Q. Did you climb over the fence?
22 A. No, we decided not to. We decided to retrace our steps
23 round the wood back to the main path so we knew on the
24 map where we were and what areas we had covered.
25 Q. While you were searching up to the barrier, had you seen

21
1 anyone at this stage?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Or heard anything?
4 A. No, nothing at all.
5 Q. You hit the barrier then retrace your steps.
6 A. We retraced our steps and entered the southern side of
7 the wood and had a look through the inside of the wood,
8 where it was slightly more open.
9 Q. Could you see anything?
10 A. Could not see anything. There was the barbed wire fence
11 running the whole way through the woods, so that formed
12 our natural barrier within the wood.
13 Q. How large was the wood?
14 A. 50 to 100 metres across, roughly.
15 Q. Did you walk into the wood?
16 A. We did, yes.
17 Q. Up to the barbed wire in the wood?
18 A. Up to the barbed wire, yes.
19 Q. Where was the dog at this stage?
20 A. The dog was ranging from 5, 10, 15 metres ahead of us,
21 running in and out of the bushes and the areas. We were
22 just following that. There were no paths or anything so
23 we were having to climb across trees and go round all
24 the bushes and things.
25 Q. Did you come across anything?

22
1 A. Nothing in the southern area, no.
2 Q. Having searched the southern area of the wood, what did
3 you do then?
4 A. We returned to the main path, consulted with each other,
5 looked at the map and decided we would do the rest of
6 the pathway down to the river and get that eliminated,
7 and then come back and do the rest of the wood.
8 Q. Did you do the rest of the pathway down to the river?
9 A. Yes, we walked all the way down the pathway, which came
10 out to a gate just by the River Thames.
11 Q. Did you see anyone on that search?
12 A. Not until we reached the river and we met the people on
13 the boat.
14 Q. How many people were on the boat?
15 A. Either three or four, I cannot remember.
16 Q. Did you speak to them?
17 A. Yes, we did.
18 Q. What did you say to them?
19 A. They enquired what we were doing. We explained a search
20 team assisting the police, looking for a missing person,
21 and gave them a rough description of his age and said if
22 they saw anything could they contact the police.
23 Q. Had they seen anything?
24 A. They had heard the helicopter and seen some police
25 officers at some point previously.

23
1 Q. Right. What, police officers on an earlier part of the
2 search?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. But they had not seen Dr Kelly at all?
5 A. No.
6 Q. After you had gone down to the river, spoken to them,
7 where do you go next?
8 A. We retraced our steps back up the pathway until we
9 reached the wood, came off the pathway and did the
10 northern perimeter of the wood until we came to the
11 other side of the barbed wire fence.
12 Q. You went back into the wood itself?
13 A. Initially no, we did the outside of the wood.
14 Q. Looking into the wood?
15 A. Looking into the wood. But it was quite dense
16 undergrowth so a lot of places you could not actually
17 get in through the perimeter there, but we were checking
18 the wood.
19 Q. When you could get through a gap did you get into the
20 wood itself?
21 A. We did not enter the wood there until we returned back
22 to the main path.
23 Q. Where was the dog at this stage?
24 A. The dog was running around, like I say, just ahead of
25 us. We were keeping back so we do not affect its scent

24
1 and smell.
2 Q. How long did it take to do the northern part of the
3 wood?
4 A. A guess, about 10 or 15 minutes.
5 Q. Did anything happen while you were doing the northern
6 part of the wood?
7 A. Nothing. Did not find anything. There were no
8 indications from the dog either.
9 Q. Where do you go after that?
10 A. Once we reached the barbed wire fence we retraced our
11 steps to the main path, again walking down the side of
12 the wood where it is much more open. We then entered
13 the wood after another 10 or 15 metres, and walked into
14 the wood from there.
15 Q. What part of the wood are you now looking at?
16 A. We are in the northern sector of the wood.
17 Q. Right. And does anything happen here?
18 A. After about five minutes the dog indicates a find and
19 Louise --
20 Q. Where were you? Were you on the outside of the wood?
21 A. I was in the wood about five metres behind Louise.
22 Q. What happened to the dog?
23 A. The dog was ahead, I could hardly see the dog at that
24 point. I was just following up the hill and Louise then
25 said -- indicated -- said he had found something and she

25
1 went forward to investigate, whereas I waited there.
2 Q. So you did not move at this stage?
3 A. No, I waited there, as we are trained to do in case it
4 is a scenes of crime or anything, so we do not
5 contaminate it.
6 Q. To avoid trampling down?
7 A. Yes, in case there is evidence or anything like that.
8 Q. Louise went up and looked. She came back?
9 A. She came back towards me.
10 Q. What did she say?
11 A. Yes, she told me we had found the missing person and at
12 that point I tried to contact our Control to let them
13 know.
14 Q. Did you get through to Control?
15 A. We did not on the mobiles, no, because the mobiles were
16 all to answerphone.
17 Q. So how did you contact anyone?
18 A. I then rang 999 and asked to be put through to Abingdon
19 police station. They could not transfer me so I asked
20 them to get someone at Abingdon police station to call
21 me urgently.
22 Q. On your mobile?
23 A. On my mobile, yes.
24 Q. Did they call back?
25 A. They called back within a couple of minutes, yes.

26
1 Q. Do you remember who you spoke to?
2 A. I do not. He just said it was a sergeant at Abingdon
3 police station.
4 Q. What did you report to him?
5 A. I reported who I was, a member of the search team, and
6 we had found the missing person, could they please then
7 speak to the search manager and the search police
8 officers there and get them to give me a ring.
9 Q. Did they?
10 A. Yes, they did. They called me back straight after that.
11 Q. What arrangements did you make?
12 A. At that point we were walking back down the path towards
13 the car and they said: keep going there and we will send
14 some police officers out to meet you there, back at your
15 car, Louise's car.
16 Q. Were you standing still in the wood all this time?
17 A. Initially, yes, but then we began walking out of the
18 wood back to the path because we realised that we would
19 have to go and meet the officers, and it was about
20 a 10 minute walk back to the car down the path so we
21 thought it is easiest to get going.
22 Q. Did you see what Brock the dog had found?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And what was that?
25 A. The body of a gentleman sitting up against a tree.

27
1 Q. And can you recall what he was wearing?
2 A. All I could see from the distance I got was he was
3 wearing a dark jacket and light coloured shirt.
4 Q. And how close did you get to the body?
5 A. I probably reached about 15 to 20 metres from it.
6 Q. Could you see anything at all?
7 A. He was sitting with his back up against a tree and there
8 was an obvious injury to his left arm.
9 Q. An obvious injury to his left arm. What was that
10 injury?
11 A. In as far as it was all covered in blood.
12 Q. Right. After you had seen that, where did you go next?
13 A. We retraced our steps back down to the main path and
14 then walked back south along the path to where the car
15 was parked.
16 Q. Did the police attend?
17 A. Yes, they did.
18 Q. And did you help them when they had arrived?
19 A. Yes. As we were going down the path we met three police
20 officers coming the other way that were from CID. We
21 identified ourselves to them. They were not actually
22 aware that (a) the body had been found or we were out
23 searching this area. They I think had just come out on
24 their own initiative to look at the area. I informed
25 them we had found the body and they asked me to take

28
1 them back to indicate where it was.
2 Q. So these were not the people you had arranged to meet,
3 as it were?
4 A. No, because this was only 2 or 3 minutes after I had
5 made the phone call.
6 Q. How did you know they were police officers?
7 A. Because they showed me their Thames Valley Police
8 identification.
9 Q. Do you recall their names?
10 A. Only one of them was DC Coe.
11 Q. Did you show them the body?
12 A. Yes. We walked back up the hill with the three of them
13 and then they decided as they got a bit closer to the
14 edge of the wood that I needed only to take one of the
15 officers in, so I took DC Coe in to show him where the
16 body was.
17 Q. What were you wearing at the time?
18 A. I was wearing my standard search kit, walking boots,
19 outdoor trousers, our uniform polo shirts.
20 Q. Did you need to give anything to the police?
21 A. All they did was take a copy of the soles of my boots.
22 Q. Right. After that, what happened?
23 A. Once we had shown them where the body was, we returned
24 to the car. More police officers had arrived there. We
25 waited around a while until we were released from the

29
1 scene, where we went back with one of the police
2 officers to Abingdon police station where we made our
3 statements.
4 Q. You made your statement and then go off to work?
5 A. It was mid afternoon by the time we had finished there.
6 I actually had a day off as I was going away to cub camp
7 for the weekend.
8 Q. Do you know of anything else surrounding the
9 circumstances of Dr Kelly's death that you can assist
10 his Lordship with?
11 A. No, I do not.
12 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Chapman. Just
13 take your time, please, to leave and do not rush at all.
14 Thank you very much.
15 POLICE CONSTABLE DEAN ANDREW FRANKLIN (called)
16 Examined by MR DINGEMANS
17 Q. Could you tell his Lordship your full name?
18 A. My name is Dean Andrew Franklin.
19 Q. And your occupation?
20 A. I am a police constable with the police support team,
21 Thames Valley Police.
22 Q. Where are you based?
23 A. We are based at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park.
24 Q. Were you on duty on 18th July?
25 A. I was called on duty from my home address.

30
1 Q. What time did you get a call?
2 A. 06.15 hours.
3 Q. And do you live near Windsor then?
4 A. I live in Windsor.
5 Q. Where were you called to?
6 A. To Abingdon police station.
7 Q. How long did it take to get there?
8 A. Just over an hour.
9 Q. When you arrived, who else was there?
10 A. I met with my sergeant, Paul Woods, who took us into
11 a briefing; and there was several other officers there.
12 Q. How many officers were there?
13 A. I could not tell you exactly.
14 Q. But roughly?
15 A. 8 to 10.
16 Q. You were given a briefing by your sergeant?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. What was the nature of the briefing?
19 A. The nature of the briefing was initially a missing
20 person search, to look for Dr David Kelly.
21 Q. You were given some details of Dr Kelly?
22 A. Yes, we were given a photograph with his details on it,
23 what he was supposed to be wearing, and then
24 Sergeant Woods and I discussed the search parameters and
25 whereabouts we would start the search.

31
1 Q. And what was the nature of that discussion?
2 A. With all missing person inquiries we look, initially, to
3 beauty spots, areas that are frequented by the missing
4 person, and that is where we would start our search.
5 Q. Had you got any information about what areas he
6 frequented then?
7 A. I was passed that information by Sergeant Woods.
8 Q. What were you told by Sergeant Woods?
9 A. The search would begin at Harrowdown Hill, which was
10 apparently an area frequented by Dr Kelly on his regular
11 walking route.
12 Q. And having had this discussion with Sergeant Woods,
13 where do you go then?
14 A. We were actually at the police station. I was just
15 deploying my team --
16 Q. How many are in your team?
17 A. I was given a search team leader, which is PC Sawyer,
18 and 6 other officers, when we received a call that
19 a body had been found at Harrowdown Hill.
20 Q. Do you know how many other people were out searching at
21 this time?
22 A. I believe it was only the two volunteers out searching
23 at that time. The parameters for our search and the
24 logistics of calling our teams in does take a bit of
25 time. So PC Sawyer and I were going to be the first

32
1 team out on the ground.
2 Q. We have heard evidence about a helicopter out searching
3 the night before. Had you heard about that?
4 A. No.
5 Q. After you get that information, where did you go?
6 A. PC Sawyer and I attended Harrowdown Hill and went to the
7 scene. We were unsure initially whereabouts we were
8 going, but we passed Paul from the South East Berks
9 Volunteers and he directed us to two uniformed police
10 officers and DC Coe.
11 Q. The South East Berks Volunteers, what are they?
12 A. They are SEBEVs. South East Berks Volunteers. They are
13 an organisation we use regularly for missing person
14 searches.
15 Q. To help?
16 A. To help us. They are a highly professional and
17 motivated organisation.
18 Q. You mentioned DC Coe. Was he part of your search team?
19 A. No.
20 Q. What he was he doing?
21 A. He was at the scene. I had no idea what he was doing
22 there or why he was there. He was just at the scene
23 when PC Sawyer and I arrived.
24 Q. Who was in charge of the scene at this time?
25 A. DC Coe was until I turned up and then I took charge of

33
1 the scene.
2 Q. Did you get taken into the wood?
3 A. DC Coe took us into the woods, PC Sawyer and myself, to
4 the area where the body was.
5 Q. And what did you see there?
6 A. We walked between 50 and 70 metres into the wood up
7 a slight gradient, and in a clearing at the base of
8 a tree was the body of a white male.
9 Q. Do you recall what was being worn?
10 A. I believe he had a blue jacket on, a white coloured
11 shirt and blue denim jeans.
12 Q. And what was his position?
13 A. He was lying on his back with his right hand to his side
14 and his left hand was sort of inverted with the palm
15 facing down (Indicates), facing up on his back.
16 Q. Did you see any signs of injury on the body?
17 A. There was a fair amount of blood to the left wrist area
18 and on the left hand, and a fair amount of blood sort of
19 puddled around.
20 Q. On the ground?
21 A. On the ground, yes.
22 Q. Did you see whether or not there was a watch or anything
23 on the body?
24 A. If I may refer to my notes?
25 Q. Yes, of course.

34
1 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
2 A. The wrist watch was lying away from the body, next to
3 a knife. The wrist watch was just to the left of the
4 left arm, with the knife next to it, and also there was
5 an open bottle of water at the scene.
6 Q. An open bottle of water?
7 A. Yes, the wrist watch was off the wrist.
8 Q. What, mineral water?
9 A. A bottle of, yes, mineral water, a plastic bottle.
10 Q. How large was that bottle, a big bottle or a small one?
11 A. A small one.
12 Q. And what did the knife look like?
13 A. The blade was open. It was some sort of lock knife. I
14 cannot be that precise. I believe it had a curved --
15 slight curve to the blade. The blade was maybe 3 to
16 4 inches long.
17 Q. Was there anything on the blade?
18 A. Blood.
19 Q. Was there anything else beside the bottle of water, the
20 blade and the wrist watch?
21 A. No.
22 Q. And did you form any opinion about whether or not there
23 was a sign of life?
24 A. We had two paramedics who were following closely behind
25 us, but my initial thought was the body we had found was

35
1 that of a dead man.
2 Q. Did you recognise the body?
3 A. I believed it was Dr David Kelly.
4 Q. From the descriptions?
5 A. From the descriptions and the photograph we had.
6 Q. Having located the body, what did you do as a result of
7 that?
8 A. The paramedics came to the scene to pronounce life
9 extinct, which they did.
10 Q. Did you see them do that?
11 A. Yes, we did.
12 Q. When you first saw the body, were there any pads on the
13 chest?
14 A. No, the shirt was done up when we got there. My
15 colleague -- if I may explain. We take photographs of
16 these sort of scenes all the time as a matter of course
17 because we knew the paramedics would be disturbing the
18 clothing and possibly disturbing the scene.
19 Q. You took the photographs?
20 A. PC Sawyer.
21 Q. Before the body was disturbed?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. That showed the shirt buttoned up?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Copies of those photographs have been supplied to the

36
1 Inquiry?
2 A. I believe PC Sawyer supplied them, yes.
3 Q. For fairly obvious reasons those are not being
4 published.
5 A. Absolutely, yes.
6 Q. They show the shirt buttoned up, do they?
7 A. The shirt was buttoned up. I believe PC Sawyer took
8 photographs during and after the procedure the
9 paramedics go through.
10 Q. What did you see the paramedics do?
11 A. The shirt was unbuttoned, they placed four sticky pads,
12 I believe it is four, on to the body, the chest, and
13 attached it to a medical machine -- sorry, I have no
14 idea what it is. And they pronounced life extinct at
15 10.07 hours that morning.
16 LORD HUTTON: May I just ask you: how long were you at the
17 scene before the paramedics arrived?
18 A. Less than two minutes.
19 LORD HUTTON: Less than two minutes. I see. Thank you.
20 MR DINGEMANS: After the paramedics have declared formally
21 life extinct, where did they go?
22 A. We all left the scene. We left the wooded area to
23 a natural break in the woods, a path which is where
24 PC Sawyer and I went. I believe the two paramedics left
25 the scene all together. I am not 100 per cent sure of

37
1 at because PC Sawyer and I went back in.
2 Q. You went back in?
3 A. To establish what we call a common approach path and to
4 mark it off where the area we had walked in.
5 Q. What is a common approach path?
6 A. A common approach path would be, in this instance, a
7 taped area. We taped it off either side so any person
8 visiting the scene, the only place they would walk would
9 be up the common approach path.
10 Q. Why do you do that?
11 A. Sterility of the scene and to preserve any evidence that
12 may be either side.
13 Q. And having set out this common approach path, what did
14 you do?
15 A. The common approach path was established and we then
16 taped off the area around the body, again for the same
17 reasons. We then left the scene and went back down to
18 collect our vehicle -- we had walked about three
19 quarters of a mile up to the scene -- to take our
20 vehicle back up to await senior CID officers and scenes
21 of crime.
22 Q. So you drive your vehicle back up?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And do you see what happens when the senior officers
25 arrive?

38
1 A. We were asked by the senior scenes of crime officer to
2 search the common approach path; PC Sawyer and myself
3 were.
4 Q. What does that involve?
5 A. A full search would involve hands and knees going
6 through every piece of undergrowth and twig. I stated
7 at the time that perhaps that was not prudent because
8 there were only two of us, so we did a check rather than
9 a full search of a common approach path. This would be
10 for any obvious dropped articles.
11 Q. And was the other area searched?
12 A. Which area, sir?
13 Q. Which is not on the common approach path.
14 A. Not initially. You mean either side of the common
15 approach path?
16 Q. Yes.
17 A. No.
18 Q. Do you know if that was ever searched?
19 A. It was searched. At 12.50 hours the same day I had
20 a request from DCI Young to fingertip search the common
21 approach path and either side. I decided as a police
22 search adviser to do 10 metres either side of the common
23 approach path at that time.
24 Q. So did you do a fingertip search of the common approach
25 path?

39
1 A. At 12.50 hours, yes. Not initially. The initial check
2 was done by PC Sawyer and I.
3 Q. That is the initial check?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Later on you are asked to do a fingertip search?
6 A. Yes. A full search team come in to do that.
7 Q. What do you wear when you do that type of search?
8 A. We were dressed forensically, white paper suits, hoods
9 up, masks, gloves, rubber gloves, and covering for our
10 feet.
11 Q. When you first went into the wood is that what you were
12 wearing?
13 A. No, we were dressed in summer search kit: black polo
14 shirt, black trousers and our work boots.
15 Q. What, your initial search was carried out in the summer
16 dress, was it?
17 A. In the summer search uniform. We had no forensic kit
18 with us at the time.
19 Q. When the forensic kit arrives and you start doing the
20 fingertip search, do you start on the common approach
21 path?
22 A. I actually, as police search adviser, do not do the
23 search; that was run by PC Sawyer.
24 Q. You watched them all doing it for you?
25 A. Some of the time. As police search adviser I have to

40
1 liaise with the senior officers about the policies for
2 the search and what we hope to get out of it, so I was
3 backwards and forwards.
4 Q. What were you hoping to get out of this search?
5 A. We have to speak to the DCI initially and he wanted us
6 to look for -- if again I may refer to my notes --
7 medicine or pill bottles, pills, pill foils or any
8 receptacle or bag that may contain medicines.
9 Q. You are doing a search for that. Are you also looking
10 for anything else?
11 A. Yes. The police search teams I work with would pick up
12 anything that would be dropped by a human or out of the
13 ordinary. Those are the items that were just specified
14 to us, but as a search team we tend to look for anything
15 that should not be there.
16 Q. And having searched the common approach path, either
17 side of the body was searched; is that right?
18 A. The common approach path was about 70 metres long. We
19 searched 10 metres either side. Then we had a request
20 to search 10 metres around the glade, if you like, the
21 opening in the woodland where the body was.
22 Q. Do you know whether anything was located as a result of
23 these fingertip searches?
24 A. Nothing.
25 Q. Do you know whether there were any signs of a struggle

41
1 seen as a result of these fingertip searches?
2 A. No, there was no sign of an obvious struggle.
3 Q. What time did you finish the searches that day?
4 A. The search of the common approach path and the area
5 10 metres around the top of the body was concluded at
6 16.45 hours that day, but then we were given another
7 task by the detective chief inspector.
8 Q. What was that other task?
9 A. The task was once the body had been removed for us to
10 fingertip search the area inside the tape where the body
11 was.
12 Q. Did you do that?
13 A. I changed search teams. PC Sawyer and I remained on
14 site, as police search adviser and team leader, but
15 I changed the search teams over and a new search team
16 came in, again dressed forensically, to do that.
17 Q. They carried out a fingertip search of that area?
18 A. They started at 19.24 hours and finished at 19.45 hours.
19 Q. Did they find anything?
20 A. Nothing.
21 Q. No sign of a struggle?
22 A. No.
23 Q. No other medicine bottles or anything?
24 A. No.
25 Q. And do you recall what was retrieved from the scene?

42
1 A. That would have been retrieved by the scenes of crime
2 officers. The actual scene where the body was was dealt
3 with by them first, hence the reason we had to wait
4 until nearly 7.30 in the evening to search the site.
5 They would have retrieved the knife, the wrist watch and
6 searched the body. That is not down to me and my team.
7 Q. They would have retrieved the knife, the wrist watch,
8 the bottle of water and the bottle of tablets we are
9 going to hear about?
10 A. Yes, I do not know about the bottle of tablets.
11 Q. And is there anything else surrounding the circumstances
12 of Dr Kelly's death that you can assist his Lordship
13 with?
14 A. Not with this initial part, sir, no.
15 LORD HUTTON: Constable Franklin, after you and your
16 colleague had found the body you then went back and
17 other police officers arrived on the scene, is that
18 right?
19 A. Are we talking initially, my Lord?
20 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
21 A. Initially it was just PC Sawyer and myself that went
22 into the scene, but, yes, the whole search team would
23 come up to a rendezvous point and be deployed by me from
24 there.
25 LORD HUTTON: How soon did you return with the search team

43
1 to the scene?
2 A. PC Sawyer and I left the scene and we returned with the
3 vehicle minutes later. The search team did not attend
4 until ...(Pause) About half past 12, I believe sir.
5 The search itself did not start until 1 o'clock in the
6 afternoon.
7 LORD HUTTON: I see, yes. You return with Constable Sawyer
8 just within a matter of minutes.
9 A. Yes.
10 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed.
11 A. My Lord, thank you.
12 LORD HUTTON: Thank you.
13 MR KNOX: My Lord, the next witness is Mr Sawyer.
14 POLICE CONSTABLE MARTYN SAWYER (called)
15 Examined by MR KNOX
16 Q. Mr Sawyer, what is your full name?
17 A. Jonathan Martyn Sawyer.
18 Q. Your occupation?
19 A. I am a police constable with the Thames Valley Police,
20 stationed on the police search team the same as
21 PC Franklin.
22 Q. Which station?
23 A. That would be from the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great
24 Park.
25 Q. What are your qualifications?

44
1 A. I am a qualified EOD searcher, which is explosive
2 ordnance searcher. We have to be licensed by the Home
3 Office and we retrain on a periodic basis. We also
4 train to search major crime scenes, murder scenes and
5 any major event. We search events like Royal Ascot,
6 which we call a defensive search, to make sure there are
7 no explosive devices left. We also do offensive
8 searches or crime scene searches, as the Dr David Kelly
9 search.
10 Q. I understand you are a search team leader?
11 A. I am a search team leader, which means I have done
12 a further course which enables me to actually run
13 a search. Police Constable Franklin, being the police
14 search adviser, will liaise with the senior
15 investigating officer. They will decide on the
16 parameters of the search, what they want searched. It
17 is then turned over to me to organise the logistics of
18 it, to plan the search, do the cordons, to set the
19 searchers going and supervise them while they are
20 searching.
21 Q. You were on duty on the morning of 18th July?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. What happened when you first turned up?
24 A. I was called out, I believe, about 6 o'clock in the
25 morning to attend Abingdon police station for 8, where

45
1 I was informed by PC Franklin we had a high risk missing
2 person. We had a missing person who was identified to
3 me as Dr Kelly.
4 Q. Just pause there for a moment. A high risk missing
5 person, meaning what?
6 A. "High risk" means that there is a possibility that
7 because of the length of time they have been missing
8 there is a possibility that he might have done himself
9 harm.
10 Q. So Police Constable Franklin tells you that. Then what
11 happens?
12 A. Then we are in the briefing that
13 Police Constable Franklin has already described.
14 We are just about to leave to perform our first
15 searches, which would have been in the village and the
16 surrounding areas of the route he was thought to have
17 taken, when information came in that a body had been
18 found. I then left with Police Constable Franklin to
19 attend the scene.
20 Q. Can you remember what time it was that that information
21 came in?
22 A. It would have been about 9 o'clock, I believe.
23 Q. So you then leave with Police Constable Franklin?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And anyone else?

46
1 A. We had three other officers in the back who we took from
2 the search team to act as the cordons, because obviously
3 we do not want members of the public or members of the
4 press approaching the scene until it has been obviously
5 searched and declared sterile.
6 Q. And where did you then go?
7 A. We then went to the track that leads up to
8 Harrowdown Hill, I do not know the name of the track,
9 but when we arrived we saw a vehicle parked which
10 belonged to Louise. We started walking up the track.
11 We also had with us two paramedics who had arrived,
12 which we took up with us to make sure that the person we
13 were going to see did not require any medical
14 assistance.
15 Q. Those two paramedics had obviously arrived separately
16 from you?
17 A. They had arrived more or less at the same time we did.
18 So the five of us went up because we were with
19 Sergeant Alan Dadd as well.
20 Q. Where did you stop the cars?
21 A. Stopped the cars -- I believe it at is the top, I have
22 not seen the map but I believe it is at the top of
23 Common Lane. Then we turned left and right up to the
24 track which leads up to Harrowdown Hill.
25 Q. You go along the track, where do you then go to?

47
1 A. We met Paul from SEBEV walking down the hill.
2 Q. Paul Chapman?
3 A. He told us basically the body was further up in the
4 woods. We continued walking up the hill, where I saw
5 DC Coe and two uniformed officers. I said, you know:
6 whereabouts is the body? He pointed the path he had
7 taken. I asked him if he had approached the body. He
8 said he had. I asked him to point out where he had
9 entered the woods and PC Franklin and myself entered the
10 woods at the same point, taking with us a dozen or 15
11 aluminium poles we use when we are moving towards
12 a scene to establish a common approach path.
13 Q. Were the paramedics with you at the time?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. The other three officers?
16 A. They remained down on the path.
17 Q. So it is you, PC Franklin and two paramedics, then the
18 other three officers you have met; is that right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You go down further into the woods, is that right?
21 A. The three officers -- DC Coe and the two uniformed
22 officers -- stayed on the path which leads through the
23 woods. We branched off to the left about 50 or
24 70 metres up into the woods, where the body was.
25 Q. So it is just the four of you; is that right?

48
1 A. Just the four of us went up there.
2 Q. Did you see anything on the way? Did you notice
3 anything on the way?
4 A. No, no. As we walked through the woods we were leaving
5 our aluminium poles, which have a fluorescent marker on
6 the top, so we could establish the route we had taken
7 into the woods. As we crested the slight rise, I saw
8 the body lying at the base of a tree. I then said to
9 PC Franklin and the paramedics to stop while I got my
10 digital camera because I wanted to take a record of the
11 scene before it was -- before we actually approached it
12 at all. So I took a number of pictures as we approached
13 the body, and of the body and the surrounding area; and
14 then the paramedics asked if they could do their job, to
15 which we said: yes.
16 They tried to -- they used the paddles of the
17 electrocardiogram machine to try to see if there was
18 a sign of life through Dr Kelly's shirt. They were
19 unable to do so and said: could they undo the shirt?
20 I said: yes. I asked them to wait for a second. I took
21 another two more reference pictures. They then undid
22 the shirt, put the electrodes on and got a graph from
23 the machine which showed there were no signs of life.
24 I then -- they disconnected their equipment from the
25 machine, leaving the electrodes in place; I asked them

49
1 to do that. I then took a further reference shot to
2 show the electrodes in place.
3 Q. Before the paramedics approached Dr Kelly's body, can
4 you remember what position it was in?
5 A. Lying on its back with its head at the base of a tree,
6 a large tree. The head was tilted to the left. The
7 right arm was by the side. The left arm was palm down.
8 There was a large amount of blood on the back of the
9 left arm. There was a watch and a curved knife by that
10 wrist.
11 Q. And you say a curved knife. Was it open? Was it a pen
12 knife?
13 A. It was open. I have seen gardening pruning knives which
14 look identical. I would have called it a pruning knife.
15 Q. Did you see a bottle of water?
16 A. I did, by Dr Kelly's head. There was an open bottle of
17 Evian, 500 ml or 300 ml bottle, with the cap by the side
18 of it, by his head.
19 Q. Was it upright?
20 A. It was leaning slightly. It had been propped but it was
21 upright. There was still some water in it.
22 Q. What injuries did you see on the body itself?
23 A. I could not see any actual injuries because the
24 injuries, I believe, were hidden by the wrist being
25 turned down. But there was a large amount of blood

50
1 there, and also from the mouth, the corner of -- the
2 right-hand corner of the mouth to the ear there was
3 a dark stain where I took it that Dr Kelly had vomited
4 and it had run down the side of his face.
5 Q. What about on his face, were there any marks or stains
6 on his clothes?
7 A. His jeans -- he was wearing jeans, they were pulled up
8 slightly, exposing the lower half of his leg or his
9 ankle. It looked as if he had slid down and his
10 trousers had ridden up. I believe on the right-hand
11 knee there was a patch of what I took to be blood, but
12 I do not know what it was, but it had the appearance of
13 blood.
14 Q. Did he still have his jacket on?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Were there any marks on the jacket, as far as you could
17 see?
18 A. No, only the blood from his wrist.
19 Q. Now, after you had taken the photographs and seen the
20 body, did you carry out any further searches?
21 A. Yes. On the way back -- once we had finished with the
22 body, once the paramedics had finished, we went back
23 down the common approach path to the path where DC Coe
24 and the two uniformed officers were. We then walked,
25 leaving them there to guard the scene so nobody else

51
1 could approach it, we then walked back to the truck, our
2 Land Rover, and drove that up where we got some more
3 metal poles. We extended the common approach path from
4 one pole to two poles to about a 2 foot 6 gap, so people
5 could walk up and down. We then had a quick look on
6 that path, a search, just to check there were no major
7 items there. And then we waited for the senior
8 investigating officer to arrive and liaise with
9 Police Constable Franklin.
10 Q. The senior investigating officer was?
11 A. DCI Young.
12 Q. I think we heard from PC Franklin earlier a further
13 search was then carried out.
14 A. Yes. It was decided a search of the woods 10 metres
15 either side of the body, on the approach up the hill to
16 the body, would be carried out. I was tasked by
17 Police Constable Franklin to organise that. I had
18 a number of searchers at my disposal. Because of my
19 number of searchers I decided to split it into three
20 5 metre wide approaches up to the body.
21 Q. This involves searching what you call the common
22 approach path?
23 A. Yes. The first search would include the common approach
24 path. So my team of -- if I may refer to my notes.
25 Q. Yes.

52
1 A. I had a team of seven searchers initially, so I put
2 those into a 5 metre grid pattern which works up towards
3 the body, and that would include the common approach
4 path. So the first sweep, the first 5 metre search
5 included the fingertip search of the common approach
6 path.
7 Q. And that was carried out at what time?
8 A. That was carried out at -- sorry, we have an awful lot
9 of paperwork when we are doing this job. It was started
10 at 13.08 that first sweep.
11 Q. How many sweeps do you do? You talk about the first
12 sweep.
13 A. Right. My plan shows there were six zones eventually
14 which we searched. The first zone, zone 1, was to the
15 right-hand side of the common approach path to include
16 the common approach path. The second zone was 5 metres
17 beyond that, which took us up to level with the area
18 that we had taped off surrounding the body. Zone 3 was
19 the zone to the left of the common approach path.
20 Zone 4, 5 metres further on from that. Zone 5 was the
21 10 metre radius round the back of the area where the
22 body had been found, which was really dense brambles and
23 overgrown trees. And zone 6 was the area where the body
24 itself had been lying.
25 Q. We do not have a photograph here at the moment but what

53
1 was the nature of the woods around the common approach
2 path and then where the body was found?
3 A. Up the common approach path to where the -- the common
4 approach path was the easiest route in, and either side
5 of that the undergrowth was reasonably light. But as
6 you moved away each side, left and right, the
7 undergrowth became extremely heavy. Zone 5, which went
8 round the back of the scene, was almost impenetrable and
9 the searchers had a really hard job getting through the
10 brambles and the undergrowth to check the ground.
11 Q. Obviously Dr Kelly had managed to get to where he was,
12 but in the searches you did were you able to identify
13 any footprints at all which would have explained how he
14 got there?
15 A. He had moved up through the woods to the last area,
16 where there was clear access. If I was walking into
17 those woods myself I would have walked up as far as he
18 had before deciding it was impossible to go any further,
19 because there were footpaths apparently which led
20 through that but they were so overgrown nobody had been
21 through them for a number of months.
22 Q. In other words, it was possible to walk to where
23 Dr Kelly's body was found without much difficulty?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. If you wanted to go any further you would have to go

54
1 through very dense --
2 A. You would struggle, really struggle, yes.
3 Q. How long was the common approach path?
4 A. Estimate between 50 and 70 metres.
5 Q. When did that search finish, can you recall?
6 A. The final search finished at 19.45. We had to wait
7 until Dr Kelly's body was removed before we could search
8 zone 6, which is where the body had been lying.
9 Q. You were involved in all these searches?
10 A. Yes, I team led the team searches. When you are a team
11 leader and you are assigned to this, you see it all the
12 way through from beginning to end.
13 Q. At the end of the search, did you collect all the suits
14 you had been wearing?
15 A. Yes, I collected all the suits from both search teams.
16 As PC Franklin has said, halfway through or towards the
17 end the search teams were changed through fatigue, and
18 all the teams' suits and all the gloves were collected
19 and produced as an exhibit.
20 Q. They were taken back to the police station?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. On the next day were you on duty as well, Saturday
23 19th July?
24 A. Yes, I was. I returned to duty the following day again
25 to work with PC Franklin as he wanted me to team lead

55
1 a search of Dr Kelly's house.
2 Q. And what did you do once you got there?
3 A. Whenever we search a premise the first thing we do is
4 walk through with the search adviser and we, again, just
5 check the parameters of the search. The search was to
6 include the house, any out-buildings, garages, cars and
7 the grounds, which were extensive in this particular
8 case. The house itself is a very large house.
9 Q. What were the results of the search of the grounds of
10 the house? Was there anything noticed?
11 A. The grounds there was nothing found.
12 Q. And what about in the house itself?
13 A. The house itself there were a number of exhibits. Do
14 you want me to go through them all?
15 Q. I do not think you need you to go through all the
16 exhibits themselves. Was there anything particular,
17 apart from documents and so forth that you found in the
18 house?
19 A. No. Basically there were documents that were taken
20 away. I believe there was a photograph found in his
21 study which has envisaged a little interest, but when
22 I am team leading the search, the officers who find the
23 exhibits will take them straight to the exhibits
24 officer, who books them in to the exhibits. They then
25 tell me so I can log them in my records, but I am not

56
1 looking over their shoulder the whole time although I do
2 travel round and supervise.
3 Q. Can you remember when the search of the premises began
4 on the 19th?
5 A. The search began at 11.05.
6 Q. And when did it finish on that day?
7 A. It finished at 20.50, 10 to 9 that evening. The search
8 of the study was concluded, and that was the last place
9 to be finished.
10 Q. I should have asked you this a moment ago, but while you
11 were searching in the woods did you find anything at all
12 which indicated that any other people had been there?
13 A. No, nothing. Normally when we search wooded areas there
14 is a fair amount of detritus, crisp packets, bottles,
15 cans, cigarette ends. This area itself was remarkable
16 for its complete lack of human interference.
17 Q. I take it you did not find any footprints?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Would that be normal? Obviously Dr Kelly had got in
20 there, but you would not have expected to see his
21 footprints there?
22 A. I would not have expected to find any footprints in that
23 area because of the undergrowth itself. There was not
24 a lot of bare earth for footprints to be recorded on;
25 and when I first saw Dr Kelly I was very aware of the

57
1 serious nature of the search and I was looking for signs
2 of perhaps a struggle; but all the vegetation that was
3 surrounding Dr Kelly's body was standing upright and
4 there were no signs of any form of struggle at all.
5 Q. Is there anything else you would like to say which you
6 think might cast some light on the circumstances --
7 A. I can think of nothing else which will help the Inquiry.
8 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed, Constable.
9 A. My Lord.
10 MR DINGEMANS: Detective Sergeant Webb, please.
11 DETECTIVE SERGEANT GEOFFREY HUGH WEBB (called)
12 Examined by MR DINGEMANS
13 Q. Can you tell his Lordship your full name?
14 A. Yes, my name is Geoffrey Hugh Webb.
15 Q. What is your occupation?
16 A. I am a Detective Sergeant of the Thames Valley Police
17 currently stationed at Didcot.
18 Q. Were you involved in the search for Dr Kelly?
19 A. No, I was not.
20 Q. What was your role in relation to this?
21 A. I was called in to work on that day --
22 Q. That is 18th July?
23 A. That is right -- at 4 am in the morning; and I was
24 tasked, at that time, to go and meet Mrs Kelly and to
25 chat with her and basically to debrief her on the

58
1 circumstances of Dr Kelly's disappearance.
2 Q. Who had called you?
3 A. I was called in by my detective inspector at that time.
4 Q. And what time did you arrive at work?
5 A. Quarter to 5.
6 Q. Quarter to 5. Where was that?
7 A. At Abingdon police station.
8 Q. How long did you stay at Abingdon police station?
9 A. For approximately an hour and a quarter, and then I went
10 to Southmore.
11 Q. What were you doing while you were at Abingdon police
12 station?
13 A. I was briefed on what had gone on previously.
14 Q. Who by?
15 A. By various people, including a uniformed sergeant who
16 had been -- who had spent the night with the
17 Kelly family and who had originally taken the report of
18 Dr Kelly's disappearance.
19 Q. Do you remember who that was?
20 A. His name was Sergeant Simon Morris.
21 Q. He had come back to the police station?
22 A. He returned to Abingdon police station and briefed those
23 present of what had gone on during the night.
24 Q. What had gone on during the night?
25 A. As I understand it, they had done some searching of the

59
1 area, as much as they could possibly do in the dark.
2 Q. Who had done that?
3 A. Uniformed police officers.
4 Q. Do you remember how many?
5 A. I could not say at the moment.
6 Q. Were you told about a helicopter that had been used?
7 A. I understand the helicopter had been used in an attempt
8 to find any sort of zones of heat, I believe they call
9 that.
10 Q. What had been the result of those night-time searches?
11 A. They were all negative.
12 Q. So Sergeant Morris had come back to Abingdon police
13 station. How many officers were in Abingdon police
14 station at this time in the morning?
15 A. Who had been called in?
16 Q. Yes.
17 A. I should imagine about 10 of us.
18 Q. What were you told?
19 A. Basically that Dr Kelly had left his home the previous
20 afternoon and had not been seen; the fact that the
21 family had made some attempt to try to find him
22 themselves but, again, this had proved fruitless and
23 that they had called the police, I believe slightly
24 prior to midnight the evening before.
25 Q. And Sergeant Morris had taken that call?

60
1 A. Whether he took the call or not is a different matter,
2 but he certainly went to the Kellys' home. I do not
3 know whether he actually took the call; I would imagine
4 he did not.
5 Q. Did he tell you what had happened in relation to his
6 attempts to search that night?
7 A. Not specifically, no. He basically gave us the
8 background in relation -- or the background prior to
9 Dr Kelly's disappearance, what he had done during the
10 day.
11 Q. And as a result of all that information that you had
12 received, where did you go?
13 A. I then went back to Dr Kelly's home.
14 Q. What time did you arrive?
15 A. 7.15 in the morning; and I sat there then and I spoke at
16 length with Mrs Kelly and the two daughters, Rachel and
17 Sian.
18 Q. And what was the aim of that?
19 A. Really to see if any clue could be attained as to (1)
20 why Dr Kelly should absent himself in such
21 circumstances; and (2) where he would go having absented
22 himself.
23 Q. Were you given any information which assisted in
24 relation to that?
25 A. To be honest, not really, no. I mean, the Kelly family

61
1 were very upbeat at that time. They were very hopeful
2 that no harm had come to Dr Kelly. In fact, they
3 genuinely believed I think that perhaps he had become
4 ill somewhere.
5 Q. Were you joined by anyone?
6 A. I was joined by WPC Karen Roberts, yes, slightly later
7 that same morning.
8 Q. What was her role?
9 A. She was going to take on the role of being a family
10 liaison officer and really to look after the
11 Kelly family, you know, during the following inquiry.
12 Q. How long did you stay at the house for?
13 A. I left the house at about 8 am to return to Abingdon
14 police station, at that time to tell -- it was Assistant
15 Chief Constable Page at that particular time, what the
16 result of my inquiries were. I mean Dr Kelly's mood,
17 the exact circumstances of his disappearance et cetera.
18 Q. How many police were searching at this stage, were you
19 aware?
20 A. I could not say sir, I do not know.
21 Q. What time did you brief Assistant Chief Constable Page?
22 A. I got back to Abingdon I suppose about 8.30, immediately
23 spoke to him for about 15 or 20 minutes, until really
24 the news came in that a body had been found.
25 Q. What did you do as a result of that?

62
1 A. I was then tasked to go back to the Kelly family and to
2 give them the news that it would seem that Dr Kelly had
3 been found and that he was dead.
4 Q. How long did you stay at the house?
5 A. I remained there then for the majority of the day.
6 Q. While you were at the house, did you carry out any
7 searches?
8 A. Whilst I was there, I carried out a very cursory search
9 of Dr Kelly's study.
10 Q. And did you find anything in the study?
11 A. I did and I took possession of certain items, yes.
12 Q. Right. What did you find there?
13 A. May I refer to my note?
14 LORD HUTTON: Yes, please do.
15 A. The search that I carried out, as I said, was a very
16 cursory search and really only encompassed things that
17 were within view. And the first thing that I looked
18 through was Dr Kelly's briefcase, which was closed. On
19 opening it I found firstly a letter dated 9th July 2003
20 addressed to Dr Kelly from a Richard Hatfield headed
21 "Discussions with the media".
22 MR DINGEMANS: Was that an opened letter?
23 A. No, that letter was in an envelope which was sealed, and
24 I opened it.
25 Q. So you were the first person to open it?

63
1 A. I was, sir, yes.
2 Q. Can I take you to MoD/1/69? You should see a document
3 appearing shortly on the screen. Do you recognise this
4 document if we scroll down it?
5 A. That would appear to be the same document, yes, sir.
6 Q. You found it in a sealed envelope?
7 A. That was in a sealed envelope addressed to Dr Kelly.
8 Q. Handwritten?
9 A. I seem to recall it being a handwritten envelope, but I
10 cannot swear to that.
11 Q. Did you find anything else?
12 A. I did. There was a letter dated 10th July 2003
13 addressed to Dr Kelly from someone called
14 Steve Priestley.
15 Q. Can I take you to MoD/1/74? What do we see here?
16 A. Yes, that is the document that I saw.
17 Q. Was that in an envelope?
18 A. No, that was just open.
19 Q. Right.
20 LORD HUTTON: So there was no envelope at all you saw in
21 respect of that?
22 A. Not for the letter from Stephen Priestley, no.
23 MR DINGEMANS: Then another document.
24 A. A handwritten note entitled "Gabriel's concerns."
25 Q. That appeared to relate to Iraq and weapons of mass

64
1 destruction?
2 A. That is correct, yes.
3 Q. Anything else?
4 A. An e-mail message dated 14th July 2003 attached to
5 several papers entitled "The House of Commons Defence
6 Committee oral evidence sessions. Notes for guidance".
7 Q. Did you find anything else in your search that day?
8 A. I did. I then checked Dr Kelly's desk, where his
9 computer had been installed, and the first thing
10 I notice were a number of business cards which had
11 apparently originated from journalists.
12 Q. Right. And you took those?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Anything else?
15 A. A year 2003 diary.
16 Q. And we have, in fact, seen extracts from that. So you
17 obviously took that as well, did you?
18 A. Yes. I then also took a Sainsbury's notebook which
19 contained handwritten notes, together with four loose
20 sheets of A4 paper also containing handwritten notes.
21 On briefly scanning that notebook, the last page seemed
22 to contain a list of journalists.
23 Q. And I think we have seen extracts from that handwritten
24 note, including Dr Kelly's note of his meeting on
25 14th July. Did you recover anything else?

65
1 A. Yes, there were Ministry of Defence and Foreign Affairs
2 documentation concerning Dr Kelly's involvement with
3 journalists.
4 Q. And you produced and identified all of that?
5 A. I did, yes.
6 Q. What else did you search?
7 A. In his office he had a low coffee table; and on that
8 there was a copy of a letter dated 30th June 2003 from
9 Dr Kelly to Dr Bryan Wells, Director of Proliferation
10 and Arms Control Secretariat, headed "Andrew Gilligan
11 and his single anonymous source".
12 Q. If we go to MoD/1/19, and scroll down the page, is this
13 the document?
14 A. That is the document, sir, yes.
15 LORD HUTTON: "Dear Bryan", was that name written on it?
16 A. That is correct, yes.
17 LORD HUTTON: Thank you.
18 MR DINGEMANS: It was a photocopy rather than an original.
19 A. There were other copies of this letter, if I recall
20 correctly, but that one did have "Bryan" written on it.
21 Q. It was a photocopy rather than an original?
22 A. I believe so, yes.
23 Q. Anything else?
24 A. There was also Ministry of Defence and Foreign Affairs
25 documentation concerning Dr Kelly's involvement with

66
1 journalists, including a transcript of the Foreign
2 Affairs Committee examination of Andrew Gilligan.
3 Q. Printed out from a web page?
4 A. I could not say. It was printed out certainly. Whether
5 it came from a web page I would not know.
6 Q. What else was on the coffee table?
7 A. There was a purple