Monday August 11 2003, 10.30 am:

Terence Taylor, President and Executive Director for the International Institute of Strategic Studies

(US), Richard Hatfield, Personnel Director MOD, Martin Howard, Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence

MOD, Patrick Lamb, Deputy Head of the Counter Proliferation Department FCO

LORD HUTTON: Morning, ladies and gentlemen. I hope the air conditioning is going to work rather more effectively.

If anyone would like to take off a jacket, please feel free to do so. Before we hear the evidence this morning, there

are some matters I would like to refer to briefly. First, in my opening statement on 1st August I said that the post-

mortem report stated that four electrocardiogram electrode pads were found on Dr Kelly's chest and I proposed to

call medical evidence to explain this. However, it appears to be clear from statements which I have read that the

pads were placed on Dr Kelly's body by the ambulance team who arrived at the scene and who placed the pads on

his chest to see if they could find any heart activity, but there was none. Secondly, my terms of reference required

me to conduct the Inquiry urgently and I therefore decided that I should sit to hear evidence during August. I realise,

of course, that many people arrange to take their holidays in August and that sitting in August will cause

considerable inconvenience for some witnesses and the disruption of their holidays. I much regret this and I greatly

appreciate that so many witnesses are making themselves available during this month. Then, to try to convenience

witnesses and to avoid them having to wait unnecessarily, Mr Dingemans has prepared a provisional timetable

which he has given to counsel and solicitors. But it is always difficult to estimate how long a witness will take to give

his or her evidence and therefore, as I am sure you will appreciate, we may not always be able to keep to the

timetable precisely; there may be some days when we may overrun and have to bring a witness back or we may rise

earlier than 4.15 pm. In the course of the sittings, during each morning and afternoon I intend to adjourn just for a

very brief period of 5 minutes to give the stenographers a break, which I am sure they will need in these very warm

conditions. Finally, it is very apparent from the volume of statements and other documents which I have been

receiving that a large number of officials, both in the Government and in the BBC, and also police officers and

administrative staff in the Thames Valley Police and also solicitors and counsel, have been working very hard and I

am most grateful for all that they have been doing. Mr Dingemans, you propose to call Mr Terence Taylor to give

evidence on a video link from Australia.

MR DINGEMANS: My Lord, yes. Before I do that, may I make it clear that I and my junior Peter Knox intend that the

questioning of all the witnesses will be courteous, fair and designed to elicit the truth. My Lord, I hope consistently

with your opening statement, it is intended the evidence will be chronological and some witnesses therefore will not

be asked about later evidence where documents or other witnesses cover the evidence sufficiently.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

MR DINGEMANS: My Lord, may we have the video link?

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

MR TERENCE THOMAS TAYLOR (called)

LORD HUTTON: I understand it is evening in Australia so I wish you good evening, Mr Taylor. Can you hear me?

A. I can hear you but not distinctly.

LORD HUTTON: Very well. We will try to make that clearer for you. Please say if you have any problem at all in

hearing, Mr Taylor. Mr Taylor, my name is Brian Hutton. I have been asked by the Secretary of State for

Constitutional Affairs to conduct an Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sad death of Dr Kelly. I

understand you have been good enough to agree to give evidence about your knowledge of his work. So I now ask

Mr Dingemans, the Senior Counsel to the Inquiry, to take you through your evidence.

Examined by MR DINGEMANS

Q. Mr Taylor, could you give the Tribunal your full name please?

A. Mr Terence Thomas Taylor.

Q. Thank you. What is your current occupation?

A. At present I am the president and executive director for the International Institute of Strategic Studies US, which

is based in Washington DC.

Q. I understand you wrote an obituary relating to Dr Kelly which was published in The Independent on 31st July

2003; is that right?

A. That is correct.

Q. How long did you know Dr Kelly?

A. I knew Dr Kelly from around 1985, when he first came to work at the chemical and biological defence

establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

Q. Can you tell us a bit about his background?

A. Well, before -- he came to Porton Down or came to the defence field when he was about 40 years old. He is a

biologist by training. He has a number of degrees from several universities, including a D Phil from Oxford University.

He was a specialist in the field of biology. From his research and so on, a very high quality one. He came to work at

Porton Down in order to head microbiology division at Porton Down. I think he assumed that appointment, I think, in

1984.

Q. Did he carry out any work involving decontamination while at Porton Down?

A. One of the things that his part of Porton Down oversaw was the decontamination of Gruinard Island off Westeroth

in Scotland where, during the Second World War, the British Government had carried out trials with anthrax there as

a biological warfare agent. Of course the United Kingdom gave up its biological warfare capabilities soon after the

Second World war, but the island was contaminated in trials I think conducted in 1944. In the 1980s a programme

was put in hand to decontaminate the island and Dr Kelly's department played a major role in overseeing that

decontamination.

Q. Did he carry out any work in the Soviet Union?

A. Later in about 1989 a defector came from the then Soviet Union giving information about the biological warfare

programme of the Soviet Union. I was then myself working for the Ministry of Defence as a military officer and Dr

Kelly and I, by 1991 and 1992, became involved in the analysis of the information and together we went to what by

then was Russia to carry out inspections as members of an Anglo American team visiting Russian biotechnology

facilities in different parts of Russia, and Dr Kelly played a leading role in that effort.

Q. Was his work in the Soviet Union successful?

A. His work in Russia was remarkably successful. He was very meticulous in his work. He did an enormous amount

of research. He absorbed very large amounts of information, process it and analyse it in a way that was most

impressive. I myself was involved in more of the policy side of these issues in relation to the biological and toxin

weapons convention and I very much welcomed his scientific and technological expertise, as indeed did others, not

just other members of the British component but also he was highly respected by the United States contingent as

well.

Q. When did he come to work in Iraq?

A. Well, he almost concurrently with the work we had to do in Russia of course in 1991 as a result of the ceasefire

resolution, the UN Security Council resolution number 687, which put in hand the inspection process for the UN

Special Commission, and Dr Kelly was, early on, deeply involved in that process from 1991 onwards, which involved

him going to Iraq and carrying out inspections as one of the chief inspectors in the field and of course also assisting

the British Government in analysing the situation and giving advice on policy and so on. So he became very, very

much involved in I think more or less full time. I came to that issue in 1993 as one of the commissioners of the

Special Commission and also an inspector in the field myself. So I was able to see Dr Kelly's work first hand. And in

effect he became my scientific and technological mentor during that period of time.

Q. Was his work in Iraq successful?

A. His work in Iraq was remarkably successful. He carried the inspection system through during a very difficult time

when the Iraqis denied having a biological warfare programme from 1991 onwards. There were times when

colleagues were saying: well, perhaps they do not have a programme, perhaps it is a very small research

programme, maybe it is not so important. He was very determined and resolute in carrying through the inspections

and supported us all sharing his insights and so forth in a very effective way. This resulted, of course, in 1995 in the

UN Special Commission making a breakthrough and forcing the Iraqi side to admit they did indeed have a biological

warfare programme, a very extensive one as it turned out. A large amount of this was due to Dr Kelly's superb work.

This was recognised by the British Government and in 1996 he was awarded a Cross of St Michael and St George in

recognition of his very significant work.

Q. I have the citation for his award here and it says this: "... he devised the scientific basis for the enhanced

biological warfare defence programme and led strong research groups in many key areas. Following the Gulf War he

led the first biological warfare inspection in Iraq and has spent most of his time since either in Iraq or at various sites

in the former Soviet Union helping to shed light on past biological warfare related activities and assisting the UK/US

RUS trilateral confidence building process. He has pursued this work tirelessly and with good humour despite the

significant hardship, hostility and personal risk encountered during extended periods of service in both countries. In

1991 he was appointed adviser to the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM). His efforts in his specialist field have had

consequences of international significance." Would you agree with that analysis?

A. I would agree with that analysis 100 per cent. It is important to also note, I think as was mentioned towards the

end of the remarks you read, he was recognised internationally. He had very high standing, not only in the United

Kingdom but also in the United States and other countries around the world, and rightly so because his work was

really quite remarkable and he was very steadfast in very difficult and very testing conditions in Iraq.

Q. Do you know what he did after he returned from Iraq?

A. He was involved in Iraq up until 1998. So he was coming and going on many inspections, I think he did more than

35 inspections during that period. But of course, in 1999 the UN withdrew the inspectors from Iraq as there was no

progress being made, through lack of cooperation from the Iraqi side. So the inspection process came to an end.

But by then Dr Kelly was the senior adviser in the Ministry of Defence, in what I think was then called the

Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat, advising on biological warfare defence matters. He continued, of course,

to give advice on Iraq issues but also other biological defence issues. I was at more of a distance. By this time I was

not with the Government, I was with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, but we kept in very regular

touch during all these periods and regularly consulted on issues associated with Iraq and with the former Soviet

weapons programme and other weapons programmes around the world. So we were in regular touch in our

professional work.

Q. Did he help with the new team which went to Iraq in November 2002 in any way?

A. He participated in the -- I know from my conversations with him, he participated in the training sessions, so he

did give support and advice to the UNMOVIC, as it was called, the UN Monitoring Verification and Inspection

Commission. He was of course advising the British Government at this stage. But I think the formal details that, I

think, probably would be best sought from the officials in the Ministry of Defence.

Q. The International Institute of Strategic Studies published its own dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction on

9th September 2002. Were you involved in that publication?

A. I was involved as one of the contributors. It was very much a team effort. So I did have a role but I was then in

Washington DC at the US office of the Institute. But I was not responsible for the editing, overall editing of it and its

eventual distribution and so on. But I was involved with it, yes.

Q. Do you know whether Dr Kelly was involved in the writing of the International Institute's dossier?

A. The dossier was written by members of the Institute, so whether he was involved or not in the actual -- I am sure

his advice was sought, as many people's advice was sought in a number of different countries, not just the United

Kingdom and the United States, a number of other countries as well. So the Institute as a team did consult with

knowledgeable people and I am sure Dr Kelly was one of them.

Q. When was your last dealing with Dr Kelly, your last contact with Dr Kelly?

A. My last contact was -- I think it was about four days before his death, and I spoke to him by telephone and from

the United States because I was coming to the United Kingdom and I was discussing plans in order to meet him

after -- at the weekend, the following weekend, which would have been -- I am searching my memory -- would have

been the weekend of 20th July. We were planning to meet, as I was passing nearby his house on my way to visit my

younger daughter.

Q. And did you have any discussions with him about the situation that he was in?

A. Not in detail. Most of our conversation was about the Iraq Survey Group, that is the Group that is now in Iraq

being run by the coalition forces in Iraq. He was clearly thinking about that, thinking about going to Iraq. We

discussed that not in great detail, but in general. He said that he was probably going to be going out maybe in a little

more than a week's time, but, nevertheless, we could probably meet, he would not have gone by the time I come to

the United Kingdom. So he was clearly thinking, was focused on this, at least he was during this particular

conversation. The only previous contact, I actually stayed with him at his house which was about three to four

weeks before this particular time.

Q. When you stayed with him, how was he then?

A. He seemed to me to be in what I would describe as a normal state of mind as someone I had known for 16 years

and I did not detect any discernible difference. We spoke about the Iraq issues in very general terms. He was

speaking about his daughter's forthcoming wedding in October. I have daughters too, so we exchanged as friends

on these kind of issues. He seemed to be in a very normal state of mind, bearing in mind this was about a month

before this particular awful incident.

Q. As far as you knew, was he looking forward to going back to Iraq or was he not looking forward to that?

A. He was looking forward to the challenge of going to Iraq. He -- the only point that I would say where he was --

had expressed some negative thought, if I could put it that way, was that he was worried about -- concerned about

his colleagues. He knew there had been discussions about their consulting arrangements and so on. Somehow that

irritated him a little bit. And he seemed to be concerned about his relationship with them once he got to Iraq. He

said -- I think his words were to the effect that: my relationships with them would not be quite the same again as

they were in the past. These were colleagues with whom he had done many inspections in Iraq. But at the time that

did not seem to me to be particularly remarkable. It was not said in a very strong form, but that was the only point

that perhaps was a little negative.

Q. Which colleagues were those? Those were the United Nations colleagues or Ministry of Defence colleagues?

A. No, these were members of the coalition -- what is now called the Iraq Survey Group.

Q. Did he indicate why his relations might not be the same?

A. I think Dr Kelly had a very purposeful sense of mission, very sort of dedicated approach to it. And I think people

going as consultants, I think it mildly irritated him is probably the best way I could put it, and so he felt that a

difference in terms of dedication to the mission, if I might put it that way. I think I would be speculating if I went

further than that.

Q. Is there anything else which you knew of the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly which you can help

Lord Hutton with?

A. I cannot think of anything else that we covered in the questions, but if I do I will certainly let you know in writing.

MR DINGEMANS: My Lord.

LORD HUTTON: Mr Taylor, thank you very much indeed for your very fair and helpful evidence. I am most grateful to

you for giving it to the Inquiry today. Thank you very much indeed.

A. Thank you.

LORD HUTTON: Well now, ladies and gentlemen, I am proposing to rise just for a few minutes to enable the video

link to be disconnected. (10.52 am) (Short Break)

LORD HUTTON: Yes, Mr Dingemans.

MR DINGEMANS: Mr Hatfield please. MR RICHARD PAUL HATFIELD (called) Examined by

MR DINGEMANS

Q. Can you tell Lord Hutton your full name?

A. Richard Paul Hatfield.

Q. What is your current occupation?

A. I am a civil servant in the Ministry of Defence.

Q. What is your title at the moment?

A. I am the Personnel Director.

Q. For the?

A. For the Ministry of Defence as a whole.

Q. Can you look a document numbered MoD 29, which I hope has just come on to your screen?

A. Yes.

Q. This is a document which I understand it you assisted in preparing; is that right?

A. It was prepared under my instructions.

Q. In paragraph 1 you identify the beginnings of Dr Kelly's career in the public sector, with the National

Environmental Research Establishment; is that right?

A. That is what it says, yes.

Q. And then he joins the Ministry of Defence in 1984.

A. Yes.

Q. In paragraph 2. And he is promoted under an individual merit promotion to grade 5.

A. Yes, although I should explain his career is taking place in what has been in various stages an agency Ministry of

Defence and at this stage he is in I think the chemical and biological defence establishment at Porton Down.

Q. So that he was not employed by the Ministry of Defence?

A. It is an agency of the Ministry of Defence.

Q. Then he is, at the end of paragraph 2, awarded promotion in July 1992 and appointed senior adviser in biological

defence at Porton Down?

A. Correct.

Q. From 1992 to 1996, he spent a good deal of time, we have just heard from Mr Taylor about this, working as a

United Nations Special Commissioner inspector and he was appointed senior adviser to Unscom, as it is called, in

1995?

A. Correct.

Q. And his home base continued to be Porton Down, is that right?

A. Correct.

Q. In April 1995 a new agency was established. What was the name of the new agency?

A. Well, Porton Down was absorbed into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency.

Q. Did this include Dr Kelly's work?

A. Yes.

Q. Then, from April 1996 he was appointed on secondment to something called PACS. What is PACS?

A. PACS was the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat in the main part of the Ministry of Defence. So he was

seconded from his agency to the main head office of the Ministry of Defence.

Q. His employer was still the agency or the Ministry of Defence?

A. Both. His direct employment was through the agency, which was an agency of the Ministry of Defence.

Q. And did he continue working with PACS until his death?

A. Yes. Although the division was renamed shortly before his death, it is essentially the same job.

Q. What was it renamed?

A. The Directorate of Counter Proliferation and Arms Control.

Q. Department. CPAD, is that right?

A. No, the D is at the beginning, Directorate, I believe, but you can ask Dr Brian Wells the exact title.

Q. Who was his employer at that time, the Ministry of Defence?

A. He is still employed by the agency, or rather the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency was split into two in

2001. Part of it was privatised, that is kinetic and part of it, which Dr Kelly worked in, stayed inside the Ministry of

Defence as a new agency called the Defence Scientific and Technical Laboratories, usually known as DSTL, but he

was directly employed by that agency as seconded to head office of the Ministry of Defence.

Q. Can we turn to MoD/1/43? If we go down to the second paragraph, this is a later letter; but there is a letter here

about his employment status. It was suggested that he was "an FCO official, seconded to the Ministry of Defence's

Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat": "In fact, the individual in question is not and never has been an FCO

official." Is that right, he was never an FCO official?

A. That is correct.

Q. It says there he was an employee of DSTL Porton Down, seconded to the Ministry of Defence, is that right?

A. That is roughly right. Porton Down is not actually a separate agency, but he is an employee of DSTL seconded to

the Ministry of Defence.

Q. So it is right to the extent that he was an employee of DSTL but not right he was DSTL Porton Down?

A. We do not make that distinction.

Q. Then it says this: "After an arrangement dating back to 1996, the FCO reimburses the Ministry of Defence for his

staff cost ..." Why was that?

A. The particular post was, I understand, funded as part of the conflict prevention budget which is funded across

government, but, again, I think the correct witness to ask about that would be Dr Wells, probably, as his line

manager.

Q. So you cannot really take us very much further on that?

A. Not in detail.

Q. Can we look at MoD/3/6? I hope this will give us a bit more about his career. Here you can see from the text that

he is listing -- this is for the purposes of an internal staff appraisal -- his achievements from April 1996 to March

2000. He talks about, in paragraph 1, his involvement with Unscom and his leading of inspections in August 1991

and subsequently undertaking 37 inspections. Do you know any of the details in this or --

A. No, I do not. As you say, I think it is from a staff report, looking at it. And I would not have seen his staff reports

because his personal management was handled by the agency from which he was seconded.

Q. Right. Can I ask you to look at the top of page 7, MoD/3/7? And the second paragraph, he says this: "Throughout

this period I worked with ..." Then he gives a number of agencies.

A. Yes.

Q. Are you able to assist us with what these agencies are?

A. I know the first three. I do not know the last two.

Q. Right. "DIS" is that defence?

A. Defence intelligence staff. Box 850 is a synonym sometimes used for the Secret Intelligence Service. CIA is the

Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, I presume.

Q. Then AFMIC and ACDA, I cannot find those on any of the documents I have seen.

A. I am unaware of what they are either.

Q. Then he says he provided advice on BWC protocol biological --

A. Weapons convention, I think in shorthand.

Q. Russian BW?

A. Biological weapons.

Q. To NPD?

A. I am not sure if that is the current title, but it was the Non Proliferation Department in the Foreign and

Commonwealth Office.

Q. And Foreign and Commonwealth Office as necessary. Thank you. It is said, in one document, and that is

CAB/1/117, that his expenses were being paid as part of something called "Operation TELEC", you can see that at

the top lines: "Authorised and paid for by the FCO", which I have asked you about, but were instead funded as part

of Operation TELEC. Can you assist Lord Hutton with what that is?

A. I think I can do so, though the particular document is not familiar to me. I imagine what it is saying is that during a

particular period, and maybe the document tells you, he was being funded because his activities were in support of

the Ministry of Defence operations which ultimately culminated in the invasion of Iraq. Even in the planning and

preparation stage, where there was no necessary operation, it was known as Operation TELEC by the British

Ministry of Defence.

Q. So that related to planning for the subsequent activities?

A. I do not know precisely what Dr Kelly was doing in support of Operation TELEC but it was the umbrella name for

the entire work that the British Ministry of Defence was doing in support of what ultimately became the invasion of

Iraq.

Q. If you do not know, would Dr Wells know?

A. I would expect so.

Q. Right. Did he, at this time, have any United Nations responsibilities as far as the British Government were

concerned?

A. I am unaware of any, but again Dr Wells would be the person to give you chapter and verse on that.

Q. His staff appraisals refer to him being the United Kingdom expert on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps

we can look at MoD 3/26. If you look at the first two lines: "David Kelly is the UK expert on all aspects of Middle

Eastern CB proliferation." That is one comment. If we look at MoD/3/11: "David Kelly continues to be the expert on

Iraqi WMD". I imagine WMD is weapons of mass destruction, is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you know from your own experience within the Ministry of Defence whether those are accurate appraisals?

A. Well, I think the first one is generally assumed to be accurate because it describes his particular area of

specialism. This particular one seems to be rather wider, covering all of Iraqi WMD, which I think would not be true

because there are aspects of it which are not his specialism. Both those forms, however, are actually -- I have never

seen them before. One of them was a DSTL form, and the other is a DERA dorm so they are actually scientific

establishment assessments and not --

Q. Not the Ministry of Defence?

A. Not necessarily the Ministry, depending on who actually wrote the manuscript comments on the screen.

Q. I think we had established DERA and DSTL were at least agencies to the Ministry of Defence?

A. Yes.

Q. It is clear he did some work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. For example, he is recorded as appearing

alongside the Foreign Secretary on 25th September 2002. Do you know what work he did do for the Foreign and

Commonwealth Office?

A. Not in detail, but because I have been in a similar position myself I think probably when he appeared alongside

the Foreign Secretary he was appearing because he was providing expert advice on something that the Foreign

Secretary is giving evidence. I have certainly been to a Parliamentary Committee where the Foreign Office had been

in the lead and I had been a member of the team providing Ministry of Defence support. I imagine that is what he

was doing in this particular case.

Q. You have no further details about that particular appearance?

A. No, I have not.

Q. It also appears that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office -- and this is MoD 143 -- asked him to write part of

the September dossier. Did you know about his involvement or cross posting for those purposes?

A. The only thing I knew about that -- I knew nothing before the events that we are considering today. The first I

knew of his involvement of this was from Dr Kelly's own letter to Dr Brian Wells and from my subsequent

discussions with Dr Kelly in the Ministry of Defence. But prior to that, I had no knowledge whatsoever of Dr Kelly's

involvement or otherwise in the September dossier.

Q. Is it quite usual for members of one department like the Ministry of Defence, albeit through an agency, to work

and support other departments like the Foreign and Commonwealth Office?

A. Yes, although my understanding is the dossier was being drawn up on an inter-cross Government basis, so it was

even more usual.

Q. His final staff document relating to his posting appeared to be MoD/3/25 which suggested that he was going to

remain with PACS until retirement. If you look at "Future career aspirations": "Recently FCO have agreed to continue

my secondment to PACS to support UK policy-making with regard to Iraq until my retirement in May 2004, and I am

content with this arrangement." Was that your understanding of his status at the time of his death?

A. Yes.

Q. You have referred to some documents. Perhaps we can look at MoD/2/16. I hope what you see here are DSTL

procedures for conduct. Can you remind everyone what DSTL stands for?

A. Defence Service and Technological Laboratories.

Q. Does this document have anything specific to press relationships?

A. I cannot actually see very much of it on my screen, but having previously looked at it the answer is yes.

Q. Right. Can we turn to MoD/2/25? I think to avoid going back perhaps I can read from the bottom of page 24:

"Extra curricular activities. "If an employee wishes to carry out any of the following types of activities (or similar

activities), he/she must seek prior written consent from his/her line manager." Then at the bottom of 24 there is:

"Political activities." Then we can see from the first bullet point there is: "Business or academic activities." Then

thirdly: "Media activities." Is that the part that you are referring to?

A. Yes, indeed.

Q. Would this document have been given to Dr Kelly?

A. I do not know whether he physically had a copy. As you can see from the copy on the screen, it was printed off

the DSTL intranet, so it would have been readily available for him at DSTL, although in the MoD it might have been

more appropriate to look at the very similar MoD document, which I think you have also had provided.

Q. Can I take you first of all to MoD/2/29, which is still from the DSTL document at paragraph 8.4: "Media activities."

A. Yes.

Q. Perhaps you can just read for us the first paragraph.

A. I was afraid you were going to ask me that because I cannot quite understand it, to be honest.

Q. I will read it: "It is important to dispel any impression, however unfounded, that there is a conflict of interest

between a particular activity and the responsibilities of an employee. There is no exhaustive list of activities that fall

into this category, but it is in everyone's interest for individuals to seek approval before indulging in any such activity

and to ensure that records are kept."

A. Indeed.

Q. You said that you did not quite understand it.

A. I did not quite understand the very first sentence, which appears to be taken out of context. I cannot understand

what this business about dispelling impressions is about. But the substance of the paragraph I entirely understand.

Q. Yes. Then at 8.4.2 it talks about activities that might conflict; press announcements, the first bullet point.

A. Yes.

Q. Broadcasts and media interviews and public speaking.

A. Yes.

Q. You have also referred to the Civil Service code, in particular paragraphs 9 and 10. Can I take you to MoD/2/38?

If we can scroll down to paragraphs 9 and 10. Are those the paragraphs that you wanted to refer to in this context?

A. They are the most obvious paragraphs in the Civil Service code, yes.

Q. Would Dr Kelly have been provided with the Civil Service code?

A. Yes, he would. It was an annex to both the DSTL code which you showed, the MoD code, and I think every

member of the Civil Service has been issued with one of those which I am holding up at the moment, which is the

Civil Service code.

Q. Right. Paragraph 9 is a general paragraph, dealing with civil servants' conduct to retain the confidence of

Ministers or assembly secretaries.

A. Indeed, but it is particularly pertinent if you turn to the MoD -- I mean MoD discipline code rather than DSTL -- it

makes quite clear that our guidance on contact with media and, indeed, other forms of public speaking or

commenting on information is linked to the need to preserve that degree of trust with Ministers of whatever

administration who are in power.

Q. To complete therefore the picture, can we turn to MoD/2/12? Is this the document to which you were referring?

A. That is right.

Q. Can you tell us what this is?

A. This is the relevant section from the MoD personnel manual, which is also readily available on our intranet and is

publicly available too; and most civil servants would be aware of it, and many, I would expect most of those who

have reason to deal with the media will have seen it, probably had rather more detailed advice, but this is the basis

of the entire position inside the MoD. And the DSTL document should have been and indeed I think was derived

from this overarching document.

Q. Right. Is there any specific paragraph in this document that you wanted to refer to? I think you have referred in

the past to section 6.

A. I provided the document because the Inquiry asked for it. These are the most relevant sections of the document.

The scroll has come to the point I think: "You must not make comment on or disclosure of classified or 'in

confidence' information; relations between civil servants and Ministers, and advice give to Ministers; politically

controversial issues ..." Further on in the same chapter there is detailed comment about procedures and about what

we should and should not say at public seminars, even where you have authority to attend and speak. It is all related

to those three basic bullet points.

Q. Can we look at MoD/1/24? If we turn to the bottom of that, there is a passage here which deals with contact with

FCO press office guidelines. Are these the guidelines that we have now looked at, the Ministry of Defence

guidelines, the DSTL guidelines and the Civil Service guidelines?

A. This is in the record of my first discussion with Dr Kelly. When I started that line of questioning I was assuming,

though he said he had not read them, that he would also have seen some more detailed instructions which are

issued from time to time or made available from time to time from those who are in the habit of dealing with the

press or are in the habit of being contacted by the press. However, having said that, the instructions, the ones to

which I have referred or you have referred to in the other documents, are in themselves a quite sufficient basis for

dealing with the press.

Q. Because what Dr Kelly said there is: "[You said] I asked who had given him authority to exercise his own

judgment about contacts with journalists on defence related business, since this was contrary to standing

departmental instructions. Dr Kelly said that he had never read those instructions, nor sought to discover what

guidance existed ..."

A. I found that, as my comments further on the record make clear, somewhat surprising for someone who had been

dealing with the media on his own account for some period. As he also makes clear in his original letter and in this

conversation, he actually did know the proper procedures because although there was some doubt about which

press office he should have been consulting in relation to what, when he routinely had contact with the press there is

no doubt that he knew who was supposed to contact. He makes that clear both in his original letter and in this

interview.

Q. Can I ask you this: you referred to some more detailed guidance. I have taken you to the DSTL document.

A. Yes.

Q. I have taken you to the Civil Service code and I have taken you to the Ministry of Defence personnel manual.

What more detailed guidance would have been available to individuals?

A. Well, it depends to whom they are and how much they seek out. But there are -- periodically guidance is provided

to individuals who deal with the media. From time to time reminders are put out to parts of the department who may

find themselves caught up with the media, for example following periodic leak inquiries and things like that. It would

not have surprised me if Dr Kelly had seen any of that, although from his own account he had not. He did not need

to see that to know the rules because the basic rules are clear from the extracts you have seen. It is also clear from

other Government departments, including the Foreign Office, with whom he had habitually dealt for many of his

contacts, had very similar rules and principles of which he should have been and I believe was aware.

Q. Would it be possible to make available to the Inquiry some of those documents to which you have referred,

namely the latest and more specific?

A. I think you would need to ask other parts of the MoD to provide whatever the latest information was. This is more

likely to be local management information put out, for example, by the director general of corporate communications

or indeed by local management to reinforce the basic standing instructions. There is no doubt that the instructions

that Dr Kelly should have seen, and I believe they are even annexed to his contract, provide sufficient basic

guidance for dealing with the press unless you feel that you have a problem which is not covered by that, in which

case you can seek advice and should seek advice.

Q. We will come back to dealings with the media later, if I may. Can I just turn on to one topic which I have not seen

in any Civil Service codes, but on the other hand I am not a director of personnel. That is to do with naming of civil

servants. Are there any codes which deal with the circumstances in which a civil servant's name is made public?

A. The reason you have not seen it is because there is no such reference. Indeed, our standing instructions would

normally suggest that where there is a matter of public interest we would disclose as much information as possible,

with of course obvious exceptions. We normally try to protect the identity, for example, of people working in the

special forces and there may be other circumstances in which we would try to protect somebody's identity. Equally,

we do not gratuitously disclose names of individual officials to the media, for the very obvious reason that we try to

spare some of the consequences of media speculation or comment on the individuals.

Q. Can I take you to some defensive question and answer material, as it was entitled, dated 8th July, which is

MoD/1/62?

A. I have it, yes.

Q. You can see there, at paragraph 2, and we will come back to this material later on, but just on personnel issues

this was prepared to assist with media enquiries on the evening on 8th July, it looks like. I think it sets an expected

format for press questions: "Who is the official? "The official works in MoD. "What is his name and current post?

"We would not normally volunteer a name." That was just a general understanding, was it, that names would not be

volunteered?

A. We do not normally volunteer a name about something which has just been put into the media in the context of

this sort of event. However, as it goes on to say, we expect very often the media to try to speculate about the name

and we have to consider that sort of line.

Q. Right.

A. It is also important to recall that if this is the document from the evening on which the MoD made its press

release, that this was intended to be the line for that evening, if you like. We were anticipating that this name would

be appearing before at least one Parliamentary Committee in the near future, when quite clearly we would expect his

name, as any other official who appears in front of a Committee, to appear so in public.

Q. So this was, as it were, a holding line until he went to give public evidence?

A. It was a holding line for as long as it held.

Q. Right. I will deal with that with other witnesses, if I may. Can I then turn to the question of his security clearance

and turn to document MoD/4/4 at paragraph 6? It says this, talking about his contacts in the first sentence. Second

sentence: "Some of those [contacts] may have related to the dossier. He was an acknowledged leading expert in his

field and in particular on the history of the UN inspection process up until 1998. It would have been quite natural and

proper for DIS [that is Defence Intelligence Service] staff to consult him on matters of detail relating to his expertise.

He was fully cleared and had access to DIS Headquarters in the Old War Office Building and knew many of the

individuals in the DIS well." What does "fully cleared" mean?

A. It certainly means he had a high classification developed vetting clearance. It may or may not have meant he had

special access within the DIS headquarters, but you would have to ask the author of this document whether they

anything more than developed vetting, what used to be known as positive vetting.

Q. Can I take you to a document from his personnel file, MoD/3/61? Does this help at all?

A. That is what I was referring to. I do not know whether anything else was being referred to in that letter.

Q. This would mean he would have had had access to all levels of information?

A. On the basis of need to know; and even with this clearance you do not get to see things that you do not have a

need to know.

Q. Right.

A. As it says.

Q. Do you know whether he had been served with any notice pursuant to the provisions of the Official Secrets Act

1989?

A. I am unaware of that and I would be astonished if he had been served with any such notice.

Q. So there is a higher level of clearance than this document, is that right, and you say that is accessed to the DIS

building?

A. No, it is not higher level. This is the highest level.

Q. Right.

A. But consistent with the need to know principle, there are what is known in the trade as "compartments" which

mean people are given access to particular lines of information because they need to know that and they are not

given access to other lines of information.

Q. Right.

A. But it is all based on the same vetting clearance.

Q. I understand that. Would it be fair to infer that he would have been given access to all Iraqi weapons of mass

destruction material which impacted on chemical and biological warfare?

A. I am not sure about that. You would need to ask his line managers that.

Q. His line manager is the one?

A. I do not think it is necessarily true that he would have seen all intelligence on that.

Q. And his line manager is Dr Wells?

A. Is Dr Wells.

Q. Thank you. Can I ask you this: was he a member of the Senior Civil Service?

A. No, he was not.

Q. His citation for his CMG records his grade job title as "individual merit grade 5".

A. That was true in about 1993, I am trying to remember the exact date.

Q. I think it was 1996 when he was awarded that, yes?

A. But as you point out, it was an individual merit promotion to grade 5 which has subsequently, in general, become

inside the Senior Civil Service. However, because he was employed in an agency which subsequently decided to do

its own grading system, he was regraded throughout that -- as was everybody else in that -- on a different system

and it is not formally part of the Senior Civil Service. At his death he was a DSTL level 9, which does not have a

direct equivalent inside the Ministry of Defence but is fractionally below the formal Senior Civil Service.

LORD HUTTON: As regards posts, where does the senior grade begin, Mr Hatfield? There may be a whole range but

in what --

A. It is what used to be called grade 5, now in the Ministry of Defence a director. So Dr Wells, for example, is a

director, is a member of the Senior Civil Service. Part of the point about Dr Kelly's original promotion, it was an

individual merit promotion in his agency reflecting, if you like, his distinguished scientific background and so on. But

very specifically it was not reflecting the normal management responsibilities that go with the Senior Civil Service.

So Brian Wells, who was managing him in the Ministry of Defence, is the first level of the modern Senior Civil

Service.

LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much.

MR DINGEMANS: Can I take you to a document, MoD/3/150. This is a letter dated 16th July 1999 from Dr Andrew

Shuttleworth, technical manager threat reduction, to Heather Skelton. She appears to be a personnel manager at

DERA then, is that right? Do you know Miss Skelton?

A. I do not know.

Q. What he asks about is this he says: "I have been engaged in a long running series of discussions with Ted Payne

and latterly with Ted Hadrill, trying to resolve pay issues relating to Dr David Kelly. These discussions have been

complicated by the fact that David is rarely in the country due to the nature of his work and therefore information is

rarely available at short notice. "The situation seems to be as follows. David Kelly was originally employed at DERA

at Porton Down and then seconded to PACS in April 1997; largely as a financial 'fix'. He received a grade integration

pay correction in January 1997 ..." Then: "I passed an ARA and APA ..." Can you help us with that?

A. No, I cannot. This is an internal DERA or DSTL document, depending on its date, and it is all about their

personnel management inside the agency. I am afraid those initials do not mean anything to me at all.

Q. Turning to paragraph 3: "In April-May of this year, there was some discussion as to whether Dr Kelly's status may

have caused his pay awards to fall into a black hole -- was he substantive grade 5, or not? Ted Payne and Ted

Hadrill assured me that, despite a letter given to Dr Kelly in 1996 that seems to say he is a substantive grade 5 and

thus a member of the Senior Civil Service, he is not." Is the proper analysis this then: that he was a substantive

grade 5 but he was not a member of the Senior Civil Service?

A. I think to get detailed advice on what this minute is saying you would have to ask DSTL. But my interpretation is

he was indeed a substantive grade 5, subject to that being what they confirm.

Q. Yes.

A. When he was appointed to a grade 5, I am not even sure that was included in the Senior Civil Service because it

used to start one level up from that. But subsequently his agency got rid of those Civil Service gradings altogether.

So it became a technicality for that agency how they were going to fit him into their new pay structure. I think that is

what all this is about. He was certainly at the time of his death not a member of the Senior Civil Service as it is

defined across Government.

Q. In the sense that he had no management responsibilities but he got to a level that otherwise would have qualified,

or is that wrong?

A. I am afraid there are time shifts here. I think when he became grade 5 in the early 1990s that was not part of what

was then the predecessor of the Senior Civil Service. It used to start at the grade 3 level. I am afraid this is all very

esoteric stuff. He is not, I think, recorded by the Cabinet Office as being a member of the Senior Civil Service as

such. That is certainly not how I recorded him in the central data of the Ministry of Defence.

Q. The only reason I ask these questions is if we look at MoD/3/4 it seems from the documents I was very kindly

given over the weekend that he had at least some unhappiness about the level he had got to. He talks about

enclosing his annual review form in the first paragraph. Then he says this: "My secondment to PACS was arranged

hastily in 1996 with Mr Paul Hatt, then deputy director of PACS and this seems to be the reason for my 'invisibility'

since I do not actually work for PACS. It is essentially an accommodation address to enable the FCO to fully use me

in support of the United Nations. Fortunately, and coincidentally, D/PACS has been the UK Commissioner for

UNSCOM/UNMOVIC and he has a good appreciation of my work." First of all, is that, as far as you have been able

to ascertain, an accurate analysis of why he ended up with PACS?

A. I am not sure whether it is completely accurate.

Q. Do you know of anything to suggest it is inaccurate?

A. No, but I do not know his personnel career in sufficient detail to comment.

Q. Then he talks about: "Three years away from retirement I have chosen not to complete page 2." He is talking

about his track record, et ceter

A. Then he says this: "Career level is my contentious issue. I believe that I have worked at a level higher than DCSO

..." Can you help me with what that means?

A. I think that is maybe even a defunct grade, something like Deputy Chief Scientific Officer, but I am not sure of

that.

Q. "Grade 5 for the past year and I have accepted considerable and, to an extent, unique responsibilities working for

UNSCOM. "I am sure that these issues can be resolved and it is important that they are, since it affects such things

as pensions!" Just one further letter that impacts on that, and it is MoD/3/95. This appears to be a sort of draft

proforma letter. You may be able to help with that. It is talking about a current programme to create a new Senior

Civil Service. So, I mean, when did that take place? From what you say, that seems to be 1996/1997.

A. I cannot remember the exact date.

Q. But about that?

A. Perhaps you could date it from the document which I have not previously seen. It is a DERA document again.

Q. I am afraid I only got it on Saturday and it does not have any other date on it, it is just an annexure.

A. Well, it is clearly, since it refers to DERA employees, it must be at least two or three years old. It is also I think

fairly clearly an internal document from that agency.

Q. Right. But effectively I should ask someone who deals with DERA, or now DSTL for that matter?

A. Yes.

Q. And to the extent that he was unhappy also with his current grading, would that be a Ministry of Defence matter

or a DSTL matter?

A. I think it would be a DSTL matter, but I would observe on the basis of the extract you have just shown me, despite

the fact he claimed he was working above grade 5 level, he was actually working below grade 5 level, he was

working for a grade 5, i.e. Dr Wells. His promotion back in the early 1990s to grade 5 was on the basis of individual

merit, not on the basis of his responsibilities. So at that level his note does not actually seem to square with what I

know to be the case.

Q. Just so that you can see what he would have said on those issues, can I take you to MoD/3/48, which is his letter

of 14th September 2001. This is a letter to Hilary Brown who is the manager of interchange. What is "interchange"?

A. I imagine that is a title given inside DSTL for somebody who is managing secondments out of DSTL, whether to

the Ministry of Defence or, indeed, possibly to the private sector or other Government departments. Interchange is

often used as a synonym for secondments in both directions.

Q. I hope I can take you through the letter shortly but reasonably fairly: "I write to express concern about my current

position and personal management within DSTL, and previously the failure of the Defence Evaluation Research

Agency (DERA) to properly and actively monitor my career and achievements since 1st April 1995 ... I have worked

full time in support of the United Nations under the patronage of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office since 1994."

Pausing there, he may have done but he was always part of DERA or DSTL, is that right?

A. Yes, very much so.

Q. That may at least explain some of his confusion: "As you will be aware, I was recruited by MoD in 1984 ..." Then

he talks about his career. If I can skip that and then turn to page 49. He talks, at the first paragraph, about his

promotion to DCSO. Then he talks about the work he has done in the Soviet inspections. Then in paragraph 3 he

talks about the work he has done in the Iraqi inspections and UNSCOM. He says this at the bottom of the

penultimate paragraph, final sentence: "In 1996 the exceptional nature of my work was honoured by the award of

CMG, it is an honour given in recognition of important confidential services to foreign affairs at a senior level." Can

you just help me with this: is this right, because there is a ranking with Orders and all the rest of it, is it right that a

CMG is awarded to people who are at the level of Senior Civil Service for Foreign Office?

A. I think you had better ask the Foreign Office in relation to CMG, but that is usually a rough rule of thumb on the

home Civil Service equivalent. It is not I think an absolute rule. I think they have been awarded to people below that

level.

Q. His complaint appears to be at the bottom of page 49: "All of this appears to have passed by without the

recognition of DERA management and human resources. In 1999 I discussed the issue of my grading with Paul

Taylor, director chemical and biological defence, Porton Down, seeking consideration of promotion from grade 5 to

grade 4. Despite a sympathetic reception, no action followed." Then if we can turn to page 50 --

A. Can I interrupt at this point? I am rather puzzled because grade 4 had disappeared by that stage, disappeared in

the MoD and the entire grading system inside his agency, DSTL, or possibly DERA, depending on exactly what

stage this was, had a completely different system.

Q. But if someone had gone to Iraq and spent a lot of time in Iraq, they might not necessarily be up with these

changes?

A. I think they would have noticed that their entire pay system had changed inside their agency.

Q. Or should have noticed?

A. They certainly should have done. It would be on their pay statement every month.

Q. He says a bit about that. Turning the page: "The issue was twice raised again with Paul Taylor in the course of

opportunity meetings to discuss Iraq and although I finally wrote to him formally on 17th April 2000 I received no

subsequent acknowledgment of receipt or action. Richard Scott succeeded Paul Taylor and I raised the issue with

him in a meeting of opportunity on 7th September 2000 and later on 25th September 2000 specifically at Porton

Down. "Still no action was forthcoming and so I again raised the topic of my status in a letter to Richard Scott

covering submission of the annual review proforma provided by Avril Pimlett. After the failure of my letter of April

2001 to elicit a response, I made enquiries of Richard Scott ..." He talks about others. He was informed: "... there

were no personnel records for me on file and apparently none had existed. Richard Scott believed that I was 'level 8'

and suggested that I should be nominated for consideration for a level 9 promotion in 2002." These were the new

levels introduced by DSTL, is that right?

A. I think you will have to, if you wish to pursue this line of questioning, get a DSTL witness. This document is new to

me, I have some vague understanding of it, but it is all about DSTL internal process. None of this has been raised

with the MoD, nor would I expect it to be, with the MoD central personnel section. It is within their delegated

powers, all of this.

Q. Do not worry. That is very helpful. It is just these documents came to us on Saturday, in fact, from the MoD side. I

assumed you might be able to deal with them.

A. You have reached the limit of my knowledge on this.

Q. I must say I had great fun trying to work out what the grades were myself. Can you help me with his pay? I think

you have told us that his salary was at a certain level, level 9, or we are told that in other documents.

A. Yes.

Q. At the time of his death.

A. Indeed.

Q. And it is said that some investigations were being made to find out whether any other sums were owing, is that

right?

A. That is right. Because of the timing of Dr Kelly's death, and the MoD and indeed DSTL sort of pay awards, almost

everybody in the MoD, almost wherever they are will be just having or just had a pay rise based on what happened

last year. My understanding that Dr Kelly's salary before his pay rise due this year was £61,038. He had a 4.027 per

cent pay raise, which was another 2,458, bringing his total salary up to £63,496. In addition, I am advised under the

DSTL system of bonuses he was also entitled to "non-consolidated lump sum bonus" for last year of £620. That

would be paid over the course of the year by DSTL. We are establishing how much of that had actually been paid

before his death and the MoD will of course pay any balance that is outstanding, and if there are any other

allowances or anything else which turns out be to be outstanding that will also be paid.

Q. Was he due any bonuses?

A. That is the only bonus I am aware of, which is a DSTL bonus which is calculated for all their employees according

to -- they have a scoring system which takes all sorts of things into account. Why he qualified for that sum, I am

afraid I do not know.

Q. There have been some suggestions, and perhaps you are probably the best person to ask about this, that those

involved in the writing of the dossier were due to be paid bonuses; that is right, is it not?

A. I have no knowledge of this. I would not expect it to be the case. If somebody was being paid for a particular

project like the dossier, I would expect it to be under a totally different bonus scheme, a so-called special bonus

scheme for a particular project. I have no reason to suppose that any such bonus was due to Dr Kelly or being paid

to him. The bonus I have just referred to, very explicitly, would not be due to that or any other specific thing.

Q. The one you have referred to, I think to make it clear, as my understanding is right, is to pay and general

inflationary increases, et cetera?

A. The 4.027 per cent was, but the bonus, £620 bonus, was calculated by DSTL according to -- they have a system

of merit for everybody in their department. I think it is partly linked to things like their scientific standing, and so on.

That was where his bonus was coming from. DSTL could explain to you precisely why he was being offered it and

how it was calculated, but I cannot. It is not part of the main MoD bonus scheme and it is certainly not, as far as I

am aware, anything to do specifically with the dossier.

Q. Can I just ask you a bit about holiday entitlement? We may hear evidence that he had not taken many holidays

over the previous three years. Do you know whether anyone monitored his holiday entitlement?

A. I think the note that we provided for you explains his holiday record over the last few years. How much monitoring

has gone on of his holidays in the new leave year, which I think probably even for DSTL starts around the beginning

of April, I do not know. But I would expect that the few months that have been covered to be something that his line

manager Brian Wells could answer. But we have provided you, I think, with his holiday record over the last few years,

as requested.

Q. In relation to that, it was said that he was on leave from 10th August to 4th September -- sorry, if you want to --

A. It would be helpful.

Q. That is MoD/2/10. It is at the bottom.

A. That is my information.

Q. So you talk about 1999, 2000 to 2001. Then 2002 to 2003, this is four lines up from the bottom: "... he booked

leave from 10th August to 4th September (though he would have been in New York on UNMOVIC commissioners

business for part of that time)..."

A. Hmm, hmm.

Q. Indeed, although I need not take you to it, at question 21 that was his answer to the Foreign Affairs Committee,

that he was either on leave or working abroad in August and early September.

A. Hmm, hmm.

Q. How much time from 10th August to 4th September was actually booked as holiday, all of it?

A. I have no idea.

Q. No idea. Who might be about to help me with that?

A. Dr Wells might be able to help you with that, although it would be quite common -- I am afraid I do it myself -- not

to keep a hugely accurate day-by-day account of how much leave has been taken, otherwise the Ministry of

Defence would probably be giving me lots of extra leave.

Q. If it was all booked to leave but he had actually done some work for UNMOVIC at that time, one would not

necessarily have been surprised?

A. Not at all.

Q. His work with UNMOVIC would be part of his duties with the Ministry of Defence for these purposes, is that right?

A. At this time it would be a very minor part because it must have been related to essentially past history and

possibly preparing for a possible return to Ira

Q. I do not think it was a major part of his duties but a perfectly reasonable part of his duties at this period.

Q. Right. One other matter that has occurred from documents that we have now seen over the weekend is that we

understood he flew to Kuwait on 19th May 2003 but the visa was incorrect and he was refused entry, searched and

then deported. Do you know anything about that or would that be Dr Wells?

A. That is the first I have heard of that.

Q. I will deal with that with Dr Wells. Can I return then to the question of press contact and whether press contact

was authorised or unauthorised, and take you to the document that we have just been looking at, the later part of it,

MoD/2/9. At paragraph 4. Talking about his history, in April 1995 DERA was established. This agency embraced

Porton Down and Dr Kelly's personnel management and employment formally passed from the MoD to DER

A. The following year Dr Kelly was appointed on secondment. Then, talking about his UNMOVIC duties, which is

United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission. he contributed to UNMOVIC activities and says

where. He was also responsible for providing advice to the Defence Intelligence Staff and the Secret Intelligence

Service on Iraq. Then this: "Finally, he had responsibilities in relation to communicating Iraq WMD issues externally

by providing informed contributions to international institutions, the media and the press."

A. Correct.

Q. None of the written terms and conditions that you very kindly provided to us deals with that.

A. Sorry, in what sense?

Q. In the sense of: it is a part of your job to have communications with the medi

A. So would this all have been oral?

A. No, no. I think you will find if you looked at his annual staff reports for the period concerned, you will probably find

on the front page a list of his duties, or something equivalent to that, and I would expect this to appear there if it was

a significant part of it; although it might be all oral, I would expect it to be on the front page of his report.

Q. Right.

A. Not least because I would expect there to be some assessment in the report about how well he had carried out

those duties.

Q. Can we look at an example of that, just to help you? MoD/3/8. This appears to be his DERA annual review from

April 1999 to March 2000. You can see Dr Kelly has been seconded, it is reported, by the FCO, that he has given

expert advice in support of development and implementation on UK policy on Iraqi WMD: "In addition, Dr Kelly has

provided support to a range of Government departments. He has also provided press and TV interview. Dr Kelly is

stated to be the 'expert of choice'." I have read that, I hope fairly, as meaning by the media, as it were, their expert

of choice; is that right?

A. I am not sure. I do not know if it is by them or by DERA; nonetheless, it is obviously a compliment.

Q. For the media. Is this as much as you will get in terms of what his responsibilities and duties were?

A. That particular form, very interestingly, is not a Senior Civil Service form, for example. I would have thought that

slightly more recent forms might have a -- and maybe it appears before part A, but a more detailed description of

duties. Certainly in the main part of the Ministry of Defence, currently both below and in the Senior Civil Service, we

would expect a clearer statement of the main duties of the post as part of the form.

Q. Right. Can I just take you through that form then, for you to show me if there is anything missing that I have

missed on it. Page 9, track record and deployability, development, career level, future career aspirations. There does

not appear to be anything on it. Page 10, manager's comments. It talks about Dr A Wedge and Mr J Tutnot, who

were people who were consulted. They appear to be Foreign and Commonwealth Office rather than any Ministry of

Defence.

A. I am not quite sure which year you are talking about here but I presume, because in that year they had more sight

of what he was doing, especially in relation to UNMOVIC than the MoD.

Q. This was from March 1999 to April 2000?

A. It rather looks to me, since, as you point out, both those officials are in the FCO, that the FCO was providing the

assessment that year, presumably because they had seen more of what he was actually doing. This may also

explain the rather generalised comments in the box on the first page, whereas I would expect an MoD reporting

officer to have been a little bit more systematic about the type of comments. It is a difference in ministerial style, I

think, departmental style.

Q. Perfectly understandably. That may suggest that if he was really working for the FCO, but he was getting his job

description, you can see his complaint: "Look, I have fallen into a black hole, DERA are not assessing me".

A. That was not true, I do not think.

Q. That was his complaint, I am not saying it is right.

A. He has not fallen into a black hole because the people who are assessing his performance on a day-to-day basis

are those who are observing him. The form is a DERA form, or a DSTL form. depending on which year we are talking

about, and it goes back to DSTL and, in the light of the comments they received from the people who have actually

been employing him, they make their judgments. So I do not think that suggests he has fallen into a black hole at all.

Q. When we go to the next year or the latest year, as it were, which is MoD 3/14, you are right the form does change

and this becomes DSTL. If you look at what is the second main box, statement of role and responsibilities, if we can

just skip 1 and 2 and look at 3. It says this: "Communicating Iraq issues to the media and institutions."

A. Yes.

Q. Now, that is about as good as I have been able to find in writing about his duties in relation to communication

with the media; and I have to say, as I say, I only got this material over the weekend. Is that what you would expect

to see?

A. Yes. As you will see, that box is much more like a standard MoD box. It says: "Statement of your roles and

responsibilities." The first two bullets are pretty substantial tasks and the third bullet, which is there because it is not

a usual thing, is a thing that happens in the course of that which, yes, he is expected to communicate Iraq issues to

the media and institutions. There may be further in the report, I do not know, more detail of what he does in relation

to that. But the line manager who appears at the bottom, Dr Brian Wells, and indeed Mr Patrick Lamb from the FCO,

could no doubt provide oral illumination.

Q. If we turn to page 16 you can see "Objectives", a whole series of objectives set out.

A. Yes.

Q. "Support to UNMOVIC." If I may, I will skip that: "Support to the Non Proliferation department/Middle East

Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. "Support to Bryan Hatt ... "Support to SIS FCO and DIS MoD."

Those are the Intelligence Services, effectively, are they not?

A. To avoid confusion, I had better point out there is a mistake on that page. There is no such person as Bryan Hatt.

Brian Wells is his current boss. He previously worked at an earlier stage for Paul Hatt, doing the same job, and he

must have conflated the two names.

Q. But it was one or the other?

A. At this period it should have been Brian Wells.

Q. And then: "Support to the UK commission to the United Nations."

A. Yes.

Q. So that would have been part of his role. Then over the page at page 17, box 6, this is the only detail we appear

to get on media. This appears to pick up the media part of his role: "To continue making contributions to the

deliberations of international institutions and providing informed contributions to the international media and press."

A. Yes.

Q. And the managers' comments: "David has lectured widely on Iraqi WMD issues, is much sought for attendance

at international conferences and as appropriate has provided media briefings."

A. Correct.

Q. So it appears to have been at least, although not part of the formal written job description, picked up in the

annual review that part of his duties were to deal as the media?

A. I take that as being effectively part of his job description. I have no problem with that at all.

Q. Right. And we can see that he had, as he put it, reasonably extensive media interaction. If we look at MoD/3/19, if

this assists you, this appears to be an annexure to his March 2003 assessment. I mean, without having seen the

original document, I assume it is clipped on?

A. I imagine so.

Q. He is talking here about on 11th and 12th November 2002 there is the Organisation for the Prohibition of

Chemical Weapons, The Hague, The Netherlands, "Protection Network". He deals with that from 18th to 20th

November. Then he deals with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, a conference, talking about

invasion or inspections, that is January and February 2003. That is shortly before the war. "Medi

A. "Attributable and unattributable briefings plus interviews on Iraq, Russia, weapons, anthrax and smallpox.

"Television and radio: Channel 4, Australian Broadcasting Company, Canadian Broadcasting Company, Tokyo

Broadcasting Systems, CNN, CBS, ABC, Radio Netherlands, BBC 4, BBC 24 hours/World Service, BBC local radio

(London, Wales)." Then the news media, he seems to go through the whole of Fleet Street: Guardian, Daily

Telegraph, The Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Herald Tribune and Wall

Street Journal. So he was having extensive contact with them.

A. He had an extensive number of contacts with them, yes.

Q. Yes.

A. But it does not also make clear over what period, but nevertheless.

Q. It also appears to make clear that some of the contact was on an unattributable basis.

A. Yes.

Q. Is that something that is authorised, as it were, by the Ministry of Defence?

A. Yes, it should be.

Q. Right.

A. Indeed, his own letter, which started the events as far as I was concerned, makes it clear that they normally were

cleared. In fact, slightly unusually but nonetheless cleared through the FCO press office usually rather than the MoD

press office. That clearly reflects a lot of it is briefing in relation to his role in support of what he did in relation to

UNMOVIC, where the Foreign Office were in the lead. I would assume every one of those listed on there had been

cleared either on an individual basis or if you like especially in relation to the appearances at conferences on a block

basis that: this is the sort of conference you do and you know the rules. Indeed, the general rules we started with

make it quite clear that, for example, contact with IISS does not have to be cleared on an individual basis because it

is an established institution with which MoD deals. But there are rules about how you behave at such conferences

where you are speaking.

LORD HUTTON: May I ask you: suppose Dr Kelly had been authorised to speak to a reporter about a particular

subject, let us say a particular type of chemical weapon, and he had made his report to that person and then

subsequently that reporter rang him up -- and it seems some reporters knew his mobile number or home number.

Suppose that reporter rang him up to ask him for some further detail about the conversation, would he have been

required to seek authorisation to speak to them?

A. No, I do not think he would, my Lord, but you would exercise your own judgment about the nature of what you

had both originally said to the journalist and the query.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. If it was merely a technical issue following up a previous conversation about background, he might have well have

answered it on the spot, although especially if there was any sensitivity about the subject matter I would certainly

have expected it to be subsequently declared. It would, however, be a different matter if you had been, whether

unattributably or attributably, taking part in a discussion about policy rather than just providing factual information.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. I have been in precisely the situation described myself in previous jobs.

LORD HUTTON: So when the reporter rang a second time to ask for clarification of some particular point and then

tried to draw the conversation and to move on to other topics ...

A. The wise answer would be to decline to continue the conversation at that point or arrange a formal briefing under

the usual rules, as it were.

LORD HUTTON: I see. Yes. Thank you. Mr Dingemans, I want to give the stenographers just a little break. I think this

is now going to be a convenient time. Again, I think just for five minutes. (12.05 pm) (Short Break) (12.10 pm)

MR DINGEMANS: Mr Hatfield, we were discussing questions of Dr Kelly's contacts with the press; and there is

going to be evidence suggesting that Susan Watts, a Newsnight presenter, had been given Dr Kelly's number by the

Foreign and Commonwealth Office in May 2001. That sort of contact would not have surprised you?

A. Well, Dr Kelly himself said to me he did occasionally talk to Susan Watts. Again, I think he refers to it in his original

letter of 30th June.

Q. Right. Can I take you to a document, CAB/1/115, which is a document produced by Mr Lamb, talking about

customary practice; and paragraph 1, I think, deals with the manner in which press and media contacts within the

FCO were handled, consistent with what you were saying earlier on this morning. Paragraph 2: "There were

obviously also instances where he was contacted first by the journalist or researcher but he was, as far as I was

aware, scrupulous about informing FCO in order to seek prior agreement and discuss areas on which he should not

be drawn. This situation applied over a number of years. I took on the responsibility of being most often the initial

CPD point of contact on becoming deputy head of department in September 2000. Other colleagues ... may have

handled requests ... "3. He was much in demand and an obvious press target because of his technical expertise and

experience as an UNSCOM inspector. His frequent visits to New York gave him an international profile. I, in turn, had

confidence in him as he had become an accomplished media performer. On what was always a difficult and

complex issue he expressed himself clearly and put across HMG's line with authority. 4. This system, which

ultimately relied on self discipline and judgement on all sides, worked well and provided the media with expert

background briefly and led to no embarrassments for HMG over the period 2000 to 2002." This is Mr Lamb talking

about self discipline and judgment. I can ask Mr Lamb about this, so if you cannot answer just tell me. Is that

referring to what you said in answer to his Lordship about judgment, about whether you can deal with a follow up

interview or follow up discussion or not?

A. I would take it to be referring to that, and indeed back to paragraph 2 here, which explains how though

sometimes contacted first he was usually scrupulous about informing the FCO to seek prior agreement to discuss

areas on which he should not be drawn. All of that is entirely within the rules and exactly what I would expect.

Q. Within the understanding, because we have looked at the written rules and the written rules just say "go and

contact" as it were, when your job description extends to dealing with the media there is nothing more extensive?

A. The written rules we have referred to, there are further written rules that explain what you can and cannot

comment on in the same passage, I mean over the page and so on. That I find entirely consistent with normal

Government practice in every Government department.

Q. Dr Kelly was in the process of listing his media contacts on 17th July. Can we look at TVP/2/12 to 14? We see

here a draft letter from Dr Wells to PS/PUS, Personnel Director. The Personnel Director is you, is it not?

A. Yes.

Q. "I attach a reply to the [Foreign Affairs Committee] Clerk's letter of 16th July asking for details of Dr Kelly's

contacts with journalists." It then says: "Its terms are consistent with the draft Answers ... "We have given as

comprehensive an answer as possible. Dr Kelly will have met journalists at seminars, Chatham House events, and

similar occasions. He is often contacted at home (not least on technical issues). In many cases he has not kept a

record of the details." Pausing there, not keeping a record of the details would not concern you as long as he was --

A. As long as he was merely making a brief reply of the type that my Lord suggested, no, it would not. But if he was

having a substantial conversation with a journalist, I would expect, in his own interest, to keep some record of the

details.

Q. "We have therefore listed those meetings specifically set up by a journalist with Dr Kelly, and where Dr Kelly has

logged the meeting in his diary, and listed all those journalists whose business cards (or other contact details) Dr

Kelly has in his possession, which indicates that he has met them in some context, even if it was in the margins of

another event, and possibly many years ago." Then if we can turn to page 13, the top three paragraphs are really

introducing the letter to the Clerk to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Then there are names -- a discussion on 14th

March 2002 Nick Rufford; Alex Nicoll of the Financial Times, Phillip Sen of The Engineer, Andrew Gilligan of the BBC

in February and May 2003. Then over the page, to page 14: "Dr Kelly has also had such meetings during the period

with Jane Corbin on general UN inspections and Tom Mangold on UNSCOM inspections, but has no record of the

dates. "In addition, Dr Kelly has spoken with journalists about Iraq at a range of seminars and similar events, and on

the telephone. He has also discussed non-Iraq weapons of mass destruction matters, on which he is an

acknowledged expert. For example, he had a conversation about Iraq WMD with Andrew Gilligan at the IISS seminar

12-14 September 2002 and, as mentioned, at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee hearing, he met with Susan

Watts on 5th November 2002. Other than those noted above, Dr Kelly does not have records of contacts with

journalists. However, those journalists whose business cards (or other contact details) Dr Kelly has in his possession

are listed below: he believes that he has either met them, either one-to-one or in the margins of seminars..." Then

those are listed on page 14. Is that consistent with what you might expect in terms of his interaction with the media?

A. Very much so, and consistent with what he told me himself.

Q. Yes. Can I then turn to what appears to have been Dr Kelly's understanding of what he was entitled to do, and

first of all take you to MoD/1/21 for what he was doing, as it were. This is an extract from his letter of 30th June,

which I think you have referred to.

A. Yes.

Q. It is the fourth paragraph down: "I should explain my unusual interaction with the medi

A." You have seen this letter before, have you not?

A. Yes, indeed.

Q. You can see the gist of this letter is he conducted a number of major press conferences which were

internationally covered outside UN headquarters in New York and then: "Over the next 10 years [he] undertook at the

request of MoD, FCO, CBD Porton Down, and especially the UN press office and UNSCOM/UNMOVIC press officer

both attributable interviews and occasionally unattributable briefings."

A. Yes.

Q. To the extent that Dr Kelly was ever asked by the UN press office to provide briefings, what would have been the

procedure he ought to have gone through so far as you were concerned?

A. If he was literally providing a briefing on behalf of the UN, I would expect those procedures to be whatever the UN

required of somebody speaking in their name.

Q. Right, so it would not have --

A. Assuming he was speaking on UN matters, that would not be a matter for the Ministry of Defence or the Foreign

and Commonwealth Office as long as he stuck to his brief, which I would have expected him to have done.

Q. He says after that: "All such interactions were cleared by the appropriate authority. As my contact details became

known it became inevitable that direct approaches were made and I used my discretion as [to] whether I provided

information." As I understand what you are saying, you did not mind him using his discretion as long as it was just

providing a technical bit further, is that right?

A. As long as he stayed within the rules and the understanding with his managers of how he was to operate. Can I

just draw your attention to something at the beginning of that paragraph which is quite significant, although I had

not picked it up before. He attended, at his request, the MoD senior officers TV course at Wilton Park "which served

to make me aware of some of the pitfalls of journalism". That means he was indeed exposed maybe some years ago

to quite a lot of detailed briefing as to how you handled and do not handle journalists in the Ministry of Defence,

quite apart from the basic details that are laid down for everyone to see.

Q. Right. So for that course there would be sort of joining instructions, with a bit of pre-course reading about

contacts with media, would there?

A. I would expect so, though the content of the course itself is quite specific about how to handle journalists. That is

exactly what it is there for.

Q. And when to stop talking and when to talk?

A. Amongst other things, yes.

Q. Then he talks, towards the end of the paragraph, about his interaction with the media on four issues: Iraq,

Soviet/Russian biological warfare, smallpox and anthrax.

A. Yes.

Q. he says this: "If it was technical information available from open sources (and nearly all requests were such) then I

provided details or more realistically a clarification and explanation of that information (I tend to be a human archive

on Iraq's chemical and biological programmes). If it was about individuals (Iraqi or UN) I would comment only on

their role and not their personality."

A. Indeed. I was going to say, his next sentence which completes that is absolutely fine and that is exactly what I

take him to mean when he says he is acting on his own discretion. If he was acting as he has described there, there

is absolutely no difficulty about it at all. That would be, for somebody in his position, within the grounds of his

discretion, and he has described it very accurately.

Q. Right. So: "Comment on other matters were declined although in the case of Iraq it is impossible to draw a clear

distinction between the truly technical and Iraq's political concealment."

A. Correct.

Q. To the extent that he is commenting, as a human archive, on Iraq's chemical and biological programmes you

would not expect him to comment on his belief about whether or not the contents of the dossier were accurate or

not?

A. I would expect him not to.

Q. Perhaps you can just make it clear on what basis he would not be making that comment?

A. On two bases. One it would not be consistent with what he has written in this document. Secondly, and more

importantly, it is fundamentally that to comment on matters of Government policy for or against, as it were, as a

private individual or as a member of the Civil Service, unless you are doing so on behalf of the Government, is quite

contrary to what civil servants should be doing and is made quite clear in all the discipline codes you have referred

to. That is for Ministers to do or people who have been authorised to do so by Ministers.

Q. Right. Can I take you to some other evidence he has given about his contacts with journalists? The first

document is ISC/1/33 at the penultimate paragraph. Just so that everyone can be made aware, this is an extract of

Dr Kelly's evidence to the Intelligence and Service Committee. This evidence will not be published until it has been

published first to Parliament, but we have been given permission to ask questions on it. And Dr Kelly refers there to

a lot of press and television companies having his telephone number, so he will get cold calls: "... I will get called to

comment on something or to explain something, most of the calls that I have tend to be rather technically boring,

they come from journalists who do not know what a formentor is or do not know the difference between a virus and

a bacterium. They come from enquiries about Iraq and some of the principal facilities that were associated with

them so they can understand them, some of the personalities associated with the programme, and I will comment

on their role, but not their personality as such. But I also of course, most of my work is at the behest primarily of the

Foreign Office, occasionally the MoD, but also the United Nations, and for example when the anthrax envelopes

incidents occurred shortly after September 11th then the UN used me quite a lot because there was considered to

be a connection with Iraq, which I do not believe to be the case but that was certainly part of the speculation, so the

UN press office asked me to brief on their behalf." None of that, I imagine, would have caused you any concerns?

A. It would not have caused me any concern, but I must say I am slightly surprised that the UN appears to have

been using him as a spokesmen at that period; but what he said does not cause me any concern at all.

Q. Why were you surprised that the UN would be --

A. Because he had returned to the MoD and was working in the MoD. It just seems slightly unusual; but the

substance of what he did was completely within the rules.

Q. Yes. Well, no doubt there are good reasons for that. Then perhaps at FAC4/16 at question 112, we are picking it

up at question 112, he was asked, this is his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee -- well perhaps we ought to

go up to question 110: "Question: What are the ground rules for talking to the press amongst you and your peers?

"Answer: Normally you have to have authorisation or a request by the Ministry to interact in such a way. "Mr

Mackinlay: But you did not on this occasion? "Answer: I did not. "Question: Why not? "Answer: I think you have to

look back at my history. I have been involved with the press for 10 to 12 years, primarily as an UNSCOM inspector,

and when I was a chief inspector I had responsibility for dealing with the press. Since then I have been asked on

many occasions by both the United Nations and the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence to provide interviews

both to British and to international press. As a consequence of that, it is quite often follow ups on clarification of

issues with contact numbers and so one responds to that." That, I imagine, would not have caused you any

concerns?

A. That depends what is the "this occasion" being referred to by Mr Mackinlay.

Q. I think he is talking in fact about the contact with Mr Gilligan.

A. In that case it would indeed concern me because it does not fit, I am afraid, with what he has been doing for the

UN. It is a completely different type of meeting.

Q. And the distinction is Dr Kelly effectively was entitled to follow up but only on technical matters, and when you

are going off on to a new issue --

A. It is not as simple as that. He appears to have had, on his own account, two meetings with Andrew Gilligan which

took place off MoD premises, with nobody having any knowledge about them. Even on Dr Kelly's account of what

took place at that interview, he clearly had strayed beyond providing technical information of the type being

described there. My interpretation, I am afraid, thinking back over his history, is he could not have done that without

realising he had gone outside the scope of his discretion.

Q. Picking up one further answer he gave to the Foreign Affairs Committee at FAC/4/26, question 176 --

A. Can I just elaborate on that, just to be clear? If it is referring to the Gilligan interviews, neither of them were cold

calling. They were interviews pre-arranged, which again is very different from the stuff that you had been previously

showing me.

Q. If it was the cold calling, then your previous answers hold good. To the extent it is a pre-arranged meeting, it is a

different matter?

A. Very much so.

Q. It was not the context of Gilligan's meeting I was asking you.

A. That is the context of that question that was asked by Mr Mackinlay, which is why I asked you which occasion it

was referring to.

Q. At question 176 he was asked by Mr Pope, and this specifically was Mr Gilligan: "Question: When you met Mr

Gilligan on 27 May did you feel at the time that you were doing anything untoward, that you were breaching the

confidence that was expected of you within your job? "Answer: No, I think it has been agreed by the Ministry of

Defence there was no security breach involved in the interactions I had." That is still the position, no security

breach?

A. There was no security breach.

Q. But your concern relates to?

A. My concern relates to the basic breach of confidence as to how he is supposed to behave towards his employer

and the Government, since he works for the Government. But there was never any suggestion of a security breach

on any of the information provided by Dr Kelly or indeed, as far as I can see, on Andrew Gilligan's account of the

interview.

LORD HUTTON: I think that question and answer may have to be read in the context that I think Dr Kelly said at one

stage that he had met Mr Gilligan so he could obtain information from Mr Gilligan about conditions in Iraq. I think

that was part of the context in which that question and answer took place. Yes?

MR DINGEMANS: Can I then deal with one specific question relating to the naming of Dr Kelly? You had said that

there were no procedures in relation to someone in his situation, as it were; is that right?

A. I am not quite sure how you would characterise his "situation", but there is no rule about naming or not naming

individuals in general.

Q. Right.

A. Obviously you make your decision when you are making a press statement or responding to the press in the light

of the circumstances. But we would normally expect to provide whatever information is necessary to make our

statement credible and indeed, in the era of freedom of information, to supply all information we could do. In some

circumstances there would be specific reasons for not naming a person, either short-term or if we could for hiding

their identity for a longer period. I gave you one example of that.

Q. Yes. Can I just take you to CAB/1/235? Just so that you know, this is an extract from a press briefing given by the

Prime Minister's official spokesman. It is towards the bottom of the page. This was given on 21st July 2003. If I can

pick it up, it is about ten lines up from the bottom or 15 lines up from the bottom: "Put to him that the MoD's

apparent readiness to confirm Dr Kelly's name was problematic, the PMOS said that this was an issue that Lord

Hutton would no doubt want to consider. That said [and this is the PMOS continuing] the key point in all this was the

fact that relatively few people worked in Dr Kelly's are

A. There had therefore been a strong likelihood that suspicion would fall unfairly on to others. Asked who had made

the decision to confirm Dr Kelly's name, the PMOS said the matter had been handled in accordance with MoD

procedures and had been overseen by those at the top of the MoD in view of the fact that it had been the lead

department." Just to confirm with you, I mean the MoD procedures related no doubt to interviewing him, to making -

-

A. Since it is the PMOS, I think you better ask the PMOS what he meant. But I take it to refer to the general

procedures adopted by the MoD, whether it is in relation to discipline or it might be in relation to media handling. But

there is no specific procedure about naming individuals, quite the contrary.

Q. Thank you. After Dr Kelly's name became available to you, you participated in the interview with Dr Kelly and you

wrote him a letter afterwards?

A. I did.

Q. Is this right: that the documents, note of the interview and your letter, accurately reflect your involvement with

that?

A. With that particular interview, yes, of course.

Q. And then your letter?

A. Yes.

Q. You do not appear to have had anything else directly to do with Dr Kelly after that period of time.

A. Perhaps I should just sketch out a little bit more. My involvement started on the evening of Thursday July 3.

Q. Yes.

A. I interviewed Dr Kelly on July 4th with Dr Brian Wells.

Q. Yes.

A. And I interviewed him again on Monday July 7th; and I spoke to him on the telephone two or three times after

that. The last time, from memory, must have been on the evening of the 8th, which is when the statement was

issued, just before the statement was issued. That was my last significant involvement although -- and the last time I

spoke to Dr Kelly -- I provided one or two pieces of information and advice to support appearances before the

Foreign Affairs Committee and the ISC later in the week. Subsequent to his tragic death I have been involved, in my

responsibilities for the MoD welfare organisation, in supervising support to his family.

Q. If I may, simply to try to keep the chronology of the evidence, I will deal with others in relation to the interviews on

the 4th and 7th July because those are well documented, and your letters. I do not appear to have any notes of your

telephone conversations with him, so perhaps you could just briefly help his Lordship with the gist of those

conversations were. I think you said your last telephone conversation was the evening of 8th July.

A. I have provided a statement to the Inquiry which summarises this. Without reading it through, my main

conversations to him on the telephone were, I think, on the morning of the 8th July, after I had interviewed him for

the second time. He had returned to RAF Honington where he was conducting some training. At the end of the

second interview the day before we had agreed that he could return and complete his training but I said to him that

it was quite likely that events would overtake us, we might have to recall him and therefore, before he began his

training that morning, we would have a telephone conversation to confirm that was not required or otherwise. So I

spoke to him at 8.30 roughly that morning to say, "Carry on with your training and complete it". I then spoke to him -

-

Q. Sorry to interrupt you. That training was relating to his ...

A. To his intended deployment to Iraq later in the month of July, as part of the Iraqi survey group. This was

predeployment training for everybody who goes on that posting.

Q. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you.

A. Then I had a conversation with him in the afternoon at around -- well, between 4.15 and 4.45. I cannot be precise

about it but I think it finished about 4.30 when I was clearing with him over the telephone the statement that was

subsequently issued. And that was my last conversation with him.

Q. Right. And there will be others who one can question more directly about their conversations with him relating to

the support offered before his appearances before the Committee?

A. Oh correct, yes.

Q. Subject to those aspects, is there anything else which you know of the circumstances surrounding the death of

Dr Kelly which you can help Lord Hutton with?

A. In my witness statement, for example, I put an analysis which I conducted after the first interview, which is quite

important, the development of how the Ministry of Defence handled this, of whether or not it was likely that Dr Kelly,

on the evidence of his interview with me and Dr Wells and comparison with the foreign affairs hearing with Mr

Gilligan, of whether or not Dr Kelly was likely to be the "single source" described by Mr Gilligan.

Q. That document you have provided?

A. I have.

Q. And we will produce the chronological sequence. But the document speaks for itself, does it not?

A. I believe so, yes.

Q. Subject to that, is there anything else?

A. Perhaps I could help you with one of your earlier enquiries. I was reflecting in the break about the arcane grading

systems and so on. Perhaps since you were particularly interested in his pay, I think you will find the pay he had as a

DSTL level 9, whether or not that counts as being within the Senior Civil Service, the band is well within the band of

pay that would be available for a senior civil servant. So for pay purposes he was indeed being paid at that sort of

level. It is just that he is not managed as a member of the Senior Civil Service, he is not part of its corporate

programme, et cetera, et cetera.

Q. The distinction appears to have been, from what you were saying before, tell me if I get this wrong, that

scientifically he was obviously at that level, it is just that managerially, because scientists perhaps like lawyers do not

make the best managers, he was not at that level.

A. He certainly had not had any management experience at that level, that is true. I do not know about his actually

qualities as a manager.

MR CALDECOTT: Thank you very much.

LORD HUTTON: Mr Hatfield, may I ask you: you have said that there is no specific procedure about naming the

names of civil servants, but would you say that there is a general understanding that the names of civil servants are

not given to the media?

A. No, I would not say that. I would wish that there was perhaps, but there is not. If a civil servant does something

that is of media interest, I would normally expect to disclose the name, especially if I, as I indicated in this case,

think it is quite likely the civil servant is likely to appear before a parliamentary committee. There are many occasions

where we would want to keep the name back for as long as possible, and there might also be occasions where if

you hope that it is not going to turn out to be a major media event or subject to major media interest that by not

disclosing a name initially you will not need to later on. There is certainly no presumption we do not name the people

who are involved in important events.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. The only qualification I would give on that is we do not, of course, normally publicise the outcome of internal

disciplinary matters. But this was not in relation to an internal disciplinary matter primarily that we made the

statement.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. If I may just take a case to illustrate a point in my mind. Suppose there was a debate in the

Ministry of Transport about road congestion and one policy that was advocated was that you seek to put more

money into the railways to encourage people to travel on railways. The other point of view was that you widen the

motorways to improve the flow of traffic. Suppose there was a leak to the press, in general terms, that there were

two senior civil servants each of whom were advocating their different policy and putting it to the Minister and there

was a conflict on this point in the Ministry, and suppose the media came to the press officer for that Ministry or that

department and asked for the names of the two civil servants. Now, in that sort of case, would the names normally

be given?

A. We would not normally disclose the names of civil servants who advocated particular policies internally, but that

is not because it is their name we are protecting, we are protecting the convention that we do not give details of

internal positions and advice to Ministers. If one of those officials in your story had been, as it were, caught, if I can

put it that way, leaking to the media and it had been established we felt that individual was the source of the leak,

we might well have, in your story, confirmed this was the name of the individual we had been talking to or whatever,

you know, the enquiry had got to.

LORD HUTTON: And that would be done on what basis? What would be the thinking behind the decision to

disclose that name?

A. I think it would depend why we were making the statement in the first place. It is not that we are making a

statement to name an individual. We are making a statement about roads, or stories that had been run about roads

in your story. If it is necessary, either for the purposes of the immediate statement or in the light of what will happen

the next day, as it were, to identify the individual then we would identify it. If it is not, we would not gratuitously

identify an individual.

LORD HUTTON: And if it were appreciated that putting the name into the public domain would attract perhaps

considerable criticism of that civil servant, is that a consideration that would come into the decision?

A. It certainly is, but so would be the reverse, that in certain circumstances, which I think certainly applied in this

particular case, we would be just as likely to be criticised if we suppressed the name. Indeed, I am afraid I cannot

resist making this comment: I find some difficulty in squaring the press' desire to know the name of Dr Kelly with the

press' criticism of us for providing it to them.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. You said that the civil servant who had appeared to be the source of the information might be

a witness before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee or the House of Commons. At the time the decision was

taken to issue the Ministry of Defence statement, the Committee had not been informed at that time, had they, of --

A. I am not sure about that. You would have to ask one of the other witnesses at what point the Committee was

informed.

LORD HUTTON: But part of the thinking in the Ministry, as you have explained, was that this civil servant might well

be called to give evidence before that Committee?

A. It was my personal thinking from the moment that I first saw the papers on Friday 4th July, since Dr Kelly's

contact with Andrew Gilligan clearly could be seen as being related to the evidence Mr Gilligan had given to the

Foreign Affairs Committee, regardless of whether they actually turned out to be the same person, it seemed to me

highly likely he would be called, from the moment I saw the letter alongside the evidence given by Mr Gilligan,

because it was covering the very similar territory, even leaving the omissions or at least the bits that do not overlap

in the two stories.

LORD HUTTON: I think you have indicated, correct me if this is incorrect, that perhaps part of the thinking in the

Ministry was that the press would narrow down Mr Gilligan's source to perhaps three or four persons in the

Government service and that if the name of the particular civil servant were not given, that would perhaps subject a

number of people to criticism or make them the focus of media attention?

A. That is quite correct; and they were doing that or getting quite close to that even before -- well, even on the

Saturday.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. I see. You refer to Dr Kelly going to this course on I think 2nd July in preparation for

deployment to Iraq. Were you concerned, as director of personnel, with that appointment and with that posting?

A. In what respect, my Lord?

LORD HUTTON: Would you have been asked about it? Would you have given your approval?

A. I was only asked in the sense of because of the events in which Dr Kelly had found himself caught up at that

point, I was asked at the end particularly of the second interview on the Monday whether it was sensible to proceed

with that. Indeed, we had a preliminary discussion on the Friday about whether he was likely to go to Ira

Q. In the normal circumstances I would have had no direct involvement. But the issue was essentially, because of

what he was now caught up with, was he likely to go. The answer was: yes, subject to events.

LORD HUTTON: I see. I think you have stated already that view was conveyed to Dr Kelly?

A. It certainly was conveyed to Dr Kelly by myself, and subsequently I think arrangements were made indeed to the

extent of getting his plane tickets.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. So up until his sad death it would be your opinion that Dr Kelly thought that he would be

deployed again to Iraq?

A. Yes, within days.

LORD HUTTON: I see. And when you spoke to him about the issuing of the Ministry of Defence statement, which

referred to an unnamed civil servant, what was his attitude about that, when you spoke on the telephone?

A. I think that both he and I conducted that conversation on the basis that his name would inevitably come out really

quite quickly. As you see, the statement does not name him but it provides quite a lot of information about him,

which he knew was going to be in there; and we had conducted all our interviews since I first met him on the Friday

on the basis that in some form or other, and that partly depended on whether we could establish he was not the

source for Andrew Gilligan's report, this is going to become public. Quite simply, I mean we had already done

something unusual in the Ministry of Defence. We had summonsed him to a meeting in my office. We called him

back from RAF Honington for the second interview. It would not have taken much investigative journalism to have

found out that Dr Kelly was attracting some unusual attention inside the Ministry of Defence.

LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much. I am most grateful for the help you have given me. Now, Mr Dingemans,

would you like to rise now?

MR DINGEMANS: I am in your hands. We have Mr Lamb, who is available to start giving evidence on the dossier. He

will be coming back later in the week to give other evidence but he is available and has been since 12 o'clock.

LORD HUTTON: I think as we have had a number of short adjournments we should proceed.

MR DINGEMANS: Yes. Mr Lamb please. While we are waiting, we might as well get DOS/1/55.

MR PATRICK LAMB (called) Examined by MR DINGEMANS

Q. Mr Lamb, could you tell his Lordship your full name?

A. My full name is Patrick Lamb.

Q. And what is your current occupation?

A. I am presently the deputy head of the Counter Proliferation Department in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Q. In that capacity did you work at all with Dr Kelly?

A. I worked very closely with David Kelly, in particular since 2000 when I was appointed to the post of deputy head

of the department, because at that time responsibility came to me in addition to overall responsibility for arms

control issues related to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, matters relating to the UNMOVIC section within

our department.

Q. You are going to be asked later on in the week about your other dealings with Dr Kelly. Can I just deal now with

the dossier?

A. Certainly.

Q. Were you involved yourself in the production of the Government's 24th September 2002 dossier?

A. I was involved at an early stage in the course of 2002 with preparation of the historical elements, the historical

briefing paper that formed part of that eventual dossier that related to the history of the UNSCOM inspections in Iraq

in the course of the 1990s.

Q. Can we turn to page 56, which has the contents summarised? A document should be coming up just in front of

you which will give you the contents. The foreword by the Prime Minister you obviously were not involved with.

A. Correct.

Q. Nor the executive summary. Can you tell us in part 1 what, if anything, you had to do with?

A. In part 1 at an earlier stage in the year I reviewed the situation with respect to the current position of the Iraq's

WMD programmes.

Q. So that is pages 17 to 33 or 17 to 32, as it were?

A. Excuse me. I would say, yes, 17 to 32.

Q. Yes.

A. But the direct involvement was with pages 33 to, I think in effect, 41; and that was the history of the weapons

inspections.

Q. Right. And did you have anything to do with the historic Iraqi programmes between 1971 to 1998, what is chapter

2 if you look at the dossier?

A. No. The focus of my work and my direct involvement really was on that briefing paper that was going to be

focused on the UNSCOM inspections and, as I say, the history of those inspections.

Q. So that is really pages 33 on?

A. Correct.

Q. Just to give you the title of that, if we turn to DOS/1/88, here we see page 33 of the dossier "History of UN

Weapons Inspections".

A. Correct.

Q. This is the beginning of your contribution?

A. Correct.

Q. When did you produce your contribution?

A. The contribution was taken forward in the following way: the then head of the UNMOVIC section was asked by

the Cabinet Office to produce a briefing paper on the history of the UNSCOM inspections, which he did in April

2002.

Q. Who was that who was asked?

A. The official in question was Mr Peter Spoor.

Q. He then delegated the actual writing of it to you, is that right?

A. No, Mr Spoor produced the initial text on the history of the UNSCOM inspections. He showed the text to Dr Kelly

and to me. At that point a decision was made that it would be helpful if we perhaps included a specific case study

on the history of the Iraqi biological weapons programme, which was, of course, David Kelly's very specific area of

competence and expertise. The paper, therefore, went forward in that form initially into the Cabinet Office and the

meetings which then took place in the Cabinet Office on the basis of that text. Mr Spoor left at the end of April 2002;

and in the absence of an immediate successor, I therefore took over the drafting role in the event that any further

material was required. And following meetings in the Cabinet Office it was felt that we could supplement it with

further information that would, as I recall, focus on the extent of Iraqi deception and concealment; that would focus

on the presidential palaces.

Q. Right.

A. And also that would bring in a further historical element, namely the Desert Fox operation in 1998.

Q. When were those later additions made?

A. They were made in the course of May 2002.

Q. Right. Now I think you have disclosed that Dr Kelly was involved in April 2002 in the first draft.

A. Correct.

Q. Was he involved in the May additions?

A. Yes, he was. The primary responsibility, as I said, with drafting actually fell both to Mr Spoor and then

subsequently to me. But at all times we would show the text to David and we would very much rely on his expertise

and knowledge, as the source and person who could verify the accuracy of what we were producing.

Q. That was because of his involvement in the UNSCOM inspections?

A. Very much so. He obviously had direct involvement. Often, I can recall, if I had to make a choice between a

textural choice and Dr Kelly, I would often back Dr Kelly ahead of the textural source. That is to say, one would

normally go to an UNSCOM document and use that as the basis for one's information, but I do recall on certain

instances, even though I had textural information and textural support, I still asked David to confirm, such was his

expertise and such was our confidence in him.

Q. And as far as your own writing was concerned, he then looked at every word you drafted, and reviewed it with

you?

A. The additions -- yes, I would say that is probably accurate. Often much of this was uncontentious. As I say, it is

largely historical and therefore not subject to any controversy, insofar as it is now part of the historical record. But

occasionally, and inevitably when one is producing something that is a summary -- it is important obviously to

accurately reflect the whole. And I would often put past him, sometimes on the telephone if need be, a particular

sentence or a particular phrase, especially if following the Cabinet Office meetings there was some discussion of a

particular point.

Q. Those Cabinet Office meetings that you have referred to were in, I think, May 2002; you told us about that.

A. Correct, yes.

Q. Were there any subsequent Cabinet Office meetings that you were aware of?

A. There were subsequent meetings in May, and obviously in June, because as far as I can recall, my work and the

work of my department ended, directly at least, with the historical element of the dossier around about 20th June

when a version of the briefing papers was produced.

Q. Right.

A. I am aware obviously, excuse me, that there were later Cabinet Office meetings obviously on the dossier.

Q. Yes. But you were not involved?

A. I was not involved with those later Cabinet Office meetings, no.

Q. But it appears that David Kelly had further involvement, but that was not through you; is that right?

A. He had further involvement through me in one respect, which is that after the decision by the Prime Minister on

3rd September that there would be a public dossier, there was obviously a revision of all of the constituent parts that

we had variously put together in the Foreign Office and elsewhere. And my colleague in the Counter Proliferation

Department, who by then had been appointed to be head of the UNMOVIC section, received a draft of the historical

element on 9th September which he showed and shared with Dr Kelly. So Dr Kelly saw that element, I believe, on

9th September. But it was the only element of the dossier that he saw in the Foreign Office that I am aware of.

Q. Through the Foreign Office?

A. Through the Foreign Office.

Q. And the Defence Intelligence Service you had nothing to do with?

A. Clearly we worked very closely our colleagues in the Defence Intelligence Services, but I was unaware of any

meetings that took place with the defence intelligence staff involving Dr Kelly.

Q. And whether or not he had any involvement through the Defence Intelligence Service?

A. I was aware that Dr Kelly spoke to and liaised with colleagues in the defence intelligence staff, obviously, but I

was unaware at the time that he had any contacts relating to the dossier through the defence intelligence staff.

Q. I am not going to ask you to name the persons in the Defence Intelligence Service but you have mentioned

someone in the Foreign Office who liaised with him --

A. Correct.

Q. -- with the September draft. Are you in a position to give me his name?

A. Certainly, yes. That individual, that person is Mr Mark Peters.

Q. Right. He was working for you?

A. Correct.

Q. In tidying up the drafts.

A. It came through, as I recall, very quickly and had to be turned round very quickly. Mark saw it, I saw it, but it was

a very rapid revision/review of the work that we had, in effect, completed a month and a half earlier, around about

20th June.

Q. Perhaps after lunch I can come back to what you drafted and what Dr Kelly drafted in May and June, and then

the detail of what you had in September.

A. Certainly.

LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much.

1.00 pm: The short adjournment