The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies (34 page)

Other features at the scene which would tend to support this impression include the relatively passive distribution of the blood, the neat way in which the water bottle and its top were placed, the lack of obvious signs of trampling of the undergrowth or damage to the clothing. To my mind, the location of the death is also of interest in this respect because it was clearly a very pleasant and relatively private spot of the type that is sometimes chosen by people intent upon self harm.

Q. Is that something you have found from your past experience?

A. Yes, and knowledge of the literature. Many of the injuries over the left wrist show evidence of a well developed vital reaction which suggests that they had been inflicted over a reasonable period of time, minutes, though, rather than seconds or many hours before death.

LORD HUTTON: What do you mean by a “vital reaction”?

A. A vital reaction, my Lord, is the body’s response to an area of damage. It manifests itself chiefly in the form of reddening and swelling around the area.

LORD HUTTON: I interrupted you. You were at 9 and you are coming on to 10, I think.

A. Thank you, my Lord. There is a total lack of classical defence wounds against sharp weapon attack. Such wounds are typically seen in the palm aspects of the hands or over the outer aspects of the forearms. It was noted that he has a significant degree of coronary artery disease and this may have played some small part in the rapidity of death but not the major part in the cause of death.

Given the finding of blister packs of Coproxamol tablets within the coat pocket and the vomitus around the ground, it is an entirely reasonable supposition that he may have consumed a quantity of these tablets either on the way to or at the scene itself.

Q. What did the toxicology report suggest?

A. That he had consumed a significant quantity of the tablets.

Q. I am not going to trouble you with the details of the toxicology report. Was there anything else in addition to the toxicology samples that you noticed?

A. (Pause). Really the only other thing in addition to that was the coronary artery disease that could have had a part in the rapidity of death in these circumstances.

Q. You have mentioned the minor injury to the inner aspect of the lip.

A. Yes.

Q. Moving on from that, you mentioned the abrasions to the head. Would you like to resume your summary at that point?

A. Yes. The minor injuries or abrasions over the head are entirely consistent with scraping against rough undergrowth such as small twigs, branches and stones which were present at the scene.

LORD HUTTON: Did you give any consideration or do anything in relation to the possibility of Dr Kelly having been overpowered by any substance?

A. Yes, indeed, my Lord. The substances which one thinks of, as a pathologist, in these terms are volatile chemicals. Perhaps chloroform is a classic example. So in order to investigate that—

LORD HUTTON: You need not go into the detail but if you state it in a general way.

A. I retained a lung and also blood samples until the toxicology was complete.

LORD HUTTON: And the purpose of that toxicology being?

A. To examine for any signs of a volatile chemical in the blood or, failing that, in the lungs.

LORD HUTTON: Yes, I see. Thank you.

Yes, Mr Knox.

MR KNOX: If you move on to conclusion 18.

A. Certainly. The minor reddened lesions on the lower limbs are typical of areas of minor hair follicle irritation or skin irritation, so they were not injuries in particular. They were not puncture wounds.

Q. Conclusion 19?

A. I had undertaken subcutaneous dissection of the arms and the legs and there is no positive evidence of restraint-type injury.

Q. Conclusion 20?

A. There is no positive pathological evidence that this man had been subjected to a sustained violent assault prior to his death.

LORD HUTTON: Just going back to your previous observation, a restraint-type injury of someone who has been held by the arms and the legs.

A. Yes, my Lord. Yes, particularly around the areas of the ankles and the wrists.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. Yes. Thank you.

MR KNOX: Conclusion 21?

A. There was no positive pathological evidence to indicate that he has been subjected to compression of the neck, such as by manual strangulation, ligature strangulation or the use of an arm hold.

Q. And next?

A. There is no evidence from the post-mortem examination or my observations at the scene to indicate that the deceased had been dragged or otherwise transported to the location where his body was found.

141. Dr Hunt summarised his opinion as to the major factor involved in Dr Kelly’s death as follows:

Q. And in summary, what is your opinion as to the major factor involved in Dr Kelly’s death?

A. It is the haemorrhage as a result of the incised wounds to his left wrist.

Q. If that had not occurred, would Dr Kelly have died?

A. He may not have done at this time, with that level of dextropropoxyphene.

Q. What role, if any, did the coronary disease play?

A. As with the drug dextropropoxyphene, it would have hastened death rather than caused it, as such.

Q. So how would you summarise, in brief, your conclusions as to the cause of death?

A. In the formulation, the cause of death is given as 1(a) haemorrhage due to 1(b) incised wounds of the left wrist. Under part 2 of the formulation of the medical cause of death, Coproxamol ingestion and coronary artery atherosclerosis.

Q. You have already dealt with this, I think, but could you confirm whether, as far as you could tell on the examination, there was any sign of third party involvement in Dr Kelly’s death?

A. No, there was no pathological evidence to indicate the involvement of a third party in Dr Kelly’s death. Rather, the features are quite typical, I would say, of self-inflicted injury if one ignores all the other features of the case.

142. A forensic biologist, Mr Roy Green, arrived at the scene where the body was lying at 2.00 p.m. on 18 July. He examined the scene with particular reference to the bloodstaining in the area. The relevant parts of his evidence are as follows:

Q. Did you examine the vegetation around the body?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you form any conclusions from that examination?

A. Well, the bloodstaining that was highest from the ground was approximately 50 centimetres above the ground. This was above the position where Dr Kelly’s left wrist was, but most of the stainings were 33 centimetres, which is approximately a foot above the ground. It was all fairly low level stuff.

Q. What does that mean?

A. It meant that because the injury – most of the injuries would have taken place while Dr Kelly was sitting down or lying down.

Q. Right. When you first saw the body, what position was it in?

A. He was on his back with the left wrist curled back in this sort of manner (Indicates).

Q. Did you make any other relevant discoveries while you were looking around the area?

A. There was an obvious large contact bloodstain on the knee of the jeans.

Q. What do you mean by a “contact bloodstain”?

A. A contact stain is what you will observe if an item has come into contact with a bloodstained surface, as opposed to blood spots and splashes when blood splashes on to an item.

Q. Which means at some stage his left wrist must have been in contact with his trousers?

A. No, what I am saying, at some stage he has knelt – I believe he has knelt in a pool of blood at some stage and this obviously is after he has been injured.

Q. Any other findings?

A. There were smears of blood on the Evian bottle and on the cap.

Q. And what did that indicate to you?

A. Well, that would indicate to me that Dr Kelly was already injured when he used the Evian bottle. As an explanation, my Lord—

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. —when people are injured and losing blood they will become thirsty.

MR DINGEMANS: They become?

A. Thirsty, as they are losing all that fluid.

Q. You thought he is likely to have had a drink then?

A. Yes.

Q. What else did you find?

A. There was a bloodstain on the right sleeve of the Barbour jacket. At the time that was a bit – slightly unusual, in that if someone is cutting their wrist you wonder how, if you are moving across like this, how you get blood sort of here (Indicates). But if the knife was held and it went like that, with the injury passing across the sleeve, that is a possible explanation. Another possible explanation is in leaning across to get the Evian bottle that the two areas may have crossed.

Q. Had crossed?

A. Yes.

Q. We know, in fact, the wrist which was cut was the left wrist, is that right?

A. That is correct.

Q. And we know that Dr Kelly was right handed.

A. I was not aware of that, but yes.

Q. Were those all your relevant findings?

A. The jeans, as I have talked about, with this large contact stain, did not appear to have any larger downward drops on them. There were a few stains and so forth but it did not have any staining that would suggest to me that his injuries, or his major injuries if you like, were caused while he was standing up, and there was not any – there did not appear to be any blood underneath where he was found, and the body was later moved which all suggested those injuries were caused while he was sat or lying down.

143. Dr Alexander Allan, a forensic toxicologist, was sent blood and urine samples and stomach contents taken from the body of Dr Kelly in the course of Dr Hunt’s post-mortem examination which he then analysed. Dr Allan found paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene in the samples and stomach contents. He described paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene as follows:

The two components, paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene, are the active components of a substance called Coproxamol which is a prescription only medicine containing 325 milligrams of paracetamol and 32.5 milligrams of dextropropoxyphene.

Q. What sort of ailments would that be prescribed for?

A. Mild to moderate pain, typically a bad back or period pain, something like that. And the concentrations of both drugs represent quite a large overdose of Coproxamol.

Q. What does the dextropropoxyphene cause if it is taken in overdose?

A. Dextropropoxyphene is an opioid analgesic drug which causes effects typical of opiate drugs in overdose, effects such as drowsiness, sedation and ultimately coma, respiratory depression and heart failure and dextropropoxyphene is known particularly in certain circumstances to cause disruption of the rhythm of the heart and it can cause death by that process in some cases of overdose.

Q. And what about paracetamol, what does that do?

A. Paracetamol does not cause drowsiness or sedation in overdose, but if enough is taken it can cause damage to the liver.

Q. If enough? I think you mean if too much is taken.

A. If too much is taken. I beg your pardon.

Q. What about the concentrations you have mentioned that you found in the blood? What did that indicate?

A. They are much higher than therapeutic use. Typically therapeutic use would represent one tenth of these concentrations. They clearly represent an overdose. But they are somewhat lower than what I would normally expect to encounter in cases of death due to an overdose of Coproxamol.

Q. What would you expect to see in the usual case where dextropropoxyphene has resulted in death? What types of proportions or concentrations would you normally expect to see?

A. There are two surveys reported I am aware of. One reports a concentration of 2.8 micrograms per millilitre of blood of dextropropoxyphene in a series of fatal overdose cases. Another one reports an average concentration of 4.7 microgrammes per millilitre of blood. You can say that they are several-fold larger than the level I found of 1 [microgram].

Q. What about the paracetamol concentration you found?

A. Again, it is higher than would be expected for therapeutic use, approximately 5 or 10 times higher. But it is much lower or lower than would be expected for paracetamol fatalities normally unless there was other factors of drugs involved.

Q. What sort of level would you normal [sic] expect for paracetamol fatalities?

A. I think if you can get the blood reasonably shortly after the incident and the person does not die slowly in hospital due to liver failure, perhaps typically 3 to 400 micrograms per millilitre of blood.