An Inconvenient Death by Miles Goslett

 

In 2003 I was working as a researcher on the now defunct Jonathan Dimbleby Programme, produced by Granada and broadcast on ITV on Sunday, the programme was a Question Time type format (indeed, Question Time was hosted by Jonathan’s brother David) with a panel of political figures taking questions from a live audience. 2003 was an eventful year, the war in Afghanistan still ongoing after the US invasion of 2001 and the drumbeats of a new war on the horizon, with the administration of George W Bush set on a controversial invasion of Iraq. In July of that year, Dr David Kelly died, setting the scene for the Hutton Inquiry and all the fall out that came after, an event that was the focus of many an edition of the Jonathan Dimbleby Programme.

One thing I well remember is the drama of waiting outside the Royal Courts of Justice on 28^thJanuary 2004 for the Hutton Inquiry report to be officially published, collecting multiple copies for the office and carrying them back, the team then proceeding to pour over the 750-page volume. So, perhaps then I can be forgiven for being fascinated with the case ever since.

Others are equally fascinated, for Miles Goslett’s An Inconvenient Death is in fact the third book to be published on the death of Dr David Kelly. The first, titled The Strange Death of David Kelly, was written by then-Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, and hit the bookshelves in 2007. The second, Dark Actors by the novelist Robert Lewis, was published in 2013. Finally, there’s An Inconvenient Death by Miles Goslett, a respected journalist who’s written for the Evening Standard, Sunday Telegraph and Mail on Sunday.

Apart from their subject, all these titles share one overarching theme: a scepticism of the official narrative. Indeed, as yet, there is no book published that supports that narrative. Of course, critics might explain this by arguing that conspiracy theories sell, which might well be true. One can fill bookcases with tomes suggesting JFK was killed by the CIA, the Cubans, the Russians, the mafia; just a shelf with those that lay the blame at the door of a lone, deranged gunman. But while this point has some justification, it also reflects something wider: a widespread concern in both cases that the official story just doesn’t stand up.

Dr David Kelly was a scientist and leading authority on biological warfare. He had been a weapons inspector in Russia and Iraq (indeed, the book Dark Actors by Robert Lewis goes into some depth on his work as a weapons inspector) and was due to return to Iraq with an inspection team. Most recently, he had been advising on the dossier being drawn up by the Joint Intelligence Committee regarding the threat of Iraq’s WMD programme and it was this work that was to seal his fate.

Kelly regularly met with journalists and he briefed the journalist Andrew Gilligan on the dossier. Gilligan, in a radio broadcast for the BBC Today Programme, went onto claim that a source had said that Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s spin doctor, had “sexed up” the dossier. Campbell took this badly and in the ensuing protracted showdown between the government and the BBC, Kelly was outed as Gilligan’s source. Interestingly, Dr Kelly always denied being Gilligan’s source, something which Goslett examines and gives credence to. I have to admit to having never seriously considered the prospect that Gilligan might have had a second, more authoritative source, and the author makes a good case that this might in fact have been so

In the following weeks, Kelly’s home was besieged by journalists, he was compelled to give evidence before two select committees - one of which was televised - and if one believes the official narrative, finding the pressure too much to bear, coupled with a belief that he would never again be allowed to continue work as a weapons inspector, he made his way to nearby Harrowdown Hill, where he took an overdose of Co-Proxamol tablets and slashed the ulnar artery of his left wrist.

Goslett’s book outlines all this in fair detail before going onto discuss the problems with this story. First and foremost, he takes issue with the Hutton Inquiry itself, which stopped an inquest from ever being held into Kelly’s death. Inquests in UK law are supremely independent bodies with the power to summon witnesses and have them give evidence on oath, conversely the Hutton Inquiry was entirely voluntary, with no actual legal powers. I have to confess to not having realised that at the time, so this was a revelation. Goslett implies that this was why the inquiry was set up in the first place, to ensure a less than adequate examination of Kelly’s death.

Goslett also discusses all the inconsistencies with the evidence, the fact that many medical experts’ query whether slashing the ulnar artery would be sufficient to bleed to death (it’s very thin, like a fine thread, and might well clot) and whether he had enough Co-Proxamol in his system to cause a fatal overdose. Combined with the evidence that he had difficulty swallowing pills and that due to an arm injury he had such weakness in the right arm that he found it difficult to cut a steak, let alone cut through the flesh, muscle and tendons of his left wrist (Kelly was right handed), it is not difficult to understand why Goslett and others have doubts.

A book review doesn’t give one enough space to go through all the evidence that Goslett marshals to support his case, for that one needs to read the book, but needless to say there is much more. But does it all mean that Kelly did not in fact take his own life? And if not, how did he come to die? Frustratingly, the author does not reveal his beliefs on the matter, preferring to argue that there is a need now for a proper inquest to discover the truth. This feels unsatisfactory in the extreme. Bearing in mind that most people who read this title will have followed the case to a greater or lesser extent, will have an opinion either way, the least Goslett can do is put his forward.

While his arguments for the need for an inquest are sound (would it not put the matter to rest, at least? Surely, regardless of whether one believes Kelly committed suicide, all can agree the Hutton Report was flawed) I personally feel he overstates his argument that the Hutton Inquiry was an effective means of silencing the matter. For surely coroners and inquests can be got at? The Hutton Inquiry became an international televisual spectacle, something that came to define Blair’s legacy, and it was obvious this was going to be the case at the time. Would it not have been easier to have the inquest and try and fix the result, perhaps by influencing what witnesses would say? That said, as he points out, Blair ordered the inquiry the very night Kelly’s body was discovered, and the Hutton Inquiry - both its commission and process - were curious to say the least. 

For the record, I’m personally in two minds as to whether Dr David Kelly committed suicide or was murdered, and if the latter, by who. I do agree with the author that there should be an inquest and that the Hutton Inquiry was a whitewash, but equally I am both doubtful that this will ever come to pass or that we will ever definitively have the truth, not least due to the fact that Lord Hutton ordered much of the evidence - including Dr Kelly’s post-mortem report - be sealed for seventy years.

4 out of 5 stars