The Hutton inquiry
THE HUTTON INQUIRY into the
circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly will hold a
preliminary hearing tomorrow, Friday 1 August. It will then adjourn and
will not start taking evidence until after Dr Kelly's funeral on Wednesday
of next week.
Much of the preliminary hearing will be taken up with submissions made by
barristers appearing on behalf of ITN and Sky News, who will argue that
the entire proceedings should be opened up to television cameras. Lord
Hutton will listen patiently, nod sagely at the appropriate moments and
give every appearance of being open to persuasion on this point. He will
then retire to consider the submissions he has heard. After an appropriate
period of time he will return in order to rule against the presence of TV
cameras. The barristers will then go back to their chambers content,
having earned between them the equivalent of my annual income (or perhaps considerably more).
Thus will begin one of the most important inquiries ever held into honesty
and deception in British public life.
The Hutton inquiry now has its own website where transcripts of the day's
evidence and other information will be posted throughout the
proceedings. For this website, click
here.
An extensive commentary on the Kelly affair, together with a small library
of carefully chosen links, will appear on this site before Lord Hutton
starts to take evidence. The links will include one to
Tim Lott's article on Dr Kelly's suicide, which was published in the
Times. They will also include
an earlier article from the Times which appears now to
have got the entire story spectacularly wrong. Appearances, however, are
sometimes deceptive.
Related stories
The Kelly affair: a library of links
31 July 2003
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© Richard Webster, 2003
www.richardwebster.net
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