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Jan. 3, 2019 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
55:48
Edition 376 - Miles Goslett

Distinguished Investigative Journalist Miles Goslett raising questions around the death of UK government expert Dr David Kelly in the run up to the war that unseated Saddam Hussein in Iraq...

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Across the UK, across continental North America, and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes, and this in 2019 is The Unexplained.
A very happy new year, wherever in the world you are, whether you're in Melbourne, Manchester, UK, or Massachusetts, wherever you are.
Thank you very much for being part of my family, I would say, here on this podcast, on my show, The Unexplained, for all of these years.
13 years this year, we've been doing this.
And your suggestions, vital to me, so that I can improve this and give you what you need here.
So go to my website, theunexplained.tv, and some news about that.
We're developing and putting the finishing touches on the brand new website coming very soon.
I just have to have a meeting with Adam, my webmaster, and then we'll be away.
But for the moment, you can always go to the website at theunexplained.tv and send me a message, guest suggestions, thoughts about the show, ways that it can be improved, anything like that.
Theunexplained.tv, that is the website, and it will also be the domain name for the brand new website coming soon for 2019.
It's really humbling to get your emails.
I've had some really lovely ones over the holidays.
And if you emailed me, thank you so much.
And whatever points you make, please know that I take them all on board.
And how much of the mainstream media or the big subscription podcasts, how much of that sector takes account of what you say, I wonder.
But we do, because that's how we continue here.
On this edition of the show, I want to tie up a loose end from 2018 and bring you an extended version of a conversation that we had on the radio about six months ago.
This was an interview that you've asked me to provide here on the website and here on the podcast, so we're going to do that.
The man we're talking with is a guy called Miles Goslett, one of the finest investigative reporters that I've ever spoken with.
In fact, he lives not very far from where I do.
And the guy has done a tremendous amount of research into the controversial death of Dr. David Kelly.
That name, if you're in the UK and even if you're in the US, I think will be familiar to you.
But if it's not, let me read from the book jacket here because it explains what happened.
2003.
One of the strangest events in recent British history.
This scrupulous scientist, Dr. David Kelly, an expert on weapons of mass destruction, was caught up in the rush to war in Iraq.
According to the book jacket, he felt under pressure from people around Tony Blair to provide evidence that Saddam Hussein was producing weapons of mass destruction that could be used to immediate and devastating effect.
Kelly seemed to have tipped into sudden depression when he was outed as a source for Andrew Gilligan, a BBC reporter at the time.
Case closed for Blair, Alistair Campbell, and the intelligence agencies, says the jacket of the book.
But the circumstances of David Kelly's death are replete with disquieting questions, some of which we'll be discussing with Miles Goslett, the author of the book An Inconvenient Death, on this edition of The Unexplained.
Like I say, an extended version of something that was on the radio, and I've had so many emails asking me to provide this here on the podcast.
So to start 2019 and to make sure that we tie up a loose end, I'm going to do that now.
And we have some great guests coming soon for you here on the podcast.
So please keep checking in on the website and checking in with your favorite podcast provider and we'll do it.
And I'd love to hear from you.
When you get in touch, please tell me who you are, where you are, and how you use the show.
TheUnexplained.tv, your one-stop shop for me and this show.
All right.
This is the conversation then, an extended version of it that appeared on the radio about six months ago to do with an inconvenient death.
The death of Dr. David Kelly.
A lot, many tens and tens of thousands of words have been written about the death of Dr. David Kelly.
Many words have been spoken, not only by journalists, but also by people connected with him and observers over the years.
Do you think that there is any more we can learn about his death at this distance removed?
Bearing in mind, of course, that it is 15 years now.
That is, in anybody's book, a very long time?
Yeah, I do think that there is more that we can learn about his death, and we can do so via a coroner's inquest, which has never been held.
You know, in this country, normally when somebody dies suddenly or unexpectedly, there is a coroner's inquest.
In the case of Dr. Kelly, there's never been a coroner's inquest.
But if one were to be held, and I very much hope one will be held, you know, we would learn more details about the circumstances of his death, how, where, and when he died.
All, you know, all currently pieces of information which are rather woolly.
And it does seem that no matter who calls for this, and there have been many calls from campaigners who I've interviewed over the years and others, those calls, although they always get column inches in newspapers, seem to fall on deaf ears.
That is unfortunate, and for those people close to Dr. David Kelly, upsetting, I guess.
Well, it is unfortunate that those calls are ignored, you know, because there is a clear public interest in establishing how, where, and when anybody died, actually.
I mean, in this country for thousands of years, it's been that way, hundreds of years rather, it's been that way.
You know, there is a very obvious reason why, you know, it is important to establish those things about someone's death.
I mean, his family, you know, have, you know, have never spoken publicly about this matter.
So I don't know how exactly each of them individually thinks of it.
You know, I just can't say.
But certainly, you know, it is a matter of public interest that deaths of any description, let alone a high-profile one like this, are handled in the proper way.
And I don't think that Dr. Kelly's death has been investigated properly.
And at the very least, that is something That all of us deserve, really.
We all deserve a fair determination of how we died when we meet our ultimate end, and we deserve not to have any questions, gaps, or question marks hanging over that.
Now, it seems to me that there are three parts of your book and three parts of this story.
There is the period before Dr. David Kelly's death, which is interesting to analyse, and it was good to revisit it when I read your book and to read more detail about that.
There is the period when he died, over which there are many questions.
And then, extraordinarily, there are a myriad questions over that which happened after he died.
So, you know, this entire case is beset with doubt.
Absolutely.
You know, you put it very clearly, and it's true.
It is a three-part story in that sense.
You know, it seems completely unsatisfactory, and it should be unsatisfactory to everybody, actually, that this high-profile death has not been examined properly in the way that other deaths are examined.
You know, I'm amazed 15 years on that more noise hasn't been made about this, really, because although a few minutes ago you said 15 years is by anyone's standards a long time, you know, the one thing 15 years does give us is perspective.
And I, together with other people, including medical and legal professionals, have looked at this very closely.
And, you know, increasingly, the word that springs to mind when discussing this matter is farce.
Because it is almost farcical that we should be expected to believe that Dr. David Kelly, a man of science, would have intended to kill himself and then killed himself in the manner officially found, which is, you know, by taking a blunt gardening knife to his left wrist and then swallowing 29 painkillers.
And I want to get into the detail of this a little further down the track, but I need, especially as we have listeners around the world who need to be reminded of this, if I may, paint a picture of this man and how he became embroiled in what was the most sensitive news story, the most sensitive government action of this millennium to the point that we've reached now.
You describe him, and this is a fair description from what we've seen of him in footage, as a quietly spoken government scientist.
This he was.
I mean, he was a brilliant man, weapons inspector, but he was not a man who was used to addressing news conferences.
He was not a man who craved, sought, or ever had the limelight.
Well, no.
I mean, I think that's broadly accurate.
You know, he did give television interviews occasionally.
In fact, he gave a television interview just a few weeks before he was found dead.
So he was not averse to being in the public eye, as it were.
But no, I mean, generally speaking, you know, he was a man who just got on with his work.
You know, I mean, he would speak to journalists.
You know, he was allowed to speak to journalists.
You know, as an expert, of course, journalists working in that field would have to speak to him so that he could educate them in these very important matters, i.e.
chemical and biological weapons.
So he did operate sort of half in the public eye, I suppose, is how I would put it.
He was a man who'd been tasked with inspecting for evidence of Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction, which inspectors were impeded many times in investigating, never really found any evidence of.
And it's very hard to summarize this complicated story, but we're in the run-up to the US, the UK, and the other so-called allies getting together and unseating Saddam Hussein and making a case for unseating Saddam Hussein in Iraq by claiming that he had weapons of mass destruction and essentially that those weapons could be deployed, a claim, of course, that was later rescinded within 45 minutes.
This was key evidence, and certainly for the public, it was a decider.
And there was a briefing with a journalist, which, you know, Dr. David Kelly was used to meeting these people and was used to meeting this particular person.
But this particular claim about the WMDs that Saddam Hussein had or had not was sourced back to Dr. David Kelly.
He was seen to be never formally identified as the source of this.
And that, of course, is what brought him into the public eye and turned up the heat on him.
And I hope that that's a reasonable summation of a complicated scenario.
Yeah, that's right.
That is, I think, a fair way of putting it.
You know, he was thrust into the limelight against his will, right at the end of his life, for, as you say, having spoken to a BBC journalist, BBC defense correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, and he was outed,
for want of a better word, as being Andrew Gilligan's principal source, you know, for the allegation that the dossier, which had been used to sell the case for war in Iraq, had been, quote-unquote, sexed up.
But of course, the Hutton inquiry came to the conclusion that it hadn't really been sexed up.
The salient points had been brought out, I think, was what you say in the book, giving your account of this.
Yeah, well, look, I mean, you know, the key question here is, was Dr. Kelly Andrew Goodigan's source?
Now, I think he was a source, but I don't think he was the only source, and I don't think he was the prime source.
And that comes out Very clearly in your book, which, if I may say so, is the clearest account of this I've ever read and is something that needs to be read by anyone with even half an interest in this story, that there is still doubt as to perhaps there was another primary principal source.
And if there was, who would that have been?
Well, I mean, one doesn't know.
You know, it's really difficult to say.
And in fact, you know, speculating is not necessarily helpful.
However, you know, if I had to, you know, at least suggest what kind of person might have been that prime source, I think it might have been somebody quite high profile, you know, somebody whose reputation, you know, position, whatever, you know, made them really far too explosive, as it were, for them to be known.
And so perhaps they would have, even unconsciously, an interest in making sure or allowing the impression to get out that Dr. David Kelly was the main source.
In other words, it would be a way to take the spotlight off them, whoever they might be.
I think so.
I really think that is plausible.
You know, I mean, you have to remember, things were at fever pitch in July 2003 and in the run-up to July 2003 when all of this happened.
And yeah, absolutely, to take the spotlight off the whole situation, to create a diversion.
And so when Dr. Kelly was forced to appear in front of a select committee, Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and cross-examined about this by a group of MPs,
he gave his account of events and said that he simply didn't recognize the words that were being attributed to him, the suggestion of the sexing up.
The Foreign Affairs Committee cleared him of being Andrew Goodigan's source.
And so in many ways, a rather neat line was drawn under the affair, you know, as far as Dr. Kelly was concerned.
And you mentioned in the book, and I well remember Miles, Andrew McKinley on the committee referring to him as chaff.
Chaff, of course, being, I think it's aluminum shards of very thin foil that are thrown up to throw radar systems off the scent of planes.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, Andrew McKinley, a Labour MP, you know, he was notorious for, you know, seemingly, you know, as far as most people were concerned, giving Dr. Kelly quite a rough time at this select committee.
You know, he accused him of being a bull guy and said, you know, I mean, this was taken as being a sort of an insulting term.
Actually, Andrew McKinley was completely misunderstood by everybody, it seems, including Dr. Kelly, because he said, you've been thrown up to divers our probing.
Have you ever felt like a fool guy?
You have been set up, have you not?
Now, he said those words in what might seem to be a rather aggressive way to Dr. Kelly, but actually, I think Andrew McKinley, in fact, I know Andrew McKinley because I've spoken to him about it, was, you know, he cared very much about what was going on because he didn't believe that Dr. Kelly was the source for this.
And he thought Dr. Kelly had been basically put in front of the committee very much against his will.
And a decent man, a decent public servant, was being used to, as he put it, divert the committee's probing.
And in the meantime, Dr. Kelly was not a man who seemed to be under pressure.
I remember watching those hearings when they were televised.
He seemed at times almost to be enjoying it.
Your account in the book is that as he left that hearing, he was smiling, and it wasn't the sheepish smile of somebody who'd been frightened, like, you know, somebody laughing after a terrible event, just to relieve the tension in a way.
He seemed to be genuinely relaxed.
And indeed, the account in the book is that in the days after that hearing, he was also relaxed and happy.
Yeah, I mean, look, I will, of course, you know, I'll be the first to say, you know, it's impossible to know what's going on inside someone else's mind, you know, and everybody is capable of smiling when inside they feel wretched.
But, you know, I've watched, obviously, the committee session in question.
It lasted for 51 minutes.
And, you know, there were several occasions during that 51-minute session when Dr. Kelly was laughing, cracking jokes, and quite cheerful.
And yet, the official account has it that it was this event that tipped him over the edge and made him kill himself effectively.
You know, it is not accurate to suggest that.
I would venture.
And yeah, he was smiling when he left that committee here.
And he was subjected to scrutiny and questioning by his boss, boss is, but they seemed to be quite happy with the way that he performed, and they were quite okay with everything that was going on.
Well, I mean, I think so.
I think really, you know, as I said, everyone wanted to draw a line under this.
And, you know, it looked as though a line had been drawn under it because Dr. Kelly had done what he had been asked to do, which was to turn up to the telephone committee, give evidence.
You know, he probably shouldn't have, you know, been put into that position anyway, but he did it.
He went through with it.
He performed well.
He spoke fluently.
And the committee reached a definitive Conclusion, which was that they didn't believe that Dr. Kelly was Andrew Gilligan's source for this very controversial BBC News story.
So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think as far as he was concerned, you know, he was looking ahead to the future from that point.
But he did garner a lot of media attention subsequently, and that must have put him under a certain amount of pressure, a pressure such that he felt that he had to get away from it.
Well, I mean, you know, the pressure that you speak of is, you know, I mean, in fact, the pressure that you speak of really had been building up to that point, I would say.
You know, but yeah, I mean, it's true.
He had prior to this committee hearing left his house at short notice and, you know, gone and effectively hidden hundreds of miles away from where he lived in order to dodge the press.
So he'd gone to Cornwall and stayed for a few days before the committee hearing in a house belonging to a friend, a family friend.
But one of the many discrepancies that I think comes out of the book is that he's supposed at one point to be journeying to Cornwall to avoid the press in a car.
But at the same time, he's reported to have been playing cribbage, I think it was, in a pub in Oxfordshire.
He couldn't be in both places.
No, that's right.
I mean, I've spoken to people who said that they were playing cribbage with him on the night in question.
It was the 9th of July 2003.
And yet we are led to believe that the official count has it that on the 9th of July 2003, he was, as you say, driving away from his house with his wife in order to dodge the press.
Now, of itself, this may not be hugely significant, but what is significant is that, of course, the authorities who investigated Dr. Kelly's death were perfectly content to leave this impossible set of events untouched.
I mean, clearly you can't be in two places at once, but for some reason they didn't probe this.
And why do you think, I mean, we can only speculate, but why do you think, we know that there was a great deal of pressure to get this thing concluded, but why would they leave that on the back burner?
Why would they sweep that away when it is such a puzzler?
I can only assume that somebody realized it was going to be very unhelpful if this particular knot were to be untied, because the fact of the matter is no one knows exactly who Dr. Kelly was or what he was up to, if I'm being honest about it.
I mean, although he was a weapons inspector, there are those who say that he also did undercover work for the intelligence services.
And I just think somebody probably realized that actually the less said about this particular passage of time, the better.
So maybe there is something of significance here, which anyone probing any deeper would sort of upset the apple card.
We have to say very clearly here, Miles, that you are not building up and creating a conspiracy theory here.
There are conspiracy theories, of course there are about this and many other cases like it.
That's not what you're doing.
You're just simply laying out a set of facts and the reader can draw whatever conclusions as to which questions now need to be asked.
It will draw whatever conclusions they wish to draw.
Thank you for saying that because it's very important.
Yes.
I mean it's quite simply, as you say, a laying out of the facts and, you know, I'm desperately trying to sort of, you know, magnify the point that, you know, this could and should have been dealt with by a coroner's inquest and never was.
And I think there are probably pretty clear reasons why it was never dealt with at a coroner's inquest, but maybe we'll come on to that.
Well, I mean, that is material to the whole thing.
Let's then talk.
We've talked about the period before Dr. David Kelly sadly died.
Let's talk about his death, and he is found with drugs in his system, we are told, with slash wrists in a wood.
But there is no concurrence even about the position in which he was found.
No, that's right.
His body was found at shortly after 9 o'clock on the morning of Friday, the 18th of July.
Two volunteer searchers who'd been helping Thames Valley Police look for him discover the body.
There is an argument, as it were, as to what position his body was in when it was found.
And this has never been satisfactorily resolved.
And the thinking is that, you know, although these volunteer searchers saw the body in one position, for some reason, about half an hour later, it was in a slightly different position.
And somebody appears to have moved it.
Why did they move it?
Why did they touch it?
Well, one doesn't know.
But that is the fact.
And at a very early stage after this discovery is made, the government is involved in this.
One of Tony Blair's most important lieutenants, Lord Charlie Faulkner, the Attorney General then, wasn't he, was contacted about this.
And wheels were set in motion as to how this should be dealt with and presented.
This is perhaps the strangest thing of all.
It's this timeline.
Dr. Kelly was last seen at 3 o'clock or so in the afternoon on the 17th of July.
He left his house to go for a walk, for a sort of half-hour walk.
He was never seen alive again.
Nine hours after he was last seen by his wife, his family telephoned the police and explained that they hadn't seen him since three.
The police very quickly turned up on their doorstep and very swiftly a large-scale search operation was launched.
It was an overnight hunt for him involving 40 police officers, a police dog, a police helicopter, and these volunteer searchers who I've just mentioned found his body.
Now, when nine hours or so after they began that hunt for him, the body was discovered, or a body matching the description of him was discovered a couple of miles from his house in a wood, Tony Blair was at that exact point on an aeroplane travelling between Washington and Tokyo.
And the Lord Chancellor Charles Falkener was in London and he rang Blair on the aeroplane's telephone and this was within minutes of the body being found and Blair instructed him to set in motion a public inquiry into Dr. Kelly's death.
Now this inquiry, which ultimately elbowed a coroner's inquest out of the way, was established before any cause of Dr. Kelly's death had been determined officially and before the body had even been formally identified.
I mean we don't know, but I suppose a simple explanation of that as to why the Lord Chancellor was in contact with Tony Blair and this was decided quite early was that they would know you don't have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to know that this is a very sensitive affair at a very sensitive time.
So you need to quickly get off the mark and perhaps beat the press to announce that we're doing something and that something will be this inquiry.
Yeah, you could say that, but I mean I'm just very puzzled as to why they were even involved at such an early stage in what was an incident that was local to Oxfordshire and that in any case should have been dealt with by a coroner.
And I know I keep talking about this, but coroners are independent of everybody.
You know, they are in their way quite powerful.
And certainly nobody has any business interfering with the work of a coroner.
But that is exactly what was going on here.
The death certificate is a very in your book.
It's reproduced in the middle of it.
It's a very peculiar document.
Yeah.
The death certificate, well, first of all, in the box which states, the box headed date and place of death, I mean,
you know, normally it would be the case that it would say, you know, this person died at whatever it is, 27 Acacia Avenue, on such and such a date.
But in Dr. Kelly's case, a date of death has been given as the 18th of July 2003.
Well, I mean, you know, it may sound as if I'm splitting hairs, but it's not clear whether he died on the 17th or the 18th.
But in terms of place of death, it just says found dead at Harrowdown Hill, Longworth, Oxham.
Now, you know, that is profoundly unsatisfactory, and this takes us back to coroner's inquests, because they exist in order to determine, among other things, where somebody died.
Well, quite clearly, saying found dead at Harrowdown Hill, Longworth, Oxham does not establish where Dr. Kelly died.
So, you know, that's certainly one of the peculiarities about that certificate.
I mean, it also claims that a coroner's inquest was held on the 14th of August 2003.
Well, I mean, no, that is not the case at all.
There was no inquest held on the 14th of August 2003.
I think the coroner had begun his inquest by that point and had taken...
Yeah, it was opened and then adjourned.
He'd taken a very small amount of evidence, but he was then forced to adjourn it by the government.
It is a very odd document, and it almost leaves more questions than it answers.
I mean, in terms of the method of death, we're told that he had a cut wrist, and there was either, depending on whose account of it you believe, there was a lot of blood or not very much blood, and both were recorded, apparently, according to the book.
And then, of course, there was the ingestion of a lot of drugs, a lot of pills.
And there are questions about that.
Officially, he bled to death, having severed his ulnar artery.
But a lot of doctors have long queried whether the knife that he allegedly used was sharp enough to do that, you know, to cut through his skin and his tendons and his nerves.
I mean, the knife that he allegedly used has never been seen in public, but it had a curved blade.
And it's a sort of pruning knife, a gardening knife.
You know, the ulna artery, people who are expert in matters vascular, you know, are very skeptical that it would be possible to bleed to death by severing the ulna artery because they say that this artery,
which is located near the little finger, just under the little finger, as it were, in the wrist, in that sort of area, it's very small as an artery.
I mean, it's about the size of a matchstick, apparently, and it would close down and clot very quickly if it were cut.
So the idea that somebody would bleed to death, you know, bleed so profusely that they would die is questionable and questioned.
And yet that's what the death certificate says.
It says that he died by hemorrhage.
In terms of the pills that you mention, well, actually, sorry, the other thing to say about the knife is that there is a question mark over the strength of his right arm.
And that all revolves around the question of him being left or right-handed, doesn't it?
Well, look, I mean, I know that there is a certificate, Thames Valley Police produced saying that one of his daughters confirmed that he was right-handed.
So, you know, seemingly, we are to believe that he was right-handed.
But his, I mean, this is something that was never raised at the Harton inquiry.
I suspect it might well have been raised at a coroner's inquest, however.
You know, there's a question mark over the strength of his right arm, because a friend of his revealed after his death that his right arm was so weak as a result of a horse riding accident he had in 1991 that it gave him quite a lot of trouble,
and he wasn't capable of carrying out basic tasks with his right arm, like carrying a heavy bag or pushing open a heavy door.
And she actually said that she'd had lunch with him a couple of months before he died, and his right arm was so weak that he was actually unable to cut a piece of steak that he'd ordered in a restaurant where they were having lunch together.
So how would he sever an artery?
I can't answer the question.
No, no, no, it's just a rhetorical question that I just throw out there.
That is fascinating.
So presumably he had to use his left hand for a lot of important things.
Yeah, and there's a photograph of him in the book.
In fact, walking into the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that we were talking about earlier, and he's got quite a large old-fashioned briefcase, sort of leather briefcase, in his left hand.
And, you know, that to me suggests that, you know, he really did, as his friend said, tend to carry heavy bags and things like that with his left hand because it was just stronger than his right arm.
So there's a suggestion that he did something that it would be difficult for him to do with his right hand because of the lack of strength that he had in that right hand with a knife that perhaps was not equipped to do that task.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Okay, well, I mean, that is a sizable question that needs some further amplification in the future, I suspect.
And as to the drugs.
Yeah.
Well, you know, the precise number of coproxenol tablets that he is said to have swallowed has never been determined, despite toxicology tests haven't been carried out.
Really all there is to say about the pills, as far as I'm concerned, is that this same friend who came forward with the information about his arm being weak revealed that he had a physical aversion to swallowing pills, a fact confirmed by Dr. Kelly's widow, in fact.
And, you know, yet, I mean, the official record has it that he swallowed up to 29 tablets.
Now, I mean, the interesting thing about this is that there was a bottle of water by his side when he was found.
And nobody knew until quite recently how much water from this bottle he had actually drunk.
But I did ask Thames Valley Police under the Freedom of Information Act, and they were able to tell me.
I'm pleased to say that they were not only cooperative, but also appear to have kept quite careful records, which is not always the case, as we know, in police investigations.
And they say that there were 111 milliliters of water left in this 500 milliliter bottle.
That means he, presumably, assuming the bottle was full when he began drinking from it, which it may not have been, this means that he is meant to have swallowed 29 pills with the aid of just 389 milliliters of water, which is about half a pint.
Yeah, it's basically the contents of a cola can.
Yeah.
Which is not a huge amount of water.
No.
And 29 pills is a lot.
Even if you're okay with swallowing pills.
And these are very, I was on these once when I had repetitive strain injury, a journalist's condition that you might know about.
They're very powerful painkillers.
29 is a huge amount.
Yeah.
And the other thing to say in this regard is that When your body is bleeding profusely, which allegedly his was, apparently you become very thirsty very quickly.
So, again, you know, it was quite a thing for him to have been very thirsty and yet only, you know, have restricted himself to half a pint of water while swallowing the 29 pills.
Well, yes, absolutely.
How did these questions, how were these questions addressed in the inquiry?
If they were.
Well, I mean, in a sort of less than robust fashion, is probably the way of putting it.
I mean, you know, as I said, I mean, the toxicologist who conducted the tests on Dr. Kelly's body did give evidence.
But, I mean, in fact, only half a day of the 24 days on which the inquiry sat was given over to examining medical evidence relating to his death.
So, you know, that is why I say less than robustly.
The knife itself was never seen, has never been seen by anyone.
But apparently, he'd owned it for 50 years.
And apparently, as I said, it was blunt.
I mean, that's all we really know about it.
Talking about the inquiry, what are the other failings and omissions in it?
From it?
Well, dozens of key witnesses were never invited to give evidence to the Hutton inquiry.
I think a key failing of the inquiry, however, perhaps the key failing of the inquiry, was that nobody who appeared at it gave evidence under oath, which meant they could say whatever they wanted to or not reveal certain things and they would face no penalty.
Now, that is in contrast to a coroner's inquest where, as you know, you do swear an oath before you give evidence.
So the terms under which you're speaking at a coroner's inquest are profoundly important because if you're found to have lied or given false evidence, you could go to prison.
Well, they are effectively judicial terms.
They're the same as a court of law, aren't they?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, I hope that answers your question.
This is all about questions.
Not only do I have here the book which I'm going to reread because I think it is a journal of record, but I've also printed out a recent article featuring you from the Daily Mail.
And the headline on this is, did the weapons expert really kill himself or did he have a heart attack under interrogation by our own Secret Service?
Why, 15 years on, we still don't know the truth about David Kelly?
The idea that he would have had a heart attack under interrogation by the Secret Service who perhaps panicked and left his body to be found in the state that it was found, that sounds beyond the pale.
It stretches credulity.
What do you think of that?
We'll call it a conspiracy theory.
Well, I think if anyone is looking around for explanations as to what happened to him, and by the way, they are only doing so because of the refusal of successive governments to have a coroner's inquest into his death, it's very important to remember that.
But I think if anyone is casting around for alternative explanations, I mean, you know, actually, that might be one, you know, only because we were told after the autopsy was conducted on his body that, you know, he did appear to be suffering from a weak heart.
And that would mean that, of course, he might be susceptible to some kind of seizure if he were placed in a particular situation.
And in fact, there is a strange passage in the book in which his wife gives evidence to the Hutton inquiry, and she explains that shortly after he left the house to go for the walk, the last time he was ever seen, there were some callers at the door.
Now, she didn't elaborate, and more to the point was not required by the QC who was cross-examining her to elaborate on who these callers were or what they wanted.
But, you know, there are people who have really thought about this very carefully, who believe that maybe, just maybe, Dr. Kelly was meant to attend some kind of an official meeting that afternoon and, you know, perhaps did so.
And perhaps, you know, during that meeting, something happened.
Well, it may be as simple as the fact that he was...
This is all speculation.
This all comes under the realms of conspiracy theory.
But, you know, somebody could have just been having a conversation with him and perhaps after all those weeks and weeks of strain, he had a heart attack.
We simply don't know.
And that's why people speculate in the way that they have.
And as you rightly suggest, Miles, a properly convened inquest, with all the terms and conditions that that implies would start to get to the bottom of these questions so that people wouldn't ask them anymore and they wouldn't come up with theories.
Yes.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
Okay.
Now, the period after his death, there was a very peculiar thing.
I've written a note on it, I must just get, about somebody who was visiting the grave quite recently.
A man from Oxford, sure, I think it is, was visiting his grave, was barred, restrained from so doing.
Yeah.
Well, look, this is a peculiar one.
But there is a man who I mention In the book, he's a member of the public, nothing more than that.
He's not connected to any government agency or anything else.
But he took it upon himself to visit Dr. Kelly's grave, and he would do so regularly, sometimes with his mother, who's in her 80s, I think, and together they would tend the grave because it did appear to be in a certain state of neglect.
It's in this rather, you know, it was in this rather sort of peaceful village churchyard, you know, a sort of quintessentially English scene, really.
But in 2014, a representative of the Ministry of Justice wrote a letter to this man urging him to stay away from Dr. Kelly's grave, asking him to consider whether it was lawful for him to be tending the grave, and generally, you know, by the sounds of it, trying to put the frighteners on him by saying that a surveillance watch had been put on the grave as a result of his visits.
Now, the fact is this man had rather inadvisedly on one occasion used the graveside as a sort of site of protest and had a few years before, because he would visited it over a number of years.
I mean, a few years before, on one anniversary of his death, I think he erected a couple of signs saying something like justice for Kelly, you know, and asking why there hadn't been a coroner's inquest.
I mean...
He's not the first person to do that.
Maybe not at the grave site.
He's certainly not the first person to do that.
But I mean, you know, I would say, you know, whoever you are and however strong your feelings that a graveyard is not the place for that sort of activity.
Perhaps that action, and I said restraining, it wasn't restraining in a legal way.
It was just suggesting that you don't go there because the place is under surveillance, et cetera, and it's not a good idea.
Don't do it.
You know, from that point of view, then I can understand just on a human level.
But why would those people be interested?
Isn't that a matter for the local police or the authorities around the graveyard or somebody else?
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I would have thought so, but it suggests that there is great sensitivity from somebody about David Kelly's death.
And, you know, which, I mean, at the point that he received this letter from the Ministry of Justice, it occurred more than 11 years previously.
So, I mean, you know, this was, you know, I mean, some considerable amount of time had passed.
But anyway, I mean, you know, you're right.
If anything, you would have thought that maybe, you know, the local police would have got involved before the Ministry of Justice.
But no.
I mean, anyway, this man continued to, you know, in his self-appointed role as the maintainer of Dr. Kelly's grave, you know, he would leave flowers on it and as I said, he'd just sort of tend the grave with his mother sometimes because he thought that, frankly, you know, nothing he was doing was illegal.
And, you know, this was a matter of, he felt, his sort of public duty to sort of pay respects to David Kelly.
But what happened next was really rather extraordinary because about a year ago, so we're talking July 2017, David Kelly's body was exhumed from the grave.
And the grave, the headstone was removed, and his remains were removed.
And it is as though there was never a grave there at all.
And were those remains cremated?
I think you say that in the book?
It has been reported bizarrely by Andrew Gilligan that a cremation took place.
If that is so, there is a human explanation for that.
Maybe the grave was difficult to maintain, which there was some suggestion there was.
Perhaps it was attracting too much interest.
And just on a human level, perhaps that decision was taken, or there may be something else, which is one more reason to put in the column of why we should be having a properly convened inquest into all of this.
Yes, I mean, look, it's true that, you know, death and mourning, you know, these are entirely private matters as far as families are concerned.
And I think, you know, the idea of somebody who didn't know David Kelly tending his grave, you know, it might very justifiably encourage quite strong feelings among the Kelly family.
And I'd be the very first to say that.
But reportedly a cremation took place, and all authorities with information about this, you know, this unexpected exhumation, have refused to say anything about it.
Now, exhumations are rare, and they can be blocked if members of the public can provide a legitimate reason for blocking them.
Because again, you know, although people might find this strange, you know, burials and exhumations are sort of matters of public interest as far as the law is concerned.
But of course, to object, you've got to know about it.
To object, you've got to know about it.
Nobody did know about this.
It happened, you know, as all exhumations do, in the middle of the night.
And all the authorities that I've spoken to about this have chosen not to release the exhumation application form, claiming it's not in the public interest to do so.
And therefore, really, yet another sort of barbed wire fence has been erected around the matter of David Kelly.
So we don't know who requested this and how this was executed?
Correct.
Wow.
Well, Miles Gauntlet, since you've written this book, and as I say, it is an excellent book that I totally commend to everybody to read, what sort of reactions have you been getting?
Have you been having people at high level saying to you, excellent stuff?
I'm glad somebody documented this and I'm glad the questions are still being asked and the calls for a proper inquest are still being made?
Or have you been told leave well alone?
I've not been told leave well alone.
You know, the overwhelming majority of people who have read this book have been very supportive of it.
I have had conversations with lawyers.
I've had conversations with sitting coroners.
You know, I've had conversations with surgeons and other medical professionals.
And they are all supportive of a coroner's inquest taking place.
You know, increasingly, the view is that the finding of Lord Hutton, the man who chaired the public inquiry so hastily set up by Tony Blair, is unsafe.
Lord Hutton had no experience in coronial matters whatsoever.
As I said, they spent only half a day examining the medical evidence relating to his death.
You know, everyone who looks at this now, who I've spoken to, as I say, is supportive of a coroner's inquest.
And to that end, I think people regard the book as being, as you said a few minutes ago, a sort of a book of record in a way, and on that basis, a pretty important document.
And is this work over for you?
Will you be updating the book?
It's not over by any means.
I will update the book as and when I can.
And just a few days ago, in fact, I had a story published in a newspaper about a member of Dr. Kelly's family who, it seems, has doubts about the official finding of suicide.
This is his half-sister, who is herself a plastic surgeon of some repute.
Yes, I read that when it appeared.
I mean, my thoughts and sympathies must be with the family.
We're not hearing from them, of course, and I can understand why that might be.
But it must have been a terrible 15 years for them, an awful nightmare to live through.
Miles, thank you very much for doing this.
Fascinating book, and I wish you well with it.
Thank you very much indeed.
Miles Goslett, and the book is called An Inconvenient Death.
And I recommend whether you believe what you heard or whether you don't, that you read the book and then make your own mind up.
But you will hear some things, I think, that you won't have heard around this case.
And Miles Goslet has done a fabulous job, I think, of probing this story.
We have, as I say, more great guests in the pipeline here at The Unexplained as we go through 2019.
Thank you very much for being in touch.
If you want to send me an email, tell me who you are, where you are, and how you use the show.
Go to the website, theunexplained.tv, and you can do it all from there.
And if you've made a donation to the show recently, thank you so much.
Thank you.
And I hope you have a great 2019.
So until next, we meet.
My name is Howard Hughes.
I am in London.
This has been The Unexplained Online.
And please stay safe, stay calm.
And through 2019, please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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