The Death of David Kelly - The nettles and arterial rain

One of the strange aspects of the scene at Harrowdown Hill is that arterial rain was observed only on nettles at the scene.

I'm going to quote the only two pieces of evidence that I can find given in oral testimony about the nettles first, then comment and pose questions towards the end of the post.

The first witness (in timeline order at the scene) was paramedic Vanessa Hunt. She was at the scene around 10.00 on 18th July 2003.

The second witness (in timeline order at the scene) was forensic biologist Roy Green. He arrived at the scene around four hours later, a little after 14.00 on 18th July 2003.

Here is what Vanessa Hunt said, see the transcript of her evidence given on the afternoon of Tuesday 2nd September 2003 at Pages 76 and 77:

18 Q. One of the police officers or someone this morning said
19 there appeared to be some blood on the ground. Did you
20 see that?
21 A. I could see some on -- there were some stinging nettles
22 to the left of the body. As to on the ground, I do not
23 remember seeing a sort of huge puddle or anything like
24 that. There was dried blood on the left wrist. His
25 jacket was pulled to sort of mid forearm area and from

77
1 that area down towards the hand there was dried blood,
2 but no obvious sign of a wound or anything, it was just
3 dried blood.

Here is what Roy Green said, see the transcript of his evidence given on the afternoon of Wednesday 3rd September 2003 at Page

15 Q. Right. I think we have heard from an extract that
16 Mr Page has read out to us that the ulnar artery was
17 severed. Did you understand that to be the case at the
18 time?
19 A. Obviously injuries are a pathologist's domain. However,
20 the blood distribution was what I would expect to see if
21 an artery had been severed. There was bloodstaining
22 typical of that sort of injury.
23 Q. What do you expect to see in such circumstances?
24 A. Well, when veins are severed the blood comes out under a
25 low pressure, but when arteries are severed it comes out

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1 on a much higher pressure and you get spurting of blood,
2 you get a phenomenon known as arterial rain, where you
3 have a great deal of smallish stains all of about the
4 same size over the area.
5 Q. Did you find that arterial rain?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. On what?
8 A. On the nettles -- there were nettles alongside the body
9 of Dr Kelly.
10 Q. And did you look for the distribution of blood?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. We have heard from some ambulance personnel, and they
13 said they were not specifically looking, for obvious
14 reasons, at the distribution of blood but they noted,
15 just on their brief glance, not very much blood. What
16 were your detailed findings?
17 A. Well, there was a fair bit of blood.

My first question is, Does anyone know how far the nettles were from where the body was found?

Isn't it bizarre that the counsel for the inquiry asks Roy Green if he looked for the distribution of the blood and yet fails to ask the obvious follow on question as to what he observed and whether it was or was not consistent with self-injury and/or injury at the site?

And, with Roy Green being a forensic biologist, he isn't asked about David Kelly's clothes and whether there is arterial rain there.

There are just so many gaps in the evidence.