The death of David Kelly - What evidence exists about third party involvement?

As with so much related to the Hutton Inquiry, detailed examination of the evidence demonstrates worrying gaps relating to the supposed evidence about the presence or otherwise of a "third party" at the scene on Harrowdown Hill.

Professor Hawton gives evidence here:

22 Q. Yes.
23 A. When considering something like this, one obviously has
24 to think about whether there could have been some other
25 person or persons involved in the act, and the

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1 circumstances suggest that was not the case.
2 Q. What, whether some third parties were involved in
3 Dr Kelly's death?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And what circumstances do you consider show that there
6 were not?
7 A. Well, there were no signs of violence on his body other
8 than the obvious injury to his wrist that would be in
9 keeping with his having been involved in some sort of
10 struggle or a violent act. There was no sign
11 I understand of trampling down of vegetation and
12 undergrowth in the area around his body. So that makes
13 it highly unlikely that others could have been or were
14 involved.

Why was Professor Hawton asked to give evidence on the question of third party involvement? He had no first hand observations to contribute. His answers are, essentially, hearsay with respect to evidence given by others.

Dr. Nicholas Hunt was asked about third party involvement here:

25 Q. -- did you do anything to the body?

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1 A. Yes. The procedure we adopted was to retrieve as much
2 what I would call trace evidence as possible, potential
3 trace evidence, any -- looking for fibres, looking for
4 DNA contamination by a third party. That sort of
5 evidence was obtained at that stage.

Ah! So there is evidence. But, just so we know that it is the Hutton Inquiry, we aren't told what the evidence is!

Later in Dr. Hunt's testimony we read this:

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

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

Interesting. But whay would any intelligent observer choose to "ignore all the other features of the case"?

And in the evidence of Dr. Allan, the forensic toxicologist, here, we read:

17 LORD HUTTON: Mr Allan, if a third party had wanted
18 paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene to be found in
19 Dr Kelly's blood is there any way that the third party
20 could have brought that about by either persuading or
21 forcing Dr Kelly to take tablets containing those two
22 substances?
23 A. It is possible, but I think it would be --
24 LORD HUTTON: That is the only way that those substances
25 could be found in the blood, by taking tablets

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1 containing them?
2 A. Yes, he has to ingest those tablets.

Dr. Allan was trying to tell Lord Hutton that it was possible that David Kelly could have been forced to take tablets. But Lord Hutton overrode what Dr. Allan was about to say and led Dr. Allan into making what I consider to be a potentially untrue statement.