Edward Wilding gave oral testimony to the Hutton Inquiry but his written report is absent from the Hutton Inquiry web site.
An electronic copy of Andrew Gilligan's notes of the meeting with David Kelly on 22nd May 2003 was dated 21st May 2003!
I can identify only two possible explanations for this discrepancy:
1. That Andrew Gilligan made notes about what David Kelly (supposedly) said the day before he met Kelly. In other words that Andrew Gilligan fabricated notes in advance of the meeting.
2. That the clock on the electronic organiser used by Andrew Gilligan was seriously in error.
The written report produced by Edward Wilding is not on the Hutton Inquiry web site, hence I am asking Andrew Gilligan for a copy in order, hopefully, definitively to resolve this troubling uncertainty.
The title of the email is:
Death of David Kelly - Request for copy of the Wilding Report
The text of the email is as follows:
Mr Gilligan,
I am writing to request a copy of the report produced by Edward Wilding in which he attempted to elucidate why a copy of your supposed conversation with David Kelly seemingly was produced before you met Dr. Kelly in May 2003.
In the oral evidence that Edward Wilding gave to the Hutton Inquiry two possible interpretations remained, in my view:
1. That you produced a fabricated account on 21st May 2003 of a supposed meeting with David Kelly which did not take place until the following day. In other words that you set Dr. David Kelly up as a "fall guy" (to borrow the words of Andrew MacKinlay MP at the Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on 15th July 2003) to conceal the identity of what one might term "The Real Source".
2. That the clock on your electronic organiser was significantly inaccurate and that such inaccuracy was the cause of the seeming fabricated data.
I am sure you can see how the failure of the Hutton Inquiry adequately to resolve this matter may be deemed "insufficiency of inquiry".
For the avoidance of doubt this email is an "open letter". I will post a copy on my blog which has an ongoing exmination of information about the death of Dr. David Kelly at http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/.
The text of this email is posted here: http://chilcotscheatingus.blogspot.com/2011/02/death-of-david-kelly-open-letter-to.html.
Additionally, I am copying this email to Mr. Kevin McGinty at the Attorney General's Office, since the matter about which I seek information from you is one aspect of "insufficiency of inquiry" with respect to a possible application to the High Court by the Attorney General.
Separately, in the interests of transparency, I will copy to you the email I am sending to the Attorney General explaining why further investigation of this matter is still required, in my opinion.
If you are an innocent party in this matter, it seems to me that it would be of assistance in finally laying this matter to rest if you made a full copy of the Wilding Report publicly available.
Thank you.
(Dr) Andrew Watt
My experience is that all defence journalists and most political ones hold close ties with the security services. It bolsters their egos, placates their feelings of self loathing and importantly, offers them the opportunities for exclusives.
ReplyDeleteThe French take a different approach; go to any defence trade show and spot a French defence journalist and you should have the sure knowledge that the government is remunerating them and not a newspaper.
In essence our defence journalists are amateur spies whilst the French ones are professional (not all that good it has to be said).
Ps all defence attachés are spies
Andrew
ReplyDeleteIf you look at ANG/5/0040 (not on the main HI web site, but only on the daily evidence page) you will notice that Gilligan, on Wednesday 22 July (if it is to be believed) a few days after the Hutton Inquiry is announced, is taking a day return by Southern Electric to Kingswood Warren,Tadworth, Surrey and is coincidentally altering the day by one on his personal organiser.
Kingswood Warren, which shut in 2010, was the BBC R&D centre for technical innovation. A strange place for Gilligan to visit (allegedly).
When this document is brought up by Mr Dingemans (page 181 here) a bizarre exchange starts, which is snuffed out like a candle by Dingemans then Lord Hutton.
Felix,
ReplyDeleteMy hypothesis about the Wilding report is that some technical person at the BBC (maybe at Kingswood Warren?) spotted the "21st May" timestamp on a document (or documents)supposedly produced on 22nd May when examining the personal organiser.
That, hypothetically, would have put Gilligan in the very embarrassing position with BBC managers of seeming to have fabricated the first version of his notes about the meeting with David Kelly.
I surmise that Gilligan then approached Edward Wilding to attempt to clear he name from the assumed evidence of fabricated notes.
All that needs to be reviewed/revised in the light of a detailed review of the Gilligan evidence at Hutton, which I haven't had time to do yet.
The BBC experimentation at Kingswood is mentioned at para 177. So why is this being done on 22 July? Mr Wilding's report is commissioned on 27 August, and completed on 12 Sept
ReplyDeleteJust prior to ANG/5/40 coming up before Mr Wilding at the Hutton Inquiry, another perplexing exchange occurs.
Did you find out whether or not Mr Gilligan had saved this material to any other document at the time or an other computer at the time?
A. Yes, on 27th August when I was instructed I asked Mr Gilligan about the back up system that he used. And he regularly used to back up the organiser, the data from the organiser to a laptop computer. And it was my concern on the 27th that it would be useful to look at that data as well.
Q. Have you been given access to that by Mr Gilligan?
A. On the evening of the 27th, on grounds of the confidentiality of the data, it was decided that I would be only given access to the organiser itself.
Q. So you were not even able to do what you did with the organiser on that computer material?
A. No.
So the crucial experiment on Gilligan's laptop is not allowed, and Professor Sammes has a constructive meeting lasting 2.5 hours with Mr Wilding, and hey presto, Wilding's report is kicked into touch.