Sunday 17 April 2011

The Death of David Kelly - The suicide of Wendy Hay

In this post I want briefly to mention one personal contemporary event which might be relevant to David Kelly's attitude to suicide.

In September 2002 the wife of David Kelly's friend Alastair Hay committed suicide. See Prozac blamed for woman's death.

The inquest into Wendy Hay's suicide appears to have taken place on or around 5th June 2003.

Alastair Hay is quoted as saying, "The concern I have is of course with the death of my wife. It has been devastating". See Coroner hedges on whether Prozac drove woman to suicide and No proof over Prozac user's death.

One thing is clear. David Kelly would have been aware of the effect of suicide on a bereaved spouse.

Would David Kelly, only a few weeks after Wendy Hay's inquest, credibly choose to inflict such pain on Janice Kelly and their three daughters?

3 comments:

  1. Dr Hay gave an interesting interview on or before 20 July 2003 to the Australian journalist Jana Wendt for the Sydney TV station Nine. (perhaps 19th UK time)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Felix,

    I find it interesting that Alastair Hay was so prominent in the media so quickly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andrew

    Professor Hay also added a personal footnote to the Guardian Obituary of Dr Kelly which contained the interesting line
    A week ago, I spent 40 minutes trying to get through to him at the MoD, to wish him well; they would not put me through to any of his numbers.

    The obituary was published online at 18.54 BST Sat 19th July, but I suspect Prof Hay's recollection was added subsequently on Monday 21st July. His email to Dr KellyTVP/3/0283 was sent on Monday 14 July where he used the words .."the MoD will not enable it" (reaching Dr Kelly by phone)
    Prof Hay also co-authored a letter to the Guardian on July 29th 2003" defending the stance of the BBC before the Hutton Inquiry started.
    Sarah A Smith who co-authored the Guardian obituary, along with the paper's commisioning editor for Obituaries, seemed to be a literary book reviewer rather than a scientist.

    Why would the MoD not let Professor Hay contact Dr kelly on Monday 14th July 2003??
    Professor Hay seemed very keen to put his email exchange with Dr Kelly in the police domain (they did anyway at COM/4/0025) but there is no evidence on the Hutton Inquiry web site of any statement which Prof Hay was anxious to provide.

    ReplyDelete