Tuesday 19 April 2011

The Death of Dr. David Kelly - The missing ambulance form

The Patient Report Form for David Kelly produced by the ambulance personnel who attended Harrowdown Hill on 18th July 2003 is, so we are told, missing.

Further, the relevant ambulance authority have recently refused to establish whether or not they hold a copy of the form on grounds of cost in response to a Freedom of Information Request.

However, is it possible that the Hutton Inquiry already holds the information?

The following interchange between Mr. Knox and Dave Bartlett took place in oral hearing on the afternoon of Tuesday 2nd September 2003 (see page 78):


14 Q. What is the number of the ambulance you were working in
15 that day; can you remember?
16 A. I cannot remember to be honest without going back to the
17 computer readouts. We use so many different ones.
18 Q. If I say number 934, does that sound right?
19 A. Could be, yes.


Was Mr. Knox reading from the Patient Report Form to enable him to ask the question?

In other words, is the missing Patient Report Form buried somewhere in the morass of documents concealed by Hutton from public scrutiny?

9 comments:

  1. I had missed this Andrew, clearly Mr Knox had got his information from somewhere

    I know this has been covered several times before but its interesting that Mr Knox thought that the number of the ambulance was an important point to clarify whereas the stark difference in Dave Bartlett's description of the position of the body "They led us up to where the body was laid, feet facing us, laid on its back"
    and the account the search team gave to the inquiry in the morning, on the same day that Mr Bartlett gave evidence; "slumped against the bottom of a tree,", "He was at the base of the tree with almost his head and his shoulders just slumped back against the tree", "The body of a gentleman sitting up against a tree." and "He was sitting with his back up against a tree"
    was of no interest to Mr Knox

    Maybe Mr Knox is an avid ambulance number collector and that's what drew his interest.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wonder if this might be the elusive Ambulance Report Form: "Clinical notes - not for release - Police operational information TVP/3/0101 - 0102".

    It is listed on the Thames Valley Police Evidence page on the Hutton Inquiry web site.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This request, reference RFI2010000619, was received on Tuesday 14 September 2010, 11:01am.

    Question

    1) Does the force hold the Patient Report Form which was compiled by individual paramedics/ambulance staff and which relates to the death of Dr David Kelly? The force could have obtained this document from individual ambulance staff/paramedics and or it could have obtained this document from South Central Ambulance Trust and or its predecessor the Oxfordshire Ambulance Trust. The force could have obtained it from another organisation? 2) If the answer to the above request is yes. Can the Trust please state whether it holds the original or an actual copy of the document? Can the Trust say who or which body provided it with the document? 3) For how long has the force had this document? 4) Did the force submit this document as part of its evidence to the Hutton inquiry? 5) Can the force please provide a copy of the relevant Patient Report Form.

    Response

    Thames Valley Police has no record of such a form being completed, of having requested such a form or being in possession of such a form or a copy. We therefore hold no other relevant information for the remainder of these questions.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My guess, and it is a guess, is that there is a logbook that stays with each ambulance and that in it the driver records times, destinations and mileages.

    Perhaps a photocopy of the relevant page was sent to the Inquiry. I can't really imagine why. It does seem an extraordinary question for Mr Knox to ask. Maybe Dave Bartlett had mentioned the ambulance number in his witness statement when it was fresh in his mind and thus this information was in front of Mr Knox at the Inquiry.

    Did Mr Knox pose the question to cast doubt on Dave Bartlett's ability to remember facts from 18th July? Was he trying to unsettle him? I find it odd that Mr Knox would have asked this question unless he had some hidden motive!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brian,

    Mr. Knox had just undermined Vanessa Hunt's assertion about the lack of blood by asking her if she'd been examining the ground for blood.

    Subtle, arguably.

    ReplyDelete
  6. There was no pool of blood when Vanessa Hunt was there (Sawyer taking photos)
    Q. One of the police officers or someone this morning said there appeared to be some blood on the ground. Did you see that?
    A. I could see some on -- there were some stinging nettles to the left of the body. As to on the ground, I do not remember seeing a sort of huge puddle or anything like that. There was dried blood on the left wrist"

    But the other Hunt said in his post mortem report that a huge pool of blood was next to the wrist injury stretching for 2 -3 feet. This pool of blood appeared after the ambulance crew left the scene. The wrist with dried blood covering the wound was interfered with and then turned from facing up and visible, wound not visible because it was covered with dried blood (ambulance crew evidence) to facing down (after fresh blood was forced from the wound) to facing down and the wound not visible (Franklin and Sawyer evidence), turned downwards to hide the presence of fresh blood on the wound

    Photographic evidence, if it has not been destroyed will prove that the wrist was turned over and a blood pool appeared after the ambulance crew left the scene.

    Dominic Grieve has access to the photos taken by Sawyer when the ambulance crew were present; he also has access to photographs to taken by the forensic team's photographer. They will show the change in position of the wrist and the appearance of the blood pool.

    If Mr Grieve does not force a proper investigation into these events he will become integral part of the cover up. He made a public appeal for evidence of cover up, now he has it!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Regarding the undermining of Vanessa Hunt's evidence on the lack of blood Mr Dingemans is at it again when he makes his closing statement on 25th September.

    This is a part of it:

    17 There was a wound on his left wrist and an artery
    18 had been severed. Dr Kelly was declared dead at the
    19 scene. Notwithstanding the cut to the wrist, the
    20 ambulance personnel when they came to give evidence
    21 reported not seeing much blood, though they accepted
    22 they were not looking in detail.
    23 The forensic biologist has assisted in this respect.
    24 He identified the blood, the stains on the clothing and
    25 the blood on the leaves, which had acted in part as

    148
    1 blotting paper.
    2 Fingertip searching of the scene did not yield any
    3 signs of struggle.

    The blotting paper reference it may be recalled was an analogy that Mr Dingemans kindly provided for Mr Green. Of course Mr Green failed to produce any evidence whatsoever to back his assertion of blood being absorbed by the leaf litter.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Lancashire Lad,

    You're right that Nicholas Hunt claims a pool of blood 2 to 3 feet long in his (then unpublished) postmortem report.

    Fascinatingly, when the volume of blood loss is under question at Hutton, the "pool of blood" doesn't appear in his oral evidence at the Hutton Inquiry.

    In my post The Death of Dr. David Kelly - the mysterious "pool of blood" seen only by Dr. Nicholas Hunt I discuss this discrepancy. Following the public testimony of others, Nicholas Hunt's yarn of a 2 to 3 foot pool of blood is no longer credible and is quietly dropped, with the acquiescence presumably of the Inquiry counsel, from the storyline.

    The Inquiry seems to have decided that instead of a story (present in the postmortem report) of an extensive (but unmeasured) "pool of blood" that the "blotting paper" yarn is a better idea, despite the blotting paper story being simply conjecture on the part of Mr. Green.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Brize Norton would have been quite busy at the time, what with the war and repatriations and stuff. Dr Hunt must also have been quite busy; does anyone know how Pathologists and Coroners are remunerated?

    This isn't intended as a facetious question, I would really like to know if the more bodies a pathologist or Coroner has to deal with the more they get paid.

    It would make sense, and I'm afraid that it's a fact of life that some people have better wars than others. But the root of my question is to try and understand if there could possibly a financial aspect in formulating decisions.

    I remember a couple of scandals that Dr Hunt got involved with but kept his job; showing a slide show with photos of dead soldiers from Afghanistan to travel agents and the other where he mixed up the bodies of two soldiers driving the mother of one to the brink of suicide.

    Just how has Dr Hunt kept hold of his job?

    ReplyDelete