UK News 26-09-2003 Final Accusations Of Hutton Inquiry who: Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon what: Is a liar and a bully, says lawyer representing Dr David Kelly where: The High Court, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Geoff Hoon was condemned as a liar, bully and hypocrite at the Hutton inquiry yesterday," says The Mirror. "The Defence Secretary had denied there was a plot to name Dr David Kelly as a BBC mole. But Jeremy Gompertz, the QC for the dead scientist`s family, claimed former Downing Street spin doctor Alastair Campbell had proved Mr Hoon`s denials were false." "The comments, on the closing day of Lord Hutton`s six-week inquiry into Mr Kelly`s death, reveal that the family holds Mr Hoon and his department primarily responsible for the events that led to Mr Kelly`s apparent suicide," says The Financial Times. The QC also branded the BBC Radio 4 broadcaster Andrew Gilligan as "inconsistent and unreliable" and urged Lord Hutton that "No credence should be given to his evidence". The success of the inquiry was founded on three factors, comments James Blitz in The Financial Times. The first was Lord Hutton`s decision not to televise proceedings, the second to hold the inquiry in two separate stages and the third and most important, he says, "was that the government submitted such an unprecedentedly large volume of evidence, ranging from Downing Street e-mails to extracts from the diaries of Alastair Campbell". Blitz concludes that the judicial inquiry has succeeded in highlighting the relative weakness of Parliamentary select committees. Nevertheless, the government`s counsel, Jonathan Sumption QC, implied yesterday that nothing could be learned from the affair, reports The Guardian. "We are, I suggest, in danger of trying to learn general lessons from appalling but wholly exceptional and unpredictable events," he told Lord Hutton. [... more]

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