Hutton: The Verdict (For those interested in the Hutton investigation of Tony Blair & the BBC)

It was the call every journalist in Westminster was waiting for — and Britain’s top political editor Trevor Kavanagh got it.

For days the big question at the Commons has been the verdict of Lord Hutton’s report on the death of Dr David Kelly.

And before MPs and the Cabinet got to hear the conclusions of Lord Hutton, Trevor noted them all down from a trusted source — then set about writing the Scoop of the Year.

Tony Blair is today sensationally cleared of any “dishonourable or underhand” conduct leading to the suicide of tragic scientist David Kelly.

Lord Hutton’s long-awaited report into Dr Kelly’s death also exonerates ex-Downing Street media boss Alastair Campbell.

And it makes only passing criticism of the Defence ministry headed by embattled Geoff Hoon.

But the document — top secret until it is published officially at noon today — is a devastating indictment of the BBC and its defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan.

Gilligan is effectively accused of LYING in a bombshell broadcast blaming Number Ten for “sexing up” a dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Beeb bosses are blasted for failing to check the notes of the journalist, who was already under a cloud over his misuse of language.

And chairman Gavyn Davies, director-general Greg Dyke and the BBC board of governors are implicitly blamed for dereliction of duty to licence-payers.

Dr Kelly, 59, killed himself last July after being named as the source of Gilligan’s broadcast — accusing the Government of misleading the nation on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

The Prime Minister ordered Lord Hutton’s inquiry hours after the MoD weapons scientist was found with his wrists slashed a few miles from his Oxfordshire home.

The contents of the retired Law Lord’s 320-page report are known only to a handful of people directly affected by their findings.

But The Sun has learned from other sources that the judge will say it was RIGHT for Downing St to suggest changes to a Joint Intelligence Committee dossier on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.

The rest of the article:

Beeb bosses are blasted for failing to check the notes of the journalist, who was already under a cloud over his misuse of language.

And chairman Gavyn Davies, director-general Greg Dyke and the BBC board of governors are implicitly blamed for dereliction of duty to licence-payers.

Dr Kelly, 59, killed himself last July after being named as the source of Gilligan’s broadcast — accusing the Government of misleading the nation on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

The Prime Minister ordered Lord Hutton’s inquiry hours after the MoD weapons scientist was found with his wrists slashed a few miles from his Oxfordshire home.

The contents of the retired Law Lord’s 320-page report are known only to a handful of people directly affected by their findings.

But The Sun has learned from other sources that the judge will say it was RIGHT for Downing St to suggest changes to a Joint Intelligence Committee dossier on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.

He will insist suggestions the report was sexed up are “unfounded” — and that the BBC’s editorial system was “defective”.

Lord Hutton concludes there was no “dishonourable, underhand or duplicitous strategy” by Mr Blair’s Government to leak Dr Kelly’s name.

The MoD was “to be criticised” for not telling Dr Kelly his name could be confirmed or that it had eventually come out. But the scientist was not an “easy man to help or advise” — and there was NO “covert strategy” to leak his name.

Dr Kelly himself is blamed for breaking official rules by talking to Gilligan. But Lord Hutton cites a psychiatrist’s evidence that the scientist took his own life because he had been “publicly disgraced”.

The tragedy which shook the Government and BBC to their foundations unfolded after Gilligan made a dramatic 6.07am appearance on Radio 4’s flagship Today Programme on May 29 last year.

In a live broadside from his home, he accused the Government of putting pressure on intelligence chiefs to sex up a dossier on Iraqi weapons. And he accused Downing Street of inserting claims that Saddam could launch WMD within 45 minutes, knowing it to be untrue.

He later wrote a newspaper article blaming Alastair Campbell personally for persuading intelligence chiefs to doctor the dossier.

Lord Hutton raps Gilligan for failing to put his story to the MoD pro- perly before running it on air and calls his allegations “unfounded”. He casts doubt on Gilligan’s recollection of his chat with Kelly after losing his notes and typing an account from memory into a computer.

“In light of uncertainties arising from Mr Gilligan’s evidence and the existence of two versions of his notes, it is not possible to reach a definite conclusion of what Dr Kelly said,” says Lord Hutton.

“But I am satisfied Dr Kelly did not say the Government probably knew or suspected the 45- minute claim was wrong before the claim was inserted in the dossier.

“The allegation reported by Mr Gilligan that the Government probably knew the claim was wrong or questionable was unfounded.” As a result, Today programme listeners were given a misleading impression that the Government “embellished” its dossier.

“In the context of the broadcasts in which the ‘sexing up’ allegation was reported, I consider that allegation was unfounded,” he says.

Lord Hutton is also critical of Dr Kelly’s conduct. “His meeting with Mr Gilligan was unauthorised and, in discussing intelligence matters with him, Dr Kelly was acting in breach of the civil service code of procedure,” he says.

Lord Hutton says Gilligan had no grounds for attacking Alastair Campbell’s conduct.

He says: “The allegation by Mr Gilligan that the Government probably knew the 45 minutes claim was wrong before putting it in the dossier was unfounded as it would have been understood by those who heard it to mean the dossier was embellished with information believed to be false or unreliable.

“The allegation was also unfounded that the 45 minutes claim was not in the original draft of the dossier because it only came from one source and that the intelligence agencies did not really believe it was necessarily true.

“The reason the claim did not appear in draft assessments until September 5, 2002 was because the intelligence on which it was based was not received by the Secret Intelligence Service until August 29.

“The JIC assessment staff did not have time to insert it in the draft until the assessment on September 9.” The assessment of the controversial claim was made and acted on by the JIC, “the most senior body in the intelligence services”, said Lord Hutton.

Alastair Campbell “told JIC chairman John Scarlett that nothing should be stated in the dossier with which the intelligence community were not entirely happy”.

“I do not consider it was improper for Mr Scarlett and the JIC to take into account suggestions made by Number 10 and adopt those suggestions if they were consistent with the intelligence available,” says the report.

The BBC is effectively accused of failing in its duty to licence-payers.

Gilligan’s broadcast made “very grave allegations on a subject of great importance” and should have been more carefully vetted by editorial bosses, says the judge.

“I consider the editorial system which the BBC permitted was defective,” he adds.

The BBC was “at fault” for failing to investigate Gilligan’s allegations properly — and refusing to take seriously Downing St denials.

The report singles out the BBC’s Head of News, Richard Sambrook, for failing to do his job properly. “The BBC failed, before Richard Sambrook wrote his letter on June 27 to Alastair Campbell, to make an examination of Mr Gilligan’s notes to see if they supported the allegations he had made,” says the judge.

“BBC management failed to appreciate that the notes did not fully support the most serious of the allegations in the 6.07 broadcast.”

The report also savages the Beeb’s board of governors for sloppy decision-making.

It says: “The governors are to be criticised for failing to make a more detailed investigation into whether the allegation by Mr Gilligan was properly supported by his notes and failing to give proper and adequate consideration to whether the BBC should publicly acknowledge that this very grave allegation should not have been broadcast.”

Lord Hutton appears to exonerate Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, whose career has been hanging by a thread since the inquiry opened last August.

“The decision by the MoD to confirm Dr Kelly’s name was not part of a covert strategy to leak his name, but based on the view that it would not be sensible to try to conceal the name,” he says.

But in a mild rebuke, he says the MoD was “at fault and has to be criticised” for not informing Dr Kelly that its press office would confirm his name, or tell him it had been confirmed.

The judge also rebukes Downing Street press chief Tom Kelly for suggesting in an off-the-record chat with a journalist that Dr Kelly was a “Walter Mitty” character.

But he says he does not believe this was a “covert” attempt to discredit the weapons scientist.

Lord Hutton concludes without demanding changes in the way the Beeb or Whitehall operate.

But he urges them BOTH to learn lessons from Dr Kelly’s death.

THE Hutton Report was leaked to The Sun by someone who has no financial or vested interest in its outcome.

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