Thursday, 18th September 2003, 10.30am. Richard Hatfield, Personnel Director, Ministry of Defence Pam Teare, Director of News, Ministry of Defence

Transcription

1 Thursday, 18th September 2003, 10.30am Richard Hatfield, Personnel Director, Ministry of Defence Pam Teare, Director of News, Ministry of Defence MR RICHARD HATFIELD (continued), cross-examined by MR GOMPERTZ LORD HUTTON: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Mr Hatfield, could you sit down please. Yes Mr Gompertz. MR GOMPERTZ: May it please your Lordship. Mr Hatfield, when were you appointed Personnel Director of the MoD? A. In June Q. Before that, had your career been in personnel at all? A. In the personnel function, no, but I had managed people for at least 20 years. Q. I follow, as a manager or occupying managerial posts in the MoD? A. In the MoD, yes. Q. Because you were Policy Director of the MoD, were you not? A. I was, for five years. Q. Do you remember when you gave evidence on 11th August that you spoke of instructions for dealing with the media? A. I did. Q. One of the things you said was that you believed that they were even annexed to Dr Kelly's contract. A. I was talking about the Senior Civil Service contracts at the time. As we now know, Dr Kelly did not have a Senior Civil Service contract. However -- perhaps I -- I was going to clarify: however, the terms of the letter of appointment which Dr Kelly would have had, as everybody below the Senior Civil Service has, refer to the documents I was referring to, they quite specifically refer to those documents. Q. Was there doubt in your mind when you gave evidence before as to whether Dr Kelly was a member of the Senior Civil Service or not? A. No, there was no doubt in my mind in what I understood to be a definition of the Senior Civil Service. Since we were debating rather fine points about what had happened in agencies of the MoD in the90s, I was not entirely clear on what his status inside that agency was at the time. I think the Inquiry has had further evidence from the agency on that point. Q. I will come back to that in a moment. When you referred to a contract, can I ask you what contract? A. There are two possible contracts, depending who we are talking about. If you are a member of the Senior Civil Service you have an individual contract these days, personally signed by you and countersigned by the Ministry. If you are not a member of the Senior Civil Service you have a letter of appointment, which calls up the standard conditions of service which you will have and will be updated from time to time when any changes are made to those conditions of service. Q. Because Dr Kelly's personal file certainly contained no contract, did it? A. No, but it does contain a letter of appointment. Q. What date is that? A. I think the original letter is about 1984 which is when he was appointed as a permanent civil servant. Q. No updating since then? A. No, it would be updated as everybody else is updated by -- depending on where you are in the organisation -- letters that are put round to everybody telling them what changes have been made to the standard contract. The point is he did not have a personalised contract because they only exist these days in the Senior Civil Service. Q. Could I ask you, please, to look at MoD/2/9. This is the first page of a background note on Dr Kelly I

2 believe you prepared; is that right? A. No, my staff prepared it. Q. I beg your pardon. Did you approve it? A. No, I submitted it. Q. You looked at it before you submitted it, I dare say. A. I did not approve it because it is a description of what happened in an agency which, as I explained before, was not under my direct control. I am not therefore in a position and was not therefore in a position to approve or disapprove the detailed facts. LORD HUTTON: What date is this note, Mr Gompertz, can you assist me? MR GOMPERTZ: I must confess, my Lord, I am not sure that I can answer your Lordship's question. LORD HUTTON: Approximately when was it? A. It was submitted with my original evidence, my Lord. MR GOMPERTZ: It was prepared after Dr Kelly died. A. Oh yes, indeed. LORD HUTTON: I see. Yes. Thank you. MR GOMPERTZ: You submitted it but did not approve it, is that what you are saying? A. This was information provided from the DSTL file about his career. It was a factual note prepared by my staff. Since I did not read the file I could not tell you whether the facts were exactly right or not, but I am sure my staff got it right. Q. Could you look at the next page, please, MoD/2/10? This refers, after paragraph 7, to the terms and conditions of Dr Kelly's employment; right? A. Yes, it does. Q. What is said, as we know, is: "At the time of his death Dr Kelly was an employee of DSTL, (and therefore subject to DSTL terms and conditions)..." Right? A. Correct. Q. When you gave evidence before Lord Hutton before, on I think 11th August, you will no doubt recollect you were taken through various documents, terms and conditions of DSTL, the Civil Service code and so on. A. I do recollect it very well. Q. Yes. I am not going to go through that exercise again, but I would like you, please, if you would be so kind, to look at MoD/2/16, which is the first page of the DSTL procedure for conduct; right? Q. This is the document which governed Dr Kelly's employment; is that right? A. That is not strictly true in the circumstances he was when he was working on secondment in MoD. I would expect, and I believe, it to be entirely consistent with the MoD code from which it is derived and in fact I think this is actually a rather clearer document than the MoD document. But since he was working in MoD on secondment, he was actually subject to the MoD code, but I do not think there is any substantial difference. Q. I am not asking you to go back to it, but the paragraph in the summary, the background note that I just referred you to, reads: "At the time of his death Dr Kelly was an employee of DSTL, (and therefore subject to DSTL terms and conditions)..." Is that wrong? A. If you read the rest of the note it also says he was on secondment to the MoD. Both are right and in my view anyway the two codes are entirely consistent because the DSTL code is meant to be derived from the MoD code. Q. I would like you please, if you would be so kind, to look at paragraph 8 of the DSTL code which we will find on MoD/2/24. The bottom of the page on/24 under the head "Extra-curricular activities". Q. It says this: "If an employee wishes to carry out any of the following types of activities... he/she must seek prior written consent from his/her line manager."

3 Q. On 2/25 the second item is "Media activities". Q. Does this have any relevance with what we are concerned with in this Inquiry? A. It has some relevance but that is a very general procedure. There are much more detailed procedures which I also referred to about dealing with the media, which reinforce that. But that point is actually derived from the point in the Civil Service code, in the MoD conduct code and so on. It is a general point about anybody who wishes to deal with the media if they are not as it were following specific procedures. Q. Do you know whether Dr Kelly ever obtained written consent from anybody with regard to media activity? A. You do not require written consent if you are operating within agreed standard procedures for dealing with the media. This is a general proposition put forward to somebody who is not as it were put into a special position. Q. Where do we find the general standard provisions for dealing with the media then? A. Well, the best example is the document I referred to without naming it in my earlier evidence, which is a Defence Council Instruction circulated in99 which goes into a great deal of detail about all sorts of circumstances in which people might find themselves dealing with the media or in contact with the media, for example if somebody simply comes up to them, which is clearly not meant to be covered by asking for prior written consent. Q. Would that document apply to someone whose specific task was to deal with the media? A. It would apply to every single employee of the Ministry of Defence, military and civilian. Q. Are you aware of the evidence which was given to us yesterday, I think, or was it -- very recently at any rate, by Dr Shuttleworth? A. I am aware in general terms. I have not read the transcript. Q. Right. He would have closer knowledge, would he, of what happened in practice with regard to Dr Kelly's dealings with the media? A. I would think Dr Shuttleworth would have no knowledge whatsoever of the arrangements under which Dr Kelly was operating during his secondment to the Ministry of Defence. He would clearly have known about the position during which he was the line manager for Dr Kelly in DSTL or DERA as it then was in the 1990s, but that is a very different situation. Q. Very well. Now, is it right that Dr Kelly had had contacts with the media on behalf of DSTL, the MoD, the FCO, UNSCOM and UNMOVIC? A. Yes, it is right. Q. Yes. And he had had those contacts for many years? A. He had. Q. There was no suggestion of any irregularity prior to the year 2003? A. In relation to those contacts there was no irregularity at all. Q. Thank you. Is this right: that whether on secondment to the MoD or not, in the year 2003 Dr Kelly sought permission for press contacts from Mr Patrick Lamb? A. That is true in relation to some contacts. The list you read out of things that Dr Kelly had previously spoken on did not include the Ministry of Defence. Mr Patrick Lamb does not have authority to ask anybody to speak on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. Q. If I missed out the Ministry of Defence then I apologise, I thought I had included it, but there it is. You are saying that it was necessary for Dr Kelly to make a distinction between the various bodies for whom he might be acting? A. Quite correct. It is a distinction which he himself recognised. Q. Is it right that Mr Lamb took over responsibility for Dr Kelly's press contacts in the year 2000? A. No, it is not.

4 Q. We shall perhaps hear from him. He dealt with Dr Kelly's press contacts because he was instructed to do so; did you know that? A. He dealt with Dr Kelly's press contacts in relation to FCO business because he was instructed to do so. Q. When Dr Kelly started to do more work for the MoD in the year 2003, did anyone tell him that he should seek permission for media contacts from the MoD? A. I believe that is so. Q. Well, you may believe it, but did it happen? A. I am not in a position to say what people said to other people three years ago, but I have every reason to believe he knew that both from things he said to me and from the standing instructions in the Ministry of Defence about talking about Ministry of Defence business. Q. Not three years ago, this year. A. Well, in that case let me be clear. I have referred to the Defence Council Instruction 1999 which was circulated to everybody in the MoD including Dr Kelly, although I cannot tell you if he read it. That makes it absolutely clear if you want to talk about defence business you must get clearance through the MoD. Q. So if it be the case that Mr Lamb dealt with MoD contacts as well, that would be quite wrong, would it? A. If he dealt with it without consulting the MoD it would certainly be inappropriate. Q. Right. Could you look, please, at MoD/1/24? A. I am looking at it. Q. Thank you very much. This, of course, is your note of the interview with Dr Kelly on 4th July? A. That is correct. Q. We will have to look at this document again, but if you could go to the bottom of the first page, the end of the penultimate paragraph, this is recorded: "When a journalist approached him, he usually consulted the FCO press office, but on occasions he used his own judgment as explained in his letter. "I asked why he consulted the FCO press office rather than the MoD. Dr Kelly said that his salary was paid by the FCO. I said that was irrelevant -- he was seconded to MoD." Dr Kelly did not say anything there about his practice of consulting Mr Lamb. A. Could I ask you to read the next sentence which said: "I asked who had given him authority to exercise his own judgment about contacts with journalists on defence related business, since this was contrary to standing departmental instructions." We are not talking about dealing with Mr Lamb on FCO business, we are talking about MoD business. Q. Yes. Would you then like to read the next sentence: "Dr Kelly said that he had never read those instructions..." I do not want you to have to take up time reading out loud the rest of the paragraph but it comes to this, does it not, that he never answered the question about seeking to discover what guidance existed about contact with journalists, did he? A. He did indeed answer it. He said he had never read them or sought to read them, which I thought was extraordinary, both because the instructions I was referring to should have been read and were available to be read by every civil servant, and he was a man who had just told me that he had spent 10 years dealing with the press. Q. Did he answer the first part of that double question? I asked who had given him authority to exercise his own judgment about contacts with journalists on defence related business. A. He answered it effectively by his silence that nobody had. Q. So he did not answer it? A. He was given an opportunity to tell me and he did not tell me any answer at all. Q. Can I come back to what you said when you were present at the Inquiry on 11th August? You said this: "There is no doubt that the instructions that Dr Kelly should have seen, and I believe they are even annexed to his contract, provide sufficient basic guidance for dealing with the press. Unless you feel

5 that you have a problem which is not covered by that, in which case you can seek advice and should seek advice." Why did you say that? A. I said several things in that sentence. In referring to his contract I was referring to his letter of appointment, in practice, since he does not have an individual contract; and I suppose I should have said, technically, not annexed but they are referred to. We do not physically attach them but the appointment letter tells you what they are and they are readily available. The detailed instructions I had in mind were particularly what I have been referring to as the Defence Council Instruction of Q. So you take the view, do you, that Dr Kelly should have had no contacts with journalists unless previously authorised? A. Or within a standing arrangement, if that had been authorised. Q. Yes. A. And in this case neither applied. Q. Did you know that Dr Kelly had had such contacts and reported them ex post facto for many years? A. Yes -- well, I knew that is what he told me and I had no reason to disbelieve it. Q. And that was perfectly acceptable, was it not? A. It was. Q. Did you know that Mr Lamb and Dr Shuttleworth consider that he was scrupulous in reporting ex post facto? A. Well, it is quite clear that he was not from his own letter because he tells us that he had not reported this contact or cleared it with anybody, including Mr Lamb. So in relation to the particular case it is not true. He had previously, apparently, been scrupulous. Q. Thank you. Did anybody ever say to him: you must not act in this way by reporting ex post facto? A. The answer to that is yes, because as he made clear in most cases where he has the opportunity to do so, he should actually clear his contacts in advance and record ex post facto, and in all cases you should report ex post facto anyway not just the contact but the content of that contact. Q. May I suggest to you that, at best, the arrangements which existed for permission to speak to journalists on behalf of the various bodies with which Dr Kelly was concerned were a muddle? A. No, I do not accept that. When you have had the opportunity to look at the very detailed-paragraph guidance circulated to everybody in the MoD which is periodically drawn to their attention, I do not think you will think they were either a muddle or unclear. Q. Has that document been disclosed to us? A. It has. Q. Can I go on to another matter? When you interviewed Dr Kelly on 4th July, were you under the impression that he had not reported meeting Mr Gilligan and Ms Watts at the end of May? A. I was under that impression in the sense that he had not told anybody and did not tell me in the course of the meeting anything other than that he had met, apart from Mr Gilligan, of course, other journalists. Q. Yes. That is not what I am asking you. What I am asking you is: were you under the impression that he had not reported ex post facto, to somebody else, that he had had those journalistic contacts at the end of May? A. Let me be clear about this. I was clear that he had reported meeting a range of journalists, including Susan Watts and Jane Corbin, in fact he lists quite a few of them in his letter. I did not know and did not need to know for the purposes of the interview on July 4th the content of any reports he may have made or may not have made about those because I was only concerned with what he had himself volunteered us about his meeting with Andrew Gilligan on 22nd May. So I formed no judgment whatsoever and I assumed that actually he had reported whatever needed to be reported about those other contacts. Q. Did you?

6 Q. Would you look, please, at MoD/1/25, which is the second page of your note of the interview of 4th July. It is in the main paragraph in the second half of the page, about perhaps 10 lines up from the end of that paragraph: "I asked why he had not even reported the conversation afterwards, given the public debate about the two Government dossiers. Kelly repeated that the discussion had not really been about the dossier and he had not said anything controversial..." A. Well, I think I have no problem with this one. Dr Kelly's letter to us acknowledges having a substantial conversation with Andrew Gilligan which referred to the dossier, even though it did not say that he started it or anything like that. He had not mentioned this to his line manager or to anybody in the Ministry of Defence, despite the fact it was clearly a major piece of information relating to the controversy which was engulfing the Government, regardless of whether he had done anything wrong at all in talking to Mr Gilligan. Q. We now know that he had mentioned contact with Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts to Mr Lamb, had he not? A. He had mentioned contact. Q. Yes. A. He had not reported what had happened at that meeting and that is what he said to the ISC. Q. Yes. Could you go to the next page, please, MoD/1/26. In the second main paragraph, again perhaps about eight lines down, after referring to Gilligan's primary source you record: "... much of which could have been avoided even if he had reported the contact immediately afterwards." LORD HUTTON: I have not found that Mr Gompertz. Is it the paragraph beginning "It is very difficult..."? MR GOMPERTZ: No, it is the paragraph beginning: "I said that I was prepared to accept..." LORD HUTTON: Where is that in the paragraph? MR GOMPERTZ: About six lines down: "Even if he was not Gilligan's primary source, it had had very awkward consequences both for him and the department, much of which could have been avoided even if he had reported the contact immediately afterwards." Q. Do you think with what you know now that that is a fair statement? A. I think it is a very fair statement. Q. Do you? He did report the contact to Mr Lamb, did he not? A. He did not report the contact in giving any description of its content and I am afraid I do not accept just saying "I have met a journalist" amounts to, in this context, reporting the contact. Q. He did not say "I have met a journalist", he gave the names, did he not? A. And he did not give any indication that anything had happened in those contacts of significance to the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Defence. Q. So you are not prepared to make any sort of concession in this regard then? A. No, I am not. I think it is a fundamental failing in what he did. Q. Right. Thank you. Can I turn to another topic? You stressed in your evidence previously that Dr Kelly was not a member of the Senior Civil Service. A. I did not stress it. It was asked to explain whether he was or he was not. Q. Very well. I will withdraw the word "stressed". You said it? A. I did. Q. Is that still your stance? A. It certainly is. Q. Technically, that is right, is it? A. It certainly is right. Q. That is so even though he had been awarded a CMG? Q. Which is normally given to the Senior Civil Service, is it not?

7 A. I have to correct you. At the time he was awarded the CMG, whatever the current practice is, the Senior Civil Service did not even exist. He is not a member of the Senior Civil Service otherwise he would have a contract which said he was a member of the Senior Civil Service, an individual contract. He does not have one so he cannot be a member of the Senior Civil Service. Q. Even though his pay band was within the bracket that you might expect for a senior civil servant? A. Very much so. He was not paid in the Senior Civil Service band. It is quite true his salary was in the range of a Senior Civil Service pay band. But that is precisely the point. If he was in the Senior Civil Service he would actually have been in the modern pay band covering that part. He was not paid according to that arrangement, at all. Q. So would you adhere to the description of him as a middle ranking official? A. Yes, I would. Q. You would? A. Yes, I would. Q. This tremendous expert? A. That is nothing to do with his rank. He is a tremendous expert, was a tremendous expert. But his rank is quite clearly middle ranking. Q. Or is it that it suited the Government to describe him as a middle ranking official in order to play down his status in order to stress that Gilligan's source could not have known what was ascribed to him by Gilligan? A. I think that is completely false. The Government or the MoD in this context was giving an accurate description of what he was, far from playing down his role, which does not depend on his rank at all, it does indeed depend on his expertise which we were very willing to acknowledge from the outset and still acknowledge. He was a very important expert in this area. That does not change the fact he is middle ranking. Q. There was a meeting arranged for 24th June. Did you know that? A. I know that now, but I did not -- I think I may have been aware that a meeting had been planned without knowing what date it was. I did not know that on July 4th. Q. No. There is no suggestion that you were going to participate in that meeting? A. None whatsoever. Q. Can you help us at all as to whether Dr Kelly was told about that meeting? A. No, I cannot. Q. Can you help us at all as to when Dr Kelly was cleared of the leak allegation? A. He was never -- nobody ever alleged that he had leaked. At one stage, in the process I understand of the leak inquiry which was going on quite separately, his name was identified as somebody who might have had access to papers; and it was subsequently established that he did not and therefore he was eliminated from those names even being pursued. I am not sure that he would ever have been aware of that. Q. What I am trying to discover is when that happened. A. I do not know. I could find out for you; but from my point of view it was simply irrelevant. It ceased to exist before this meeting. Q. It may be irrelevant in your view. Let me just put these matters to you: the reason for the postponement of the meeting of 24th June, so we are told, was because of the continuance of that leak inquiry. A. That may well be so. Q. And on 2nd July Dr Wells was seeing the police in connection with that leak inquiry. Q. Indeed, when Dr Kelly wrote his letter Dr Wells thought that it should be sent on or thought that it should be considered for sending on in relation to that leak inquiry. Could you look, please, at MoD/1/23? Do you see that?

8 A. Yes, I do. Q. The last sentence in this memorandum dated 2nd July: "You may wish to pass a copy [of the letter that is] to the leak inquiry personnel." That is 2nd July. You were asked to investigate this matter that we are concerned with onrd July? A. On the evening of 3rd July, correct. Q. Indeed. I am just wondering whether, in fact, you can help us at all. When you were asked to assist on 3rd July was anything at all said to you about the leak inquiry? A. No, none whatsoever. I knew a leak inquiry was going on but nobody had mentioned to me that Dr Kelly's name had been one of those which had been checked, as it were, to see if he had access to the documents. I did not know that when I interviewed him on 4th July. There is no reason why I should have done. Q. I will pursue that with others, perhaps. So we come to the interview on 4th July, which you were asked to conduct by Sir Kevin Tebbit. A. Correct. Q. And were you aware of Mr Howard's letter that had been written? MoD/1/17, please. I call it a letter, it is probably a memorandum. Were you aware of this document? A. I was not aware of this document at the time, although I was aware that the Defence Intelligence Staff had had some sort of reminder about leaks. But I had not seen that document until this Inquiry began. Q. Yes. If you would like to turn to the next page, MoD/1/18, and just read to yourself, because we have had it read out already, the last part of the letter beginning "Leaking material to the press..." A. Yes, I have read it. Q. It refers, does it not, to the strongest possible action being taken? A. Correct. Q. No doubt you went into the interview onth July with an open mind? A. I did. Q. Indeed, if you go back to your record of that meeting at MoD/1/24, please, you start off by -- this is the first main paragraph: "I began by explaining to Dr Kelly that his letter had serious implications." A. Indeed. Q. You refer to the possibility of disciplinary action, and we know that you said various things by way of introduction. Yet within an hour or so you had accepted Dr Kelly's account; right? You had decided that it was not necessary that there should be any formal disciplinary process; right? You are nodding, are you? A. I accepted Dr Kelly's account in good faith, as it says in that document. Q. Albeit certainly you kept the possibility of disciplinary process open if further facts emerged, and Dr Kelly was simply admonished? A. Correct. Q. I am not saying that you were wrong in your conclusions, but were you reaching them in a manner in which you normally would have done so? A. Well, this is a very abnormal set of circumstances. I believe that I followed the correct procedure in those circumstances very clearly. Q. You did not conduct any sort of investigation? A. Investigation of what? Q. Of what Dr Kelly was telling you, other than with him? A. I had no basis on which to do so. The only reason I was interviewing Dr Kelly was he had volunteered an account of a meeting with a journalist. I took that in good faith. I checked, as it were, so far as I could, what he was saying as I was listening to it. I also subsequently checked some of the information he gave me with his line manager and particularly with Martin Howard who was more familiar with the intelligence facts. Nothing called into question the essentials of the account that he

9 gave me. Q. After the first interview you gave an oral report of the interview to Sir Kevin Tebbit? A. Correct. Q. Then submitted these notes? A. Correct. Q. Together with your memorandum of 7th July on MoD/1/28; is that right? A. It sounds right. (Pause). Yes, that is correct. Q. That, in turn, enabled Sir Kevin to write to Sir David Omand on 4th July. MoD/1/34, please. If you could now be taken, please, to 1/35, the next page, the last paragraph on that page refers in the last two sentences to: "Contingent lines have, therefore, been prepared by officials here. These are enclosed." Q. What are those contingent lines? A. It was a very brief draft press statement prepared against the possibility that over the weekend somebody else would expose, in some form or other, the problem we were then wrestling with that Dr Kelly had come forward and said he talked to Andrew Gilligan. Q. Is MoD/1/51 the draft press statement? A. Yes, it is, I think. Q. Drafted by yourself and Mr Howard? A. Yes, I think so. It was done collectively. Q. Any Q and A material? A. None whatsoever. Q. You had nothing to do with drafting of any Q and A material on 4th July? A. No, did not. Q. Did you, at any stage, have anything to do with the Q and A material? A. I saw very late in the day, because I was not in my office, one draft of the Q and A material that was finally used, I think. Q. Right. I will come on to that chronologically. So can we go back to the letter at MoD/1/44, please? You told us, yesterday, that the second key issue at the bottom of the page was one which was read out to you, together with the rest of this document, over the telephone? A. Correct. Q. Did you simply not take it on-board or what? A. The only honest answer I can give you is I formed an impression on the basis of that of what I was being asked to do was precisely what I expected to do in the interview. Q. So did you ask Dr Kelly whether he was ready to be associated with a public statement that named him? A. I explained this yesterday. I did not ask him about his readiness to be associated with a specific early public statement which named him because that is not how I heard the minute even if that is what was intended. I did however discuss with him, which is what I understood it to refer to, the more general proposition of being associated in public, I mean with his name clearly being revealed, at some stage, in order as it were to respond to the charges about the core allegation on the 45 minutes intelligence. Q. So could you look, please, at MoD/1/50 which is the notes of the meeting on 7th July, prepared by Dr Wells; right? Q. 1/50 is the last page of it. Q. Do you see paragraph 19 there?

10 Q. Is there anything in that paragraph about what you were asked to do by the letter that we have just looked at, in effect from Sir Kevin Tebbit? A. That depends how you interpret that letter. That paragraph is focusing very specifically on the statement that I expect is quite rightly -- sorry, on the sort of statement that I expect the department may well have to make in the next 24/48 hours, whatever. It was not addressing the longer time, for example appearances before the Foreign Affairs Committee, by which time in some form or other he would clearly have had to be named in public by somebody. LORD HUTTON: Well, is that paragraph an accurate note of what you said to Dr Kelly? A. It is an accurate summary of what I was saying to Dr Kelly at that point. It is not a verbatim account. LORD HUTTON: Yes. MR GOMPERTZ: I wonder if you could just look, quickly, please, at MoD/5/25. That, when it comes up, should be the first page of Dr Wells' handwritten notes of this occasion. If we can go on to MoD/5/30, that is the last page of his notes. Do you see, if we can scroll down, please, that that comes to an end with an entry: "[The] only person probably is Susan Watts." Do you see that? Q. At any rate an entry about Susan Watts. Q. There is nothing at all in those notes about what is contained in paragraph 19 of the typescript version, is there? A. Apparently not. Q. Can you offer any explanation? A. Presumably Mr Wells did not record those in his manuscript notes. Q. Yes, Mr Hatfield, that is indeed a possibility. A. I think it is quite likely. Q. Yes. Would you like to address your mind to the question? Can you offer any explanation of how that comes about? A. I imagine he did not think it was necessary to record it in detail. We ended that meeting by actually going through a draft press release which Dr Kelly actually specifically agreed to. We made a change at that meeting. All that, as far as I can see, and I have never seen Dr Wells' manuscript notes until last week, does not appear to be recorded because there is no need for it to be recorded. We reached an agreed output. Q. No? The paragraph 19, I suggest to you, contains some of the most important material in this interview, does it not? A. From the point of view of the Inquiry now going on, of course it does. From the point of view of what we were doing at the time, it did not seem so. We were doing something perfectly ordinary in the Ministry of Defence, discussing the terms of a statement which might have to be made in the next 24 hours which involved one of the individuals in the room. We did not need to record, in our manuscript notes, what we could record directly, if we needed to do so. I recorded my version of that note contemporaneously, and for the purpose that I was doing it, it was quite important. Q. Where in that paragraph, 19, is there any reference to the statement being made in the next 24 hours? I am sorry, MoD/1/50. A. I did not say specifically 24 hours. 24 hours or so. We did not know when we would have to make the statement because we did not know whether it would be under our control, whether we would be responding to something from outside, whether we would be responding to developments from the Foreign Affairs Committee, the ISC and so on. The whole point of agreeing it is we did not know when we might have to make it. As I explained explicitly to Dr Kelly, we would consult him if we possibly could before making any statement, as I did. This was designed to be a statement on which we had already consulted him and which we might have to put out in circumstances where we could not consult him quickly.

11 Q. The press statement which you showed him, is that MoD/1/51? A. No. Q. Right. Are you able to tell us, then, what about MoD/1/67? Is that it? A. That is it, although when I initially showed it to him it did not include the sentence which is the last sentence of paragraph 3: "He is not a member of the Intelligence Services or the Defence Intelligence Staff." At that meeting we added that in. It was written in after a conversation between Martin Howard and Dr Kelly, in Martin Howard's manuscript; and at the end of the meeting everybody at that meeting took away a photocopy of what we had been working on which included the manuscript sentence. The version you have is the one I then circulated around the MoD where we typed up the manuscript sentence. Q. Apart from that one sentence, the document you showed to Dr Kelly at the end of the second interview is identical to that which appears on MoD/1/67? A. Correct and the one sentence was identical with what it ended up at the end of the meeting with, if you see what I mean. Q. Going back to MoD/1/50, please, is this accurate as to what he was told: "Hatfield said that although Kelly was not named in the press release his identity may become known in due course." Is that an accurate account of what was said to Dr Kelly at the end of that interview? A. It is an understatement of the impression that he would have had; and it is actually an understatement of the language I used. Q. So it is an inaccurate report? A. It is an understatement. It is not a verbatim report. It is an understatement. Q. Have you ever sought to correct that sentence before this moment? A. I had not actually seen that until after Dr Kelly's death. Q. That is not the question I asked you. You have given evidence on a previous occasion, have you not? A. I have. Q. And you are giving evidence today, and no doubt you have considered, carefully, the evidence that you were going to give on those two occasions? A. I was not asked about this, although I offered the opportunity at the end of my first evidence session to answer other questions in relation to the witness statement I had provided. If you turn to my own account you will find slightly different words in there. Q. We then have -- LORD HUTTON: Sorry, your own account? A. My own account of the same meeting I wrote at the time. In that, again I was using polite reporting language, I think I say "quite likely". LORD HUTTON: Can we look at that? Can you assist Mr Gompertz on that? It must be in MoD/1. MR BEER: MoD/1/26. LORD HUTTON: MoD/1/26. Thank you very much. This was the interview I think of 4th July. Had you written a note of the interview on the 7th as well? A. Yes, I did, my Lord. Immediately after the meeting, although it was sent the following morning, I went and wrote my own if you like off the top of the head account of what had happened without the benefit of Dr Wells' notes. MR GOMPERTZ: That, I think you told us, does not survive. A. No, it is my minute of the 8th July to Sir Kevin Tebbit. Q. Ah, that is what you are talking about. We can look at that, can we not? A. We can indeed. Q. Let us do so. MoD/1/54. That is what you are talking about, is it? A. It is, yes. Yes. Q. That is dated 8th July, is it not?

12 A. Correct. It was drafted however in manuscript at home on the evening of 7th July. Q. And typed up exactly as you had drafted it? A. For all I know I corrected some of my English but there was no substantial change. Q. I ask you that for a reason. Do you see -- LORD HUTTON: Just before that, is there any particular passage in that note or memorandum that you wish to refer to on this point? A. I presume that in paragraph 3: "I made it clear to Dr Kelly... et cetera et cetera, in particular: "It was, however, quite likely that his name would come out, not least because speculation about the nature of the source (eg the Times of 5 July 2003) might lead in his direction. It was also possible that, depending on further developments, the FAC might seek to call him as a witness." I had been talking to him about that even since the first meeting on 4th July. I still cannot understand how anybody could possibly assume you could give evidence to the FAC without your identity being known. MR GOMPERTZ: Yes. I will come back to that paragraph. Let us just see if we can get any greater clarity about when this note was drafted and typed. You see in paragraph 1 you say: "I saw Dr Kelly again yesterday afternoon..." It was typed on the morning of 8th July. As I say, I drafted it the evening before. I may even, in my original draft of the evening before, have put in the word "yesterday" since it was quite clear it was going to be sent the following day and it would not make sense to put in "this afternoon" in a document dated 8th July. Q. You anticipated it would be typed the next day? A. Indeed. Q. That, I suppose, is the explanation of the words at the second paragraph: "As I told you last night, there was no change...", and so on? Q. So this was being typed first thing on the morning of 8th July? A. Correct. Q. Did you know that at that very time, in fact at 8.07 am, a version of the Q and A material was being submitted by Ms Teare which was highly likely to lead to the identification of Dr Kelly? A. No, I did not know anything was being prepared like that and I did not think it was highly likely to lead to the identification of Dr Kelly. Q. We will look at that in a moment. In the middle of paragraph 3 you make your position quite clear, do you not: "I said that I did not think that it would be necessary to reveal his name or to go into detail beyond indicating that the account given to us did not match Gilligan's [and it should be 'FAC'] account, at least initially." A. Indeed. Q. "It was, however, quite likely that his name would come out, not least because speculation about the nature of the source... might lead in his direction." Right? Q. So that was the state of mind in which you left Dr Kelly at the end of the interview of the 7th? A. At least initially, which is quite correct. Q. Did you have anything to do with any of the Q and A material? A. I saw one draft and I have no idea which draft it was. I should think it was, from what I have seen at the Inquiry, it must have been a sort of middle, in time, draft; and I made two minor comments on it. Q. We had better look at the various drafts very quickly to identify which one you are talking about. LORD HUTTON: Mr Gompertz, just before we leave this minute, I would just like to be quite clear: are you suggesting to Mr Hatfield that his paragraph 3 was in some way drawn up by him in bad faith? MR GOMPERTZ: No, I am not. I am not in a position to make that suggestion, my Lord. I am merely investigating what the position is. LORD HUTTON: Yes, I appreciate that. Because there was a slight implication when you questioned

13 him about paragraph 19 of Dr Wells that perhaps that was not a genuine paragraph. MR GOMPERTZ: I do not know is the answer to your Lordship's question. LORD HUTTON: Very well. You are not putting that directly to Mr Hatfield. MR GOMPERTZ: I do not think I have sufficient material on which to put that suggestion, my Lord. It may be, let me make it plain, that that suggestion might be made in due course when the other matters are clarified with other witnesses. But I do not think it would be right for me to put that now. LORD HUTTON: Very well. MR GOMPERTZ: Can you look, please, at CAB/21/3? I show you this just to eliminate it. I think that this was produced on the evening of 4th July by Ms Teare and Mrs Wilson. A. As far as I can recall, I have never seen this. Q. CAB/21/5, please. This is a draft, as we can see, sent to PUS office at 8.07 on Tuesday 8th July subject to discussion and approval. A. I did not see this at the time. Q. Not at all? A. Not at all. I have seen it in the context of the Inquiry, but, I mean -- Q. Oh yes, but not at the time? A. No. Q. Can we look at the remaining version, MoD/1/62? This was the draft which became the material which was approved for use; yes? A. If you tell me it is. Q. That is the evidence. I would like you to tell his Lordship, please, whether this is the version which you saw? A. This is similar to the version. It may even be identical. If I can help you: what actually happened was I was sent by one draft, and it was a draft. I believe the probably reached my office at about 2.30 in the afternoon of the day in question although I was not in my office. I saw it on my screen at roughly roughly the time, in fact, I was talking to Dr Kelly on the phone; and I cannot be more accurate than that. Q. So at the very time or at about the time you were talking to Dr Kelly on the phone, you saw a document very similar to that which we are looking at now? Q. Did you ever tell Dr Kelly about it? A. No. Q. Why not? A. Because I did not think that I needed to tell Dr Kelly about it. I am not quite sure what you think I should have told him. Q. Well, never mind what I am thinking, Mr Hatfield. My thoughts are irrelevant, it is yours that matter. A. Well, first of all, may I just, again, explain that I was literally looking at this on my screen possibly simultaneously, not having read it through with Dr Kelly for the first time. I might even have looked at it afterwards. I cannot actually tell that because I am not aware of the precise time of the call I made to Dr Kelly -- sorry, the call that Dr Kelly made to me. That is why I am not aware of the precise time. LORD HUTTON: This was the call he made back to you after he had parked his car; is that right? A. That is right. I had not seen this when I made my call to him at 4 o'clock, that I am clear of. Though it was probably on my computer terminal, I had not found it because I had come straight back into my office in order to call Dr Kelly. I would have expected Dr Kelly to be aware that if we were making any statement there would be question and answer material behind it, and I did not think that would be necessary to tell him. MR GOMPERTZ: Even if he was aware of the practice of using Q and A material, the content of the Q and A material would not be within his knowledge, would it? A. Well, most of the content in that is actually drawn from the information we had already agreed with

14 him to be revealed at the appropriate point. Q. What are you talking about when you give that answer? A. Well, description of the details and so on, of what -- of him. But it is not usual to clear question and answer material with the people being referred to in it unless there is a very specific reason to do so, for example disclosing personal data which is not normally disclosed. I would not expect the MoD to clear a question and answer statement about me in my role as Personnel Director with me unless there was some very specific reason to do so. Q. What changes did you suggest to this document? A. I can answer that if I return to my computer but I cannot here. They were very small descriptions. And since this is the final version, they may well have been incorporated in it. Q. Can you not remember? A. I can find out without -- they were very minor points of detail. Q. So, you have talked of s in relation to this Q and A material. Why have they not been disclosed? A. For all I know they have been disclosed. The was not a specific to me. It was an e- mail. All the did was circulate the draft. Q. I think you can rest assured, Mr Hatfield, that these s have not been disclosed. I received that assurance from Mr Dingemans. A. I am sure we can disclose them. Q. Why not? A. You have the content of the . I mean, the is a method, in this context -- was a method of circulating the document for comment. You have the documents. But there is no difficulty about giving you the s if you think they are relevant. Q. Because let me put this suggestion to you -- A. I should also say there may only be one . I am only aware of one, which is the one I received. Q. Let me put this suggestion to you: first of all, that the important material which might lead to identification nearly all appears in this third draft, would you agree with that? A. No, I do not agree with that because I do not think that this material does necessarily identify somebody. Q. I am not going to spar with you over that. Can you tell us: here you were talking to Dr Kelly about the press statement and clearing that with him; right? Q. Almost in the next breath you are dealing with this Q and A material? A. Can I -- Q. I have not asked a question yet. A. Sorry. Fine. Q. That is right, is it? Q. Did you not think that Dr Kelly had been left with, at best, a thoroughly misleading impression of how he was being handled by his employers? A. No, I did not because I read this Q and A as saying that we are not going to volunteer his name and that if the correct name is given we can confirm it, which is precisely the position I thought he would be in. The rest of the material as far as I am concerned then becomes factual material released in support of a name. Q. When you made your suggestions with regard to this Q and A material, to whom did you send them? A. I sent them back to the press office, I think. The originator of the was sending me a copy. Q. Was there what has been described as a rolling meeting on this day, 8th July, I think in the morning and perhaps continuing into the afternoon?

15 A. I only know about this from the evidence given to the Inquiry because I was not involved during this day at all, I was dealing with other matters. Q. So you did not concern yourself with these matters until about the time when you telephoned Dr Kelly? A. On this particular day, I spoke to Dr Kelly first thing in the morning; and I then spoke to him again in the afternoon. LORD HUTTON: What did you speak to him about? A. At the end of our meeting on the previous day, my Lord, we agreed that he should go back to his course overnight at RAF Honnington; but we were not completely sure whether we would need to talk to him again the following day, partly because of the possibility of needing to make a statement, if it had come up. And it was agreed that either he or I would ring before he actually started work at the course in the morning by.30 to make sure that it was sensible for him to as it were go back into the training rather than simply drive back to London. He rang me, from memory, just before 8.30 on his mobile, I think to my mobile, though I was by that time in the office, and I confirmed he should actually attend the training for the rest of the day and that I did not expect anything to happen, as it were, between then and early afternoon. MR GOMPERTZ: I am aware of the time, so can I move on to what I hope is the last topic I want to ask you about. That is the welfare of Dr Kelly. You told the Inquiry yesterday that you thought that the support which was provided for Dr Kelly was outstanding? A. I did. Q. You stand by that description, do you? A. I stand by that absolutely. Q. Do you think it was outstanding support by the MoD not to warn him of the Q and A material and its contents so that he was wholly unaware of the process? A. I do not accept that he was wholly unaware of the process. He did not know the detail of what was going on in the press office. But I do not accept that Dr Kelly did not expect his name to come out quite probably from the MoD, if nobody else got there first, within the next 48 to 72 hours. Q. Do you consider it was outstanding support by the MoD not to inform him of the decision to confirm his name if suggested by a journalist? A. I am afraid I do not actually accept your question. I think he knew all along if we were faced with a serious statement that they knew that it was Dr Kelly that we would have to confirm the name because the Ministry of Defence cannot deny things that are true. Q. Do you consider that it was outstanding support for Dr Kelly to refrain from dispatching or attempting to dispatch a press officer to assist him until after he had been named? A. I think we provided outstanding support from the press office in accordance with Dr Kelly's wishes. Q. Do you think it was outstanding support to wait for something like 2 to 2 and a half hours after he was named before telling him, before telephoning to tell him that he had been identified? A. I think it was outstanding support to warn him 24 hours in advance that we were going to put out a statement which could -- sorry, 24 hours was the time interval we got. It was quite clear when I finished speaking to Dr Kelly it was only a matter of time before his name came out. We gained a lot of time by the strategy of not revealing his name in that initial statement. Q. It is your view, is it not, that there was no need to obtain his consent to naming him? A. No. Q. You told us that yesterday. Would you like to be treated like that Mr Hatfield? A. I have been treated like that. Q. Have you? A. Yes, I have. Q. In comparable circumstances? A. In very comparable circumstances. The media have made all sorts of statements about what I did