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23-8-2003 Scotsman Silent presence on the bench tries to uncover the unspoken truth By Gethin Chamberlain and Fraser Nelson LORD Hutton is not a man of many words. For the first few days of his inquiry, a brief "good morning" and the occasional polite suggestion that the court takes a break for the benefit of the stenographers were his most adventurous forays into speech. But as the days have gone by and the evidence has poured out, he seems to have become clearer in his mind about where the inquiry is going, and with that clarity has come a desire to press witnesses harder to see whether the view that is forming in his mind is correct. So far, his line of questioning has suggested that he is unimpressed with the behaviour of either of the two main players, the government and the BBC. Why, he almost wonders out loud, didn't they just get their heads together and agree to differ? Why did they have to dig their heels in so hard that it took the death of Dr Kelly to bring them to their senses? Why didn't either of them spare a thought for the man in the middle? Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, and Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter, ought to be nervous. Lord Hutton's technique is to sit back and let James Dingemans QC, the counsel to the inquiry, do the grilling. Mr Dingemans, meticulous in his questioning, has a nose for a witness who is trying to avoid a question, and an enjoyable habit of leading on his victims before delivering the killer blow, pulling revealing e-mails out of his hat like a master conjurer. But Lord Hutton, too, can make the witness box a very uncomfortable place to be. Quiet for so long that few eyes are on him, he will suddenly chip in with a question in a way that a number of witnesses appear to have found quite disconcerting. His most constant refrain is to ask, at various intervals, whether any thought was given to Dr Kelly's welfare or the impact it would have on him. The answers are normally a long-winded way of saying "no". Lord Hutton looks at the witness over the top of his glasses, as if surprised, and sits back in his chair; the sign for Mr Dingemans to take over again. From his line of questioning, it appears Lord Hutton is struggling to understand why No 10 was convinced that Mr Gilligan's story on the BBC's Today programme represented such a mortal challenge to the Prime Minister's integrity that it had to be challenged and answered by producing Dr Kelly. His handling of Sir Kevin Tebbitt, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, was typical. Sir Kevin found himself on the receiving end of His Lordship's curiosity at the start of the week, when he produced a little speech at the end of his questioning by Mr Dingemans to say how sorry he was, but how he would still have done the same things again. Lord Hutton leaned forward in his seat. He asked Sir Kevin to read two documents. One was the foreign affairs committee's conclusions, exonerating Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's director of communications. The second was the report from the BBC governors, in which they said they did not believe Mr Blair lied to parliament. Could the MoD not have considered its honour satisfied by those two documents, asked Lord Hutton? Sir Kevin said they had not settled the "public debate". Mr Campbell said he found the governors' statement bogus, as it was not an abject retraction. And the foreign affairs committee's report did not count, he said, as it was widely known he had been exonerated by a one-vote majority.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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