Surgeon Seeks Permission to Challange Kelly Verdict

Good luck, you'll need it.

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Judge to hear campaigner's plea for inquest into Dr Kelly's controversial death
By Miles Goslett
16th December 2011

A retired surgeon campaigning for a full coroner’s inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly will have his case heard by a High Court judge on Monday.

David Halpin, 71, is seeking permission to challenge the Government’s decision in June not to order a coroner’s inquest into the controversial death.

Dr Kelly, a government weapons inspector, allegedly slashed his wrist and swallowed painkillers in an Oxfordshire wood in July 2003, after being named as the source of a BBC report accusing Tony Blair’s government of lying to take Britain into the Iraq war.

His death was the subject of a public inquiry but he is believed to be the only person in modern times found dead in suspicious circumstances in this country whose final hours have not been fully examined by a coroner.

Mr Halpin, a former trauma surgeon from Newton Abbot in Devon, said: ‘More than 800 members of the public worldwide, hundreds of them Daily Mail readers, have given about £40,000 to cover legal fees associated with this case. I am enormously grateful.

'I first got involved with this in 2003 because as a surgeon it seemed to me medically implausible that Dr Kelly bled to death by cutting the ulnar artery in his wrist, as officially found. It would close up very quickly and little blood would be lost.’

Monday’s hearing, which is open to the public, will last two hours and marks the first time that matters relating to the Iraq war, Dr Kelly’s death and the Blair government’s handling of both issues will be before a court rather than a public inquiry.

Attorney General Dominic Grieve ruled out a coroner’s inquest six months ago, saying there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ that Dr Kelly committed suicide. The Wail

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