Wednesday August 13 2003, 2pm: Gavin Hewitt, Reporter for the BBC and , Head of News for the BBC

(2.00 pm): LORD HUTTON: This morning the Inquiry heard the tape played of the recorded conversation which took place between Ms Susan Watts and Dr Kelly on 30th May. In order that the press and television and radio and, through them, the public should know precisely what was said in the course of that conversation, copies of the full transcript of that conversation were immediately given by the Inquiry to the media. Out of respect for Dr Kelly's family, I decided that the tape in the possession of the Inquiry which was played this morning should not be released to the media for the media to broadcast it in their television and radio programmes because it is my view that it would be insensitive for Dr Kelly's voice on the tape to be broadcast on television or on radio, although the same objection could not be raised to someone else reading out Dr Kelly's words from the transcript. Mr Knox. MR KNOX: Mr Hewitt, when you spoke to Dr Kelly on 29th May, did you ask him to comment on any of the three specific allegations which had been reported by Mr Gilligan that morning? I shall list the first of them. The first is this: that Downing Street had ordered the dossier to be sexed up a week before publication. Did you ask Dr Kelly to comment on that allegation at all? A. No, I never asked him in those words. I did ask him at the outset what his view was about the dossier, but I never phrased it in the language which had been used on the Today Programme. Q. You did mention that in the last week, according to Dr Kelly, material was being put in and taken out. Did he give you any indication as to who was behind that process of putting in and taking out material? A. In my view it was a two-way process. He did not give me the impression that this was merely material being taken in and out on, say, behalf of Downing Street. He gave me the impression that life in that final week was very frenetic, with material coming in, material being taken out. But he did not apply to that a sense that this was against the Government in some way. He felt that this was -- he was just telling me this was a very busy period in which substantially the dossier was changed. Q. But it was not specifically at the behest of 10 Downing Street? A. No, although that actual part of the conversation happened after he had already said to me "No. 10 spin came into play". Q. Did you put to Dr Kelly the suggestion that in the process of transformation in the last week, the 45 minute claim was added for the first time? A. No, I did not. Q. And finally did you put to Dr Kelly what Mr Gilligan had said, namely that the Government probably knew that this information, i.e. the 45 minute claim, was wrong? A. No, I did not put that. I said to him: what is your view about the 45 minute claim and whether it was inserted into the dossier against the wishes of the Intelligence Services, as I referred to earlier. And he came back with words to the effect of: well, I would not go along with that, I would not go as far as that. And, as I indicated earlier, we then moved the subject of the conversation because I felt I was not going to be able to get significant backing from him to report on that during the news that night, which I did not. Q. Was there any specific reason why you did not put the specific allegations made by Mr Gilligan? A. No, there was no particular reason. In agreeing to follow up on this, I actually wanted to, if you like, establish for myself a baseline in relation to this story; and the emphasis in my questioning was to discover whether an official such as Dr Kelly, who clearly had some standing, whether he felt unease about the language used in that dossier. So in a sense we were following our own agenda rather than trying to establish or not establish what had been reported on the Today Programme that morning. Q. Did it cross your mind that you might be talking to the same source as the story for Mr Gilligan's piece? A. Never. Q. How long did your conversation last with Mr Kelly? A. Around 10 minutes. Q. We know that later Dr Kelly attended a Foreign Affairs Committee on 15th July. Can we call up FAC/4/7? It appears from that, and we shall go to the reference in a moment, it appears from that that he was asked whether he had had any contact with you around this time and he said "no". You can pick that up, I think, from rather near the end of page 7. You can see the question 44: "Ms Stuart: You have neither met nor talked to her [that is Ms Watts] since? "Dr Kelly: I have spoken to her on the telephone but I have not met her face-to-face. "Ms Stuart: When have you talked to her on the telephone? "Dr Kelly: I would have spoken to her about four or five times. "Ms Stuart: During May at all? "Dr Kelly: During May? I cannot precisely remember. I was abroad for a fair part of the time in May, but it is possible, yes. "Ms Stuart: Have you had any conversations or meetings with Gavin Hewitt? "Dr Kelly: Not that I am aware of, no, I am pretty sure I have not." Did you see Dr Kelly's interview with the FAC at all as it was being broadcast live? A. No, I did not when it was broadcast live. It was only in fact subsequently, some time afterwards, that somebody said: do you know your name was mentioned at the FAC? I asked him what context and clearly was surprised. And on that Dr Kelly was incorrect. Q. Are you able to give any explanation as to why he might have got that wrong? A. No, I cannot begin to think why he did. Maybe it is possible he had a lot of conversations within that period but I do not have a ready explanation, no. Q. Did you ever speak to Dr Kelly again after 29th May? A. No, that was the one and only conversation during this period that I had with him. Q. Did you speak to anyone else on 29th May for the purposes of your report that evening? A. I did. After I had finished the conversation with Dr Kelly, I went to see Dame Pauline Neville-Jones at her house to record an interview. I felt this was quite important because she was a former head of the JIC, the Joint Intelligence Committee. I wanted to see if we could try and corroborate in some ways what Dr Kelly had said. And I had already made up in my mind that I would only discuss on the news that night the more broad question, the more broad assertions he had made about language in the dossier. I did not feel I had made any real progress in the area of the 45 minute claim. If you look at what I broadcast that night, you will see I very much limited to this question that he believed that the language had been put over in a very black and white way. I obviously use his quote to me that No. 10 spin did come into play, so -- Q. What did Dame Pauline tell you? A. Well, this was both on camera and off camera, and on camera I did at one point say to her: at the time that the September dossier was published, did you hear anything from your contacts in the intelligence community, any expressions of concern or unease? And I pushed her on this and I asked a supplementary on it. And she came back to me and said: yes, I did hear some mutterings, some murmurings. Q. Was there anything off camera that was said which was not repeated on camera of relevance? A. Pretty much what she said to me off camera was recorded in the interview. The interview lasted for about, I suppose, six or seven minutes, maybe a touch longer. Pretty much, no, what she said off camera she said on camera. Q. Can I ask you to look at BBC/7/111? This is a transcript, as I understand it, of your report on the BBC 10 o'clock News that night, is that right? A. That is right, yes. Q. Would you mind reading into the record the whole of the report, that is to say the whole of the words spoken? A. You want me to read the whole report. Q. Yes. A. Where would you like me to begin? Q. Fiona Bruce. A. "Here, MPs are calling for an inquiry after accusations that the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons was distorted by Downing Street. Security sources have told the BBC they believe parts of the report overstated the threat posed by . Downing Street though has dismissed the claims. Our Special Correspondent Gavin Hewitt investigates." This is now when the report begins: "This is really a story about trust. It begins here at MI6, the headquarters of the Intelligence Service. Some of those who work here are said to be uneasy about what the government did with information they passed on about Iraq. There were claims when Downing Street received the dossier it wanted it toughened up. When it was eventually published it did contain some dramatic warnings". We then had a clip from talking to the Commons: "That he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons which could be activated within 45 minutes." Back to commentary from me: "The Government acknowledged today that the 45-minute threat was based on a single source. It wasn't corroborated. This has rattled some MPs who are calling for an investigation." A clip from the Liberal Democrat MP : "If you take intelligence and massage it for political purposes, essentially you turn it into propaganda. If the allegations are true, there will be considerable anxiety in all branches of the security services." Back again to me: "The government said today that every word within the dossier was the work of the security services. There had been no pressure from Number Ten." A brief clip from the Government Minister Adam Ingram: "All the information was based upon well-informed information." Back to me: "Others with experience in the intelligence community say there were some murmurings about the final wording of the dossier." A clip from Dame Pauline Neville-Jones: "The professionals are cautious. They'll only put things in if they are confident [-- that they are confident] about. I think when they got into the political part of the machine, into the government information services, they said to themselves it won't convince anybody. We need to beef up the language in a way it carries conviction." Finally, I talk to camera: "I've spoken to one of those consulted on the dossier. Six months work was apparently involved. In the final week before publication some material was taken out and some put. His judgment, some spin from Number Ten did come into play. Even so the intelligence community remains convinced weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq. Only then will all the doubts go away." Q. Mr Hewitt, thank you very much for that. There are one or two questions I wanted to ask you about this. The first is this: in the introduction by Fiona Bruce she says in the second sentence: "Security sources have told the BBC ... " this. Are you able to explain why she uses the phrase "security sources"? Was that at your instigation or for some other reason? A. It was not at my instigation. I think she was probably referring to the fact that both earlier in the day, in the sense of what was related in the Today Programme and the fact that I was going to report another source, what was at the time presumed to be a second source, that there were really reservations about the dossier. Q. Then, just moving to your paragraph immediately afterwards, that is to say "this is really a story about trust", this is presumably based on what Mr Gilligan had said, you are not really basing this on what Dr Kelly had said? A. I think if you look carefully at this, this is referring more to the fact that there are now out there these claims that there were people within the Intelligence Services who were said to be uneasy about what the Government did with information. At this stage I am referring to what has been reported earlier in the day, the fact that this story is running. It is only at the end of the item that if you like I give my own information. Q. The extract from the Prime Minister's speech is, as I understand it, a quote from a speech he gave to Parliament on 24th September 2002? A. I presume that is right. I cannot remember the date. It certainly was from his Parliamentary speech, yes. Q. Going over the page, the final paragraph where you are speaking, that is presumably your summary of what Dr Kelly had told you? A. Exactly, yes. Q. Can I just ask you to go to page BBC/7/113? You will see on this page three e-mails and the e-mail at the bottom of the page is the earliest in time, dated 27th June, 8.34, written to Richard Sambrook. You say, in the first paragraph: "Richard, "Thought it might be helpful to mention my conversations re 'sexed up' dossiers. On the day that Andrew G broke the story on the Today programme Mark Popescu asked me whether we could add anything for the 10.00 news. Without talking to Andrew I spoke to a very respected individual who had been consulted on and involved in the preparation of the September dossier. He said that dossier had been based almost entirely on UK sources." Pausing there, Mr Hewitt, is it right to say that it is based almost entirely on UK sources or based exclusively on UK sources? A. I clearly wrote "entirely" there. I would have to look back at my notes but my recollection of what Dr Kelly said was very much more "entirely". I know I did ask him. I said was this -- there was a reason for me asking it because I know there were questions raised about some of the intelligence which had been coming from the Pentagon. So I wanted to clarify whether the UK dossier essentially was coming from shared sources, and I got the impression from Dr Kelly that he believed that this September dossier was based almost exclusively on UK sources. Q. Almost exclusively or exclusively? A. Almost exclusively, in the sense that he -- I mean, he believed that it all came from UK sources. There might have been a slight qualification but not a large one. Q. Then you continue: "He said it had been prepared over a six month period but that in the final week it has become frenetic with material being taken out and material being added. In his view 'No. 10 spin did come into play'." Then you continue. Effectively this is how you would now recall the position? A. Yes, absolutely. Q. Can you explain, very briefly, what the purpose of this e-mail was? A. Yes, absolutely. This was around the time when it was clear that a major row was developing between the BBC and the Government over the reporting of this issue. I knew that Richard Sambrook was in the process of drafting a very considerable reply to and to the Government and I thought, in those circumstances, that it was right for him to know that the 10 o'clock News report that I had done might be helpful to him as part of the evidence that he was going to give to Alastair Campbell in that letter. So I got in touch with him and said: look, you may be interested0 to recall that or to know that. And this is essentially, I think, what this e-mail refers to. Q. You then see, in a reply e-mail a little bit further up the page from Mr Sambrook to you, thanking you for the information, he asks you for: "... broad sense of the seniority of your source." A. That is right, yes. Q. Then at the top you reply. A. "Richard, yes please use anything from that first conversation in your reply to Campbell. The man was my main source for the Ten piece and the person who told me 'No. 10 spin did come into play'. Privately I am, of course, happy to tell you precisely who he was." Pausing there for a moment, did you ever tell Mr Sambrook precisely who the source was privately? A. I did but later on. Q. When you say later on, how much later on? A. On the day that Dr Kelly was found to be dead. Q. You then continue: "He was consulted on the dossier and had intimate knowledge of how it came together. He is senior and is recognised as one of the principal experts in the field of biological/chemical weapons. He has a role in government at a senior level but not at MI6." Did Mr Sambrook press you any further on this1 description once you had told him that? A. No. Q. Did you ever speak to Mr Gilligan about this story? A. No, I never spoke to him about his source. I think I had, possibly -- I had one conversation with when I met him at a media Guardian conference but I did not ask him who his source was and he never told me who his source was. Q. What about Ms Watts; did you ever speak to her about this? A. No, I have never had a conversation with her. Q. Did you receive any complaints about your piece from the Government? A. No, none at all. Q. Or did you hear about any complaints from the Government? A. No, none at all. Q. Is there anything you wish to add about the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death? A. No, I am afraid I know nothing about that at all. MR KNOX: Thank you very much indeed. LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed Mr Hewitt. A. Thank you.

MR DINGEMANS: Mr Sambrook, please, my Lord.

MR RICHARD SAMBROOK (called) Examined by MR DINGEMANS

Q. Can you tell his Lordship your full name? A. Yes. Richard Sambrook. Q. Was is your occupation? A. I am the director of news at the BBC. Q. How long have you been with the BBC? A. 23 years. Q. How long have you been in your present position? A. Since March 2001. Q. Can you give us a broad outline of your responsibilities as director of news? A. Yes. I am responsible for all BBC's news programmes on television, radio and on the Internet, both in terms of their content but also in terms of management of them, finances, personnel, strategy and so on. Q. Do you have any assistants, a deputy or anything like that? A. Yes. I have a deputy, Mark Damazer, who deputises for me across the full range of my responsibilities, and then I have a number of heads of department who focus on different areas of programme making. Q. And what are those departments? A. Radio news; television news; on-line, which is the Internet; news gathering, which is the reporters and3 correspondents and foreign bureau; political programmes and current affairs. Q. Do you have meetings with these persons? A. Yes, I meet with all of those heads of department for regular routine meetings but there is a daily editorial meeting at 8.50 in which the BBC's output for the previous 24 hours and the next 24 hours is discussed. Q. What do you have to say about the importance of sources for your reporting? A. Well, obviously sources are vital to our reporting. We need to know that they are credible, that they know what they are talking about and we have to have confidence in them. Q. And specifically anonymous sources? A. Well, anonymous sources are necessary in some forms of journalism. Some people will not give us information which we believe to be of public interest, unless they are assured of some confidentiality. They would not bring that information forward otherwise. Editorially, it is important that we give them assurances that will protect their confidentiality. If we did not do so then information that is potentially of public interest would not come to light. Q. Do you have any guidelines that deal with such sources? A. Yes, BBC has a book of producer guidelines and it does4 cover this issue. Q. Can we look at BBC/7/99? Is this the beginning of your relevant guideline? A. Yes, it is. Q. Can you tell us about the distinctions between attributable, non-attributable and off the record? We have heard a number of different interpretations. A. Yes. "Attributable" I think means that you can quote somebody and name them. I think generally "non- attributable" and "off the record" are often used interchangeably, although I think strictly there would be some difference between them. "Off the record" would be purely for context of background and "non-attributable" meant you might quote them but not name a person. But they do tend to be used interchangeably. Q. Attributable, you can name and identify? A. Yes. Q. Non-attributable, you can use the information but without identifying the person? A. Yes. Q. And off the record, unless it is being used interchangeably, just background? A. Yes, but I do think off the record and unattributable are often used synonymously.5 Q. The media is a massive business. Are there any guidelines that help journalists about this? A. There are no formal guidelines that apply across the media. I think it is custom and practice. Q. Although there is a difference between non-attributable and off the record, they sometimes get muddled up? A. Yes. Q. You had a history of complaints, I think, from Alastair Campbell about the BBC reporting -- A. Yes. Q. -- that you have referred to. Can I take you to some of those? You will understand, I hope, if I do not go through every single one. BBC/4/131. What do we see here? A. This was a letter written as you see on 19th March about the BBC's coverage of the Commons vote before the war. Q. And it makes a number of points and continues for some four pages. What stage had relationships reached between Downing Street, Alastair Campbell on one side, and the BBC, yourself, on the other? A. Well there was clearly some tension between us which reflected frankly the sort of relations we have with all governments in time of war where the BBC's reporting, which attempts to be fully independent and reflect a wide spectrum of views, sometimes produces tensions6 with government. In this case, public opinion at the time was very deeply divided and our programmes had sought to reflect the full range of public opinion. I think Downing Street were uncomfortable with the way we were presenting some of those views. Q. Can I take you to BBC/4/145, which I think is another document that you have referred to. What is this? A. Well, that is another letter to me from Alastair Campbell. I cannot quite read the text. Q. "In some reports, I have noticed Iraqi Television is being used virtually as an objective source, much as the foreign media might use material from the BBC. Iraqi Television is part and parcel of the Saddam regime. It is under his total control. Therefore, surely, anything said or shown should be treated with real scepticism. "Could I ask what guidance is given to reporters and editors about the use of material supplied by Iraqi Television?" A. Yes. Q. You were receiving regular letters, were you, from Mr Campbell? A. Yes, we were. Q. If we go to BBC/4/146 we can see a letter the next day. Here the complaint related to Mr Gilligan. A. Yes.7 Q. And the damage that had been done to the Republican Guard. A. Yes. Q. Did you accept that any of the complaints raised were well-founded? A. Not at this stage. In fact, I felt one had to look quite carefully into the complaints because quite often they were selective in their use of the scripts which they were complaining about. I think in this particular case the phrase he was complaining about was preceded by a phrase which said something like "we can't tell"; in other words, the full quote of Andrew Gilligan's script would have satisfied the point that Mr Campbell was seeking to make. So my view of it -- we of course take any letter from Downing Street very seriously -- was that we had to look very carefully at exactly what was being complained about and compare it to what we were broadcasting. Q. Can I take you to one letter where you do at least appear to have accepted some fault, that is 4th April 2003, BBC/4/158. Can you tell us what this letter is? A. Yes, Alastair Campbell had complained again about a report from Andrew Gilligan who had concluded a live report on News 24 from Baghdad with the phrase something8 about "more rubbish from cent comm", meaning central command. He had initially complained to me suggesting this had been on Radio 4 and we had search all of Radio 4's output and had been unable to find it. He then clarified it was actually on News 24. I agreed with him that the phrase "rubbish from cent comm" was unacceptable for a BBC correspondent to use and acknowledged that. Q. You say at the bottom of the letter the: "... particular phrase was unacceptable, which I regret, and will take up with Andrew Gilligan." Did you take it up with Andrew Gilligan? A. Yes, I believe I did. Q. When did you take it up with him? A. I do not remember the precise date but I do remember having a conversation that said occasionally he needed to be more careful, even under the circumstances in which he was reporting from Baghdad, which were of considerable duress, at his use of language. Q. I am right in saying this, am I: that you considered some of the complaints made by Alastair Campbell as simply unfair? Can I look at BBC/4/28. How would you describe this document? A. I think this one goes back to the war in Afghanistan and it was a list from Downing Street of what they believed9 to be things that we should not have said or were wrong. You will see it is headlined "Catalogue of Lies". But it for example suggests we should not be talking about Taliban civilian casualties or we should not be putting a death toll on civilian casualties and said we should not be reporting that and there was not evidence. And I think that was unreasonable. Q. Was this the general background against which Alastair Campbell's complaint came to be made to you? A. Yes. The only communication I ever had with Alastair Campbell were these kinds of faxes and letters. Q. You have never met him apart from -- A. I have met him I think on two occasions. Once was in a general briefing. Once was at the lunch during July, which I think we may come to. But again, we did not have a conversation there. Q. The week of the broadcast of Andrew Gilligan's piece on 28th May, were you in this country or not? A. No. Could I make a correction? There were three occasions in which I met Alastair Campbell. Again, during the Afghanistan war he called me into Downing Street to discuss the use of the Osama bin Laden videos with the heads of ITN News and Sky News as well. So there were three occasions on which I met him. No, at the end of May I was on holiday or moving0 house for that week of the original Today Programme broadcast. Following that, I then went to Moscow for three days where the BBC was opening a new bureau, so I did not return to the office until Thursday, the 5th. Q. When you returned were you made aware of the broadcast? A. Only because I saw some of the correspondence from Downing Street where Ann Shevas, who works in the Downing Street press office, had written to my deputy Mark Damazer. Q. Can I take you to CAB/1/154? Is this the letter to which you are referring? A. Yes, it is. Q. You can see from that letter the gist of the complaint. How would you summarise it? A. Well I think it made a broad denial of the allegations but then particularly went on to complain about the basis on which we had been given the advance notice of the story and the use made of the interview with Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces Minister. Q. The reply is at CAB/1/156. This was not drafted by you or by Mr Damazer? A. No. This was drafted by Steve Mitchell who was the head of radio news who reports to me. Q. You were away and I think Mr Damazer was busy that day? A. I was out of the office that day, yes.1 Q. The gist of his reply is a denial that anything has gone wrong; is that right? A. Yes, he outlines what we understood to be our contacts with Downing Street or with the Government in advance of the programme and our running of the Government denials in the wake of the Gilligan report. Q. And at this stage, had you seen any notes or comments made by Mr Gilligan himself? A. Not by Mr Gilligan, no. Q. Can I take you to a document dated 5th June 2003 at BBC/5/58? What is this document? A. This is an e-mail from Stephen Whittle who is the BBC's controller of editorial policy. Q. For those of us who do not work in the BBC, can you tell us why that is different from what you do? A. Yes. Editorial policy; Stephen Whittle if you like owns and oversees the producer guidelines and editorial policy across the whole of the BBC, not just news, all programmes, and he works independently of any programme making. Q. What was the reason for this report? A. Well, as I understand it, the director general had asked Mr Whittle to run through how Andrew Gilligan's report had come to air and what checks had been made on it. Q. Why had the director general become involved? A. I do not know. I think it was because at a regular meeting that the director general has with Mr Whittle they had raised the story and Greg had asked him to look into it. Q. And at the bottom of the page, there is a discussion about how the live two-way at 6.10 was discussed, written overnight and the details of that. And then how events move on during a three hour programme and just over the page how the denial came to be made. A. Yes. Q. And there is a passage at the end of that, the prepenultimate paragraph: "So the report resulted from two separate but related information sources." A. Yes. Q. Can you help at all on that? A. Only if you can refer back to the previous page. Q. Yes, 58. A. Clearly one of them was Andrew Gilligan's source who we now know to be Dr Kelly. Q. Is it the first paragraph of the e-mail or just after the first paragraph: "About a month ago the programme was picking up signals ..."? A. Yes. I was going to say I think the other element which3 I would not characterise as a single source was that for some time a number of journalists in the BBC and elsewhere had some unattributable briefings from members of the security services expressing some unease at the way intelligence had been presented in public. Q. When it says "two separate but related information sources", what it means is one individual and then these general concerns? A. Yes, I would personally describe that as a context or a background of concerns rather than calling it another source. Q. We are not here to argue about people's use of language in that respect. So it was relating to the general background? A. Yes. Q. And then the specific source. There was no other source as far as you are aware for the Today Programme? A. No. Q. And at this stage, now that a bit more investigation has been carried out, has anyone asked to see Mr Gilligan's notes of his conversation with the source? A. His programme editor has, yes. I mean the process of editorial supervision for an item would be through the programme's output editor up to the programme editor, in this case Kevin Marsh, and in this case I would normally4 expect him to have had a conversation about this item before it was broadcast, including some understanding of how well sourced it was and the reliability and credibility of the source and what other corroboration there might be. Q. The dispute did not go away; and the day after that memo had been produced, can we turn to a letter dated 6th June 2003, BBC/5/60; and here I hope you will see a letterhead, "Dear Richard", that is to you. It is again from Alastair Campbell. A. Yes. Q. He is writing to complain about what he calls Andrew Gilligan's irresponsible reporting of what he claims to be information from intelligence sources. Mr Campbell said that Mr Gilligan continued to display an extraordinary ignorance about intelligence issues. He refers to the reasons for that comment. He continues, on page 61, about complaints on weapons of mass destruction reporting and talks about the way in which JIC assessments are put together. Then on page 62 he referred you to your BBC guidelines. I have read a little bit more of this correspondence than perhaps I wanted to. There appear to be frequent references to the BBC producer guidelines in your correspondence with Mr Campbell, perhaps both ways, is5 that a fair analysis? A. Yes, it is. I mean the producer guidelines encapsulate the editorial standards to which the BBC is held to account and they are publicly available. Q. And he identified breaches, so he said, of the producer guidelines; and he continued on to page 63 characterising Mr Gilligan's attempts to justify the story by referring to what had been said by Clare Short and Robin Cook and suggesting that Adam Ingram had corroborated the 45 minutes claim. He said this at the bottom: "You will, I imagine, seek to defend your reporting, as you always do. In this case, you would be defending the indefensible. On the word of a single, uncorroborated source, you have allowed one reporter to drive the BBC's coverage. We are left wondering why you have guidelines at all, given that they are so persistently breached without any comeback whatsoever." What are the remedies that I might have if I considered that the BBC's reporting had breached guidelines? A. Well if you did not receive a satisfactory response by writing directly to the programme concerned, there is a programme complaints unit in the BBC which reports to the director general who can investigate complaints,6 again independently of any production are A. That can make a decision about whether that complaint is justified or not. Those findings are published and if you are unhappy with the findings of that unit in reporting to the director general, there is a right of appeal to the board of governors. Q. Was this complaint taken seriously? A. We take all of the complaints from Downing Street seriously, yes. Q. Can I take you to BBC/5/66 which is an e-mail dated 9th June 2003. Can you identify for us who the parties are? Kevin Marsh; I think we were told yesterday who he was. A. Kevin Marsh is the editor of the Today Programme. Stephen Mitchell is his line manager, the head of radio news. Q. Perhaps you can read for us the first five paragraphs. A. "I started to look at this point by point ... but it's all drivel and, frankly, it'd be easy to get as confused as Campbell is. The man is flapping in the wind. "I'm looking back now at what we said on 24th September, when the dossier was published - as ever, the recording has gone missing ... probably lost in the multitude up in Mark's office. "The key facts are these.7 "We stand by the original (29th May) story and the processes that got it to air. Andrew's source is known to us: It is a source that has been utterly reliable in the past. "Apart from the one key fact - the '45- minute' claim - the rest of what the source told us on this occasion (about unease within the security services) was consistent with what we were hearing from a number of sources within the security services." Q. Then he goes on, I hope I summarise it accurately, to say he made an editorial judgment to produce the story and deals with the immediate response from Downing Street. Now, in that aspect, by this stage has anyone gone back to compare what Andrew Gilligan has actually said on air with the notes that he made from his conversations with Dr Kelly? A. Only Kevin Marsh would have done, I think, at that stage. I think at that stage it was only Kevin who would have known and would have discussed with Andrew what was in the note. Q. We then come to the BBC response which is BBC/5/71. What is this? A. That is my response to Alastair Campbell. Q. Your letter of 11th June 2003 to Alastair Campbell?8 A. Yes. Q. And you effectively, for the reasons you set out in that, rebut his complaint? A. Yes. Q. And I hope I will be forgiven if I do not go through your reasoning, but you also talk, on page 72, about a right of reply? A. Yes. Q. And at the bottom of the letter, you write, in the final paragraph, can you just read that? A. "On which point it is worth going back to stage 1. We have not suggested that the 45-minute point was invented by anyone in Downing Street against the wishes of anyone in the intelligence community. We have suggested that there are pertinent and serious questions to be asked about the presentation of the intelligence material - a rather different point and one which I am not convinced your letter recognises." Q. Had you, at this stage, seen a transcript of Andrew Gilligan's remarks on 29th May? A. Yes, I had. Q. And you had seen that at least earlier on in the broadcast, at 6.07 -- and he has explained the circumstances in which he came to make that -- that he had said that the material had been produced and9 inserted at a time when the Government knew that it was wrong. It was not a claim, as he pointed out later, repeated. A. That line was in there but I would not have said I particularly focused on it at this stage. Q. You had not, as it were, identified that as a matter of concern? A. No, and nor had Downing Street in their complaints. To be fair, their complaints at this stage were a general rebuttal, in the widest sense. They had complained about pre-notification, about the producer guidelines and about the description of the JIC, but they had not identified that phrase as a particular problem at this stage. Q. It did not take long to get a reply, at BBC/5/73. Here Mr Campbell writes identifying issues that he says you have not responded to, in paragraph 1: "Firstly, you have not answered my questions about Andrew Gilligan's obvious ignorance about intelligence issue. So I repeat - do you accept that what Andrew Gilligan said last week about the composition and role of the JIC was inaccurate? What, if anything do you intend to do about it? "Secondly, on the '45-minute' claim, you acknowledge it was indeed from a single source, for which I am0 grateful. I therefore believed it does conflict with your guideline ..." He refers to the Intelligence and Security Committee report at the bottom of the page, and he again deals with other coverage. This provoked more internal e-mails. Can I take you to BBC/5/90. This, in fact, is your comment on the Today Programme. A. Well, this is after Alastair Campbell's appearance at the Foreign Affairs Committee some time later. Q. Can I then go to your response, BBC/5/76? Sorry about that. This is your response in which you deal with his complaints or try and answer his complaints? A. Yes. I mean, our view was that his first letter on the 6th was -- although Mr Campbell's inimitable style, at that stage we did not believe we needed to engage point-by-point with his complaint but rather assert the reasons on which he had broadcasted. When he came back so quickly to re-emphasise the points he wanted addressed, we attempted to deal with them in more detail. Q. Can I ask you to look at BBC/5/70? What is this? At the top there is an e-mail from Stephen Mitchell to Mark Damazer. Stephen Mitchell you have told us is head of radio news.1 A. Yes. Q. Mark Damazer your deputy. What does it say there? A. "For your information I asked Kevin to look back quickly at what AG ..." I cannot quite read it. Q. "Said". A. "... when the September dossier was published. This is his reply." Q. The reply was then from Kevin Marsh to Stephen Mitchell? A. Yes. Q. Perhaps you can just read us the first two paragraphs of Kevin Marsh's comments? A. "I've just listened back to Gilligan on 24th September - and reread Campbell's point. I am more convinced than I was before that he is on the run. Or gone bonkers. Or both. "When Campbell says that Gilligan said there was 'little that was new' in the dossier, he is half right: that was Gilligan's (and everyone else's) judgment on the document as a whole. However, AG picked out a number of things that were new - though as he said several times, his judgments were based on a 30-minute reading of the dossier." Q. And I have shown, I hope, a reasonably fair summary of some of these letters passing between both parties on which points are made by both sides, and some of the2 internal documents. Is this a reasonable characterisation: the BBC management at this stage had got to the situation where they were just fed up with the complaints that were being made against them? A. I do not think that is quite fair, no. I would like to say that although Kevin has a colourful turn of phrase in internal e-mails to his colleagues, I do not think some of that tone characterises our approach or view of these complaints from Downing Street. We always take complaints from Downing Street extremely seriously. It was true we had a very high volume of them during the war, as indeed we generally tend to have at moments of tension, such as war or elections and so on. We do take them seriously but we did believe that we, from experience, had to look very closely at what was being complained about and in what terms because it is not always straightforward or clear cut. Q. After your letter of 16th June 2003, matters appear, at least on the correspondence, to go quiet until 25th June 2003 which is when Alastair Campbell gives evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee? A. That is right. I had no response to the reply to my letter of his on the 12th. Q. You have written on 16th June. Then I know it is not very long but there is at least nine days without any3 further correspondence between you. A. Yes, it seemed to me to have been a lull. Q. FAC/2/279, if we may. What do we have here? Do you recognise this? A. Yes, this is a transcript of Mr Campbell's evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Q. And in the course of his evidence here he turns to deal with the September dossier and his role in it. Then at the bottom of page 279 he says this: "The allegation against me is that we helped the Prime Minister persuade Parliament and the country to go into conflict on the basis of a lie. I think that is a pretty serious allegation. It has been denied by the Prime Minister, it has been denied by the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, it has been denied by the Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator and it has been denied by the heads of the intelligence agencies involved, and yet the BBC continue to stand by that story. "Richard Ottaway: You believe that time will prove you right on that one? "Mr Campbell: I know that we are right in relation to that 45-minute point. It is completely and totally untrue, and I do not use this word -- "Richard Ottaway: I am talking about the substance.4 "Mr Campbell: It is actually a lie." Then they go back on to dealing with the substance. At question 994, further down the page, Mr Ottaway makes the perceptive comment that one of you is wrong and Mr Campbell says: "Mr Campbell: I know who is right and who is wrong. The BBC are wrong. We have apologised in relation to Dr al- Marishi [that is in relation to what I think has been called the February dodgy dossier] and I think it is about time the BBC apologised to us in relation to the 45-minute point." Mr Ottaway says he will leave that to the BBC if you do not mind. That was evidence. You responded to that evidence, did you? A. Yes. I heard about it, I did not actually watch or hear Mr Campbell's evidence. I was telephoned late afternoon, I was out of London and was told that he had broadly attacked the BBC in his evidence, and I asked for parts of his evidence to be faxed to me. We were at a management meeting in Surrey and read the comments he had made about the BBC. Q. Can we turn to CAB/1/337. This is, so you know, part of a transcript of the Today Programme on 26th June 2003. So the next day. About the third paragraph: "So the word disproportionate [this is Mr Naughtie5 talking to you] which he used in describing the way that we dealt with critics and on this programme and others, you are suggesting that there was no disproportionate treatment of criticism as being better news than the other side of the story?" You say: "No I don't believe there was at all. I mean the way BBC's, conducts its journalism is to ask questions, raise issues and debate them openly with a wide range of views and that, that's how we've approached the war in the way that we approach everything else." And then: "And the argument that as a consequence of as he would put it having been proved wrong, the, the, the tendency is to point out failures or difficulties in Iraq now by way of justifying a previous view." You say: "No, well all we have done since then is to raise questions which have been brought to our attention by people we know to be senior and credible sources in the Intelligence Service and it's an issue of public interest." You were referring I think there, in particular, to Mr Gilligan's story? A. I was. I made an error there in ascribing him to the6 Intelligence Services. I did not, at that stage, know who Mr Gilligan's source was and indeed I had not discussed it with Andrew Gilligan. By this stage, the way that the debate about his original report had taken off was that Intelligence sources were being routinely used not only by the BBC, but by many other people as well. It had got into the bloodstream, and I think I subconsciously made an assumption there which I should not have done. Q. Just picked it up, and at the bottom of the page: "Richard Sambrook: I'm entirely satisfied [and this is specifically in relation to Mr Gilligan, source] that it is a senior, credible and reliable source and frankly Jim I don't think the BBC needs to be taught lessons in the use of sources by a communications department which plagiarised a 12 year old thesis and distributed it ..." That was a slightly different description but did not use the word "intelligence" just to balance, as it were, your coverage? A. Yes. Q. It was becoming clear, was it not, that this was a dispute that was spiralling out of control? A. I would say that this was a very sudden escalation. We had an exchange of letters which were clearly -- they were very unhappy with our broadcasting but there had7 then been a nine or 10 day pause and as far as we were concerned we had answered their replies and it fitted the pattern of many other complaints about other stories where there would be a quick flurry or exchange of letters, then it would go away. So although we did anticipate that Mr Campbell might use the opportunity, in giving his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, to make some comment about the BBC coverage, we certainly had not anticipated anything on this scale. Q. You had not anticipated misuse of that platform, if it was a platform, and you had taken the opportunity to respond on a platform? A. That is right. The Today Programme had bid, I think both for Alastair Campbell and myself to appear the next day. Having discussed Alastair Campbell's evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee with the director general, we agreed that I should go on and defend the BBC's values. The key distinction in Mr Campbell's comments at the Foreign Affairs Committee was that he broadened this out from a criticism about our coverage of one particular story to a generalised attack on all the BBC's editorial values. Q. You have journalists that attend the lobby briefings, do you not? A. We do.8 Q. On the 26th June, at CAB/1/182, we have here part of the press briefing at 11 am Thursday 26th June 2003, and are these minutes -- I mean not having been at one of these briefings myself -- that are produced afterwards as a summary of the questions asked and the responses given? A. Yes, the Downing Street website puts up a summary of the lobby briefing and what the Prime Minister's official spokesmen would have said. Q. What was said at one stage of the briefing: "In answer to further questions about the BBC, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesmen said that there were a number of questions still outstanding. They were quite simple: "Did the BBC still stand by the allegation it made on 29th May that No. 10 had added in the 45-minute claim? "Did it still stand by the allegation made on the same day that we had done so against the wishes of the intelligence agencies? "Did it still stand by the allegation made on that day that both we and the intelligence agencies had known that the 45-minute claim was wrong? "Did it still stand by the allegation, again on the same day, that we had ordered the September dossier to9 be 'sexed up' in the period leading up to its publication - that it had been 'cobbled together at the last minute with some unconfirmed material that had not been approved by the security services'? "Did it still stand by the statement made on 6th June that the JIC was no part of the intelligence community but was a No. 10 Committee whose job was to arbitrate between the Government and intelligence agencies? "Did it stand by the claim on 3rd June that the chairman of the JIC only 'kind of bureaucratically signed off his report'?" Then they go on to other questions. Now, whatever the genesis of the dispute, and I hope I have taken you fairly to the material which -- very briefly -- had led to the dispute, it was now coming down to some pretty specific questions? A. Yes. Q. At this stage, did you ask to see Mr Gilligan's notes? A. Not at this stage, no. These questions came -- some of these issues were raised by Mr Campbell in his evidence. This was given in the lobby briefing and only formed the basis of Alastair Campbell's letter to me which arrived late that afternoon on Thursday. Q. Can I take you, so you have that in front of you, to0 BBC/5/94. Is this the letter to which you are referring? A. Yes, it is. Yes. Q. Can you tell us what this letter does? It runs for some three pages. A. Yes. I mean it sets out at the top there, it quotes Sir John Humphrys' introduction from the Today Programme which seems to encapsulate in Downing Street's view the essence of the allegation which our source was making. Q. Pausing there, was that a fair encapsulation of the allegations that were being made? A. Yes, I think that is a reasonably fair encapsulation. Q. And then, over the page to BBC/5/95, the questions are these, and they seem to bear a remarkable similarity to the lobby briefing, but those questions are set out again. A. Yes. This is of course the first time they those questions have been asked in that way. They were not entered in the early letters in that form. Q. And the response is not quite the same day but fairly shortly afterwards, BBC/5/119. A. Yes, in his letter Mr Campbell had asked me to reply by the end of that day and I received his letter at 4 o'clock, so we did not believe we could give it proper consideration in that time and we answered the next day.1 Q. So you answered the next day, a perfectly reasonable reason. You talk about the allegations of biased reporting at page 119, page 120 you talk about the February dossier, then you talk about, page 121, unease in the security services, and you at 122 refer to a number of other newspaper reports -- A. Yes. Q. -- which it is fair to say had not quite attracted the same attention as the Today report, had they? A. They had not. What we were seeking to do there was to explain our reasons for broadcasting -- we had taken the very unusual step of broadcasting allegations on the basis of a single anonymous source and an important part of our reason for doing so was the context that that provides in terms of the February dossier which had been discredited, and the general briefings that were being received by a wide number of journalists, not just those working for the BBC. As you say, a number of those other reports predated Andrew Gilligan's or certainly predated his mention of Alastair Campbell in and certainly had not attracted anything like the same attention. Q. Can you turn to page 124 where you turn to the specific questions that had been asked: "Now to your questions and I make no apology for2 repeating some of the points I have just made", which I hope I have at least put in context. "Does the BBC still stand by the allegation it made on 29th May that No. 10 added in the 45 minute claim to the dossier?" "The allegation was not made by the BBC but by our source -- a senior official involved in the compilation of the dossier." At this stage, had you seen the notes that Mr Gilligan had made of his meeting on 22nd May? A. This letter was drafted on 27th May in my office -- Q. 27th June. A. 27th June, I beg your pardon. Parts of it were drafted by my deputy Mark Damazer and he made reference -- he had referred and talked to Andrew Gilligan, who was also in the office working alongside us, for points of clarification. He also sought points of clarification from Steve Mitchell and Kevin Marsh. So elements of it were drafted, I then looked at them, rewrote some of them and at various stages the director general reviewed the letter. LORD HUTTON: Mr Sambrook may I just ask you about that sentence: "The allegation was not made by the BBC but by our source -- a senior official involved in the compilation3 of the dossier -- and the BBC stands by the reporting of it." Is that making the point that if a source makes a serious criticism to the BBC about some third party, the BBC considers that it is appropriate to report that criticism because it has been made irrespective of its view of the validity of the criticism? A. It would depend on a number of criteria and whether the allegation has passed a certain threshold. In this case that would include the seniority and credibility of the source, their track record and the extent to which the issues they were talking about, how important they were, how much an issue of public interest it was. Again we took the decision to publish those allegations without being able to prove them ourselves, but because we believed in the credibility of the source and because we believed they were important allegations and subject to two caveats. One was that we were completely clear and transparent at all times that these allegations came from one single anonymous source and did not try to pretend they were better established than that, and secondly that we gave the Government ample and frequent opportunity to put their point of view and to rebut and deny the claims, which I believe we did. LORD HUTTON: But if the BBC are going to report a criticism4 of that nature from a source, is consideration given to the question whether the body criticised should be given an opportunity to show to the BBC, if it can, that the criticism is unjustified before any report is broadcast? A. Well, that would depend on the circumstances, I think. I mean, the answer to that, briefly, will be sometimes yes and sometimes no, but the crucial thing for us is that we do give whoever the other side of the argument is ample opportunity to state their case and put their position. I think quite often that might entail giving them access to what we were going to say or briefing them on what we were going to say in advance, but on a programme like the Today Programme which produces a lot of political journalism and probably several times a week makes stories which may be based on a single source or not, very seldom of this gravity I accept, they have a relationship with Government ministries which is well oiled, if I can put it that way; and I think on the programme they feel there is a convention and a well oiled routine they go through both with Downing Street and the ministries, and I think they felt in this case they had gone through the kinds of processes they would be expected to do. LORD HUTTON: So you are suggesting as regards political5 criticism that there is an understanding, perhaps put it that way, that if there is going to be criticism of the Government, the Today Programme considers it is justifiable to broadcast that criticism provided in the same programme they give a Government minister the chance to respond? A. Yes. LORD HUTTON: Thank you. MR DINGEMANS: The next specific allegation that you have been asked to deal with in the letter is: "Does it still stand by the allegation made on the same day that we did so against the wishes of the intelligence agencies?" "Again we reported accurately what we had been told by the source that the 45 minute claim was included in the dossier 'against our wishes'." Then this: "Does it still stand by the allegation made on that day that both we and the intelligence agencies knew the 45 minute claim to be wrong and inserted it despite knowing that?" "Andrew Gilligan accurately reported the source telling him that the Government 'probably knew that the 45 minute figure was wrong' and that the claim was 'questionable'. The basis for this assertion by6 Andrew Gilligan's source was that the information about the 45 minute claim had been derived from only one intelligence source -- whereas most of the other claims in the dossier had at least two. Gilligan's source also believed this single Iraqi source had probably got the information wrong." You I think have established that you did not look at the notes beforehand, and you will recall -- I think you were here yesterday when Mr Gilligan was giving his evidence? A. Yes. Q. And I think, and I hope I put it accurately, he described his earlier reporting where this allegation had been made as less than perfect but not wrong. A. Indeed. Q. I think those were his words. But there is nothing, is there, when you look at his notes of the meeting with Dr Kelly, to suggest that the source, Dr Kelly, had ever suggested that? A. No, I accept that; and clearly we should not have suggested it was a direct quote. But we did believe, and we discussed this obviously at some length with Andrew, that it was an accurate reflection of interpretation of parts of his conversation with Dr Kelly. Andrew yesterday said that he believed that7 phrase was not wrong but less than perfect. I think in saying that it was not wrong, he still believes, and indeed we still stand by that interpretation of part of his conversation. Q. If you are going to make a particularly serious allegation based on your interpretation or understanding, perfectly reasonable perhaps, of what a source has said but where you might be able to draw two inferences from it, is that not the sort of situation where you might highlight it and go back to the source to check it? A. Well, it depends on how confident you are of the interpretation that you are placing upon your conversation. If there is doubt in your mind then of course you would go back and check it. If there is not doubt in your mind then I would not expect to do so. Q. So if you were in fact expressing yourself in a less than perfect way, but not wrong, would you, when that specific claim had been called into question, think that the claim ought to be checked with the source? A. Well I am not sure that that particular phrase, which we now are putting under the spotlight -- as I said, until this letter arrived on the 26th it had not been identified in that way. Q. No. I have shown I hope fairly the genesis leading up8 to that and the identification of those questions in the Prime Minister's official spokesman's briefing on that morning, and the letter. But I think you told us you had worked on the reply most of that day in the office; is that right? A. Yes, mid morning to mid afternoon. Q. And you had taken extra time to ensure that the reply was accurate? A. Yes, well as much as we could. We were clearly under time pressure to release it. LORD HUTTON: May I just ask you, Mr Sambrook: if the Today Programme is broadcasting some very important matter based on a conversation with a source and the reporter prepares his report, on occasions will he go back to the source and say, in effect: now, this is a serious matter, I am going to report something which is critical to a particular body, I just want to check with you that you are happy with me stating the matter in these terms; is that sometimes done? A. It is sometimes done but I would not say it is the norm. LORD HUTTON: What would influence the reporter to do that? A. If they were, as they were preparing their report, in some way uncertain about the basis of what they had been told. LORD HUTTON: And if they are basing a report on inferences9 which they draw from what they have been told, rather than giving in effect a direct quotation, would that influence them? A. Well it is a question of their judgment, clearly. LORD HUTTON: And would that be a matter of editorial supervision to any extent? Would it be part of the duty or the function of an editor? A. Yes, it would. I would expect that conversation to have taken place, as I believe it did in this instance, with the programme editor about who the source was, what they had actually said and the basis for the way we reported it. LORD HUTTON: Yes. Very well, thank you. Now, MR DINGEMANS, I think we will give the stenographers a break now, so we will rise for five minutes.

3.10 pm: Short Break 3.15 pm: MR DINGEMANS: Mr Sambrook, was there anything that influenced you to reply, as you did, to Mr Campbell's letter? What was the summary of your reasons for taking this stance? A. Well, we clearly needed to address his concerns in a substantial way. We believe that involved explaining0 the basis on which we had taken the decision to broadcast this item, based on a single anonymous source, and a lot of that was setting out the context and then attempting to answer the questions he raised as best we could. Q. Right. And were there any specific factors that persuaded you that the original story was correct? A. Well, we believed it had been through a proper editorial process on the Today Programme. We had obviously talked to Andrew Gilligan and to his editor Kevin Marsh at some length, and on a number of occasions; and we had confidence that the source was in a position to make the allegations he had made and that he was a credible and reliable person who we should therefore reflect their views. LORD HUTTON: Could you just elaborate for me, I know you have already explained to some extent, but can you just summarise what you regard as a proper editorial procedure with particular application to this report by Mr Gilligan? A. Well, Andrew Gilligan would have let the programme know that he had a story that he wished to broadcast and would have discussed it, probably in the first place, with an editor of the day who is, if you like, a deputy to the overall programme editor. If it was a serious1 story, as this clearly was, he would have been referred up to the editor of the programme who would have discussed -- indeed did on this occasion -- who the source was, the nature of the allegations, how credible and reliable this source had proved, the extent to which the allegations they were making were of public interest, the extent to which efforts to corroborate what they had said had been taken and any other corroborative circumstances surrounding it, and, on that basis, would have taken a decision on whether or not it was right to place this source's allegations into the public domain. As I said, on this occasion the programme editor I think did indicate only very generally to his line manager that there was a report of this nature but he took the decision, as I think is perfectly proper for him to have done so, that we should broadcast this, subject to the two caveats which I mentioned before, which is that we should be completely transparent that this came from a single anonymous source; and that we should allow the Government ample opportunity to put its case and to rebut or deny it. LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you. MR DINGEMANS: At this stage you were receiving, I think you tell us, some e-mails from other persons supporting the story; is that right? A. Yes, from the end of June and through July I received I think seven or eight unsolicited e-mails from either current or former BBC journalists. Q. We have seen the one that Mr Hewitt sent. A. Yes. Q. Can we look at BBC/5/160? Now there is not much of the e-mail that survived after it has been redacted but what does the top e-mail tell us? A. Well, this was Stephen Whittle, who we have referred to before, saying that he had spoken to in this case I think a fairly senior official, who was telling us to, as he says there, stick to our guns; he had been hearing similar things. Q. I am not going to take you to them all, I hope you understand that. A. Of course. Q. But another one that I think is a reasonable reflection is BBC/5/178. It is extremely difficult to read because so much, quite understandably, has been cut out. Could you tell me the gist of this e-mail? First of all, who is it from and to? A. It is from Nick Gowing, who is one of our presenters, sent to me. Again, it reflects a conversation that he had in January with a senior member of the intelligence3 community who had shown some discomfort in discussing whether or not the public could be convinced about the intelligence in favour of the 45 minute claim. Q. Right. And there was one other e-mail which you know I took Mr Gilligan to yesterday, BBC/5/118, which was at about this time, the same time as the letter is being produced, where -- and I am not going to read it again entirely but where there was a suggestion that there had been loose use of language and lack of judgment in some of the phraseology in the original piece. A. Yes, I would like to say two things about this. Firstly, the date of that is 27th June in the afternoon. This was when we were under maximum pressure to produce our reply to Alastair Campbell's letter and we were under external pressure because a reply was expected. Indeed, Kevin and Steve Mitchell were under pressure from me to review everything they had done and review the nature of the story and the basis on which it had been reported with a view to giving a full and proper reply to Downing Street. I think that this reflects Kevin's views on looking back over it and his concerns about a lack of consistency in some of the phrasing and the way that we had encapsulated the story. But I have to say I do not think -- it certainly does not, from my point of view,4 give the considered judgment of the BBC News about Andrew Gilligan as a reporter. Q. No, and no-one is looking at anything other than the specific use that Andrew Gilligan made of Dr Kelly's information on this particular occasion. But on this particular occasion the judgment appears to have been formed by his programme editor in the circumstances that you have identified, that there was a loose use of language. A. He was clearly identifying that it would have been better if we had been more consistent across the great range of reports and so on, in the language that we had used to describe Dr Kelly's allegations. Q. One of the allegations Mr Gilligan was keen to point out that he had not repeated but which Mr Campbell had identified in his letter was the Government knew that this was false, and if the situation had come where he had not really intended it or whatever reason, and Mr Campbell had identified it as being false, was then not the time to accept that that particular part of the story could not be supported? A. But that was not the case. We still believe and, indeed, I believe Andrew Gilligan still believes that although there may be problems with that phrase -- "not perfect" I think he said yesterday -- in broad terms he5 still believes that that reflects the basis of part of his conversation with Dr Kelly. LORD HUTTON: That is looking now at the report at 6.07 am, that: "We have been told by one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up that dossier that actually the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes figure was wrong." Are you suggesting that that is the view of the BBC or that they were just reporting on Mr Gilligan -- or Mr Gilligan is just reporting what he believed to be the view of his source? A. I think Mr Gilligan was reporting what he believed to be the view of his source based on his conversation with Dr Kelly, in other words that intelligence service concerns about the 45 minutes claim had been flagged up to whoever may have been partly involved in compiling the dossier and making it ready for presentation and publication, and that whoever did so presented as certain that which they knew might not be right, or in other words turned a blind eye to some of the caveats and nuances that some of those involved would have preferred to have seen included. I think that is what that phrase is probably intended to capture. LORD HUTTON: Yes.6 MR DINGEMANS: Your reply to Alastair Campbell provoked an immediate response; is that right? A. It did, yes. Q. Can I take you, just to illustrate that, to CAB/1/367 which was a statement he issued on 27th June? A. Yes, I think this was a statement that Alastair Campbell released through the Press Association. Q. What he says is that your reply confirmed the central charge there was no evidence and that the allegations were outrageous, and so was your reply. And he described the story as a lie as you can see halfway down the page. A. Yes. Q. So if it had not become obvious before that things were getting out of control, it was certainly obvious now; is that right? A. It is. But I would like to make the point, we placed a great deal of emphasis on the one phrase we had just discussed. At this stage, that was not identified as being the heart of this complaint. The complaint was still on a very broad base; and I would say it was a maximalist approach to making a complaint. They were saying a whole allegation, including the single sourcing of the 45 minutes and the sexing up and so on was without foundation; and we clearly did not believe that7 was the case. Q. That was the night in fact that Mr Campbell gave an interview to Channel 4 News. I will deal with Mr Campbell on that interview rather than you, if that is all right. But the correspondence we have now seen and the communications between Mr Campbell and you, as a characterisation, it made some lawyers' correspondence look quite reasonable. Was there anything done to try to reduce the heat of some of these allegations? A. There was at a later stage, yes. I think it was in early July, I had a phone call from the chairman, Gavyn Davies, who said that he had had some indication from Downing Street that they wished to reduce the temperature and it would help if the BBC could make a conciliatory gesture. As it happened, the director general was due to make a speech the next morning in Birmingham at the radio festival and I discussed this with Greg Dyke, and he agreed to put into his speech a conciliatory passage which said -- I think, at that stage, Alastair Campbell had rode back from his generalised attack on the BBC and said it was more about our coverage of this one story. Sir Greg Dyke welcomed the fact that he had withdrawn his more generalised attacks on the BBC's standards and8 suggested we might agree to disagree and draw a line and move on. Q. That is not much of a climb-down on either side, is it? A. Well, I think it would seem so in the circumstances at the time. Q. 28th June, if I can go on to then, that is when Ben Bradshaw MP appeared on the Today Programme. He was making complaints about the absence of notice that had been given about the story. Can I take you to CAB/1/378? This is an illustration, this is the extract from the 28th June broadcast on the Today Programme. Mr Bradshaw at the bottom says: "[things have become] unusual and I think it reflects the depth of anger felt not just by Alastair but the Prime Minister and the top of Government and including the top of the intelligence services. And what you avoided to do in your interview with Bernard Ingham is examine the central and original allegation that you made on this programme which is that the Government inserted information in to the dossier against the wishes of the intelligence services knowing it to be false." In the course of that he also dealt with the question of notice. Can I take you to his letter which9 followed that, to you, at CAB/1/389? What we have here or will have here is a letter of 28th June from Ben Bradshaw to you: "Dear Richard. "During my interview on the Today programme this morning your presenter, John Humphrys, asserted the BBC had checked out the allegation made by Andrew Gilligan on the Today Programme on May 29th beforehand with the Ministry of Defence. "I have spoken to the MoD at some length, including with the official the BBC claims was given the opportunity to respond to this allegation. The MoD remains certain the only contact between the Today Programme and the MoD press office related to an interview on the use of cluster bombs." And you responded at CAB/1/390, setting out the information as you understood it to be? A. Yes. Q. And which related to a contact at 5 o'clock, at 6.30, and we heard from Mr Gilligan about his contact. Then a further contact, and between 8 and 8.30 and 9.45. Then Mr Bradshaw replied at CAB/1/391, and he asked this -- he says halfway down: "No advance warning was given about the nature of the story... ", and gives the circumstances in which0 Adam Ingram -- who was the defence minister, is that right? A. Yes. Q. -- came to be briefed. He asked this at the bottom: "As we are entering the second month of this controversy, could you also tell me whether you believe it true that No. 10 entered the 45 minute intelligence against the wishes of the intelligence services and in the knowledge that this was probably wrong -- the allegation broadcast on the Today programme on May 29th." And at 392 you say, in line with Mr Campbell's latest letter to you: "... we now wait for the report of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee." That was a line that had been suggested to you by Mr Campbell in a letter I have not taken you to but I will take him to? A. Yes, that is right. Q. So the Foreign Affairs Select Committee was then assuming an importance both for you and for the Government; is that right? A. Clearly, at that time, it was the most detailed exploration of some of these issues. Q. We heard this morning Ms Watts saying it is about this1 time, when everything is going off to the Foreign Affairs Committee, that she is approached about the identity of her source. Is there anything you wanted to say in relation to that? A. Yes, it seems to me at that time what I was trying to do, having seen Ms Watts' reports on I was struck by the similarity to the allegations made in Andrew Gilligan's report and it seemed to me highly likely they had come from the same person and, if so, it seemed to me the only responsible thing to do was to try to find out, if that was the case, what more might have been said in order either to corroborate or simply to establish what this source believed, given that Andrew Gilligan's report was coming under such vehement criticism. Ms Watts seemed to suggest that we were trying to -- I think she used the word "mould" this to a preconceived view. That was not the case at all; but I believe that having a strong -- having formed the view that it was highly probable that it was one and the same person, it would have been irresponsible of me not to try to find out whether that was the case and what else they may have said. Q. So it is right that you asked Ms Watts to identify to you, as part of the management of the BBC, the identity2 of her source? A. Yes. Q. And she said she was not willing to do so? A. That is right. Q. And then there was some solicitors' correspondence that I at least identified briefly this morning. A. Yes. Q. It also had become slightly more serious. Can we look at BBC/5/202 which is an e-mail to which, I think, you have made reference. This is an e-mail from you to George Entwhistle. We heard from Ms Watts that Mr Entwhistle is the editor of Newsnight. That is right, is it? A. That is right, yes. Q. Can you just explain what this e-mail is about? A. Well, I believed it was important, from my position as the head of BBC News, to try to establish all of the contacts that Dr Kelly might have had in the BBC; and clearly Susan Watts -- I was struck by the similarities, as I said, and far more by the similarities than any differences in her reports to Andrew Gilligan. And, therefore, if it was the same source I wanted to know what else he might have said in order to try to understand more about his views and whether we had properly reflected them.3 So when Susan refused to identify who the source was -- which is a position that I respect -- I then asked George Entwhistle, as her editor, whether he knew who the source was and whether he would be prepared to tell me. He said he did know the source but he felt conflicted between loyalty to his reporter and loyalty to his employer and was agonising about it. So this was an e-mail sent the next day really to say: look, do not get too rattled about it. I will withdraw the request from you because I can see you feel very conflicted and in a difficult position. Q. We then come to 6th July, which is the Sunday. The FAC have printed their report on 3rd July and it is going to be distributed on Monday 7th July? A. Yes. Q. And you have a meeting of the board of governors on 6th July? A. That is right. Q. I have taken Mr Gilligan to parts of the minutes of the board of governors. Is there any specific passage you want to refer to in that respect? A. Well, you did refer Mr Gilligan yesterday to two passages. One was where a governor had made some comparison or suggested there might be some comparison between the Today Programme and the methods of the4 tabloid and Sunday press, I think. Q. Yes. Do you want to say anything about that? A. It was simply to say that at that meeting that was the view of one governor. It was a fairly robust discussion; and I think that their view could more fairly be presented as asking a question about whether we should examine about whether the methods of the Today Programme resembled those of the tabloid press or the Sunday press, as opposed to those that the BBC would aspire to meet, to the extent that this particular governor perceived there should be a difference. This was not the general view of the board of governors. Q. And at that meeting there was, and I have identified the passage, a suggestion that there had not been a careful use of language in some of the original reporting. A. Yes, there was -- we discussed obviously the reporting of it and the point I have made already that we were not consistent in a description of the allegation across all of the BBC's outlets over several weeks and clearly that we would have been in we believed an easier position if we had had greater consistency in our use of language. Q. We have had lots of correspondence between you and Mr Campbell. The correspondence now takes a slightly different angle; and this is on the same weekend. BBC/6/145.5 This is a letter to Gavyn Davies. Can you just briefly tell us about Gavyn Davies? A. Yes, Gavyn Davies is the chairman of the board of governors at the BBC. Q. This is from Geoff Hoon? A. Yes. Q. He said: "I am writing to draw to your attention an MoD statement which we shall be issuing later today about Andrew Gilligan's 'single source'. This is enclosed. "You will see that we have not named the official within the MoD who has come forward. We would, however, be prepared to disclose his name to you in confidence, on the basis that you would then immediately confirm or deny that this is indeed Mr Gilligan's source." That was responded to at BBC/6/149: "I have to say that the offer in your letter seems to be an attempt to force the BBC News Division to reveal the name or names of the sources ... [we will not do that]." Gavyn Davies says he did not even know the name of the source. A. That is correct. Q. That was accurate obviously at the time that that was written?6 A. That was. Q. And then at BBC/6/166 Mr Hoon, on 9th July, tries again with a letter: "Dear Mr Davies. "Thank you for your letter of 8th July replying to mine of the same day. "This is not about divulging of sources. "So that you can establish whether the name of the person who has come forward is the same as the name given to by BBC Management by Andrew Gilligan, I am now prepared to tell you that his name is David Kelly, adviser to the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat in the MoD." The response, BBC/6/184, which was: "I have discussed the matter [this is Gavyn Davies to Mr Hoon] with Greg Dyke as Editor-in-Chief. Although I did not originally show him the name contained in your letter, I am sure he will have now seen the name in most of the morning's newspapers. "The BBC will not be making any more comments about, or responding to any claims concerning, the identity of Andrew Gilligan's source..." A. Yes. Q. In circumstances where Dr Kelly was now named to the public at large, and I have asked Mr Gilligan about7 this, why did the BBC continue to maintain that stance? A. Well, because the BBC owes its anonymous sources a duty of confidentiality. We did not know the basis on which Dr Kelly had come forward. We did not know to what extent he had admitted meeting Andrew Gilligan or how often. We did not know what he had admitted discussing with Andrew Gilligan or the extent to which he was accepting that he had had the full conversations with Andrew Gilligan. So on that basis we felt it was right, absolutely right, to continue our duty of confidentiality to him. This was in the context of where there had been some attempts over a period of days to try to narrow down who the BBC source might be, both in my view by Government and by the press. Q. Can I take you to BBC/6/148? This is an e-mail from Tim Luckhurst to you of 8th July. Who is Tim Luckhurst? A. I think he is now a freelance journalist but he is a former BBC programme editor. Q. I think we pick that up probably from the last line of the e-mail. He says this in the second paragraph: "I am intrigued by the MoD man's confession. I have no doubt that he has come under immense pressure ... Indeed, he may not be the real source..." At this stage did you know whether or not Dr Kelly8 was the source? A. Yes, I did. Q. And who had told you that? A. I had asked Andrew Gilligan on Friday 27th, the morning when we started drafting the major reply to Alastair Campbell. Q. So you knew from 27th June; and although you had asked him for the name of his source, you had not asked for the notes of his meeting; is that fair? A. I think we had the notes of his meeting early the following week; but we certainly -- I mean Andrew was working close alongside both myself and Mark Damazer in our responses to the Government and had access to his notes in doing so. Q. You then had a meeting with Mr Hoon on 8th July at 1.30; and you have made, I think, some notes of that meeting or some notes have been made by personnel within the BBC? A. Yes. Q. BBC/6/140. Can you just tell me what we are looking at? A. Yes, this is a note that I made after the meeting with Geoff Hoon when I got back from the meeting, which was probably within two hours of the meeting finishing. Q. So these are your notes? A. Yes.9 Q. As they say to police officers, made contemporaneously while matters were fresh in your mind? A. Yes. Q. That records what was going on that day? A. Yes. Q. At page 141 you record Mr Hoon saying he had "a deep sense of grievance over that..." I imagine that is the BBC? A. Yes. Q. "... saying we had given MoD notice of Gilligan WMD story. Shows me their phone log. Log is from 20.00 [to] midnight." I cannot read the next lines. Can you help me on that? Something like, is that "document log"? A. "Doesn't log the AG [Andrew Gilligan]", then it says, "Kate O'C", I think her name is now Kate Wilson. I think Kate O'Connor may have been her maiden name, but that is the Ministry of Defence press officer. It does not log a mobile telephone call that Andrew had with Kate Wilson. The log notes provided by the MoD or shown to me by Geoff Hoon talk in general terms about WMD on one side, Sir Donald Rumsfeld comments connected to the story. Q. Then was it Miss O'Connor at the time? A. I am not sure when she got married, no.0 Q. "Kate O'C says she spoke to AG for about 10 mins on cluster bombs and he then mentioned WMD but said it wasn't a matter for Ministry of Defence." Part of that account accords with what Mr Gilligan says, but not the whole of it. A. That was her account of the conversation. As you know, Mr Gilligan says he did outline -- at least he did outline at least some of the allegations that were going to be made. Q. And the next paragraph says what? A. "I said we don't necessarily dispute that he may have talked about [cluster bombs] but it was odd for Andrew Gilligan [I think I meant] only to talk about cluster bombs [when] that wasn't his story." Q. "She says no but he's very interested in the subject." I asked him about that yesterday. A. Yes. The point was it was very odd for him to have a 10 minute conversation about something that was not his story, without mentioning the one reason for his call which would have been his story. Q. Towards the bottom of the page, the penultimate paragraph, there was a misunderstanding. You say -- A. Yes, I said: Look, if there has been a misunderstanding -- I think I had already written at this point saying that the two accounts simply could not1 be reconciled. Our programme team, indeed Andrew's view of those conversations could not be reconciled with those of the Ministry of Defence press office, but I did not want to allege anybody was acting in bad faith. I said if there had been some misunderstanding that in due course turned out to be our fault, we would apologise for it; but at the moment we could not reconcile those accounts and we were not prepared, on that basis, to suggest that we had done something wrong. Q. In fact the entry reads this: "There was a misunderstanding for which I've written and apologised. Happy if that is put in public domain alongside... " What is the next statement? A. The governors' statement. The point about this was the governors had said that one of the reasons why we could not reconcile these accounts was that the programme had not taken adequate notes of the bidding process. But I think the account of that particular paragraph is better encapsulated in my letter to Geoff Hoon which is what that is a reference to. Q. Right. Over the page, you asked: "Are you looking for an on air correction?" Mr Hoon says "yes". A. Yes. Q. What is your response?2 A. I said it is very unusual for the Today Programme to do that. I would not say yes or no but I would consider the fact that he is asking for one. LORD HUTTON: Why is it very unusual for there to be an on air correction? A. Hopefully it is because we do not make that many mistakes; but, I mean, when we do make mistakes of a serious nature we would correct them, but for something like~-- LORD HUTTON: But would you correct them on air? A. I believe we have done so, yes. But, I mean, for something which is simply saying: there is some confusion over when phone calls were made and the Today Programme absolutely believes that they had given proper notice and there was a proper process followed and the other side simply does not believe it, there is a straight problem in reconciling them; and I did not accept that there was a basis for an obvious correction to be made. LORD HUTTON: Yes. MR DINGEMANS: At 144 Mr Hoon then told you his view of Andrew Gilligan, at the top of the page. A. Yes. Q. Which that he was essentially a tabloid journalist: "Gave example of AG story this morning - Hoon3 comment out of context and misused. "Said something to the effect Gilligan shouldn't be on Today." What was your response to that? A. I said that Andrew is a particular sort of journalist. He uncovers stories that cause the Government discomfort, quite often controversial stories but, in my view, good ones. I explained that -- we were having a discussion, at that point, about whether that was the only sort of defence coverage for the Today Programme to have, and I acknowledged it might not be. I did also say, as was evidenced by the fact that we sent Andrew to Baghdad, that we are thinking about the best use for Andrew; so that it is not that he should be taken off the Today Programme but that he might be used in other ways as well; and said that he was taken on originally I think three years ago, because for many years the BBC defence correspondent had simply reflected the Ministry of Defence's point of view which may be legitimate in one sense, but actually in terms of journalism we needed a correspondent who would ask questions and hold to account as well. That is the basis on which I understood, although I was not directly involved, that he had been engaged. Q. Can I take you to MoD/1/52, which is the internal4 Ministry of Defence note of the same meeting, and just ask you a couple of comments? Paragraph 2: "Mr Hoon briefly rehearsed why we were sure that Andrew Gilligan had not forewarned us of the WMD allegations broadcast on 29th May. Sambrook said that he had spoken to a number of people involved in the preparation of the programme and they believed that an indication of the nature of the story had been given. Mr Hoon showed Sambrook the Duty Press Officer's log for the evening in question and Kate described her conversation with Gilligan earlier that afternoon. Sambrook expressed surprise that Gilligan had described cluster bombs: he was not responsible for that issue. He accepted that the fault was on the BBC's side an apologised." Is that a fair summary of what happened? A. I do not remember saying I accepted fault, no, but I do remember saying that if there had been a misunderstanding I was happy to place a generalised apology. I think if you look at my letter to Geoff Hoon in which I do that, that encapsulates what I said. Q. I do not propose to go to all the correspondence. I will put that to Mr Hoon. Do you want to specifically see that letter? A. I think the letter to Geoff Hoon explains the basis on5 which I was apologising which I do not think is accurately reflected there. Q. At paragraph 3: "Mr Hoon raised his story that he had been twice denied an opportunity to answer the story. Mr Sambrook said there was a general issue about over-defensiveness on the Today Programme." What was that general issue? A. This was because the Today Programme was in a very difficult position in covering this story of which it is at the heart; and we are struggling to work out and to find the proper way in which the Today Programme can report a story at which is it at the heart and without the programme appearing to be overly defensive about the BBC. And this particular point, I think, was that Mr Hoon was complaining that he had been invited on the programme to talk about Iraq but said he would only come on if he could talk about the argument with the BBC; and the programme had said: In that case, we do not want you to come on. My point was whilst I understood in some cases that the programme was not wanting to reinflame the row, they were struggling to work out how they could properly reflect some of the Government's concerns without also the programme being seen to have to put the BBC's point6 of view and the Today Programme being presented as an advocate for the BBC, which it should not be. It should be presenting itself as an independent journalistic programme. Q. You are recorded there as saying that you were happy to accept Kate's version of her conversation with Gilligan and was prepared to consider issuing a statement on air? A. I said that Kate Wilson appeared to me to be speaking honestly, and I accepted that she was speaking in good faith, but there was still an account here which could not be reconciled because I also accepted Andrew was speaking in good faith. I also accepted that Mr Hoon felt aggrieved at the way he had been treated and, you know, I have already addressed the point about whether or not I would consider doing something on air. I have already said I did not think that was straightforward but if he had made that bid, I would think about it. Q. On 3rd July -- A. I think the other point worth making there is we had asked Stephen Whittle to look into the whole issue of whether a warning or a pre-notification of this story had been given. I had done that precisely because Mr Whittle worked outside of the news division and could provide an independent perspective on it. Mr Hoon knew I had done that, and Mr Whittle had not yet produced his7 report. Q. On 3rd July you had met with journalists, is that right? A. Yes, I think so. Q. And who were those journalists? A. I had a lunch at newspaper with the editor Robert Thompson and about five or six correspondents. Q. On 5th July an article appeared in The Times by Mr Baldwin. Can I take you to that, which is CAB/1/19? A. Yes. Q. Just to concentrate if I may on the first paragraph: "The source for bitterly contested allegations that Downing Street 'sexed up' its dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction is a military expert who is now based in Iraq, BBC insiders are claiming." Did you give the other members of the press who were present at that meeting any details of Dr Kelly? A. No, I did not give them details of Dr Kelly. Tom Baldwin asked whether I knew who the source was and I said: yes, I did. He asked me a number of questions about the source, and I simply used the phrase that Andrew Gilligan had used to describe him "a senior official involved in compiling the dossier"; and I would not go any further than that. Mr Baldwin pressed me quite hard on whether we had gone back to the source;8 and when I said not he pressed me on why not, and I simply said they were unavailable due to the nature of their work, which was the phrase that I had heard Andrew Gilligan use in similar circumstances. Mr Baldwin then said: you mean they are out of the country? I said: something like that, intending to be equivocal. Q. So you were not responsible for Mr Baldwin's description? A. I do not see how Mr Baldwin could have said "a military expert based in Iraq" based on my conversation there, no. Q. Do you know which other BBC insiders might have spoken with Mr Baldwin? A. I do not. Q. On 7th July the BBC issued its own press statement, at CAB/1/415, about the Foreign Affairs Committee report. The gist of this -- and I hope this is an accurate description -- is that you were claiming support from the findings of the Foreign Affairs Committee. A. Yes. Q. It has to be said that Mr Campbell put out a press statement the same day which had a similar conclusion. A. Yes. Q. And it was clear that the person who had been identified9 within the Ministry of Defence was going to come under considerable scrutiny, is that right? A. Yes, I am trying to remember the date of the Foreign Affairs Committee because I think this was before the Ministry of Defence -- Q. The Ministry of Defence statement comes out on 8th July. A. Yes. Q. But it is against this background. A. Yes. Q. And then there is the lobby briefing on 9th July -- I will not take you to that if I can avoid doing that -- at which some details are given about the person who has come forward, or descriptions. A. Yes. Q. And we have seen the correspondence in which Mr Hoon refers, finally, to Dr Kelly's name. At that stage, once Dr Kelly was in the public domain, and it also became clear that Dr Kelly was going to give evidence in public to the Foreign Affairs Committee, was any final effort made to confirm, as it were, the underlying nature of all the allegations that had been made against the Government? A. Well, as I think Andrew Gilligan gave evidence yesterday, he had made I think he said two attempts to contact Dr Kelly and had been unsuccessful.0 Q. Were you aware of those attempts to contact Dr Kelly? A. I had asked whether he had made an attempt and he said: yes, but unsuccessfully. Q. And there was no other contact as far as you are aware between anyone at the BBC and Dr Kelly before his death? A. Not that I am aware of, no. I think I would go back to the key point that I made earlier. We were concerned not to try to draw attention to our relationship with Dr Kelly because we were unclear, on the basis on which he had come forward, of the conversations with Andrew Gilligan and indeed with Susan Watts he had admitted to. We believed we still owed him a duty of confidentiality and we believed that to avert an attempt to get in touch with him might well confirm that he was the source where he may not yet have confirmed that himself. Q. You saw him give evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on television; is that right? A. It is, yes. Q. And he made it clear that he had had some conversations with Andrew Gilligan but he denied other parts of the conversations. A. Yes. Q. At that stage, had any duty of confidence owed to Dr Kelly gone?1 A. Absolutely not, no. My view of Dr Kelly's evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee was that he was obviously very uncomfortable but that he was also being -- my impression was deliberately evasive, sometimes vague, failing to recall whether or not he had said something and whether or not it was the sort of language he had used. My impression was it was a degree of evasiveness designed not to implicate himself as the full source for the BBC reports, and on that basis I believe we still owed him a duty of confidentiality. Q. And once he was giving his evidence in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee, you have heard, I think, Ms Watts' analysis of the circumstances in which she believes she would have been released from her obligation of confidence, and that was when Dr Kelly had given a version of events as it were inconsistent with hers about what was said at the meeting. Is that the same view that you took? A. No. I would not take that view at all. As I said, I think Dr Kelly -- in my view he was attempting to protect himself and not to indicate that he had been the source for either Andrew Gilligan's or Susan Watts' report in the fullest sense. On that basis we still owed him a duty of confidentiality and I think it would have been quite wrong to have identified him in those2 circumstances. Q. I promised to take you to your open letter. It is CAB/1/409. This is a letter of 7th July from you to Mr Hoon. You record what happens in your second paragraph, middle sentence: "They believe that between them those calls covered sufficiently both the allegations made ..." Your own account is discussed in the third paragraph, and: "... the BBC governors have taken the view 'that the Today Programme should have kept a clearer account ...'" You say in the penultimate paragraph: "We can only apologise for any misunderstanding that may have occurred in the bidding process and have taken steps to tighten our procedures for the future." A. Yes. The situation was that there was a clear conflict of stories about whether or not proper notice had been given in the many conversations -- there were several conversations between the Today Programme and the Ministry of Defence the night before, ones that we were unable to reconcile. It is true that the BBC governors had taken the view that the programme should have kept a clearer account of those conversations than it had, which places us in a more difficult position than we would otherwise have3 been, but we were still minded to believe our team acted in good faith and was speaking in good faith when they said they had believed they had outlined the nature of the allegations that were to be put. However, having said that, in seeking to be conciliatory with at least one part of Government we said we would apologise if a misunderstanding had occurred, although we could not yet identify precisely where the fault on our part lay other than we had not taken proper record or proper notes, and seeking to say at the bottom that we have always enjoyed excellent relations with the Press Office and we hoped we continued to do so. It was intended to be a conciliatory letter in the context of these accounts of what had taken place that evening which could not be reconciled, and that we still stood by our team's assertion that they had given proper notice. Q. I think we have heard from Ms Watts about the process that led up to the drafting of the BBC's statement that was issued on 20th July after Dr Kelly's death. A. Yes. Q. No doubt we will be in a position to be provided -- we have seen the final draft. Is Ms Watts right that there were earlier drafts of the statement? A. I think there may have been earlier drafts. If there4 are, we will provide them. I do not think they were substantially different but we are happy to provide them if we can. Q. Can I ask you this: did you at any time see Andrew Gilligan's notes of his meeting with Dr Kelly? A. Yes, I did. I saw them the first week in July. Q. Having seen those notes, did you compare those notes with what he had broadcast in the morning of 29th May? A. Yes, I did. Q. And did you in those notes derive any support for -- and let us concentrate on the one allegation that the Government appear to have concentrated on at the end -- the allegation that the Government knew that the report was probably wrong when they put it in? A. No, that is clearly not in Andrew's notes though many other aspects of his conversation with Dr Kelly are. But our understanding was that that phrase was an interpretation which stemmed from parts of the conversation which were not recorded in his notes. Q. Did Andrew Gilligan say anything to you that gave you comfort that that phrase was supportable? A. Yes, he said it was an interpretation of the conversation that he had had. Q. An interpretation of the conversation making a charge tantamount to dishonestly knowingly misleading people5 which he had not checked with the source. Did you not at that stage consider it sensible to check with the source? A. As I explained before, Andrew had tried to check with the source and had been unable to get in contact with them and we felt we had to be careful about our approaches to Dr Kelly in case he was identified. LORD HUTTON: Mr Sambrook, may I ask you, what was the interpretation that you understood could be placed on Dr Kelly's words? You have seen the note that Mr Gilligan prepared of the conversation on 22nd May. MR DINGEMANS: BBC/1/54. LORD HUTTON: Did you consider what parts of it could give rise to that interpretation? A. No. As I have said, I accept it is not captured in his notes. LORD HUTTON: Yes, but you are suggesting Mr Gilligan said that that inference could be drawn from or that interpretation could be placed on the remarks. Bearing in mind that part of the note says "real information", referring to the 45 minutes claim, are you able to point to any part of the note which would give rise to that interpretation, that Dr Kelly thought that the Government probably knew that the 45 minute figure was wrong?6 A. My understanding of the inference was I suppose around that passage, in that he believed that some of the nature of the unreliability, some of the nuances or caveats that would have pointed to the unreliability of this claim had been taken out and that whoever had been involved in compiling this dossier for publication had presented it in harder terms, in other words presented a certain -- the "our wishes" point, that whoever that may point towards had believed to be uncertain or believed to be not necessarily right. LORD HUTTON: Did you consider that whilst there may have been doubts among some intelligence sources about the reliability of information, that the assessment which was placed before the Government might not have referred to those doubts or uncertainties? You see the allegation is, the criticism is that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes figure was wrong. A. What I am not clear about is that I understand normally the process whereby an assessment would be approved by the JIC before going to Government, this was an unprecedented situation where for the first time intelligence was going to be put into the public domain in the this dossier. What I am not clear about is exactly what the relationship was between the various groups looking at this material and deciding how it7 should be presented and how they related to the JIC, I do not know that. But my view was not that it had been put in against the JIC wishes but that it had been put in against the advice of some of those who were involved in assessing and compiling the intelligence before it went up. LORD HUTTON: But did you consider that the Government's view might have been based on what the JIC had given it? A. I did, but my understanding of what the source was suggesting was that someone within Government who was involved in preparing this dossier for publication, in other words if you like in the communications wing as opposed to the intelligence wing, had had the reservations of some of those involved or some of the assessment staff or people in the Intelligence Services brought to their attention but decided to go ahead anyway. That was my interpretation I placed upon it, but clearly that is from conversations over a period of time with Andrew about his conversation with David Kelly. MR DINGEMANS: Is there anything else Mr Sambrook that you know of the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly that you can assist his Lordship with? A. No. LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed. MR DINGEMANS I think it is probably convenient to rise now rather than start on a new witness. Very well, I will rise now and it is again tomorrow at 10.30.

4.05 pm: Hearing adjourned until 10.30 am the following day