Kelly told neighbour 'see you later'

By BEN RUSSELL

The neighbour who was probably the last person to see Dr David Kelly alive told yesterday how he left her with a friendly "cheerio" and a promise to "see you later".

Ruth Absalom told the inquiry she was walking her dog near her home when she saw Dr Kelly at about 3pm on July 17 as he went out for what proved to be his last afternoon stroll.

She said the scientist "seemed his normal self" as she chatted with him about a mile from their homes before he walked off towards the countryside.

She told the inquiry: "He said: 'Hello Ruth' and I said: 'Oh hello David, how are things?' He said: 'Not too bad'.

We stood there for a few minutes then Buster, my dog, was pulling on the lead, he wanted to get going.

I said: 'I will have to go, David'. He said: 'See you again then, Ruth,' and that was it, we parted."

She added: "Well, he said: 'I must get going' and that was it. We parted and he said: 'Cheerio Ruth', I said: 'Bye David'. That was it.

The inquiry was told that Dr Kelly's body was found slumped by a tree in a nearby wood at about 9am the next morning by a pair of volunteers who had been brought in to search for the missing Government adviser.

Louise Holmes, a member of the South-East Bedforshire Emergency Volunteers group, said she and her colleague Paul Chapman were searching woods on Harowdown Hill, when her search dog Brock barked, indicating that he had made a find.

She went to investigate and found Dr Kelly's body sitting up against a tree with blood on his left arm in a secluded glade about 50 yards away from a nearby path surrounded by impenetrable brambles.

Police officers and ambulance personnel called to the scene told the inquiry that Dr Kelly was wearing a blue wax jacket, striped shirt and jeans. Lying next to his arm was a curved folding knife, his wristwatch and an open plastic bottle of Evian mineral water propped up.

His jeans had ridden up, as though he had slid down, and there was a patch of blood on the right knee. His left arm was by his side, covered in blood.

Paramedics checked Dr Kelly's eyes and pulse before unbuttoning his shirt and attaching an electrocardiogram machine to check for signs of life. But the machine printed out only a flat line.

Police scoured the clearing and the brambles nearby for evidence, but found nothing. PC Jonathan Sawyer, who led the search team, told Lord Hutton there was no sign of a struggle.

He said: "When I first saw Dr Kelly I was very aware of the serious nature of the search and I was looking for signs of perhaps a struggle; but all the vegetation that was surrounding Dr Kelly's body was standing upright and there were no signs of any form of struggle at all.

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