Aaronovitch twitters, the world titters: more on David Kelly

Aaronovitch twitters:

Have just noticed that the police off. whose 'revelations' on Kelly were written up as new in Mail, had said it all in testimony to Hutton.

DC Coe's Evidence is easy to check- it takes just over 4 pages of the 112 generated by a 2¾-hour session, which I calculate to represent about five or six minutes.



The three claims I have found in the Mail are:

1. 'I certainly didn't see a lot of blood anywhere. There was some on his left wrist but it wasn't on his clothes. On the ground there wasn't much blood about, if any.' The Hutton Report said there were bloodstains on a water bottle next to the corpse. Mr Coe said: 'I didn't see any bloodstains on the bottle and I didn't check the knife.'

2. Mr Coe also confirmed the disputed existence of a 'third man' with him and his partner DC Colin Shields that day...At the Hutton inquiry Mr Coe denied anyone else had been present, but the former Thames Valley Police detective now says there had been a trainee police officer, whom he refused to name and said had left the force.

3. Mr Coe also acted as 'exhibits officer' in a search of Dr Kelly's home the day after his death.He recalled: 'We were looking for documents relating to Iraq. No one knew whether he kept any papers of a sensitive nature at home.'We had to search. If someone writes a suicide note, you'll find it. We were looking for politically sensitive documents.'


Here are the only three relevant passages from the Hutton transcripts, in their entirety:

1:

15 Q. Did you notice if there were any stains on the clothes?
16 A. I saw blood around the left wrist area.
17 Q. Anywhere else? How close an examination did you
18 yourself make?
19 A. Just standing upright, I did not go over the body.
20 I made a thing -- I observed the scene.
21 Q. How far away from the body did you actually go?
22 A. 7 or 8 feet.
23 Q. How long did you spend at the scene?
24 A. Until other officers came to tape off the area. I would
25 think somewhere in the region of about 25 or 30 minutes.


2:

20 A. On the route to Harrowdown Hill I met the two people
21 from the volunteer search team, a female and Mr Chapman.
22 Q. And what did they say to you?
23 A. Mr Chapman told me that they had found a body in the
24 woods.
25 Q. Who were you with at this time?

2
1 A. Detective Constable Shields.
2 Q. It is just the two of you?
3 A. Yes.


3:

24 Q. What about on the following day? We know the following
25 morning there was a search made of Dr Kelly's premises.

5
1 Were you at all involved in that?
2 A. Yes, I was. I went to the premises and at that time
3 I had an attachment with me who acted as an exhibits
4 officer at the house and I oversaw what he did. I made
5 no search whatsoever of the premise.


Cue derision...

P.S. This seems to be a case of the 'these allegations have been around for a long time' argument, a sort of statute of limitations-like thing. The allegations have been ignored for this long, so isn't it about time to give up? All this ignoring is getting very tiresome.*

At least some sense can be made of the 'limitations' gambit - one is supposed to think that since the truth will out, old truths would surely have outed by now. But in his Today appearance, er, yesterday, Aaronovitch seems to have attempted a different, and utterly baffling, limitations argument: 'these allegations are too recent':

Today: These are serious people who say there is something here that needs to be settled.

David Aaronovitch: That's true, although I'm bound to say that it has taken them six years, these particular people, in order to say it, and something - something of a campaign. And the other point I'd make is...[etc]

*There's often a kind of defensive aggression, a narcissistic irritation at being confronted with unwelcome and persistent questions: 'just shut up and stop making trouble'; 'how dare you suzzest I've hizzen a bottle of vodka'; 'of course it's not lipstick you stupid cow, don't you trust me?'. This is often accompanied by misplaced self-pity, as in the case of various people called Tony.

Indignance increases when those asking don't stand to gain anything: 'Why do you care anyway? Haven't you got anything better to do?'. There's a sense that the only possible motive is vindictiveness, an enjoyment at causing trouble,a desire to drag others down - compare 'the politics of envy'. It's not your problem - you have no right to get involved, and I'm very angry at you for your transgression.

(If people are going to act other than entirely selfishly, it makes it so much harder to know what you can get away with, and to divide and rule.)