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Lord Hutton to deliver inquest-style verdict

Legal Affairs Correspondent,Robert Verkaik
Thursday 04 September 2003 00:00 BST
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Lord Hutton's final report into the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly will include a verdict similar to that recorded by a coroner at an inquest.

The Oxfordshire coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, will then pass the verdict to the Registrar of Deaths and all other findings relating to the cause of Dr Kelly's death.

Lord Hutton's powers derive from a provision added to the 1988 Coroners Act that allows a public inquiry chaired or conducted by a judge to "fulfil the function of an inquest". To avoid unnecessary duplication of proceedings and to avoid further distress to the Kelly family the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, has asked Mr Gardiner to adjourn the inquest indefinitely under the legislation.

Similar adjournments under the additional section, which came into force in January 2000, were made in the cases of the judicial inquiries into the Ladbroke Grove rail crash and the serial killer GP Harold Shipman.

Medical and police witnesses who would have been called by the coroner will give their evidence to Lord Hutton instead.

Mr Gardiner has already heard some evidence on Dr Kelly's cause of death.

At the resumed inquest last month Mr Gardiner was told that a Home Office pathologist, Dr Nicholas Hunt, had concluded the main cause of death was haemorrhage caused by a number of incisions with a bladed instrument to the wrist.

Mr Gardiner said it was "highly unlikely" that he would need to hear more evidence because of the independent judicial review being conducted by Lord Hutton. .

A spokesman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs said Dr Kelly's inquest would be concluded upon the publication of Lord Hutton's findings.

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