Hutton Inquiry - Aftermath of Publication

Aftermath of Publication

It was because of the report's criticism of his actions that Gavyn Davies resigned on the day of publication, 28 January. Reporters from rival news organisation ITN described the day of publication as "one of the worst in the BBC's history". Greg Dyke, the director-general, resigned two days after the publication of the report, following a meeting of BBC Governors where it is reported he only retained the support of one third of the board. However, after announcing his resignation, Dyke stated:

I do not necessarily accept the findings of Lord Hutton.

Andrew Gilligan resigned because of his part in the affair on 30 January, making three BBC resignations in three days. However, in his resignation statement he questioned the value of Hutton's report:

This report casts a chill over all journalism, not just the BBC's. It seeks to hold reporters, with all the difficulties they face, to a standard that it does not appear to demand of, for instance, Government dossiers.

Blair, who had been repeatedly under fire for the "sexing-up" allegations, told the House of Commons in the debate following the release of the report that he had been completely exonerated. He demanded a retraction from those who had accused him of lying to the House, particularly Michael Howard, the Leader of the Opposition:

The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on WMD is itself the real lie. And I simply ask that those that made it and those who have repeated it over all these months, now withdraw it, fully, openly and clearly.

Howard sidestepped the demand for an apology. However, immediately after the Board of Governors had accepted Dyke's resignation Lord Ryder, as Acting Chairman of the BBC (Davies's replacement), apologised "unreservedly" for errors made during the Dr David Kelly affair. Dyke, who has not given the conclusions of the Hutton report his full backing, said that he "could not quite work out" what the BBC was apologising for. The Independent subsequently reported that the BBC governors had ignored the advice of BBC lawyers that the Hutton report was "legally flawed". Although this was denied by the BBC, it was confirmed in 2007 when the BBC was forced to publish minutes of a governors meeting at the BBC that took place directly after the Hutton report.

At the end of the report Hutton recalled how the final part of David Kelly's life had not been representative of his whole career in the civil service:

The evidence at this Inquiry has concentrated largely on the last two months of Dr Kelly's life, and therefore it is fitting that I should end this report with some words written in Dr Kelly's obituary in The Independent on 31 July by Mr Terence Taylor, the President and Executive Director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Washington DC and a former colleague of Dr Kelly: "It is most important that the extraordinary public attention and political fallout arising from the events of the past month do not mask the extraordinary achievements of a scientist who loyally served not only his Government but also the international community at large."

Deliberately or otherwise, Dr. Kelly had raised wider questions about the quality, interpretation and presentation of intelligence that Hutton had left unanswered. Some of these were to be addressed in a new inquiry, announced by the government on 3 February 2004. Amongst other things, the Butler Report concluded that "the fact that the reference to the 45 minute claim in the classified assessment was repeated in the dossier later led to suspicions that it had been included because of its eye-catching character". Andrew Gilligan claims that this has vindicated his original story that the dossier had been "sexed up".