Inquests are of great value to society.

The power of the legal Inquest into the cause of death, of people by accident or design must not be underestimated or undermined in any society that regards itself as democratic. For example the 7/7 Inquest is proving an invaluable exercise in helping to discover not only the cause but also what went wrong in the care of the victims in the vital moments after the blasts. It is regretable that the Labour government was unable to over come the obstacles to properly conducting this Inquest and that it has fallen again to the arguablely more Democratic Coalition to oversee the 7/7 Inquests. As with the investigation into the death of baby P such legal reports and post mortems are important to find out what has gone wrong and how such mistakes can be prevented in the future. Likewise it would seem with the mysterous death of David Kelly that a properly conducted Inquest might uncover what could have happened in the last hours of his life.
The published coroners report shows new evidence that he had bruises under his knee ,right shine, two on his chest and three abrasions on his head. This in itself shows that suicide may not have been the correct verdict at the non-inquest of the Hutton Inquiry. It puts a big question mark over the integrity of the politicians who arranged that Inquiry and pours doubt over their motives for ignoring the need for a proper inquest and verdict. Surely now that this has been revealed by the Justice Minister Kenneth Clark, the correct thing is to move towards an Inquest in the right legal framework?
What is very disturbing is the way many Labour supporters have sought to defend the indefensible by glossing over the fact that a proper Inquest was not conducted whatever the case, whether it was suicide or murder. Their moral failure in this is perhaps because in some measure they might be responsible for the pressures that brought about Kelly's demise. Something, many of the great and the good of the Labour party seem to be in complete denial, failing to see how a breach of trust has occurred to damage perhaps irreparbley their image.

Many years ago I was a student welfare councillor at a University that had the highest suicide rate in the country. I therefore spent many hours with suicidal students helping them to sort out problems that had contributed to their state of mind. In fact I was nominated for Scotswomen of the year for helping bring down the suicide rate from 12 a year to zero. In my time spent doing that I encountered many suicidal people and one young student comes to mind who had slashed her wrists. Whist at the local Accident and Emergency with her what I saw, was that she had made one deep slash across each wrist. What is remarkable in observing these wounds is that there is very little blood because the blood vessels contract to defend the patient from death. Such a wound does not drip with blood and is not dangerous enough to in itself to cause death as many experts have also contended. The suicidal rarely die from this alone.

I, in fact, briefly only met David Kelly once at a Baha'i event at which he was a speaker. Of his state of mind I would say he seemed to be a defiantly stubborn person with a strong belief in himself something that the suicidal characteristically lack. He had none of the indicators of a clinically suicidal person. So there are many questions that must be asked about his final hours. An Inquest properly conducted could help to answer the mysteries and alay the fears or confirm them that his attackers might still be at large. Until that Inquest is conducted there will always be doubt.