My response to Attorney General's New Year's Eve (2010) email

From: STEPHEN FROST <stephen.frost@>
To: Kevin McGinty <Kevin.McGinty@attorneygeneral>
Cc: Frances Swaine <fswaine@leighday>
Sent: Friday, 31 December, 2010 18:23:44
Subject: Fw: Dr David Kelly

Dear Mr McGinty,

Thank you for your reply to my emails, received by me during the late afternoon of this New Year's Eve.

I am sorry that this evening, because of other commitments, I am unable to reply to your letter in detail.  Indeed, I have only had time to read your letter very quickly.

I will say this now, however: whatever the Attorney General decides, I know, you know, indeed everyone knows that the laws of this country and indeed Europe require that a death occurring in the circumstances in which Dr David Kelly is said to have died require that the death be properly investigated.  Dr Kelly's death has not been properly investigated and everyone now knows that.

I and my colleagues could supply you with mountains of evidence but it would make little, indeed no, difference to the proper decision to be reached: an inquest is required.

It is true that we have presented in our Memorial an "unanswerable" case for an inquest.  We are not boasting about this, merely informing the public.  We have demonstrated or supplied:

1) insufficiency of inquiry

2) irregularity of proceedings

3) rejection of evidence

4) new facts or evidence

5) fraud (in this context deceit)

6) refusal or neglect to hold an inquest which ought to be held

any one of which would normally satisfy the requirements of Section 13 of the 1988 Coroners Act.

I will leave until later the matter of precisely who should apply to the High Court, and indeed the matter of whether or not we are "properly interested persons".  But, on the latter point, I will say now that it is difficult to see how such status could reasonably be denied us, when we would have been instrumental in causing any inquest to take place and we (doctors and lawyers) would be best placed at any inquest to ask the questions which need to be asked.

This is my initial and necessarily brief response to your email, and mine alone.  I have consulted nobody.  You will no doubt be hearing from our lawyers in due course and I personally will attempt to respond fully and accurately to each and every point you raise.

Best wishes to you and your family this New Year's Eve,

Stephen