Dog handler found Kelly's body slumped against tree

A volunteer dog handler working with a British police search team told today how she found the body of weapons expert Dr David Kelly slumped against a tree in woods near his home.

A volunteer dog handler working with a British police search team told today how she found the body of British weapons expert Dr David Kelly slumped against a tree in woods near his home.

Louise Holmes told the Hutton Inquiry investigating Dr Kelly’s death that her dog Brock picked up a scent 200 yards into the woods and then barked to alert her to something he had found.

She said: “I could see a body slumped against the bottom of a tree.”

Ms Holmes said she stood “within a few feet of the body”.

She continued: “He was at the base of the tree with almost his head on his shoulders, just slumped back against the tree.

“His legs were straight in front of him, his right arm was to the side of him, his left arm had a lot of blood on it and was bent back in a funny position.”

Ms Holmes said she was convinced the body was that of the missing scientist, that he was dead “and there was nothing I could do to help him”.

She said she was there for “probably only a couple of minutes”, just long enough to check for signs of life.

Ms Holmes then turned round and walked back out of the woods following the path she took in as best she could, she said.

Asked if there were any signs of the route Dr Kelly had taken through the trees, she replied: “Not that I remember seeing.”

Earlier, Ms Holmes, a trainer with the charity Hearing Dogs For Deaf People, who is also a member of a search and rescue team in Oxfordshire, said when she began her search at 8am on July 18 – the day after Dr Kelly went missing – she did not know who the weapons expert was.

The inquiry at Britain's Royal Courts of Justice also heard today from Dr Kelly’s neighbour Ruth Absolom, who met the scientist as she was walking her dog the day he disappeared, and who is assumed to be the last person to see him alive.

She described her final meeting with her neighbour, saying she had taken her dog Buster for a walk at about 3pm on July 17.

She said she had met Dr Kelly shortly afterwards in Longworth, the next village along from their homes in Southmoor.

Asked how he was dressed she said: “Normally, I didn’t take that much notice.

“He had obviously got a jacket on but whether it was a suit or an odd jacket and trousers I have no idea.”

She described the meeting saying: “We just stopped and said hello, had a chat.

“He said ’Hello Ruth’. I said ’Hello David, how are things?’

“He said ’Not too bad’.

“We stood there for a few moments and then Buster, my dog, was pulling on the lead, he wanted to get going. I said ’I will have to go, David’. He said ’See you again, then, Ruth’. And that was it, we parted.”

Asked how the scientist had seemed, she said: “Just his normal self, no different to any other time when I met him.”

She said she did not remember if he was carrying any items. A knife and a bottle of painkillers were found by police near Dr Kelly’s body.

The scientist’s GP Dr Malcolm Warner told the inquiry he had not prescribed any painkillers for Dr Kelly and had last treated him in 1999 for “a minor complaint” and had never treated him for any serious condition.

The GP said nothing significant was found in a medical check Dr Kelly had received through his work on July 8.