From the Guardian:

Owen Gibson and Chris Tryhorn
Thursday May 13, 2004

Lord Hutton today rejected criticism that his investigation into the death of David Kelly focused too closely on the questions raised by Andrew Gilligan's controversial Today report about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and that he had not considered wider intelligence issues.

Challenged by the public administration select committee, Lord Hutton revealed that by the end of the first stage of the inquiry he had decided to focus only on the narrow allegation of whether the government inserted the 45-minute claim into the Iraq dossier knowing it to be wrong.

"The question of whether the intelligence was reliable was a very serious question. I refer to that in my report. The even graver allegation was that the government knew the intelligence was probably wrong. That was what created the major controversy in my view," he said.

Speaking publicly for the first time since he delivered his verdict in January, Lord Hutton rejected the claims of some members of the committee, which is investigating the way government inquiries are conducted, that his conclusions were rendered irrelevant because the terms of reference were so narrow.

"I don't think it [the narrow focus] had a distorting effect, because the real conflict between No 10 Downing Street and the BBC related to that aspect of the broadcast. That was the really serious aspect that gave rise to the controversy with the BBC.

"I also doubt if it's appropriate that a judge sitting alone should consider these matters," he said of the wider intelligence issues.

He said if he had looked at wider issues the inquiry would have become "very protracted". He added: "I did give very careful consideration as to whether I should widen the inquiry."

Lord Hutton - whose damning condemnation of the BBC led to the resignation of both the corporation's chairman, Gavyn Davies, and director general, Greg Dyke - also said that he had never expressed a view on whether he intended to unleash such turmoil on the BBC.

Reports earlier this year suggested that Lord Hutton was shocked by criticism of his report as a "whitewash", and surprised that he had caused such cataclysmic changes at the top of the BBC.

"That report was published when I was abroad on holiday, and I had not expressed such views. I had not expressed any views about the resignations at the BBC. It's not pleasant to be attacked by the press, but I wouldn't say I was shocked," he said.

Lord Hutton also defended his decision not to publish any conclusions of recommendations, instead leaving it up to the BBC to decide what action to take.

"I took the view it was not for me to tell the BBC how to run their organisation. I was confident they would take note of what I said. Indeed, they are doing that. They put out a statement saying a committee would look into what lessons were to be learned from the events that have taken place," he said.

"It was more appropriate that I should leave the BBC to act on what they learned. I rather suspect if I had made recommendations as to the BBC, I would have been criticised for interfering with freedom of the press and dabbling with matters that were not my concern," added Lord Hutton.

Asked why he had decided to focus so much on the media angle in the inquiry, Lord Hutton said it was important that the concept of "facts" should not be have been debased.

"The BBC stated there was a human right to give information to the public, and I thought it was necessary [to comment on that] - as the House of Lords said in Reynolds versus Sunday Times - that an important consideration is that the reputation of people by allegations of fact should not be debased, and that is a qualification to the right of expression by the media."

"It was in response to a point that had been expressly raised by counsel. The judgment in the Sunday Times [case] went on to speak about qualified privilege and about certain circumstances in which there can be comments made on people's reputations. But the House of Lords made it clear that's only in special circumstances, which have to be carefully weighed. It wasn't something I inserted out of the blue, but a point expressly raised by counsel for the BBC and Mr Gilligan in their submissions."