Inquiry considers Kelly's state of mind

The Hutton inquiry is today set to take evidence from witnesses who may cast further light on Dr David Kelly's state of mind in the days before his apparent suicide.

Appearing before the law lord will be a neighbour of the former government scientist, Ruth Absalom, and his GP, Dr Malcolm Warner.

Later today Professor Keith Hawton, a psychiatrist, will also be giving evidence.

And Barney Leith will set out how the principles of the Baha'i faith, to which Dr Kelly subscribed, could have influenced his thinking after being named in the media as the source for a BBC report on the government's Iraq intelligence dossier.

The Baha'i faith has strong links with Iraq; it's founder - a Persian man called Baha'u'llah - was banished to Baghdad in 1863.

Of further significance was that according to the faith's devotees, its founder called on kings, emperors, and presidents to reconcile their differences and curtail their armaments.

The latest round of evidence will follow Monday's focus on the testimony of Dr Kelly's widow, Janice.

She said that her husband had felt "totally let down and betrayed" by the Ministry of Defence.

Giving evidence via an audio link, she was critical of the department which she felt had failed to support him once his identity had been revealed.

"I was pretty worried about the lack of apparent support. He is not an easy man to support in some ways, he was always trying to give the impression he was okay," she said.

"I had never in all the Russian visits and all the difficulties he had to go through in Iraq, where he had lots of discomforts, lots of horrors, guns pointing at him, munitions left lying around, I had never known him to be as unhappy as he was then. It was tangible."

She said he had been given reassurances that his name would not be made public as the source of BBC reports that Downing Street had "sexed up" a the intelligence dossier.

But Dr Kelly had said it would be "an easy job" for the media to work out he was the Today programme's source after the MoD revealed an employee had come forward and admitted to contact with journalist Andrew Gilligan.

Mrs Kelly was also asked how her family reacted to the description by the prime minister's official spokesman of her husband as a "Walter Mitty" fantasist character.

She said: "I was devastated. That was totally the opposite. He was a very modest, shy, retiring man...very courteous, very laidback if you like, but he kept to his brief.

"He did not boast at all. He was very factual and that is what he felt his job was to be, very factual."

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