Worse and Worse

Could things get any worse for the BBC? Apparently so. The only contemporaneous record of reporter Andrew Gilligan’s conversation with David Kelly is on Gilligan’s Sharp personal organizer. An expert witness testified today that there are two versions of Gilligan’s interview notes on the organizer. The first set does not contain the name “Campbell,” Tony Blair’s communications director. The second set of notes, dated a day later, adds the name “Campbell,” along with certain other changes. The “transcription of notes” previously provided to the Hutton inquiry by the BBC was the second version, which included Campbell’s name.
Gilligan tried to explain the transformation by saying that the first set of notes were those taken while he was talking to Kelly. He says that the second set of notes were created at the end of the interview when he went over quotes with Kelly. Gilligan claims the second set is dated a day later because the clock on his personal organizer is wrong, and it must have recorded midnight during his meeting with Kelly.
The expert witness testified further that: “I also discovered some experimentation with the Sharp when somebody was looking at creating memorandums and seeing if dates and times could be changed.” Things are looking bleaker than ever for the BBC.

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