Weapons expert Dr David Kelly took his own life, bleeding to death from a cut wrist after taking an overdose of painkillers, the Hutton Inquiry was told today.
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Dr Kelly: took his own life
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Assistant Chief Constable Michael Page of Thames Valley Police, whose force led the search for the British government scientist after he went missing, said there was no evidence anyone else was involved in his death.
Asked what conclusions he had reached about whether anyone else had been involved in the scientist's death, Mr Page said he was "as confident as I can be that there was no third party involved at the scene of Dr Kelly's death".
Asked why he had come to that conclusion, Mr Page said: "Because I cannot conceive of a way in which a third party could have been involved at that location in that environment without at least leaving some trace of their presence and I have been unable to find any trace of any presence whatsoever."
Asked whether he was concluding Dr Kelly had met his death at his own hands, Mr Page reiterated: "I can find no evidence of involvement of a third party." When pressed again on the issue, Mr Page then said: "I remain confident that he met his death at his own hand."
Dr Kelly's body was found slumped against a tree at a beauty spot near his Oxfordshire home on July 18 and his left wrist was slashed.
His apparent suicide came days after he was named as the source for a BBC report in which the Government was accused of "sexing up" a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to justify war.
Earlier today, a toxicologist told the inquiry Dr Kelly apparently took an overdose of powerful painkillers before slashing his wrist.
Dr Alexander Allan, who examined samples taken from Dr Kelly's body, said he found traces of paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene - the active components of a prescription only painkiller called Co-proxamol.
He said: "They indicate that Dr Kelly had taken a considerable Co-proxamol overdose."
He said his tests indicated Dr Kelly had taken about 30 tablets - considerably more than the maximum recommended daily dose of eight, but not necessarily enough to kill him.
He said: "They clearly represent an overdose but they are somewhat lower than what I would normally expect to encounter in cases of death due to an overdose of Co-proxamol."
Lord Hutton asked if Dr Kelly could have been forced to take the tablets by someone else.
"If a third person had wanted paracetamol and dextropropoxyhene to be found in Dr Kelly's blood, is there any way the third party could have brought that about by either persuading or forcing Dr Kelly to take tablets containing those two substances?"
Mr Allan replied: "It's possible."
The inquiry has heard that Dr Kelly's wife Janice took Co-proxamal for her arthritis.
The inquiry heard that pathologist Nicholas Hunt had concluded that Dr Kelly died from loss of blood from his slashed wrist.
PA