David Kelly breached Government confidence in his briefings to journalists, the inquiry into the death of the Government weapons expert has heard.
On the opening day of the inquiry, a senior Ministry of Defence official said Dr Kelly appeared to have gone "outside the scope of his discretion" when he spoke to the BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan.
The inquiry, headed by senior judge Lord Hutton, was launched after Dr Kelly apparently took his own life. He had been identified as the probable source for Mr Gilligan's story claiming the Government "sexed up" its dossier on Iraqi weapons to strengthen the case for war.
The MoD director of personnel Richard Hatfield said that while briefing the media on Iraq was "effectively part of his job description", it appeared that when he spoke to Mr Gilligan he had gone too far.
"He appears to have had, on his own account, two meetings with Mr Gilligan, which took place off MoD premises, with nobody having any knowledge of them and even on Dr Kelly's account of what took place at that interview, he clearly had strayed beyond providing technical information," he told the inquiry.
"My interpretation, I'm afraid, of thinking back over his history is that he could not have done that without realising he had gone outside the scope of his discretion." However, he added: "There is no security breach."
Mr Hatfield said that he found it "somewhat surprising" that Dr Kelly had professed not to have seen detailed guidance for officials on contacts with the media, but he said that he should have known the basic rules.
The counsel to the inquiry, James Dinegemans QC, read from a series of documents attesting to Dr Kelly's long experience in dealing with the media.
One document referred to Dr Kelly as "the expert of choice" on Iraq issues for the media while another noted that he "expressed himself clearly and put across HMG's (Her Majesty's Government's) line with authority".
Earlier, former colleague Terence Taylor told the inquiry how he spoke to Dr Kelly by telephone from the US four days before his death to discuss a visit he was planning to make to Britain.
PA