BRITAIN: Dr David Kelly died at an isolated beauty spot, far from the public spotlight he was briefly forced into, the Hutton Inquiry heard yesterday.
His body was found slumped against a tree in a wooded copse with one wrist slashed, with his Scout knife, a bottle of his wife's painkillers and a bottle of water lying beside him.
There were no signs of a struggle and Dr Kelly appeared to have committed suicide. Dr Kelly almost certainly committed suicide because he could not bear his feelings of public disgrace, a suicide expert told the inquiry.
Prof Keith Hawton, who has studied the causes of suicide for 30 years, said the weapons expert was a private man who would have found his public naming by the Ministry of Defence and the resulting furore "anathema".
He said: "The major factor was the severe loss of self-esteem resulting from his feeling that people had lost trust in him and from his dismay at being exposed to the media."
Asked why, the psychiatrist added: "Well, he talked a lot about it and I think being such a private man, I think this was an anathema to him to be exposed publicly in this way and in a sense he would have seen it as being publicly disgraced."
The row might have led him to believe he would lose his job, Prof Hawton said, adding that the scientist's "self identity" had become consumed by his work.
His family described him as a workaholic and Prof Hawton said the prospect of not being able to go on with his job as a weapons inspector would have horrified him.
"I think that would have filled him with a profound sense of hopelessness - in a sense, his life's work had been not wasted but totally undermined," the suicide expert said.
Dr Kelly was considerate to the last, choosing a spot so overgrown that there was little chance of his body being found by ramblers. The spot - off a lane at the bottom of Harrowdown Hill in the rolling south Oxfordshire countryside - was in dense woodland and would have been well-known to him.
The area around the hill was one of his favourite walking spots, where he would have strolled with his daughters in happier times.
But the tracks leading away from his body were so overgrown that no one appeared to have walked there for months, police said. Pc Jonathan Sawyer, who supervised searches of the area, said the track beyond Dr Kelly was "almost impenetrable" because of dense brambles.
"If I had walked into those woods myself, I would have walked up as far as he had before deciding it was impossible to go any further," he said.
And he said the spot was "remarkable" for its lack of signs of human visits.
He told the inquiry: "Normally when we search wooded areas there is a fair amount of detritus - crisp packets, cans, cigarette ends.
"This area itself was remarkable for its complete lack of human interference." Dog handler Louise Holmes, who found Dr Kelly's body, said he was slumped against a tree, with his head tipped to one side.
His left arm was bloodied from his injury and she was sure he was dead. He had also taken his watch off his wrist.
Another witness, Pc Dean Franklin, said searches for missing people always began at beauty spots that the person loved.
"With all missing persons inquiries, we look initially at beauty spots, areas that are frequented by the missing person, and that's where we would start our search," he said.
"The search would begin at Harrowdown Hill, which was an area apparently frequented by Dr Kelly on his regular walking route." The police tactics proved right.
Dr Kelly had apparently decided to go out for one last walk, and not to return. - (PA)