Two reporters, one story: Campbell sexed up the dossier

Alastair Campbell's alleged role in "sexing up" the September dossier to justify war in Iraq was disclosed to a second BBC journalist by David Kelly, the Hutton inquiry heard yesterday.

Susan Watts, the science editor of BBC2's Newsnight, was told that Mr Campbell was central to inserting the 45-minute claim into the dossier two weeks before Dr Kelly made the same allegation to the reporter Andrew Gilligan.

The disclosure, which came at the end of the second day of the special inquiry into the death of the scientist, immediately swung the advantage to the corporation in its ongoing confrontation with No 10.

Ms Watts did not follow up Dr Kelly's information because she considered it a "gossipy aside". But she realised the full extent of his knowledge when another aspect of what the scientist had told her - that the 45-minute claim was "single sourced" - was confirmed by the Government three weeks later.

The inquiry was told by Ms Watts that she was speaking to Dr Kelly about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction on 7 May when she asked about the claim, in the government dossier, that Saddam Hussein could carry out chemical and biological attacks within 45 minutes.

Reading from her shorthand notes, Ms Watts told the inquiry that Dr Kelly had said: "It was a mistake to put in. Alastair Campbell seeing something in there. Single source, not corroborated. Sounded good."

Ms Watts told the inquiry that she did not realise the significance of what she had been told. She said: "I did not consider it particularly controversial. I found it to be a glib statement."

She said that she only realised how good Dr Kelly's information was when Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces minister, confirmed that the intelligence had come from a single source following Mr Gilligan's report on Radio 4's Today programme on 29 May.

"With hindsight, he was passing on that information three weeks before it became public, which does indicate that he had extraordinary access to the information in that dossier," she said.

Ms Watts said that she had taped another conversation - expected to be played to the inquiry today - she had with Dr Kelly on 30 May, which, it is said, further corroborates Mr Gilligan's account of what Dr Kelly told him about Mr Campbell's role in the September dossier.

Earlier, Mr Gilligan, the defence and diplomatic correspondent for the Today programme, admitted to the inquiry that he was wrong in stating in a broadcast that Downing Street had knowingly inserted an allegation that it believed to be wrong - the 45-minutes claim - into the dossier.

Mr Gilligan acknowledged that Dr Kelly had told him that the single source for the claim was deemed to be "unreliable" by the intelligence services but this did not necessarily mean that the Government knew it was wrong.

He said: "It was a fair assessment to draw from what he said to me, but I think, on reflection, I didn't use exactly the right language."

The inquiry was also read a memorandum from Kevin Marsh, the editor of Radio 4's Today programme, to Stephen Mitchell, the head of radio news, in which he said of Mr Gilligan's broadcast: "This story was a good piece of journalism marred by flawed reporting. Our biggest millstone had been his loose use of language and lack of judgement in some of his phraseology."

Mr Gilligan, facing prolonged and often hostile questioning from James Dingemans QC, counsel for the inquiry, stood by his claim that Dr Kelly had said that Mr Campbell had been responsible for the "transformation" of the dossier in the week before its publication last September.

He even went further by stating that this transformation included the 45-minutes claim - something that Mr Campbell had strenuously denied when he appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Mr Gilligan also claimed, for the first time, that Dr Kelly had agreed upon quotes that could be used in his news report. And that certain matters had been left out at the scientist's request.

However, the inquiry was told that Dr Kelly disputed Mr Gilligan's account of the meeting during evidence to two parliamentary inquiries and in an interview with his line manager at the Ministry of Defence.

"I think that is not really an accurate reflection of the conversation we had," he told his MoD manager.

Mr Gilligan said that he had not mentioned Mr Campbell in his original story for the Today programme - simply referring to Downing Street - as Mr Campbell had already complained about a number of his previous reports from Iraq and he did not want another row.

The reporter said that following the broadcast on the Today programme, he had twice tried to contact Dr Kelly but had been worried that if he telephoned him his identity could be compromised.

"I was concerned - this might be paranoid or might be sensible - that either my calls or his might be being monitored," he said.