Weapons expert who worked with scientist whose suicide triggered Hutton inquiry ‘killed himself after quitting job following bullying behaviour’

Daily Mail -

  • Dr Richard  Holmes quit his job the day before he was due to face hearing
  • Coroner to  write to MoD about handling of employees on autism spectrum
  • Said  goodbye to daughter on the day he disappeared before ‘going for  walk’
  • In the  1990s Dr Holmes worked with Dr David Kelly, who died in  2003

A weapons expert who worked with Dr David  Kelly at the Government’s secret chemical warfare laboratory took his own life  after leaving his job while under investigation for bullying, an inquest heard  today.

Dr Richard Holmes, a married father of one,  resigned from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) in Porton  Down, Wiltshire the day before he was due to face a disciplinary hearing for  gross misconduct in February last year.

Dr Holmes had been suspended from his role at  the laboratory in November 2011 after a contractor he was working with on the  Typhoon-Joint Strike Fighter project complained about bullying.

On leaving his position Dr Holmes planned to  take his former employer to an employment tribunal, and started to explore  opportunities with US-based firms.

But the inquest heard that on the day he  disappeared, he had also found out that an application for a job as a cleaner at  Salisbury District Hospital had been unsuccessful.

In the 1990s Dr Homes worked with Dr David  Kelly, the government scientist who killed himself in 2003 after being named as  a source of controversial claims about the government’s ‘dodgy dossier’ on  Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.

Read more: dailymail.co.uk

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