DOWNING STREET again denied last night that the Government had disclosed David Kelly’s name to the media. It also said that no rules would have been breached if it had chosen to do so.

The identification of the Ministry of Defence adviser by three national newspapers, including The Times, has become a subject of intense speculation after Dr Kelly’s suicide. Friends and family of Dr Kelly have said that he was shocked at being outed as the likely source for BBC allegations against the Government.

Downing Street has said Dr Kelly was told that he was likely to be unmasked before the Ministry of Defence issued its July 8 statement saying that an unnamed government adviser had come foward to admit meeting BBC journalists. The following day The Times, The Guardian and the Financial Times established that Dr Kelly was the likely source.

Working on information from the BBC and the Government, The Times put more than 20 names to the MoD before officials confirmed Dr Kelly’s name. The Guardian says Dr Kelly was only the third name it put to the MoD before getting confirmation.

A No 10 spokesman acknowledged last night that it was unusual for the MoD press office to give journalists a “confirm or deny” service when it came to naming civil servants. “But it was also highly unusual to have just a limited number of people whose names might be in the frame,” he said. “It would have been unfair to allow suspicions to develop about the others who matched the MoD’s description of the likely source.”

There is no doubt that the Government wanted Dr Kelly’s name in the public domain. Downing Street knew this would undermine the BBC’s inaccurate claims that its source was a senior member of the intelligence services and one of the officials in charge of drawing up last September’s intelligence dossier.

But the No 10 spokesman said: “Neither we, nor as far as I know, the MoD, disclosed Dr Kelly’s name, even though there is nothing in the rules to have stopped us doing so. There were suggestions that Dr Kelly, who had admitted holding an unauthorised meeting with journalists, could have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. We rightly decided not to go down that route.

“The question is whether we acted irresponsibly. I believe we did not. Can the BBC, which has misled everyone about both his seniority and his conversations with their journalists, say the same?” The Government can still expect criticism for giving hints about Dr Kelly’s identity, instead of simply releasing his name. For example, Downing Street issued a clarification saying the still-unnamed weapons expert worked at the MoD on secondment from the Foreign Office. “This inevitably narrowed down the field for journalists trying to establish his name,” the spokesman said.

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