Spin row erupts as Hutton report is leaked to 'The Sun'

Tony Blair was plunged into a fresh row over spin today after a leaked copy of the Hutton report claimed that Downing Street had been cleared of any serious wrongdoing in the David Kelly affair.

The Tories launched an attack on the Government, demanding an inquiry and claiming someone in Whitehall must have leaked the conclusions to The Sun newspaper.

Tory leader Michael Howard today called for the Metropolitan Police commissioner to conduct a full inquiry into the leaking of the Hutton report. As he arrived at the Cabinet Office in Whitehall shortly before 6am to examine the long-awaited report into the death of government scientist Dr Kelly, Mr Howard branded the breach "disgraceful".

The Sun published selected extracts that appeared to give the Prime Minister the best possible gloss.

But it said the report found Ministry of Defence was "at fault and has to be criticised" for not informing Dr Kelly that its press office would confirm his name to reporters if asked. The press office should also have told him much more quickly that his identity had been confirmed, the report said.

In the MoD's defence, he states that its decision to confirm Dr Kelly's name "was not part of a covert strategy to leak his name but based on the view it would not be sensible to try and conceal the name."

Lord Hutton also urges the BBC and the Government to learn lessons from his inquiry.

Tom Kelly, the Prime Minister's spokesman, is allegedly rebuked for suggesting to The Independent that the weapons scientist was a "Walter Mitty" character. But Lord Hutton says it was not a "covert" attempt to discredit Dr Kelly.

The Sun said it did not have the full report and had extracts of the conclusions read out by a source with no political or financial gain to be made.

It says Lord Hutton's report will conclude "there was no dishonorable or underhand or duplicitous strategy by the Government covertly to leak Dr Kelly's name to the media".

On the issue of the Government's Iraq dossier, the judge states: "I do not consider it was improper for Mr Scarlett and the Joint Intelligence Committee to take into account suggestions made by No 10 and adopt those suggestions if they were consistent with the intelligence available". It was alleged by The Sun that the Hutton report will also clear Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's former director of communications, and John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee which drafted the dossier. Dr Kelly is criticised because his meeting with the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan was unauthorised and "in discussing intelligence matters with him, Dr Kelly was acting in breach of the civil service code of procedure". Mr Gilligan made an "unfounded" claim when he said the Government probably knew its 45 minute claim was wrong before putting it in the dossier, it says.

The Sun also claimed the report would criticise senior figures at the BBC, including the director general, Greg Dyke, and the chairman, Gavyn Davies, as well as Richard Sambrook, the corporation's head of news, who "failed" to examine Mr Gilligan's notes. The report allegedly says "The Governors are to be criticised for failing to make a more detailed investigation into... the allegation by Andrew Gilligan".

Liam Fox, the Tory co-chairman, said last night: "The leaking of this document is the despicable act of a morally bankrupt government."

A spokeswoman for Downing Street said: "We categorically deny anyone who was authorised by government to see this document has either shown it to or spoken about it to anyone else."

Meanwhile, fresh doubts about the death of Dr Kelly were raised by three doctors who questioned whether he took his own life. The doctors suggested Dr Kelly could not have killed himself in the way described to the inquiry.

Dr Kelly was found dead near his home in July. A pathologist, Nicholas Hunt, told the inquiry that Dr Kelly bled to death from a self-inflicted wound to his wrist. But David Halpin, a former consultant in trauma and orthopaedic medicine at Torbay Hospital, Devon, and two colleagues, questioned that account.

They said: "We view this as highly improbable. Arteries in the wrist are of matchstick thickness and severing them does not lead to life-threatening blood loss. Dr Kelly had also taken a number of co-proxamol tablets, a powerful painkiller. Dr Don MacKechnie, head of A&E at Rochdale Infirmary and chair of the British Medical Association's A&E medicine committee, said it was possible Dr Kelly died as a result of a sensitivity to the tablets.