THE Government came under increasing pressure last night after the second day of Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly.

A second BBC journalist said she was told by Dr Kelly that Alastair Campbell had been responsible for inserting the controversial 45-minute claim into the Iraq weapons dossier.

Susan Watts, science editor of BBC2's Newsnight, said Dr Kelly made the claim about the Downing Street communications chief two weeks before he spoke to the Today programme journalist Andrew Gilligan, who broke the original story.

Ms Watts said she had initially treated his remark as a "gossipy aside" but later realised it was an indication of Dr Kelly's "extraordinary access" to the official information behind the dossier.

Her comments came at the end of the second day of evidence to the inquiry into how Dr Kelly apparently came to take his own life.

Earlier, the inquiry heard that senior BBC managers had had serious misgivings about Mr Gilligan's original reporting of the story.

Mr Gilligan, who also gave evidence yesterday, conceded with hindsight that some of his reporting was not perfect, but said Dr Kelly had agreed the quotes that he used in his Today programme report.

Ms Watts told the inquiry she had telephoned Dr Kelly on May 7 for information about a report she was preparing on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

During the conversation she had asked him about the dossier and the claim that some Iraqi weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes.

According to her notes, he replied: "It was a mistake to put in. Alastair Campbell seeing something in there. Single source, not corroborated. Sounded good."

She said she had realised how good his information was when Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram confirmed that the intelligence had come from a single source following the Today report on May 29.

Ms Watts said she had two further conversations with Dr Kelly - the final one of which she had taped.

That recording is expected to be played to the inquiry when she resumes her evidence today.

During his evidence, Mr Gilligan reaffirmed his claim that Dr Kelly said Mr Campbell had been responsible for the "transformation" of the dossier in the week before its publication last September.

Mr Gilligan said Dr Kelly had not told him the 45-minute claim was made up by the Government, but that it had been considered unreliable by intelligence agencies and included against their wishes.