A group of doctors is today seeking permission to bring a High Court challenge over the Attorney General's refusal to give his consent for an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly.

The Government weapons inspector died in July 2003, aged 59, and was judged to have committed suicide in a report published by Lord Hutton following a public inquiry.

Lord Hutton rejected claims his report amounted to a "whitewash".

The Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, concluded in June this year that there was no possibility that any inquest would reach any other verdict than suicide.

Today the doctors are asking Mr Justice Nicol, sitting in London, to allow them to seek judicial review.

An inquest began as a matter of routine after Dr Kelly's body was found in woods close to his home in Oxfordshire, but was replaced by the Hutton inquiry.

The weapons inspector was judged in the Hutton report to have killed himself after slashing his wrist with a blunt pruning knife and overdosing on painkillers.

Dr Kelly's death followed him being named as the prime source of a BBC report that Tony Blair's government had "sexed up" its dossier on Iraq's weapons, bolstering the case for going to war with Saddam Hussein.