subsequent suicide of Dr Kelly resulted in an escalation of the conflict between the government and the BBC, during which both sides received severe criticism for their roles in the matter. The publication in January 2004 of the Hutton Report into Dr Kelly's death was extremely critical of Andrew Gilligan, and of the corporation's management processes and standards of journalism. In the aftermath, both the chairman of the BBC Gavyn Davies and the Director-General Greg Dyke resigned, followed by Gilligan himself. Lord Hutton was accused of failing to take account of the imperfections inherent in journalism, while giving the government the benefit of the doubt over its own conduct. Large parts of the media branded the report a whitewash. A second inquiry by Lord Butler of Brockwell did review the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and the production of the dossier. Amongst other things, the Butler Report concluded that: "... the fact that the reference [to the 45 minute claim] in the classified assessment was repeated in the dossier later led to suspicions that it had been included because of its eye-catching character." Andrew Gilligan claims that the Butler Report vindicated his original story that the dossier had been "sexed up". 2004–2007: Balen Report The BBC fought to overturn a ruling by the Information Tribunal that the BBC was wrong to refuse to release to a member of the public under the Freedom of Information Act of 2000 (FOI) the Balen report on its Middle East coverage. The report examines the BBC's coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict. On Friday 27 April 2007, the High Court rejected Steven Sugar's challenge to the Information Commissioner's decision. However, on 11 February 2009, the House of Lords (the UK's highest court) reinstated the Information Tribunal's decision to allow Mr Sugar's appeal against the Information Commissioner's decision. The matter goes back to the High Court for determination of the BBC's further appeal on a point of law against the Tribunal's decision. The BBC's press release following the High Court judgement included the following statement: "The BBC's action in this case had nothing to do with the fact that the Balen report was about the Middle East – the same approach would have been taken whatever area of news output was covered." Mr Sugar was reported after his success in the House of Lords as saying: "It is sad that the BBC felt it necessary