Initially the Adjutant General advised against a court martial, suggesting instead that Kelly be removed from the army administratively for misconduct as permitted by an article of the Pay Warrant. However, after the publication by Beaverbrook of a second Kelly letter Churchill favoured Kelly's swift court martial for writing to the newspapers but without reference to anything which had happened or was alleged to have happened in Russia. Kelly was arrested on 13 October 1919; his court martial took place on 28 October 1919 in Westminster Guildhall on the charge of having written three letters to the press on 5 September, 12 September and 6 October 1919 after his return from Russia. Kelly pleaded guilty to contravention of the King's Regulations which provided that an officer was,