Novichok poisons new victims
A couple taken critically ill at the weekend were poisoned by the same nerve agent used against Sergei Skripal, the former Russian spy, and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury. Police said last night that Porton Down experts had confirmed that Charles Rowley, 45, and his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess, 44, came into contact with Novichok. A major incident was declared yesterday with several locations in the Wiltshire city and in nearby Amesbury sealed off after the couple became unwell with similar symptoms to the Skripals. Rowley and Sturgess remained critically ill in Salisbury District Hospital yesterday. Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said officers were still investigating how the couple came into contact with the nerve agent, and that there was no evidence the couple had visited the sites decontaminated after the Skripal investigation. He added that a police operation would now take place in Salisbury that would look similar to the clean-up operation that followed the earlier poisoning, and that 100 counterterrorism officers were working on the case. Professor Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, insisted the risk to the wider public was low. Like after the Skripal incident, Dame Sally advised residents and people who may have been in the areas now cordoned off to wash their clothes and any items on them at the time. Rowley is a registered heroin addict and police and doctors initially thought the incident was drug related. But four days after they fell into a coma, the alarm was raised when they failed to respond to treatment. Health officials made efforts in the weeks following the Skripal attack in March to assure residents there was no wider public health risk, and follows extensive efforts to try and bring back visitors to the city. Dame Sally originally insisted the risk to members of the public was low, and the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall paid a visit to Salisbury to offer support to locals affected by disruption caused by the Skripal poisoning. Experts at the nearby Porton Down government defence laboratory carried out tests to identify what the substance involved was. Counter-terrorism police were also called in to investigate. It was initially believed that the two patients fell ill after possibly using drugs from a contaminated batch. The Government held two Cobra meetings yesterday and a spokesman for the Prime Minister said the matter was being treated with the ‘‘utmost seriousness’’. Moscow has denied any involvement in the deliberate poisonings of the Skripals, but the latest development comes at a particularly sensitive time as Russia hosts the World Cup finals – and could face England in the semifinals. A friend of the couple, Sam Hobson, 29, described how Sturgess, a mother of three, had fallen ill suddenly on Saturday morning, followed by Rowley several hours later. Hobson, an unemployed car mechanic, said they had both been frothing at the mouth and hallucinating before falling into a coma.