Residents’ fear over poison risk
Salisbury locals accuse officials of withholding vital information as 200 troops are deployed
ANXIOUS residents accused authorities of “keeping them in the dark” after nearly 200 troops trained in chemical warfare arrived in Salisbury in an escalation of the nerve agent investigation.
Specialists from the RAF and Royal Marines began removing contaminated materials to be sent for analysis at the nearby Porton Down defence laboratory, six days after the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, the Russian double agent.
Yesterday it emerged that the spy may have been poisoned at his home, meaning that the nerve agent could have been in his system for hours before he eventually collapsed in the city centre on Sunday.
Chemical weapons experts said this could mean that a new strain of nerve agent – which was slower to take effect – may have been used to target Col Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
Det Sgt Nick Bailey, made seriously ill by the nerve agent, is now thought to have been contaminated at Col Skripal’s home, having being one of the first officers to attend the house.
Yesterday the investigation widened as officers began to focus on the areas Col Skripal and his daughter are known to have visited before they collapsed.
It is understood that the Government expects analysis from Porton Down to confirm the attack originated in Russia.
The Home Secretary will host a Cobra security meeting today. And, should the analysis point to the Russians, Theresa May is expected to announce sanctions against the country as soon as Monday. In scenes likened to a disaster movie, a military convoy carrying 180 trained chemical warfare troops entered the Wiltshire city yesterday afternoon, although authorities insisted there remained no threat to public health.
At the same time police officers wearing full chemical protection suits to shield them from exposure to the nerve agent were stationed at the Salisbury cemetery where Col Skripal’s wife and his son’s ashes are buried. It is understood they took away trinkets and flowers, which were placed by Col Skripal and his daughter on Sunday. A military convoy of a dozen vehicles arrived at Salisbury District Hospital to remove a police car and other contaminated material from the site.
While police yesterday reiterated that there was no need for alarm, residents last night said they were fearful, questioning the need for the full chemical protection suits if there was no danger.
David Bayfield, 76, who runs the Salisbury Family Butcher stall close to the bench where the Skripals collapsed, said: “We are fed up being kept in the dark.
“Everyone is saying it’s fine, but there are police everywhere and now the Army. How can it be fine?
“We know he went to the pub but where else did he go? Who did he brush past? Who did he touch? I don’t think we’ve been told the whole truth.”
Liz Coates, 57, said: “When they said 180 soldiers were coming I thought ‘Woah, why are they coming?’ Especially so long after everything happened.”
Mother-of-two Emma James said: “It’s really scary. I think people are in shock. His house is near my son’s school. You worry about what’s been in the environment.”
Tony Curnock, 61, a window installer, said: “People are staying away. It feels like a disaster movie.”
One of Col Skripal’s neighbours, whose home is within the police cordon, said the authorities had made no attempt to give them any information to allay their fears. “No one has told us anything at all,” he said.
In a statement the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit, which is leading the investigation, said yesterday it had “requested assistance from the military to remove a number of vehicles and objects from the scene in Salisbury town centre as they have the necessary capability and expertise”. It
The week leading up to Mother’s Day should be the busiest in florist Danny Styles’s calendar. But as he stands on the edge of Salisbury’s Maltings shopping centre attempting to flog his wilting blooms, he admits business has never been so slow.
“First it was the snow,” says the 32-year-old. “Then it was the nerve gas. I actually think people are scared from coming into the city centre.”
A curious state of fear and incredulity reigns on the normally sleepy streets of the cathedral city following the nerve agent attack against former Russian spy Colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, 33, late last Sunday afternoon.
Neighbours speak of an increasing sense of unease as their once peaceful suburbia of John Betjeman’s imagination suddenly became more like something from John le Carré.
Prior to this week the big news in town was a plan for a new trampoline park – last week’s splash in the Salisbury Journal – and a stolen bronze peacock statue prompting a “wanted” sign in the window of the antique stamp shop on the high street.
Paul Daulwalder, its owner, counts several Fifties Soviet stamps as well as a signed pamphlet from Yuri Gagarin, the Russian Cosmonaut, among his stock. Now even the most far-fetched of Cold War stories has played out on the streets of Salisbury.
“We have had lots of calls from customers asking is it safe to come into Salisbury,” he says. “There is a bit of a fear factor around the place. People are nervous. To be honest I really don’t think people know how to react.”
Daulwalder’s shop backs on to the Maltings shopping centre, an unremarkable Seventies-built precinct now infamous as the site where the victims of the first ever nerve agent attack on British soil were discovered.
Most of the shops are closed within the police cordon but a few have remained open this week, including Crystals UK.
Claire Singleton, its manager, says Col Skripal would even occasionally visit for a browse. Among her crystals she counts Russian Shungite and chlorite-rich Seraphinite from Siberia, famed for their powerful healing properties.
A self-confessed science geek, she says as soon as she heard the news on Sunday she suspected another potent Russian substance had found its way into The Maltings.
“It is a real tragedy but if you get involved in the life of a double agent then you are signing a death warrant for yourself,” says the 41-year-old strangely matter-of-factly. “Especially if you are involved with Russia,” she adds.
Col Skripal moved into his modest red-brick house on the outskirts of the city in 2011, shortly after coming to England following a high profile spy-swap with the Russians. He paid for the £260,000 property in cash but lived a far from flashy life here.
Every week he would visit the Bargain Stop shop on Wilton Road, not far from his home, where he would buy milk, scratchcards and Polish sausage which Ebru Ozturk, the store’s owner, would order in especially for him.
She recalls the 66-year-old always wearing the same brown leather jacket and always being “very friendly and polite”. Whenever he was going away for a while, Col Skripal would let her know so that she could cancel her sausage order.
“I would describe him like a grandfather,” she says.
The police search has intensified around Col Skripal’s house in recent days with the cordon extending to encompass the entire street. As the latest police car shoots past, Steve Kelly, a 68-year-old retired floor layer, is attending to his caravan on his front drive.
“I can’t even think of any crimes here recently, to be honest,” he says, visibly puzzled.
Debbie Greenstock, 35, is a care worker at Bemerton Lodge care home, a few doors down from Col Skripal’s property. “I’ve lived here all my life and it is very bizarre to see Salisbury on all the world news,” she says.
Col Skripal’s former haunts have been besieged by the media in recent days – or at least those not still being picked over by investigators in hazmat suits. The branch of Zizzi, an Italian restaurant chain, and the Mill Pub, where Col Skripal and his daughter visited on Sunday afternoon before they were found unconscious, remain on lockdown.
On Thursday at the London Road Cemetery in Salisbury, a cordon was also placed around the grave of his wife Liudmila, who died of cancer aged 59 in 2012, and the plaque commemorating his 43-year-old son, Alexander, who died last year in St Petersburg. Media reports have
‘It is a real tragedy but if you get involved with a double agent, you are signing a death warrant for yourself’
variously suggested he died as the result of a car crash or liver failure.
Last November, Col Skripal took up annual membership of the Railway Social Club, paying £10. Nick Sebright, the club’s coordinator, says he was a low-key presence, occasionally calling in for a couple of pints.
On Thursday afternoon a group of men of similar age to Col Skripal were gathered around the television watching the horse racing. A few eyebrows were raised at the 14.10 at Wincanton. One of the horses was called “Russian Spy”.
In spite of the intense security, and seemingly ever-growing list of unanswered questions, life still ticks on in Salisbury. The main square still throngs with tourists and restaurants continue to take bookings.
At dusk each evening – as has happened for centuries – the cathedral opens its doors for the daily Evensong service.
“We pray for all of those who have been harmed,” Canon Ian Woodward, Vicar of the Close, tells his congregation. “And all of those who seek to harm us.”
‘We pray for all of those who have been harmed. And all of those who seek to harm us’