Poisoned couple ‘had a high dose’

The couple poisoned by a deadly nerve agent near Salisbury must have received “a high dose” of Novichok when they handled a vessel containing the substance, a leading police officer has said.

Dawn Sturgess, 44, died and her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, is still in a critical condition after the couple fell ill in Wiltshire.

THE COUPLE poisoned by a deadly nerve agent near Salisbury must have received “a high dose” of Novichok when they handled a vessel containing the substance, a leading police officer has said.

Dawn Sturgess, 44, died and her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, is still in a critical condition after the couple fell ill in Amesbury, Wiltshire, last Saturday.

The murder investigation is the second major probe involving the nerve agent this year, following the case of Sergei and Yulia Skripal who were left critically ill in March. Both have recovered, as has a police officer, Nick Bailey, who came to their aid.

Giving the latest update on the investigation, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said: “Our focus and priority at this time is to identify and locate any container that we believe may be the source of the contamination. In the four months since the Skripals and Nick Bailey were poisoned, no other people besides Dawn and Charlie have presented with symptoms. But their reaction was so severe it resulted in Dawn’s death and Charlie being critically ill. This means they must have got a high dose and our hypothesis is that they must have handled a container that we are now seeking.”

A red Ford Transit van in which Mr Rowley was a passenger on June 30 has been recovered and sent for testing at the Government laboratory at Porton Down.

Three other men who also travelled in the van have been tested and show no signs of having been exposed to Novichok, Mr Basu said.

Praising the “tremendous stoicism” of people of Wiltshire, he said 21 people had raised concerns about being exposed but have been given the all-clear.

In the House of Commons, Prime Minister Theresa May paid tribute to Ms Sturgess, saying the “police and security services are working urgently to establish the full facts in now what is a murder investigation”.

Meanwhile, Salisbury MP John Glen backed the police’s efforts to keep people safe, saying over the past four months he had received regular correspondence from people arguing that the police had overreacted in March, while now people were emailing him to say the police were not doing enough.

He said: “Both of these views are wrong. All the sites known to be visited by the Skripals and connected with the original Novichok incident in March were secured and cordoned off.

“The poisoning of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley is very likely the result of picking up a discarded container from the original attack, at a site not previously connected to the Skripal case. The only way the current poisoning could likely have been averted would have been to conduct a fingertip search of every square inch of South Wiltshire – a logistical impossibility, especially when there was no way for the police to know that an object from the original incident had been discarded like this.”

He said there was always a temptation to “blame the Government, or the police, or the local authority”.

“But we must not lose sight of the fact that responsibility for the fact that a military-grade nerve agent was used in Salisbury and South Wiltshire, rests with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin alone.”

A Kremlin spokesman said linking Russia to the poisoning would be “absurd”.

Responsibility ... rests with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin alone. Salisbury MP John Glen.