Did victims take poison home?
Couple fighting for life picked up deadly device contaminated with Novichok
DETECTIVES believe a couple fighting for their lives after finding a discarded nerve agent may have taken the poison home.
Hundreds of officers are searching for a ‘contaminated item’ left behind by the would-be killers who targeted a Russian spy and his daughter.
Police are scouring the homes of Dawn Sturgess, 44, and boyfriend Charles Rowley, 45, for the remains of the deadly Novichok used in the March assassination plot.
They suspect the object could be some kind of ‘delivery device’ that was recklessly discarded after the attack.
However, the contaminated item could even be something as innocuous as a cigarette butt. The couple remained in a critical condition in hospital last night.
As the authorities warned hundreds of people, including visitors to a popular park, to urgently wash their clothes and wipe down items such as jewellery and phones:
Home Secretary Sajid Javid accused Russia of using Britain as a ‘dumping ground for poison’.
Police were accused of ‘putting their head in the sand’ over the location of missing equipment used to attack the Skripals.
The Government signalled it will use President Trump’s visit and Nato summit next week to brief allies on potential retaliation.
Russia accused the UK of staging the crisis to ruin the World Cup and stoke ‘anti-Russia hysteria’.
Lab tests confirming the couple were struck by the military grade nerve agent plunged Salisbury back into crisis. Hundreds of police, security and public health officials, are swarming across the city.
Investigators are urgently trying to retrace the steps of the ill-fated couple last Friday as they shopped and relaxed in Queen Elizabeth Gardens. The park, along with a city hostel and an address in Amesbury, seven miles away, are completely sealed off. Police also locked down a Baptist church and a branch of Boots where Mr Rowley picked up a prescription after it is feared he was exposed.
Both victims had collapsed, hallucinating and foaming at the mouth, on Saturday. Officers suspected they may have consumed a ‘bad batch’ of heroin but two days later blood tests at Porton Down confirmed they too have been in contact with Novichok.
They now believe Mr Rowley and Mrs Sturgess, a mother of three, may have spotted something unusual on the ground and picked it up. Friends said Mr Rowley, a recovering addict, sometimes trawled through bins looking for things he could sell. So far nothing has been found and police say they have no idea what the highly toxic nerve agent was contained in.
Experts suspect the couple came across the item after it was thrown away ‘in a haphazard way’. England’s chief medical officer urged people not to pick up ‘any unknown or already dangerous objects’. The item is not believed to be a needle or syringe, but could even be a cigarette. One source said: ‘Novichok doesn’t evaporate. It exists forever. Incineration is the most effective method. But they are not going to burn Salisbury down.’
Whitehall officials insisted there is nothing to suggest a ‘clean up failure’ as none of the areas involved featured in the multi-million pound decontamination operation. But the authorities face serious questions over why the possibility that potentially deadly materials could have been dumped elsewhere has apparently not been considered.
Chemical warfare expert Philip Ingram said: ‘They could have thrown it under a hedge, they could have thrown it into a school playground. They could’ve put it under the seat in a local train.
‘By not focusing on that, they have put the public at risk.
‘What they used is what I class as the ostrich effect. “Well it’s all too complicated so we will stick our heads in the sand and hope nothing happens.” Unfortunately something has happened.’
The authorities insist areas of Salisbury already cleaned as part of the Skripal incident are safe. But yesterday Wiltshire Chief Constable Kier Pritchard warned there would be a ‘significant increase’ in police activity. He said they could still not confirm where the contamination took place, adding: ‘It’s too early for us to be able to understand that. We simply do not know.’ But he added he could confirm precisely everywhere the couple visited before they collapsed.
Debbie Stark, of Public Health England, insisted the threat to the public remains ‘low’. She said the situation is a ‘cause for concern’ but health experts are ‘working tirelessly’ to safeguard people.
The Home Secretary yesterday blamed the Kremlin for the trail of devastation. He told MPs: ‘The eyes of the world are currently on Russia, not least because of the World Cup. It is now time that the Russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on.
‘It is completely unacceptable for our people to be either deliberate or accidental targets, or for our streets, our parks, our towns, to be dumping grounds for poison.’
But the Kremlin said it was part of UK efforts tarnish the World Cup.
‘We simply don’t know’