Novichok poisons two new victims
Couple critically ill in Salisbury following contact with same nerve agent used on spy
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, it was confirmed last night.
Police said tests carried out at the Porton Down government defence laboratory had established that Charles Rowley, 45, and his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess, 44, had been exposed to Novichok.
The incident comes four months after Col Skripal, 67, and his 33-yearold daughter were poisoned in a suspected Russian-backed assassination attempt and will lead to fears that the public in Salisbury could still be at risk. Authorities will now face questions over whether the multi-million pound decontamination effort failed.
Neil Basu, the Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, said there was nothing in the couple’s background to suggest they had been deliberately targeted, but said detectives were looking into whether the two incidents were linked. He said there was no evidence that Mr Rowley and Ms Sturgess had visited any of the sites previously decontaminated before they took ill, but a major clean-up operation will now have to be launched once again in Salisbury in a fresh blow to a city that underwent months of major disruption last time.
Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, said people who had visited the areas that have been cordoned off in the city over recent days should wash their clothes and wipe down any items they were carrying at the time.
She also urged people not to pick up any “unknown or already dangerous objects such as needles and syringes”.
Health officials made efforts in the weeks following the attack on the Skripals in March to assure residents there was no wider public health risk and the latest poisoning follows extensive efforts to try to attract visitors back to the city.
Last month, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall paid a visit to the city to offer support to locals affected by the widespread disruption.
Around 100 counter-terrorism officers from Scotland Yard and detectives from Wiltshire will now be seeking to establish whether the poisoning was caused by traces of Novichok that were not found in the original decontamination operation.
Ms Sturgess was taken to hospital on Saturday morning after taking ill at her boyfriend’s flat in Amesbury.
Mr Rowley was admitted to Salisbury District Hospital – where the Skripals were treated for three months – later that day after displaying similar symptoms.
Because Mr Rowley is a registered heroin addict, police and doctors initially thought the incident was connected to a batch of contaminated illegal drugs.
But a major incident was declared yesterday when they failed to respond to treatment and doctors recognised
startling similarities to the symptoms displayed by the Skripals.
Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, will chair a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergencies committee today.
Last night, he said: “I want to express my thanks to the emergency services and staff at the Salisbury District Hospital for their tireless professionalism in dealing with the incident in Amesbury. It follows the reckless and barbaric attack which took place in Salisbury in March.
“The Amesbury investigation is on-going and the police must be given the space they need to continue establishing the full facts.”
Mr Rowley, who has a daughter and Ms Sturgess, a mother-of-three, were both understood to be in a critical condition in a coma last night.
Sam Hobson, 29, a friend, said he had visited Mr Rowley’s flat in Amesbury, nine miles north of Salisbury, around 11am on Saturday to find ambulances outside. He said: “Dawn was on a stretcher and Charlie was in tears, saying she’d been complaining of a headache and then started having a fit.”
While paramedics took Ms Sturgess to Salisbury District Hospital, Mr Rowley went to a nearby Boots Chemist in Amesbury to pick up his daily methadone prescription.
The pair then went on to Amesbury Baptist Centre, where free food had been laid on as part of a community event. But when they returned to Ms Sturgess’s flat to pack some clothes for her to have in hospital, Mr Rowley also took ill. “Charlie started sweating and acting strange, rocking back and forth, his eyes wide open,” said Mr Hobson. “He wasn’t responding to me so I called an ambulance.”
Mr Hobson said the previous day the three of them had visited several locations in Salisbury close to the riverside bench at the Maltings shopping centre where the Skripals collapsed. After declaring a major incident, police sealed off all the areas the couple had been in the hours before they fell ill.