Amesbury incident latest: Wiltshire couple were exposed to novichok nerve agent, police confirm

Police investigating whether couple linked to Sergei and Yulia Skripal

A critically ill couple were exposed to novichock, the military-grade nerve agent used in the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Scotland Yard has confirmed.

Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were discovered in the Wiltshire village of Amesbury, around eight miles from Salisbury, where the Skripals came into contact with novichok four months ago.

Early investigations have not suggested the British couple, who collapsed within hours of each other on Saturday, were likely the targets of an assassination attempt, police said.

The couple are believed to have been near roads sealed off during the Skripal inquiry in Salisbury last week, although at least one other person who was with them at the time has yet to show any symptoms.

It was “a line of inquiry” whether the latest poisoning was linked to the contamination of the Russian father and daughter, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu confirmed. However, he cautioned against making “assumptions”

“Test results from Porton Down that show the two people have been exposed to the nerve agent novichok,” Mr Basu told a hastily arranged news conference.

Both patients were still in a critical condition, he said, adding that officers were working to identify their next of kin.

They are being treated in isolation under police guard at Salisbury district hospital, which previously treated the Skripals for exposure to novichok.

“At this stage, no-one else has presented with the same symptoms linked to this incident,” he said. “The priority for the investigation team now, is to establish how these two people have come into contact with this nerve agent.”

Around 100 detectives from the Counter Terrorism Policing Network were working on the investigation, alongside officers from Wiltshire Police, he said.

“I appreciate that there will be a great deal of speculation as to whether this incident is linked to the events in Salisbury in March. I would add that the complex investigation into the attempted murders of Yulia and Sergei remains ongoing and detectives continue to sift through and assess all the available evidence and are following every possible lead to identify those responsible, for what remains a reckless and barbaric criminal act.

“However, I must say that we are not in a position to say whether the nerve agent was from the same batch that the Skripals were exposed to. The possibility that these two investigations might be linked is clearly a line of enquiry for us. It is important, however, that the investigation is led by the evidence available and the facts alone and we don’t make any assumptions.”

Professor Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer for England, said the March incident meant officials had a “well-established response” in place.

She said: “I understand that those in Salisbury and in surrounding areas will be concerned at this news, particularly those who recently visited areas now cordoned off by police.”

The risk to the public remained low, she said, but issued “highly precautionary” advice to those with concerns.

“As before, my advice is to wash your clothes and wipe down any personal items, shoes and bags, with cleansing or baby wipes before disposing of them in the usual way," she said. “You do not need to seek advice from a health professional unless you are experiencing symptoms, as any individual who had been significantly exposed at the same time would by now have symptoms.”

Officers were called to a house in Muggleton Road, Amesbury, on Saturday morning when the 44-year-old woman collapsed. They were called back later that day when the man, 45, also fell ill.

Police initially believed Ms Sturgess and Mr Rowley had ingested contaminated heroin or crack cocaine, but the couple’s symptoms and rapid deterioration led them to believe other factors were at work.

Police have cordoned off a number of sites visited by the couple, including a park and supported accommodation for homeless people in Salisbury, Mr Rowley’s home in Amesbury, and a chemist and Baptist church he visited before falling ill.

Mr Basu said: “We have cordoned off a number of sites in the Amesbury and Salisbury areas that we believe the two individuals visited in the period before they fell ill. This is a precautionary measure while we continue to investigate how they came into contact with the substance.

“I do want to reassure the public, however, that there is no evidence that either the man or woman recently visited any of the sites that were decontaminated following the attempted murders of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.”

He said people in the area could expect to see “an increased police presence” in the coming days.

A second meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee took place on Wednesday evening to update senior Whitehall officials, following an initial meeting in the morning.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who will chair the meeting, said: ”The police must be given the space they need to continue establishing the full facts. My thoughts at this time are with the two individuals affected. The Government’s first priority is for the safety of the residents in the local area but as Public Health England has made clear, the risk to the general public is low.”

When decontamination work started in April following the March contamination of the former Russian spy and his daughter, a Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) official revealed novichok had been spread on Mr Skripal’s front door in liquid form and distributed around Salisbury by infected people.

He said the nerve agent could “move between sites by direct transfer by a contaminated person or item” and warned it “doesn’t just disappear”.

Novichok is a more potent and lethal nerve agent than sarin, developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s to be harder to detect than existing chemical weapons.