UK police search home to find source of new Novichok poisoning

[Ulquiorra]

MORE than 100 British police officers have been scouring sections of Salisbury and Amesbury in southwest England looking for clues in a race to understand how a local couple were exposed to a nerve agent that was produced in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

They have now searched a hostel, where mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, were staying before falling ill within hours of each other.

Police believe the pair, who are fighting for their lives, may have come in contact with a contaminated vial or other item discarded in a public place after a March nerve agent attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury.

Sturgess and Rowley are both British nationals and from the local area. They remain critically ill. They were found unconscious and foaming at the mouth at a property in nearby Amesbury, Wiltshire.

As family liaison officers work to support their next of kin, police decked out in special protective gear and breathing apparatuses began an extensive search at the John Baker House in Salisbury yesterday, where they were staying before the poisoning.

Their accommodation is listed by the Homeless Link charity as a supported living situation for “single homeless people and those in a vulnerable housing situation”.

ITV reports that a sample was also taken from a windowsill at the accommodation.

Its residents have been placed in other housing while the search continues.

Ben Jordan, a friend, described Mr Rowley as a scavenger who would pick up cigarette butts from the ground and often go through the trash cans outside charity shops in search of something he could use or sell.

“Anything and everything to sell, to survive, to use,” Mr Jordan said.

“What the charity shop doesn’t want, he will fix it or sell it or use it for himself.”

His habit raises the possibility that Mr Rowley might have picked up a used receptacle or another type of contaminated item while rummaging through trash.

NEW TIMELINE OF EVENTS
UK Metropolitan Police also released a revised timeline of what they believe happened before the couple were poisoned.

*At around 12:20pm on Friday Mr Rowley and Ms Sturgess are together at John Baker House in Salisbury before leaving and visiting several shops, then heading to Queen Elizabeth Gardens.

*They return to John Baker House at around 4.20pm before catching a bus to Amesbury at approximately 10.30pm. Detectives currently believe they spent the night at an address on Muggleton Road, Amesbury.

*On Saturday ambulance crews called on the address at 10:15am, where Ms Sturgess had been taken ill and took her to hospital.

*At around midday, Mr Rowley visited Boots the chemist on Stonehenge Walk in Amesbury and then returned to his address in Muggleton Road around half an hour later.

*At around 1.45pm he visited the Amesbury Baptist Centre on Butterfield Drive and returned home at around 3pm.

*At 6.20pm the South West Ambulance Service were called back to the address on Muggleton Road and Mr Rowley was taken to hospital.

SOURCE OF NERVE AGENT HARD TO DETECT
Scientists say there’s no easy way to use technology to locate the container thought to be the source of the Novichok. Instead, there will have to be a laborious physical search of suspected sites.

Alastair Hay, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Toxicology at the University of Leeds, said told the Associated Press that is “no specific method for the detection of Novichoks in the environment” because the use of the nerve agent was not considered likely when monitors were designed.

That means authorities will have to take soil and vegetation samples from sites where it’s possible the nerve agent was present and painstakingly test the samples to see if there is any contamination.

CALLS TO RUSSIA FOR ANSWERS
British Home Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament on Thursday that it’s time for Russia to explain “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,” Mr Javid said.

At first authorities thought the couple might have had a bad drug reaction.

DANGERS OF NOVICHOK NERVE AGENT
Experts say just a few milligrams of the odourless Novichok liquid — the weight of a snowflake — is enough to kill a person within minutes. But finding residue before it poisons unwitting victims is the problem.

POLICE PROBE TO TAKE MONTHS
The UK’s Metropoiltan Police released a statement saying that the complex and fast-moving investigation involves around 100 detectives from the Counter Terrorism Network who are working around the clock alongside colleagues from Wiltshire Police.

Due to the unique challenges involved with this operation, police activity is expected to take weeks and months to complete.

The focus of the investigation remains identifying the source of the contamination as quickly as possible.

As part of this, detectives have been making a number of enquiries to trace the precise movements of the man and woman in the period prior to them falling ill.

Officers have identified and spoken to several key witnesses and are trawling through more than 1,300 hours of CCTV footage which has been collected so far.

A number of sites have been cordoned off in the Salisbury and Amesbury areas. These are believed to be the areas the man and woman visited before they fell ill. This is a precautionary measure and meticulous and systematic searches of these areas are now under way.

Officers are wearing protective equipment as they carry out their activity and protective barriers may also be installed at some of these sites.

“There is no evidence that the man and woman visited any of the sites that were decontaminated following the attempted murders of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March this year. We are not in a position to say whether the nerve agent was from the same batch that the Skripals were exposed to,” the statement read.

“The investigation into the attempted murders of the Skripals is ongoing as detectives continue to assess all the evidence available.”