Officer ‘Haunted’ by Skripal Home Search After Colleague’s Contamination

A detective inspector has stated that the choice to conduct a search of the residence belonging to two individuals who had been poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent “still haunts” him, following the contamination of a colleague. Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury during 2018. Nick Bailey, a former police officer, suffered contamination when the nerve agent was applied to the door handle of the Skripals’ residence. Testifying at the inquiry investigating the death of Dawn Sturgess, Detective Inspector Ben Mant of Wiltshire Police disclosed his apprehension that additional individuals might be present inside the property. Mr. Bailey’s poisoning occurred subsequent to the attempted murder of former spy Mr. Skripal and his daughter, and preceded by several months the death of Ms. Sturgess, 44, who died after exposure to Novichok found in a discarded perfume bottle in nearby Amesbury. Detective Inspector Mant explained that he received a briefing regarding the Skripals’ symptoms once they fell ill. He affirmed that the decision to search their house, located on Christie Miller Road, was his, driven by his primary concern that another individual inside could be “injured or potentially dying”. “It’s something that still haunts me, as clearly Sergeant Bailey became very ill as a result of our actions that night,” Detective Inspector Mant remarked. Detective Inspector Mant proceeded to the Skripals’ residence accompanied by Mr. Bailey and another officer, identified as VN005, and informed the inquiry that they wore personal protective equipment, which encompassed white suits, boot covers, gloves, goggles, and surgical masks. In a witness statement, Detective Inspector Mant additionally mentioned that all three officers inside the house lifted their goggles periodically because they had “steamed up”. “it clearly risks the potential for any contaminant on the outside of the gloves to be transferred to the skin,” he noted. Subsequently, it was brought to his attention that an officer positioned outside the property exhibited one pupil that was “the size of a pinprick” and the other “very dilated”. “That was the moment of course it occurred to me that whatever it was we were dealing with is likely to have been at Christie Miller Road,” Mr. Mant further stated. The inquiry remains ongoing.