Salisbury Novichok Poisonings Deemed Unprecedented Incident

The Novichok poisonings of a former Russian intelligence agent and his daughter in Salisbury constituted a “truly unprecedented incident of a scale that we had not seen,” according to a senior police official. Commander Dominic Murphy, who heads the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, characterized the event as an “extremely sobering moment.” Former spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia, and police officer Nick Bailey were poisoned in March 2018 but survived. However, Dawn Sturgess, aged 44, died in July of the same year after being exposed to the nerve agent. During his testimony at the inquiry into Ms Sturgess’ death, Mr Murphy stated that the counter-terrorism police’s “dismissive” reaction to initial reports of a poisoning was “extremely disappointing.” Mr Murphy indicated that the officer handling calls on the evening of 4 March 2018 had not “necessarily performed to the standard that we would have expected from all of our officers.” An email from April 2021, authored by Wiltshire Police’s Insp Gill Hughes and previously presented to the inquiry, revealed that the special branch had been “very dismissive” of details concerning Mr Skripal’s poisoning, which were supplied by the force’s control room. On Tuesday, Andrew O’Connor, counsel to the inquiry, posed a question to Mr Murphy: “If Inspector Hughes is right about the way in which her queries were responded to, would you agree that that is an inappropriate and unprofessional way to react to a query?” Mr Murphy, who had also been involved in the investigation of the poisoned Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, responded: “Yes. It’s extremely disappointing actually.” Addressing the extent of media attention surrounding the incident at the inquiry on Tuesday, Mr Murphy remarked: “Even with [the Litvinenko case] in mind, this was truly an unprecedented incident of a scale that we had not seen both in terms of the media interest and, even in the early hypothesis that this had been a state sponsored incident.” Mr Murphy recounted deploying police officers into areas contaminated with Novichok. He stated: “As you will no doubt hear, we were putting police officers in scenes that were contaminated with one of the most dangerous substances on the planet and that was a very substantial decision to be taking in a leadership sense. But also, those officers were all volunteers going into that work.” The inquiry remains ongoing.