The attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal was “completely reckless”, said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, the detective leading the investigation. When asked how many people it could have killed he said: “It’s difficult to say, you know, possibly into the thousands.” Since ex-spy Mr Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious in Salisbury city centre on Sunday, March 4, it has emerged they were targeted by Russian intelligence agency, the GRU.
Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin allegedly smeared Mr Skripal’s front door handle with the poison, disguised in a perfume bottle.
The contents later went on to kill mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, who mistook it for perfume and sprayed it on her wrists, after it was found by her partner, Charlie Rowley, 45.
One of the first to visit the house where the Skripals were poisoned was Wiltshire police’s Det Sgt Nick Bailey.
He told BBC TV’s Panorama how he and his family have since had all their possessions destroyed for fear of contamination.
The father-of-two and a colleague searched 67-year-old Mr Skripal’s house in forensic suits and found “nothing untoward”.
But shortly afterwards, he began to feel unwell.
By the Tuesday his “whole body was dripping with sweat”.
When told he had novichok poisoning, he said he was “petrified” and had no idea how it got through his forensic suit.
He said his treatment “was painful at the beginning. I had lots of injections. I had five or six infusions at any one time.
“One of the Skripals was in the room right next to me.”
He was given the all-clear on March 22 but realised he may have unwittingly contaminated both his police station and his home, which his family can never return to.
He may also face long-term health issues.
He said: “Physically I think I bounced back pretty well.”
But he added: “Not only did we lose the house, we lost all of our possessions, including everything the kids owned.
“We lost everything. It’s been very difficult to come to terms with that.”