Boy ill after feeding ducks with Sergei Skripal on day ex-spy poisoned

A little boy became sick after he fed the ducks with an ex-Russian spy poisoned with a nerve agent, an inquiry has heard. 

Sergei Skripal, then 71 and his daughter Yulia, then 39 were poisoned with Novichok in March 2018, in what it widely believed to be an assassination attempt by Russian military intelligence.

Yesterday at the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry into the incident, CCTV footage was shown for the first time of Sergei handing a child bread to feed the ducks by the river in Amesbury, Wiltshire on the day of the poisoning. 

The boy was tracked down as part of the investigation, and he reported how he was ill for a day or two after the encounter. 

However, the inquiry heard no traces of the chemical weapon were found on him when he was eventually tested. 

What is the Novichok nerve agent used against the Skripals?

Novichok was secretly developed by the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold war in the 1970s and 1980s.

Communist scientists developed the poison so it would not be able to be detected by Nato's chemical detection equipment.

They come in the form of a ultra-fine powder, Novichok is up to eight times more potent than the deadly VX gas.

Victims who are poisoned by the powder suffer muscle spasms, breathing problems and then cardiac arrest.

There is a known antidote to the nerve agent -  atropine can block the poison.

But doctors find it very tricky to administer the antidote because the dose would have to be so high it could prove fatal for the person.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command said: 'This information helped detectives set the 'time parameters of when the Novichok is likely to have been applied to that door as 6pm on the Saturday and 1.30pm on the Sunday, when (the Skripals) then left.'

Although Sergei and Yulia survived the attack, mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after spraying a 'significant amount' of the nerve agent on herself, thinking it was perfume. 

Novichock, a type of nerve agent, is a deadly concoction created by Soviet scientists during the Cold War.

UK authorities believe that the agents targeting the Skripals had discarded the bottle, disguised as a perfume, before leaving the country.

An international arrest warrant was issued for three Russian men thought to be involved in the attacks on British soil, but as the Russian constitution does not allow the extradition of its citizens it is unlikely they will ever stand trial.

All three men are thought to be members of the Russian intelligence agency GRU.

The suspected assassins – Russian intelligence officers Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin – were caught on CCTV as they travelled from Moscow to the Wiltshire cathedral city.

A third suspect, senior Russian agent Denis Sergeev, was believed to be the on-the-ground commander. All three fled back to Russia after their failed murder attempt.

This comes as a former chief nurse of the British Army, who was one of the first to attend to Sergei and Yulia Skripal after they were poisoned with Novichok, has said any suggestions that her role was connected to the incident are 'malicious'.

Alison McCourt said she had coincidentally visited Salisbury with her family on March 4 2018, because her children had wanted to go to a Nando's.

She described to the court how Sergei had been 'chanting' unintelligibly and vomiting, while his daughter, Yulia, had her hand clammed in a 'claw'. 

Ms McCourt and others nearby gave the pair, who had both been poisoned with the nerve agent, first aid before the emergency services arrived. 

At the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry today, Ms McCourt, who left the army in 2022, responded to a document published by the Russian Embassy which said there had been 'no attempt to explain' the 'extraordinary coincidence' that she had been in the area at the time.

Both Sergei and Yulia Skripal survived after being poisoned with the nerve agent.

Ms Sturgess, 44, died after she was exposed to the chemical weapon, which was left in a discarded perfume bottle in Amesbury, Wiltshire, in July 2018.

Responding to the Russian Embassy document from March 2023 titled Salisbury: Five Years of Unanswered Questions, Ms McCourt said in a witness statement: 'I confirmed that as at March 4 2018 I was employed as chief nurse of the British Army. I subsequently left the army in 2022.

'On Sunday, March 4 2018, I was off duty and in my own time, I had travelled to Salisbury with my family for a family day out.

'That particular destination for our trip had been chosen by my children - they had wanted to travel to Salisbury because it had a Nando's.

'My preference had been to visit another town in the area, in a different restaurant, but I had given in to my children, so we ended up going to Salisbury.

'No person outside of my family was aware of our decision to travel to Salisbury that day - a decision which had been made spontaneously.'

Ms McCourt said she would not have exposed herself or her daughter to the risk of coming into contact with Novichok if she was aware the Skripals had been poisoned with the nerve agent.

Her witness statement, which was read by counsel to the inquiry Francesca Whitelaw KC, continued: 'I had no prior knowledge of the individuals on the bench - I had never seen them before in my life, nor did I know who they were.

'In fact, having seen the couple on the bench, my initial instinct had in fact been not to get involved as it looked to me as if they were under the influence of drugs.

'It was only the chiding of my daughter that made me think I ought to go to their aid.

'It goes without saying that I had no idea a nerve agent, nor any other poison, had been the cause of the couple's presentation.

'Given my training, had I known that a nerve agent had been used, I would not have exposed myself to any potential risk of personal harm.

'I had no equipment, medicine, nor PPE with me.

'Moreover, had I any suspicion that a nerve agent had been deployed, there are no circumstances at all in which I would ever have exposed my daughter to that risk.'

Ms McCourt insisted her involvement in the incident was as a 'first responder member of the public'.

She said: 'With reference to my involvement in the Skripal incident, at a time when I was chief nurse of the British Army, the Russian Embassy document states that there has been no attempt to explain why this extraordinary coincidence had been kept a secret for the previous 10 months.

'To be clear, any decision and timings as to the withholding or release of mine and my daughter's identity were not mine.'

She added: 'In summary, I had no prior knowledge of the nature of the incident, nor of the two individuals who transpired to be the Skripals.

'My involvement in this incident was a first responder member of the public, and had no connection whatsoever with my professional role at the time.

'Any suggestion to the contrary is false and malicious.'

The inquiry continues.