Boy got sick after poisoned Sergei Skripal ‘gave him bread to feed ducks’

The inquest was shown CCTV footage of Mr Skripal – who had now been infected with Novichok – handing some bread to the boy, dressed in a cap and wellies.

The child, along with two others, was later tracked down as part of the investigation and was reported to have felt unwell for a day or two after the interaction.

However, when they were finally tested, all three showed no traces of the chemical weapon.

‘Singing and using unintelligible words’

Passerby Alison McCourt, then the British Army’s chief nurse, told the inquiry on Tuesday that she came to Mr Skripal and Yulia’s aid after her daughter raised the alarm.

Mrs McCourt said she was only in the area because her children wanted to eat at the Nando’s restaurant chain, dismissing later conspiracy theories about her involvement.

As they walked through The Maltings shopping centre, Ms McCourt’s daughter reportedly warned her of the pair by shouting: “That man looks like he’s having a stroke.”

The former army chief nurse said that when she approached the sofa, she was greeted by Mr Skripal making strange noises, with his arms outstretched, while Yulia held the back of the chair with her hands.

In a witness statement read out at the inquest, Ms McCourt said Mr Skripal was “chanting” using “unintelligible words” and that she could not distinguish his accent. “It was incomprehensible, there were no words. I don’t think it was anyone trying to talk,” she added.

“It was all very strange, there was no way that two people would have an epileptic fit at the same time and in the same place,” she said, adding that they were both “well dressed” which “didn’t fit the stereotype of drug users. ”.

The inquiry is also investigating how Dawn Sturgess, 44, died four months after the attack on the Skripals, after being exposed to Novichok left in a discarded perfume bottle found by her boyfriend Charlie Rowley.

She turned blue around the lips

For the first time, the inquest heard details of how Ms McCourt and off-duty children’s counselor Helen Ord waged a desperate battle to save the lives of Mr Skripal and his daughter.

Detectives believe the pair first came into contact with the Novichok nerve agent when it was smeared on the front door handle of their Salisbury home.

Ms McCourt and Dr Ord, who also happened to be in the area shopping with her partner, carried out a series of emergency procedures to help the two.

While Ms. McCourt tried to help Mr. Skripal, Dr. Ord focused on Yulia, whose condition at the time seemed significantly more serious than her father’s.

She was fit, her airways were obstructed and she had vomited profusely, turning blue around the lips.

Dr. Ord, who was a pediatric registrar at the time, told the inquiry: “She was seriously sicker than him.”

While making sure passers-by had called an ambulance, the off-duty consultant kept Yulia’s airways open by performing a ‘jaw thrust’ to ensure the 33-year-old didn’t swallow her own tongue.

“There was a very limited amount of things I could do to help,” said Dr Ord, who had no specialist equipment on hand.

Lord Hughes of Ombersley, chairman of the inquiry, told her: “Everyone was lucky you responded.”

‘I had never seen them in my life’

The investigation found that both Mrs McCourt and her daughter suffered side effects as a result of coming into contact with the Skripals. They woke up the next morning with red and swollen eyes and itchy joints. Blood tests for the couple came back negative.

In a second witness statement, Ms McCourt rejected a document published by the Russian embassy after the attack. It claimed to ask a series of “unanswered questions” and suggested it was too much of a coincidence that the British Army’s chief nurse happened to be passing by at the time of the Skripals’ collapse.

Ms McCourt, who left the army in 2022 after heading an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone, told the inquiry: “I had no prior knowledge of the individuals on the bench. I had never seen them before in my life and didn’t know who they were.

“If I had known that a nerve agent had been used, given my training, I would not have exposed myself to any potential risk of injury.”

She added: “That particular destination for our trip was chosen by my children: they wanted to travel to Salisbury because there was a Nando’s there. My preference was for another town in the area and another restaurant, but I gave in to my children and so we ended up going to Salisbury.”

The Skripals eventually recovered after weeks of treatment, which also included expert advice from the nearby chemical warfare research facility at Porton Down. They were given a new identity and now live in an unknown country.