Chief army nurse who helped Skripals faced conspiracies

At the Dawn Sturgess Public Inquiry on October 29, two statements by Mrs Alison McCourt were read.

She is of the first people who saw the Skripals seriously unwell on a bench in the Maltings before emergency services arrived.

Mrs McCourt, chief nursing officer at British Army at the time of the incident, did not appear at the Inquiry as she was given permission to give written evidence rather than orally.

The first statement, made just days after the poisoning, described how on March 4, 2018, Mrs McCourt was in Salisbury with her family when they found Sergei and Yulia Skripal displaying concerning symptoms.

This occurred as they passed World of Cards in the Maltings, when her daughter said: "That man looks like he's having a stroke."

In the statement, Mrs McCourt said: "I looked at the bench, I was about 10 metres away at this point."

READ MORE: Live: Dawn Sturgess Inquiry week two begins in London

There was a couple dealing with the situation but her husband said it was her "duty to help".

Her statement describes how the male (Sergei) had his arm half raised in the air and she couldn't see the female's face as her upper body was lying behind him.

"She was in a really odd position and sat very close to the male", she said, "I do not know if he was trying to help her or what. Her right arm was locked around the back of the bench and her left arm was across her lap."

She said that when she first approached the male on the bench, he was chanting. 

"I could not pick up anything he was saying, it was unintelligible words and I could not make out an accent, it was incomprehensible," she continued.

Her daughter was trying to help, but she had no gloves so Mrs McCourt sent her back to her husband.

She assisted paramedics as they arrived on scene.

A document from the Russian Embassy in 2023 titled 'Salisbury: Five years of unanswered questions' scrutinised that the coincidence that she was chief nurse of the British Army at the time and had been one of the first to attend to the Skripals.

The Skripals were found on a bench in the Maltings (Image: Crown Copyright/Operation Verbasco)

The document states: 'there has been no attempt to explain why this extraordinary coincidence had been kept a secret for the previous ten months'.

In a statement for the Inquiry, Mrs McCourt said: "To be clear, any decision and timings as to the withholding or release of mine and my daughter's identity were not mine. Immediately after the incident was advised by the police and the Army not to say anything publicly nor to respond to media enquiries: I followed that direction to the letter.

"I had no prior knowledge of the individuals on the bench. I had never seen them before in my life and nor did I know who they were. In fact, having seen the couple of the bench, my initial instinct had in fact been to not get involved, as it looked to me as if they were under the influence of drugs."

Later in 2018, police suggested she nominate her daughter for a local heroes award of which Mrs McCourt assumed it would be low profile.

READ MORE: People fell ill after being near Skripals after poisoning

She said: "As advised, duly submitted a nomination for what I believed was a low profile local heroes' award organised by a local radio station, not expecting that it would thereby expose my family and I to national media attention and resultant conspiracy theorists.

"My daughter won the award which was then syndicated to the national press. As a result I and my family were then subjected to an avalanche of unexpected and unwanted media attention.

"To this day we still receive unsolicited requests from TV production companies and individuals purporting to be conducting research requesting interviews. We have both always ignored or declined the approaches and will continue to do so."

She says that she suffered 'harm and detriment' to her health as a result of the incident and aftermath.