Police search for Novichok in Salisbury - where did they go?

A police report that is part of Operation Verbasco, the national Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) response to the Dawn Sturgess Public Inquiry, shares the steps taken to search the city following the attempted murder of the Skripals.

The extract of the report begins: "In the immediate aftermath of the Skripals' poisoning, the primary objective of the CTP investigation team was preserving public safety."

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The front door of Mr Skripal's house on Christie Miller Road was identified on March 17, 2018 to be the most likely point of contamination, almost two weeks after they were found seriously unwell in the Maltings on March 4, 2018.

The police report says that at that point there were "no indications as to what the Novichok looked like, how it had been packaged, or how it had been applied to the door".

It also says that there was "no evidence" to suggest it could have been discarded, but police were "mindful" of the possibility and got advice from a National Police Search Advisor.

The door handle at 47 Christie Miller Road was identified as the most likely original point of contamination (Image: Spencer Mulholland Photography) After the front door was identified as the most likely point of contamination, three hypothesis were made about where the nerve agent could have been discarded.

These were: in the immediate vicinity of the door, at the points where the offenders were out of the line of sight or at points where offenders could have changed their mode of transport such as the cross section between footpaths and roads.

Once the Skripals' movements were established, searches for evidence or objects focused on the address and locations in Salisbury where they had been. 

Sites that were tested included the entire house, The Mill, the BMW vehicle they had travelled in and Zizzi. 

Diagrams show that 'high' levels of Novichok were found at the front door of 47 Christie Miller Road on the first visit to the property, low levels were found on various furniture upstairs in the second visit, 'very high' levels of Novichok were found on the steering wheel of the BMW, gear stick, hand brake and seatbelt, with 'high' and 'medium' levels showing in other parts of the vehicle.

Zizzi and the Mill were also swabbed but the levels of Novichok found have been redacted.