Salisbury Bins To Be Tested At Porton Down

Police cordon after Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fell ill at an address in Amesbury (Image: PA)

Police investigating the Novichok poisonings of Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess in Wiltshire have taken two bins to the military research lab at Porton Down.

Detectives removed the bins from an area behind shops in Salisbury for detailed examination.

Investigators are working on the theory that the substance was in a discarded perfume bottle picked up in a park or somewhere in Salisbury city centre.

The bins from a cordoned-off area behind Catherine Street will be taken to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down for analysis, Scotland Yard said.

The move comes after officers from the counter-terrorism policing network spoke to Mr Rowley about his recollections prior to him falling ill.

Mr Rowley, 45, and Ms Sturgess, 44, were taken ill in Amesbury, near Salisbury, on June 30 after being contaminated by the nerve agent.

Ms Sturgess, a mother-of-three, died eight days later, having never gained consciousness. Her funeral was held on Monday.

Mr Rowley has said the nerve agent took just 15 minutes to poison Ms Sturgess after she sprayed the "oily" substance on to her wrists believing it was perfume he had given her as a gift.

Last month, defence experts at Porton Down confirmed the use of nerve agent Novichock in the incident.

The incident in Wiltshire is the second to involve nerve agent in four months, following the case of Sergei Skripal, 67, and his daughter Yulia, 33, who were found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury in March.

The advice from Public Health England remains that the risk to the public is low.

Why Is Porton Down Used?

When the Amesbury incident first came to light a month ago, the DSTL was the facility where the substance was examined.

But why is Porton Down so often the go-to in these situations?

When tests were carried out at the military research lab at the start of last month, we asked Dr Michelle Carlin, a toxicologist from Northumbria University, why Porton Down is so often used: