Secrets of the Salisbury Poisonings Will Be Your Next True Crime Obsession

Investigating the 2018 poisoning of former double agent for the British intelligence agencies, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, Secrets of the Salisbury Poisonings will present first-hand testimonies from the people at the centre of the story.

Among those interviewed for the crime documentary are Novichok poisoning survivors ex Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey and Charlie Rowley.

Former Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey had been the first officer to investigate the home of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, was contaminated by the deadly nerve agent in the process, and was forced to quit the police force as a result.

Three months after the original poisoning, Charlie Rowley and his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess were found in critical condition after unknowingly coming into contact with Novichok in a bottle of Nina Ricci perfume.

In his most in-depth interview since the incident, survivor Charlie Rowley will speak of his guilt at unknowingly giving his girlfriend the gift that ultimately ended her life.

In Secrets of the Salisbury Poisonings Charlie says while looking through old photos of Dawn: "The first flat that I’ve ever had, they had to tear it down. The perfume bottle that I had could have wiped out thousands of people, with the amount of nerve agent that was in the perfume bottle, found in my flat.

“I believe that it wasn’t the same bottle that poisoned the Skripals for the simple reason, the poison turned up three months after the initial poisoning, it was in a sealed box, in a sealed package which I had to break open and physically put two parts of the pump together to make it work.”

He adds: "I literally poisoned my girlfriend, unknowingly, I still did it, I killed my girlfriend, it’s not a good thing to live with.”  

Also giving his testimony for the documentary is Chemical Weapons Expert Hamish De Bretton Gordon OBE, who advised the government at the time of the Salisbury poisonings and lives in Salisbury.

Of Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess' poisoning, he says: “We think there was about a quarter of an eggcup of Novichok, if you administered that correctly it could have killed tens of thousands of people. This wasn’t a standard Nina Ricci bottle, this had been manufactured so that the applicator was key. Finding the perfume bottle was the most important piece of the puzzle”.

Secrets of the Salisbury Poisonings is available to stream exclusively on discovery+