Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations Neil Basu speaking on Wednesday night

A man and woman found unconscious in Wiltshire were exposed to Novichok - the same nerve agent that poisoned ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal, police say.

The couple, believed to be Charlie Rowley, 45, and Dawn Sturgess, 44, fell ill at a house in Amesbury on Saturday and remain in a critical condition.

Police say no-one else has presented with the same symptoms.

There was "nothing in their background" to suggest the pair were targeted, the Met Police said.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has chaired a meeting of the government's emergency Cobra committee to discuss the developments.

Prime Minister Theresa May said her thoughts were with the victims and the government would provide every support to the community.

"The message from Salisbury is clear - it is very much open for business," she added.

What happened?

Image copyright Facebook Image caption The couple, believed to be Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, spent Friday in Salisbury

On Saturday, paramedics were called twice to a house in Muggleton Road in Amesbury - first at 11:00 BST after Ms Sturgess collapsed, then later the same day, after Mr Rowley also fell ill.

Wiltshire Police said it was initially thought the two patients had been using heroin or crack cocaine from a contaminated batch of drugs.

In the early hours of Wednesday, police declared a "major incident" after revealing the couple had been exposed to an "unknown substance".

By late that evening, Scotland Yard said Novichok was to blame following analysis at the defence research facility at Porton Down, Wiltshire.

What do we know about the couple's movements?

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A friend of Charlie Rowley describes the symptoms he witnessed

Partners Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess spent Friday afternoon and evening visiting shops in Salisbury, the city where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned.

The following day Ms Sturgess, who is understood to be a mother of three, was taken away on a stretcher by an ambulance crew.

Friend Sam Hobson said she had appeared to have a fit and was "foaming at the mouth".

Shortly after, Mr Rowley started "rocking against the wall", said Mr Hobson.

"His eyes were wide open, glazed and pinpricked, and he was sweating, dribbling and making weird noises."

Mr Hobson said the police and firefighters were in "hazard suits" and "cordoned it all off".

Ms Sturgess' father Stephen, 65, told The Times the family found out she may have been poisoned by a nerve agent from TV news.

"We heard from the hospital on Sunday and we gave them Dawn's GP details but we didn't hear anything from the police.

"We know as much as the next person in the street. We actually called the police station for information."

What is Novichok?

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Chemical weapons expert Richard Guthrie says the nerve agent used on the Skripals may have been disposed of haphazardly

Novichok, a nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, takes effect within minutes, blocking messages from the nerves to the muscles.

This affects breathing, can cause paralysis and lead to the collapse of bodily functions. There are antidotes to help reverse the chemical effects.

It acts quickest when ingested or inhaled and more slowly when contact is made through skin exposure.

Novichok is designed to be persistent - it neither evaporates nor decomposes quickly.

It was used in the UK in March in an attack on former Russian double agent Mr Skripal and Yulia, who were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury - about 10 miles from Amesbury.

The two were critically ill in hospital for weeks but both were discharged in less than three months.

The highest concentration of Novichok was found on the Skripals' front door.

The UK government blamed Russia for the assassination attempt but Russia has denied any involvement and accused the UK of inventing a "fake story".

How did it happen?

The BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera said the most likely hypothesis was that the Novichok was left over from the attack on the Skripals.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said they could not confirm whether the nerve agent came from the same batch but the possibility was "clearly a line of inquiry".

His officers are examining the couple's movements to determine where they were poisoned.

So far no contaminated items have been found and the police say they have no idea what the nerve agent was contained in.

Security minister Ben Wallace said: "The working assumption would be these are victims of the consequences of the previous attack or something else but not that they were directly targeted. That could change."

He called on Russia to fill in the gaps in the Skripal attack and "put this wrong right".

"I'm waiting for the phone call from the Russian state - the offer is there," he told the BBC's Today programme.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this incident looked like "a very, very unfortunate - and hopefully not tragic - after-effect of that earlier incident".

Chemical weapons expert Richard Guthrie said it was possible that the couple came across the Novichok which poisoned the Skripals after it had been disposed of "in a haphazard way".

However, Vil Mirzayanov, the Russian scientist who first exposed the Novichok programme, cast doubt on the theory, saying Novichok would have decomposed in the four months since the Skripal attack.

He told the BBC this must have been a separate incident because Novichok was unstable, especially in damp conditions.

Are others at risk?

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Security minister Ben Wallace says he cannot guarantee people are 100% safe from further contamination.

The risk to the general public remains low, says England's chief medical officer Sally Davies.

However, she advises people who had been in the cordoned-off areas to wash their clothes and wipe down personal items.

Residents at John Baker House, the supported housing where Ms Sturgess is believed to have been staying, have been evacuated and told they will have to be rehoused.

The police warned members of the public against picking anything up if they didn't know what it was.

Asked whether the people of Salisbury and Amesbury were at risk, security minister Ben Wallace said the "best intelligence officers in the world" were working on the investigation but until the full picture of the Skripal assassination attempt was known, he couldn't offer complete reassurance.

Sites in Amesbury and Salisbury believed to have been visited by the couple before they fell ill have been cordoned off as a precaution, including a church, park and chemist.

This latest incident is likely to raise fears about the efficacy of a multimillion pound clean-up to decontaminate nine locations across Salisbury after the Skripal poisoning.

What's been the reaction in Russia?

It's "very alarming news", said Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Putin.

"It causes great concern as there have already been numerous such incidents in Great Britain."

He also said he was "unaware of any requests" from the UK in relation to the Amesbury incident.

Russian media: 'Groundhog Day'

By BBC Monitoring

The state media in Russia are deflecting any suggestions of a Russian link to the new poisoning.

Even before it emerged that the Novichok agent was involved, Wednesday night's primetime TV bulletins sarcastically said it was only a matter of time before Moscow gets the blame.

State-run Rossiya 1 suggested it might have been staged by the British government out of spite over the "fabulous" World Cup hosted by Russia.

NTV - owned by state gas giant Gazprom - called it "another dodgy story" from the Salisbury area, this time aimed at deterring fans from coming to Russia.

Again, it added, the British had offered no detailed evidence: "Boris Johnson and British journalists will think up the rest."

Channel One accused the UK of "dragging old skeletons out of the closet" to discredit Moscow ahead of President Vladimir Putin's upcoming summit with Donald Trump.

"Groundhog Day. New Skripals in Salisbury. Really?" said its presenter. </s> British police launched a murder investigation Sunday after the death of a woman who was exposed to a Russian nerve agent.

Dawn Sturgess, 44, of Durrington, was exposed to the nerve agent Novichok in Amesbury, police said. Her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, 45, also fell ill on June 30 and remains hospitalized in critical condition, police said.

About 100 police detectives led by the Counter Terrorism Policing Network are working on the case around the clock, police said. Authorities are still trying to determine where and how the two were exposed to the nerve agent.

"This is shocking and tragic news. Dawn leaves behind her family, including three children, and our thoughts and prayers are with them at this extremely difficult time,” said Neil Basu, an assistant commissioner who is head of Counter Terrorism Policing for the United Kingdom. "This terrible news has only served to strengthen our resolve to identify and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for what I can only describe as an outrageous, reckless and barbaric act.”

The couple were found by emergency services about 10 miles from Salisbury, where Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the same nerve agent on March 4. Britain blamed Russia for the Skripals’ poisoning.

“The working assumption would be that these are victims of either the consequence of the previous attack, or something else, but not that they were directly targeted,” Security Minister Ben Wallace told the BBC.

“Russia has categorically denied and continues to categorically deny the possibility of any kind of involvement to what was happening there,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters July 5. “The British side has not presented any evidence of Russia’s involvement in this, besides unfounded accusations.”

The case began with a 10:15 a.m. ambulance call June 30 to a residence in Amesbury, where Sturgess had collapsed. About 3:30 p.m., the ambulance was called to the same residence to care for the man.

The UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory confirmed on July 4 that Sturgess and her boyfriend had both been exposed to Novichok, police said. No one else at the scene developed the same symptoms.

Further tests from Sturgess and Rowley showed that they were exposed to the nerve agent after touching a contaminated item with their hands, police said.

Police said there is no evidence that either of them visited any of the sites that were decontaminated following the attempted murders of the Skripals. Police couldn’t say whether the four were all contaminated from the same batch of nerve agent. </s> British investigators have descended upon a small English town to find out how two apparently random individuals were exposed to the same Soviet-era nerve agent that nearly killed a former Russian double agent and his daughter earlier this year.

Authorities confirmed Wednesday night that a couple, identified in British media as Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, were being treated for exposure to Novichok, a highly toxic nerve agent first developed in secret by the Soviet Union.

The pair remain in critical condition after being rushed on Saturday to Salisbury District Hospital, the same hospital that treated former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia who were poisoned in March.

Police say they don’t believe that Rowley and Sturgess were deliberately targeted — unlike the Skripals, who British authorities suspect were the victims of a Russian plot.

British Home Secretary Sajid Javid will chair an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss the incident. Prime Minister Theresa May has been updated on the situation, her office told CNN.

UK Security Minister Ben Wallace said Thursday in a BBC interview that the British government would find out who was responsible for the latest nerve agent poisonings and what exactly happened in Wiltshire “no matter how long it takes.”

Rowley and Sturgess live in Amesbury, a town of fewer than 10,000 people about 20 minutes’ drive from Salisbury where the Skripals were poisoned.

Authorities did not name the two but described them as British nationals local to the area.

Paramedics were called to an address on Muggleton Road, Amesbury, at 10:15 a.m. Saturday, after a woman, later identified as Sturgess, collapsed, according to Neil Basu, the assistant commissioner for counter terrorism at the London Metropolitan Police.

They were called back later the same day when the man, now known to be Rowley, had also fallen ill.

The couple made a round trip to Salisbury from nearby Amesbury on Friday, according to family and friends who spoke to British media. Authorities said while they were in Salisbury they didn’t visit any of the sites that were decontaminated in connection to the Skripal case.

Doctors initially thought they’d been exposed to a batch of contaminated cocaine or heroin. However, concerns over their symptoms prompted medical officials to look at Novichok as a serious possibility.

Basu said authorities received test results Wednesday evening that confirmed the couple had been exposed to Novichok.

Residents told CNN they were very concerned by the news, coming only weeks after the poisoning of the Skripals and subsequent cleanup by the authorities.

“It is quite scary and very worrying as well. To know it is still about,” said Paula Bull, a mother of six. “This is no place for my kids to grow up, it’s really worrying. I’m going to be more cautious.”

Another Salisbury resident, who gave her name only as Susan, said she was “really angry” with the authorities for not living up to their promise to clean up the area after the Skripal case.

“The only place I ever saw getting cleared was the bench where Sergei Skripal was found,” she said. “We don’t need this sort of thing, it’s very quiet lovely beautiful area, and to have chemicals like that around — you just can’t have it. There are too many elderly and too many children.”

What’s the connection to the Skripal case?

Beyond the fact that all four individuals were exposed to the same nerve agent, it’s not clear if there’s any connection between the cases.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury in March. Authorities believed they were exposed to Novichok at Sergei Skripal’s home. Both were admitted in critical condition and spent weeks in the hospital before they were discharged.

The March incident in Salisbury sparked a diplomatic dispute between the UK and Russia after British investigators and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) blamed Moscow for the attack.

Russia has denied the allegations, but that did not stop more than 20 other countries from expelling Russian diplomats in a show of support for the UK.

Rowley and Sturgess, however, do not appear to have a relationship with Moscow.

Authorities said there was no evidence that the two were specifically targeted. They’ve been described as normal, local residents with no ties to Russia.

Basu said police were not in a position to say whether Rowley and Sturgess were exposed to the same batch of Novichok as the Skripals were. He added that authorities were looking into whether the two investigations were linked.

Wallace, the Security Minister, told BBC Radio 4 that Russia could help by giving Britain all of the information it has on the nerve agent and the attack on the Skripals.

“The Russian state could put this wrong right. They could tell us what happened, what they did,” Wallace said, adding that one day “the world will know that Russia had a chance to right that wrong and protect the people of Salisbury and they choose not to take it.”

Speaking to Britain’s Sky News, he reiterated the belief that the Amesbury pair “weren’t linked” to the poisoning of the Skripals but admitted authorities “don’t know the full picture of what happened.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that the United Kingdom had provided no proof of Russian involvement in the attack on the Skripals. “You know that from the very beginning of the Salisbury case, Russia categorically denied and continues to deny the possibility of any involvement,” he said.

Asked by CNN to comment on Wallace’s remarks, Peskov said: “The UK security minister knows that Russia proposed to have a joint investigation. This proposal is on the agenda and was made long ago. Unfortunately, the British side isn’t interested in it.”

Hours earlier, the Russian embassy in the Netherlands said Britain was “dumb” if it believed Russia was behind the latest poisoning.

“How dumb they think Russia is to use ‘again’ so-called ‘Novichok’ in the middle of the FIFA World Cup and after the special session of the CSP (convened by the way by Britain) that gave the #OPCW attribution functions. The show must go on?” the embassy tweeted. The CSP refers to the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, held by the OPCW.

Britain has not accused Russia of deliberately targeting the latest victims.

What are authorities doing?

The priority for investigators, according to Basu, is to establish how Rowley and Sturgess came into contact with Novichok.

Police have cordoned off a number of sites the two visited before they fell ill as a precautionary measure.

Wiltshire Police Deputy Chief Constable Paul Mills listed five locations that the couple was believed to have visited and were blocked to the public: Amesbury Baptist Church; a Boots pharmacy in Amesbury; Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury; the John Baker House in Salisbury, a supported living facility; and the property on Muggleton Road.

Authorities did not say when the victims visited each location, but church secretary Ray Collins told CNN he believed the couple attended a family fun day at the church on Saturday, though he did not know who the pair were.

The fun day began at 2 p.m., according to the church’s Facebook event, so it’s possible that only Rowley went.

Nerve agents kill by affecting the nervous system in various ways.

Novichok, which works by causing a slowing of the heart and restriction of the airways, is one of the world’s rarest nerve agents. Very few people outside of Russia have experience with it.

It was first developed in secret by the Soviet Union during the Cold War in the 1980s, as a means of countering US chemical weapons defenses but was revealed to the world by former Soviet scientist and whistle-blower Vil Mirzayanov.

Mirzayanov told CNN that Novichok is up to 10 times as potent as VX, the weapon used to kill Kim Jong Un’s half brother, Kim Jong Nam, in 2017.

“A lethal dose … and the person will die immediately. If [the dosage] is less, [the person] will go through very tortuous scenes. They will start convulsions, and stop breathing and then lose vision, and there are other problems — vomiting, everything. It’s a terrible scene,” Mirzayanov told CNN. </s> The mobile phones of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were switched off for four hours on the day they were poisoned, it has been reported.

It may suggest that the pair were trying to meet someone "off the record" before they were attacked with the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury earlier this month.

But now it is being reported that their phones were switched off for a crucial period on March 4 - the day of the incident.

The devices’ GPS signals, which help identify where someone is, were not in operation for several hours, The Sun on Sunday reports.

A source told the paper: “The most credible explanation is their phones were switched off during the morning of the day they were targeted.

"The most likely reason would be if they were going to meet someone and wanted to remain off the radar.”

Skripal was jailed in Russia in 2006, but was pardoned and freed four years later as part of a spy-swap.

He sought refuge in the UK and had lived here ever since. His daughter Yulia lived in Moscow.

The bench the Skripals were sitting on when they were found unconscious was removed by a team of forensic investigators in protective suits on Friday.

It comes just days after a judge warned that Sergei and Yulia may never recover from the attack.

Blood tests indicated that the nerve agent Novichok or a related agent was found in the Skripal's blood samples taken and analysed by the UK's Porton Down military labs.

An unidentified consultant who is treating the Skripals told the Court of Protection they were both heavily sedated, unable to communicate and that it was not possible to say when or to what extent either may regain mental capacity.

They were both in a but physically stable condition and were being treated "on the basis they would wish to be kept alive", the consultant said.

Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey who also fell in the attack was released from hospital but said his "life will never be the same again".

The British Government, the EU and United States of America have all said it is "highly likely" that Russia was behind the attack on the Skripals.

Britain expelled 23 diplomats after Moscow failed to answer questions about the attack - in response 23 British officials were expelled from Russia.

The EU has withdrawn its ambassador to the country but the Kremlin deny any involvement in the attack. </s> Emergency services have been called to a restaurant in Salisbury after a man and woman were taken ill this evening.

Wiltshire Police said the area surrounding Prezzo restaurant has been closed while they work to establish what caused the "medical incident" involving a man and a woman on Sunday.

It is the same area where Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in March.

According to the Mirror , witnesses reportedly described police "covering someone up with a blanket".



 People inside the Old Ale House pub have been told they can't leave, it was also reported.

Writing on Facebook Amanda Newton said: "How on earth did we get caught up in this!!

"A nice meal in Prezzo turns into a major incident as 2 Russians sitting next to us take seriously ill and the whole area is closed.... we are being taken to a safe place and may need blood tests at Salisbury hospital.....

"Will keep everyone updated ..... I'm sure we will be fine!!"

The ambulance service alerted detectives at about 6.45pm.

Firefighters were also in attendance.

Witness Sam Proudfoot, 16, said he saw a person in a hazardous material suit go between the restaurant and the ambulance.

"I've been told two people were taken ill in there," he said.

"There's a man in a full white body suit with a mask to his mouth going in and out of the back of the ambulance and the restaurant."

Wiltshire Police said: "Police were called by the ambulance service to Prezzo, High Street, Salisbury at 6.45pm today following a medical incident involving two people.

"As a precautionary measure, the restaurant and surrounding roads have been cordoned off while officers attend the scene and establish the circumstances surrounding what has led them to fall ill."

South Western Ambulance Service said it dispatched four ambulances including a hazardous area response team after being called at 5.38pm.

The patients were conscious at the last update and were being treated at the scene, a spokeswoman added.

Tensions are heightened in the cathedral city because of recent Novichok poisonings.

The Italian restaurant is a short walk from Queen Elizabeth Gardens which was until recently closed off after 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess was fatally poisoned by the nerve agent.

Police said she was killed by the same chemical used in an alleged hit by Russian military intelligence officers on former spy Sergei Skripal. </s> A major incident was stood down in Salisbury on Sunday night after police said two people who fell ill in a restaurant had not been exposed to novichok.

A cordon had been set up around the Prezzo Italian restaurant, close to where the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal collapsed after being poisoned with the nerve agent.

Fears had been high in the city after the poisonings, but police confirmed there was nothing to suggest novichok had caused the man in his 40s and woman in her 30s to fall ill.

Wiltshire Police said that, due to recent events in the city and concerns the pair had been exposed to an unknown substance, a “highly precautionary approach” had been taken by emergency services.

Police said: “Both were taken to Salisbury district hospital and were clinically assessed. We can now confirm that there is nothing to suggest that Novichok is the substance. Both people remain in hospital under observation.”

Streets were closed off and people were told to stay inside as experts in hazmat suits worked in and around the restaurant.

Investigators were trying to establish if the pair had been victims of a crime and the restaurant remained cordoned off on Monday morning.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A member of the emergency services at the Prezzo restaurant. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

A source briefed by the emergency services told the Press Association that medics alerted the police because the symptoms were consistent with novichok poisoning, but stressed the symptoms could have other causes.

Tensions have been high in Salisbury since two Wiltshire people, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, were poisoned in June apparently after finding a bottle containing novichok discarded following the Skripal attack. Sturgess later died.

Police have consistently said they cannot be certain there is no more novichok in Salisbury.

This month British police named two men they allege carried out the attempted murder on Skripal and claimed they were officers from Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. The men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, came forward to say they were tourists in the city to visit Salisbury Cathedral.

Two people claiming to be witnesses said the two who fell ill in the Prezzo Italian were Russians. This was not confirmed by the authorities.

The restaurant is between the bench where the Skripals collapsed in March and the cathedral. It is also close to a park that was sealed off after it emerged that Rowley and Sturgess had been there the day before they were poisoned.

The Skripals visited a different Italian restaurant, Zizzi, in Salisbury before they were taken critically ill, although the police are convinced they were poisoned at Sergei Skripal’s house.

South Western ambulance service said medics were called at 5.38pm. Four ambulances were sent, including a hazardous area response team, a spokeswoman said. Initially the service said the patients were conscious and being treated at the scene. The ambulance service alerted the police at 6.45pm.

A witness, Sam Proudfoot, 16, tweeted a video of emergency services gathered at the scene:

Sam Proudfoot (@samproudy01) Trouble in Salisbury again on New Street near the cathedral, no sign of what’s happened but there’s 1 fire engine, 1 ambulance and 4 police cars, a man in a full white body suit with a mouth-mask and police not allowed to tell us what’s happening @BBCNews @SpireFM @SkyNews pic.twitter.com/3XpNVkH9or

On Facebook a woman called Amanda Newton said she had been at the restaurant and claimed she had been sitting next to the pair who had fallen ill. She wrote: “We are being taken to a safe place and may need blood tests at Salisbury hospital ... will keep everyone updated ... I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

The BBC said it had been told by someone in Prezzo that the scene was “like armageddon”. The diner, who did not want to be named, said one of those taken ill was a blonde woman in her late 20s.

The woman appeared to be at the table on her own and “kept going away, getting up and coming back again”, it was claimed. The witness added: “When she came back she was hysterical. She called paramedics and the next thing an ambulance turns up and they come rushing in.

“It materialised he [the man who has been taken ill] was up in the toilet. He’d had a fit and they came back in all gowned up with all the white and the masks on.”

The witness told the BBC she had called the police. “Suddenly we had sirens and it was like armageddon.”

Both the unnamed BBC witness and Newton suggested the pair were Russians but the police have not commented on this.

Matthew Dean (@MattDeanStPauls) Understandably people concerned at latest possible incident in #Salisbury but there have been a number of false alarms since the #Skripal poisoning. Rightly the emergency services start with a highly precautionary approach until they know otherwise.

Gill Cleary, who lives close to Salisbury, came into the city to find out what was going on. She said: “I saw one person in a hazmat suit coming out of the restaurant about 20 minutes ago. I think they’re just bring cautious but I can’t help being apprehensive because we don’t know what else is out there.”

The leader of Salisbury city council, Matthew Dean, previously urged the public not to leap to conclusions, pointing out there have been a number of false alarms since Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned. </s> Two Russian nationals have been named as suspects in connection with the Salisbury poisonings in England.

Two Russian nationals have been named as suspects in connection with the Salisbury poisonings in England.

There is sufficient evidence to charge Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov with offences including conspiracy to murder over the Novichok attack on ex-Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March, Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service have said.

Neil Basu, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said it is likely the suspects were travelling under aliases and Petrov and Boshirov are not their real names. The pair are believed to be aged around 40.

The announcement will deepen the rift between Britain and Russia after the nerve agent attack sparked a wave of diplomatic expulsions by the UK and its allies.

British authorities are understood to believe several Russians were involved in the attempted murders, which also led to 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess becoming an indirect casualty of the poisoning.

A small amount of Novichok is thought to have been used in liquid form to target the Skripals in March.

In July, a source with knowledge of the investigation claimed two suspects had been identified and had left Britain after the attack.

It is understood the suspected perpetrators were identified through CCTV footage that was cross-checked with border entry data.

The UK Government has insisted it is "highly likely" Russia was behind the attack, but Moscow has repeatedly denied responsibility.

Ms Sturgess died in July, with authorities believing she and boyfriend Charlie Rowley picked up a discarded vial containing the substance. The pair fell ill on June 30 in Amesbury, near Salisbury. Mr Rowley remains seriously ill in hospital. Police believe it is linked to the poisoning of the Skripals, who were discovered slumped on a bench on March 4 and have since been discharged from hospital.

Independent investigators have confirmed the nerve agent used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal was the same toxic chemical that killed Dawn Sturgess three months later.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OCPW) said it had confirmed the UK's findings, which concluded in July the substance used in Amesbury was Novichok.

Ms Sturgess, a mother of three, died eight days later having never regained consciousness. It is believed they were exposed to a military grade nerve agent from a perfume bottle discarded by those responsible for the attack on the Skripals.

The OPCW said: "The results of the analysis by the OPCW-designated laboratories of environmental and biomedical samples collected by the OPCW team confirm the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that intoxicated two individuals in Amesbury and resulted in one fatality.

"The toxic chemical compound displays the same toxic properties of a nerve agent.

"It is also the same toxic chemical that was found in the biomedical and environmental samples relating to the poisoning of Mr Sergei Skripal, Ms Yulia Skripal, and Mr Nicholas Bailey on March 4 in Salisbury."

Six months on from the attack in Salisbury, Russia has reiterated its belief that the UK is flouting international law by apparently keeping the pair from having contact with embassy officials.

A statement released by the Russian Embassy referred to the circumstances of the March attack as "obscure" and accused British authorities of keeping the Skripals in isolation ever since their release from hospital.

It said: "They remain out of the public eye at an unknown location, unable to communicate freely with their relatives, friends, journalists or Russian officials, deprived of the freedom of movement." </s> London: Two people fell ill on Sunday when eating in a restaurant in Salisbury, the English city where former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in March, police said.

Police were called to the Prezzo restaurant in the evening in response to a "medical incident" involving a man and a woman, Wiltshire Police said in a statement.

"As a precautionary measure, the restaurant and surrounding roads have been cordoned off while officers attend the scene and establish the circumstances surrounding what led them to become ill," it said.

Britain has said Russian officers used the nerve agent Novichok to attack the Skripals. The Kremlin has denied any involvement.

Police have said a nerve toxin had been left on the front door of the Skripals’ home. They were found slumped in Salisbury city centre after visting the Bishop’s Mill pub and Zizzi, another Italian restaurant. </s> Police have closed streets in Salisbury as a "precautionary measure" after two people were taken ill from a restaurant, amid heightened tensions after the Novichok poisonings.

Wiltshire Police said they were called by the ambulance service at about 6.45pm on Sunday after a "medical incident" involving a man and a woman at Prezzo restaurant.

South Western Ambulance Service said it was called to the scene more than an hour earlier and dispatched four ambulances including a hazardous area response team.

Roads were cordoned off around the Italian restaurant on the corner of High Street and Crane Street as police tried to determine what caused them to fall ill. Firefighters were also at the scene.

Witness Sam Proudfoot, 16, said he saw a person in a hazardous material suit go between the restaurant and the ambulance.

"I've been told two people were taken ill in there," the student said.

"There's a man in a full white body suit with a mask to his mouth going in and out of the back of the ambulance and the restaurant."

A witness in the nearby Cafe Rouge restaurant said they could see police bagging something up in the street outside.

Wiltshire Police said: "Police were called by the ambulance service to Prezzo, High Street, Salisbury at 6.45pm today following a medical incident involving two people.

"As a precautionary measure, the restaurant and surrounding roads have been cordoned off while officers attend the scene and establish the circumstances surrounding what has led them to fall ill."

A spokeswoman for the ambulance service said the patients were conscious at the last update and were being treated at the scene.

Tensions are heightened in the cathedral city because of recent Novichok poisonings.

The Italian restaurant is a short walk from Queen Elizabeth Gardens, which was until recently closed off after 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess was fatally poisoned by the nerve agent.

Police said she was killed by the same chemical used in an alleged hit by Russian military intelligence officers on former spy Sergei Skripal.
Investigators discover the Skripals switched off their mobile phones for four hours shortly before falling ill, and begin examining mobile phone data from everyone in Salisbury the day of the crime in a bid to link a phone to the poisoner.