Tom Simons

What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service.

You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel who were killed by the United States.

So this Christmas, give your ears a treat with Dead Funny History.

I want to believe that this day marks the beginning of a new path.

Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal had picked up the Novichok which had been smeared on the door handle of their house in Salisbury.

They had been taken ill in the town centre and quickly, within a few days, it became clear it was the use of a nerve agent.

And then fast forward some months later, and I think the months are quite interesting because what happens is the three GRU officers have a fake bottle of perfume that they've carried this Novichok around in

They have dumped it somewhere in Salisbury and it's been picked up by Charlie Rowley, who's the partner of Dawn Sturgis.

He appears to have kept it for some months and then given it to her as a present.

And she rubbed it, rubbed it on herself and on her wrist and then probably smelt it as well and was taken ill.

And, you know, very, very quickly was unsavable despite the care that she was given by.

And it was praised in this report.

So you have this awful incident where a normal 44-year-old English woman is caught up in a global espionage plot.

And that is quite an astounding thing to even say out loud.

It has said that, contrary to what has been claimed in some places, that this is some kind of fake attack, perhaps carried out by the British to make Russia look bad.

No evidence of that.

That it was carried out by these three GRU intelligence officers, as the Metropolitan Police found.

That they would not have done this without it being signed off by superior officers.

That they did it fairly recklessly, almost without trying to not be caught.

I mean, they didn't hide their faces on CCTV or anything like that.