After counter-terror police confirmed that two people who had collapsed in Amesbury, Wiltshire over the weekend had been poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has announced that he will chair a meeting of the government’s emergency committee, Cobr.
In a statement released a few minutes ago, Javid said:
‘The Amesbury investigation is ongoing and the police must be given the space they need to continue establishing the full facts.
‘My thoughts at this time are with the two individuals affected. The Government’s first priority is for the safety of the residents in the local area but as Public Health England has made clear, the risk to the general public is low.’
The working theory is currently that this exposure was accidental, rather than a second attack along the lines of that on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury earlier this year.
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