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I think Lapsed Agnostic has it spot on wheh he/she mentions – “The footage further shows that they sat down on the bench at 15:36. There’s no sign of any impairment in their gaits. So why would they sit down again in front of some shops just a couple minutes after they’d been seated for an hour and 15 minutes at Zizzi’s? I think they were waiting for someone. ”
And…. “I wonder why we’re not being treated to footage from the library’s CCTV from 15:48 to 15:55 on 4th March 2018.”
Precisely. We have narrowed it down to between 15:36 and 16:00 approx that afternoon. Before that, the Skripals show no sign of incapacitation. After that, they are fitting, vomiting, rambling incoherently and then unconcious.
The footage from that camera would show what happened during those 20 minutes, who they were meeting, and indeed the minutes afterwards – and who was really the first person to come to their aid. Maybe we should put in a Freedom Of Information request to view it? After all, if it is declared unavailable due to National Security, we can draw our own conclusions. It may have been wiped of course, but then someone could be charged with (at least) perverting the course of justice by deleting vital evidence of a crime scene.
Lapsed Agnostic, you said “The footage further shows that they sat down on the bench at 15:36. There’s no sign of any impairment in their gaits. So why would they sit down again in front of some shops just a couple minutes after they’d been seated for an hour and 15 minutes at Zizzi’s? I think they were waiting for someone.”
Just because they sat down on the bench does not mean they were waiting for someone. In fact, if the nerve agent was just beginning to take effect on one of them then it is perfectly understandable that they would want to sit down. For example, “I need to sit down for a minute, dad, I feel a bit funny”, they sit, and then get progressively worse.
Having said that, there are some comments in the witness statements that allude to reasons why they might have another appointment. The night before, Ross Cassidy had told Sergei that he was going to be at a club until 3:30 and suggested that Sergei meet him there. Perhaps Sergei was rushing to catch him by 3:30 or shortly after.
Ross had also said his son was going to help Sergei repair a broken shower fitting in Sergei’s house. Sergei had told the son that he would be out from 2pm to 5pm that day, so possibly they had arranged for the son to come at 5pm to fix the fitting and Sergei didn’t want to keep him waiting.
Another point that I am very curious about is who made the initial silent 999 call? You would think they would have the number and location of that phone. But I have not seen any answer to this yet.
Fortnite
What’s this silent 999 call you referred to? Could you elaborate, as I’ve heard nothing about this before.
(I’m assuming that you’re talking about someone making a 999 call at or around the time the Skripals became incapacitated, and made from somewhere in that location)
Thanks
Now I can only imagine that The Maltings shopping center is pretty busy most of the time, and Sunday would be no different, and quite possibly even busier than most week days. And my point is this (which only occurred to me yesterday): That no-one appears to have noticed the Skripals as they initially started to become ill, and the only people that spotted them, did so when they were already incapacitated – ie Yulia slumped against Sergei and him staring into the sky and making gestures with his hands (pointing to the sky or something like that). And it makes me wonder – if it WAS all an act – if they were looking around them waiting for a point when there was no-one close by so that they could then start their performance.
Maybe this could explain the absence of the library CCTV during this period.
That is an interesting thought, Allan; but are you saying they somehow made themselves vomit and go rigid?
Or are you implying they had some form of organophospate upon their person and contaminated themselves with it?
Certainly, it is not a scenario I had contemplated. And it does not explain the DS Bailey poisoning.
Allan, I read about the silent 999 call here. I haven’t found the source article yet. Hopefully I find it in the inquiry statements – if I do, I’ll post.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/04/the-official-skripal-story-is-a-dead-duck/comment-page-5/The time stamp on the ‘red bag’ video is 15:47:48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icyHxcfrgNQ
This is almost 12 minutes after the Skripals sat on the bench (of course the CCTV clocks may not be accurate). There are lots of benches in the Maltings area where couples could sit down, with or without red bags.
I wonder which one this red bag couple sat on, and were seen by Freya Church as she left the Snap Fitness gym?
She told the BBC that the couple were in similar pose (to how the Skripals were found).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43297638
They could have walked right by the Skripals.
The “red bag” couple are worthy of further attention, because by an unbelievable coincidence they have dressed in similar fashion to the Skripals. Not exactly the same coloured clothing, but quite close.
The alternative explanation would be that the Skripals were monitored by an unknown agent who relayed their colour/style of clothing back to the red bag couple, after the Skripals had left their home that Sunday lunchtime.
This would give them a maximum of 2 hours to dress appropriately before walking self consciously through Salisbury shopping centre, and remembering to glance towards the CCTV as they passed.
The agent controlling the red bag couple would also have told them where to go, at what time, and how to pose on a suitable bench – as Freya Church described. (The woman leaning on the man’s shoulder, and the man staring up to the sky).
This suggests that the agent controlling the red bag couple knew not only the time of the meet-up between the Skripals and person(s) unknown, but also the most likely effect of the drug that would be administered to both the Skripals before that time.
Jon
In response to what you said in your 19.32 post yesterday, all I’ll say for now is that the odds on two people becoming ill and incapicitated in the same moment several hours after coming into contact with a nerve agent are absolute zero. And the means by which the would-be assassins supposedly decided to assassinate Skripal is just preposterous beyond words.
I’ve posted in the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry thread, but because it seems to have no other people posting in it yet, I’m cross-posting here for the time being (apologies in advance, but I think it’s related and noteworthy).
The Dawn Sturgess Inquiry witness today was Guy Rutty, who did the autopsy on Dawn. The most fascinating thing is that he draws attention to the OPCW public report on their analysis of the blood and tissue samples from Dawn Sturgess. In the official OPCW report, they do not mention the word novichok. They can only bring themselves to say “toxic chemical”. This has always left me gobsmacked.
In addition to this, the other gobsmacking thing I learned at today’s session is that after providing the OPCW with numerous blood and tissue samples for them to independently test, the OPCW never came back to him with any of their findings. Incredible!
Listen to this from about the 02:01:25 mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4f78vIvptAHere is the official OPCW public report on Dawn Sturgess
https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018/09/s-1671-2018%28e%29.pdfAllan, I agree entirely with your statements about the chances of poisoning at the same time being zero; and furthermore it would require the “red bag” couple to have all these effects as prior knowledge, before they did their walk past a CCTV camera and posed on a Maltings bench for Freya Church to notice them as she left work. Which is why I believe the whole idea of anyone being poisoned from a door handle touched over 2 hours earlier, is complete nonsense.
Which leaves the only sensible scenario of the poisoning taking place during the 15-20 minutes while the Skripals were seated on the bench, and having an immediate effect as poisons/nerve agents tend to do.
However, without any kind of evidence of what actually happened after they sat down, the conclusion will be pure speculation. The official narrative has its version and I have mine. The wonderful irony being that the red bag couple who were there to confuse proceedings, and any witnesses, have unwittingly almost blown the entire Novichock idea out of the water by their poor timing.
Of course my theory has one (if you will) elephant in the room, and that is DS Bailey.
This is not helped by the fact that in the early days, he was said to have been first at the scene and gave CPR to the couple on the bench; and even gained a glowing tribute to his heroism from the Chief Constable of Wiltshire. The story soon changed to one where he was not at the scene at all, during the first couple of hours.
I was just browsing through the first part of my initial comment (when I first started this thread) and there was a passage from a Guardian article and, bewilderingly, a key aspect of it that I didn’t say anything about. Here’s the passage I’m referring to:
A police van was outside Skripal’s home in Salisbury on Monday night. James Puttock, a neighbour, said that he had lived in the area for more than seven years [Sergei Skripal, that is]. He was “very quiet”, he said. “If I see him in the street I say hello. Police have been here since Sunday afternoon. They’re in the house asking questions now.”
Well I don’t know who the police would have been questioning in the house, or why Mr Puttock would have reason to think the police were in the house asking questions, but the KEY thing of course is that they WERE **IN** the house (as of when the Guardian reporter/journalist was speaking to him – ie James Puttock – which from what it says, was on the Monday night/evening. I don’t think I need to elaborate, but I will at some point anyway.
Former Russian spy critically ill in UK ‘after exposure to substance’
Luke Harding,Steven Morris and Caroline Bannock
Tue 6 Mar 2018 05.27 GMT (note the time it was posted)And I just came across the following re the Inquiry, posted on Oct 31st:
Doctor was ‘gobsmacked’ when Yulia Skripal woke up four days after being poisoned by Novichok
A doctor who treated Sergei Skripal and his daughter has told an inquiry he was “gobsmacked” when Yulia Skripal woke up four days after being poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok.
Dr Stephen Cockcroft described the moment he was called into Ms Skripal’s room by a colleague, asking him to “come quick, Yulia is getting out of bed!”
“I could see Yulia was crying, she looked very, very anxious, absolutely terrified”, said Dr Cockroft. He said he held her hands and tried to reassure her, and was “staggered” when she looked him in the eyes.
He had previously believed Ms Skripal was likely to have suffered “catastrophic” brain damage as a result of the poisoning.
“If I thought there was going to be some real long lasting damage it would be to her. And there she was – apparently awake,” he said.
Mr Cockcroft said he asked whether anybody had attacked her and her father, adding: “I said, ‘we think you have both been poisoned.’ I think I asked her ‘did anyone spray anything over you?'”
Dr Cockroft told the inquiry he didn’t get a response from Yulia , who was sedated again within around five minutes, but was subsequently suspended from the Intensive Care Unit and told it would be treated as “serious misconduct” if he discussed any aspect of the poisonings again.
I’ll just repeat that last passage (with emphasis):
DR COCKCROFT told the inquiry he didn’t get a response from Yulia , who was sedated again within around five minutes, but WAS SUBSEQUENTLY SUSPENDED FROM THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT and told it would be treated as “serious misconduct” if he discussed any aspect of the poisonings again.
OMG, this is very interesting as well, for reasons I’ll explain later:
Consultant ‘removed from treating Yulia Skripal after asking her what happened’
Dr Cockcroft said his initial working diagnosis was that the two had suffered a drugs overdose. He said Salisbury had suffered an unusually high number of drug overdose patients in the months preceding the incident.
However, he began to suspect poisoning, and his suspicions were further raised when a police officer told him to google Sergei Skripal.
He said the officer told him: “I think you should Google Sergei Skripal, you’re not going to believe what I have just found out.
Allan, yes indeed, the oral evidence from Dr Cockcroft was extremely interesting. It is indeed very suspicious that he was removed from their care and threatened. I really hope the inquiry digs deeper into the reasons for this.
If I was to play Devil’s Advocate, then the most reasonable explanation for this is that if you question a witness with leading questions while they are under the influence of powerful anesthetic then this might well put ideas into their mind, and that any subsequent questioning of the witness after they have recovered might be unreliable and tainted; perhaps the police were aware of this and wanted to make sure that Dr Cockcroft did not do this again. But if this is the reason he was removed from their care, then I would have expected the police to first speak to Dr Cockcroft.
I was watching the Live feed while Dr Cockcroft was giving oral evidence, and during that session at one point one of the QCs interrupted and told Lord Hughes to “Stop the feed”. The Live feed stopped for a while and contoinued later. I’m not sure if any explanation was given for this, and I don’t know if any oral evidence or anything of significance was said during the downtime. Did anyone else see this occur?
Journalist John Helmer is interviewed by Chris Cook on Gorilla Radio about his views of the Skripal incident.
He makes some interesting points.But I’m not sure how rigorous his conclusions are. For example, Helmer says that if the Skipals were poisoned at the bench rather than via the doorhandle, then this proves that the attack was carried out by the UK governmwnt and not by the Russians. But he fails to explain why this follows.
https://gradio.substack.com/p/gorilla-radio-with-chris-cook-john-edc
And another great collection of article links in this UK Column summary article “The day of the Skripal”
In response to what I posted in my 09.36 comment on November 7th, Fortnite said the following (in his 11.49 comment the same day):
If I was to play Devil’s Advocate, then the most reasonable explanation for this is that if you question a witness with leading questions while they are under the influence of powerful anesthetic then this might well put ideas into their mind, and that any subsequent questioning of the witness after they have recovered might be unreliable and tainted; perhaps the police were aware of this and wanted to make sure that Dr Cockcroft did not do this again. But if this is the reason he was removed from their care, then I would have expected the police to first speak to Dr Cockcroft.
Sorry Fortnite, but I don’t buy any of it.
Afterthought: I wonder why they were so quick to sedate her again – ie within about five minutes of her regaining consciousness?!
OBj, I just did a search to see if I could ascertain when Yulia finally regained consciousness and, as such, this BBC News article from March 29th came up in the results, and down the page a way there’s a picture of a couple of policewomen standing at the front of Skripal’s house, with the front door just behind them, and there’s a handle on the door, as opposed to a doorknob, and I’m totally confused because I thought I HAD seen a doorknob on the front door several years ago. And of course Craig has always spoken in terms of a doorknob. Anyway, it’s probably neither here nor there, but I just noticed that the window beside the door/porch is actually open.
I have also seen a photo of the police guarding the Skripal house, but the photo is from further down Christie Miller Road and shows the whole house (I can’t remember where I saw it though, sadly). There is steam coming from the boiler flue on the roof, indicating the central heating is switched on, and the two top windows of the bedrooms facing in that direction are both open.
It seems strange for this to be the case if the owners are in hospital.
Allan, you said you don’t buy my suggested explanation as to why Dr Cockroft was removed from the ICU ward while the Skripals were there.Do you have any suggestions as to why this was done? I agree it is very suspicious and I hoped the inquiry would have delved deeper into this.
You also wonder why they needed to sedate Yulia so quickly after she woke up. This is because Yulia was in a very serious condition and she was put into an induced coma or sustained sedation to allow her to be treated and to allow her body to recover. When patients are in induced comas it is standard practice to periodically perform sedation holds, that is to stop the sedation and allow the patient to wake up for few minutes, and then to restart the sedation. The reason sedation holds are performed is to allow the doctors to discuss things with the patient, check things with the patient, reassess whether continued sedation is still necessary, and to give the patient some information about what is going on.
From Dr Cockroft’s witness statement: “The sedation holds are things that we do two or three times a day. When we have a longer term intensive care patient, by this I mean patients that are going to be with us for more than two days, it is routine practice to stop drugs that are sedating to patient to allow them to wake up and interact with the nursing
staff or the Doctors.”
https://dsiweb-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/INQ004608.pdfIf you google sedation holds, you will find a scientific paper that evaluates the benefits and risks of sedation holds (sedation holidays).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK513327/Thanks for the link to the article showing the photo of the Skripal’s house, which does indeed show a window has been left open. This seems to contradict what Nick Bailey said in his witness statement, where he said they went into the house in order to make sure everything was in order and that doors and windows were closed. From page 5 of his witness statement he says “I was also told that the windows of the house were open and again we debated what necessity and powers we had to enter under. Insp SCHORAH and I reached an agreement that we would ask the neighbour to go in and shut the windows to secure the house (not knowing how long the occupants would be away) and that we (police) would assist them in this task.”
https://dsiweb-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/INQ005130_1-14-Nick-Bailey-Witness-Statement_Redacted.pdfIt appears that after going into the house, they did not close the windows. I would have expected the inquiry to have shown this photo and then asking Nick Bailey why they did not close the window, given that was one of the stated reasons for entering the house in the first place.
For Jon, the BBC article that Allan posted above clearly shows a window is open.
Thanks for your reply from a few days ago FJ. Sorry for the late reply again. In answer to your question, I can’t see a red bag in any of the CCTV clips presented at the Inquiry, but Yulia appears to me to be carrying a small, black bag.
Contrary to what you wrote, I don’t think that the couple caught on CCTV outside Snap Fitness were dressed in a similar fashion to the Skripals. The man was dressed in all black, whereas Sergei was wearing a light-coloured jacket and blue jeans. The woman also seems to have grey/platinum blonde hair, whereas Yulia had brown/auburn hair in the CCTV footage. In their witness statements, PC Alexandra Way & Acting Sergeant Tracey Holloway describe the woman they found unresponsive on the bench as having brown hair, and the off-duty doctor Helen Ord said she had red hair. (On the other hand, PC Alex Collins stated she had blonde hair, and Alison McCourt mentioned that she had ‘dyed blonde hair with roots’.)
Rather than impersonating the Skripals, I think the couple with the red bag were the ones who poisoned them with something – probably an organophosphate nerve agent, but not Novichok. I reckon they then left the bag at Yulia’s feet, whether by accident or design. If you look carefully at the CCTV footage, the woman appears to be holding something in her left hand – is it a syringe? It also looks as if the man and the woman may have latex/nitrile gloves on.
The problem with your theory Lapsed Agnostic, is that Freya Church saw the red bag couple on a bench.
To quote from the Daily Mail
“Detectives are also examining CCTV of a man and woman walking through an alleyway shortly before the pair were found.”
“Witness Freya Church, 27, who later spotted the pair ‘slumped’ and ‘passed out’ on the bench, said the couple pictured in the CCTV images released today were ‘100%’ the people she saw slumped on the bench on Sunday.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5467051/Was-Russian-spy-poisoned-Zizzi.html
In another report she mentions that the woman had a red bag at her feet, but I can’t find that page at present. It may be the Telegraph, but that is behind a paywall and I don’t have a subscription.
Thanks for your reply FJ. The problem with what Freya Church told the Hate Mail is that it conflicts with what she told the Graun:
(relevant quotation is half-way down the page – headed: 6 March 2018 12:33 GMT)
She told them that the man she saw on the bench was ‘definitely’ Sergei Skripal. I think the most likely explanation is that she saw an older man and a woman with a red bag on the bench and she convinced herself that it must have been the couple on the Snap Fitness CCTV. (As an agnostic, I’d say exercise caution when anyone says they’re 100% certain of anything.)
In light of this, can we be sure that Yulia had a red bag by her feet? No, but a red bag was also mentioned by the reporter from the Solent News, and may even be visible in the picture published by the Evening Standard:
I’ve been busy recently, so I’m struggling to keep on top of everything that’s coming out of the Inquiry – but I’ll try to write some more about it later in the week. Enjoy what’s left of the weekend.
