Police chief says public not warned about discarded novichok container

The counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume box picked up by Charlie Rowley, who later gave it, and the bottle inside, to his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

People were not warned against picking up discarded objects after the 2018 novichok attack on the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal despite concerns that a container of the nerve agent had been left in Salisbury, a senior counter-terrorism police chief has said.

Commander Dominic Murphy told an inquiry that he believed no warning was issued by public health leaders until after the poisoning of Dawn Sturgess three months later when she sprayed herself with a dose of nerve agent from a fake perfume bottle apparently found in a bin in the city.