Skripal doctor tells of shock as victim woke up

A hospital consultant who treated Sergei and Yulia Skripal after they were poisoned with the nerve agent novichok was "gobsmacked" when Yulia woke and began trying to get out of bed four days after the attack.

- Steven Morris

Dr Stephen Cockroft said he tried to reassure Yulia, who was "crying and terrified", that she was safe and also asked her if anyone had attacked her and her father or sprayed anything over them.

Cockroft told the inquiry into the Wiltshire poisonings he had been "quite sure" at the time that Yulia had suffered "catastrophic" brain damage. He said: "I was gobsmacked this was a girl I never thought I would see move again."

The consultant said he was later warned against questioning Yulia, removed from the intensive care rota and ordered not to discuss the Skripals' symptoms with colleagues. He said this meant his experience recognising the symptoms of novichok were not passed on when Dawn Sturgess, 44, was fatally poisoned with the nerve agent three months later. He said this was a "lost opportunity".