The inside story of the Salisbury poisonings
The News Agents
Global
4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the Spring on 2018, a man and a young woman were found slipping in and out of consciousness on a public bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire. What would follow was an incredible story of espionage, poisoning, and political vendettas. As the world was gripped by the botched assassination of Sergei Skripal, news rooms and crisis rooms here in the UK were reeling with the implications of the Russian attack on British soil.
The attempted killing of the double agent who'd turned to work for UK intelligence led to the death of a British woman Dawn Sturgess, the poisoning of two police officers, international condemnation, and the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats in history.
This Friday, Lewis is joined by Amber Rudd, who was Home Secretary at the time, and journalist Mark Urban, who had interviewed Skripal in the weeks before the attack. They share their unique insight of what it was like working behind the scenes during one of biggest stories of the last decade.
You can listen to the first episode of The Crisis Room here: https://www.globalplayer.com/podcasts/episodes/7DrrwtQ/
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.2 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:14.4 | A major incident's been declared after it's suspected that two people were exposed to an unknown substance in Amesry in the Wiltshire area. |
| 0:21.6 | Passers by noticed two people, apparently unconscious, on a bench in Salisbury. |
| 0:26.6 | The area was investigated by people in protective suits, as suspicions built that the two victims had been poisoned. |
| 0:35.6 | This is being treated as a major incident involving attempted murder |
| 0:40.3 | by administration of a nerve agent. They are understood to be Sergei and Yulia Scripal. |
| 0:46.3 | Both remain unconscious and in a critical but stable condition. I regret to inform the House |
| 0:53.3 | that a police officer has also fallen seriously ill. |
| 0:57.0 | We are committed to doing all we can to bring the perpetrators to justice, whoever they are and wherever they may be. |
| 1:06.0 | There is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder |
| 1:12.3 | of Mr Scrippal and his daughter and for threatening the lives of other British citizens in Salisbury, |
| 1:18.8 | including Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey. Police have now launched a murder inquiry after a woman |
| 1:24.6 | exposed to the nerve agent Novichok in Wiltshire has died. |
| 1:28.5 | Dawn Sturgis died in hospital yesterday evening after falling critically ill. |
| 1:32.6 | It certainly looks like the Russians were behind it. |
| 1:35.2 | Something that should never, ever happen, and we're taking it very seriously. |
| 1:40.7 | There's the famous Salisbury Cathedral, famous not only in Europe but in the whole world. |
| 1:45.9 | It's famous for its 123-meter spire. |
| 1:51.9 | Those clips are a chilling reminder of what, for me, remains one of the biggest and most disturbing news stories of the last decade. |
| 2:01.7 | Descripal poisonings the day the Russian state came to a sleepy British city |
| 2:06.7 | and unleashed one of the deadliest nerve agents on the planet. |
... |
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