Shropshire firm helps team in Salisbury spy poisoning case

Medical supplies business SP Services has been asked to send personal protection equipment including purple disposable gloves and decontamination wipes to some of the teams working on the investigation into the nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter.

They have also fulfilled a request for emergency rescue shears, or heavy duty scissors, used for cutting off clothing.

Steve Bray, Director of SP Services, said: “We are very pleased to be in a position to support the emergency services and the army whenever and wherever in the world they may need it.”

He said that since the nerve agent attack his firm had been contacted by several customers asking for advice on putting together an emergency response kit to deal with nerve agents.

“There isn't any equipment that we would recommend that untrained first responders should purchase in the belief that it would protect them from exposure to nerve agents,“ he said.

The company, based in Hortonwood, supplies medical equipment to the NHS, MOD and the United Nations. It has a large distribution centre which ships tonnes of medical supplies across the UK and the world.

Warned

It comes after Mr Skripal was said to no longer be in a critical condition and responding well to treatment.

Meanwhile, Russia warned Britain it was "playing with fire" over its reaction to the poisoning.

Russian UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya claimed the UK's main argument about the "unquestionable Russian origin" of the Novichok is "no longer valid".

He accused the West of "using the method of Dr Goebbels - lies that are repeated a thousand times become the truth" by trying to manipulate people via the media.

Moscow called the UN Security Council meeting to discuss the incident, with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov saying the UK has "legitimate questions" to answer about what happened.

But security minister Ben Wallace said it was "beyond reasonable doubt" that Russia was to blame for the attack, as the UK sought to maintain diplomatic pressure over the incident.