Consultant ‘removed from treating Yulia Skripal after asking her what happened’

A hospital consultant has told an inquiry he was removed from the treatment of Yulia Skripal after asking her questions about what happened to her when she suddenly woke up in intensive care.

Dr Stephen Cockcroft was the ICU consultant who treated Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the first 24 hours after they arrived at Salisbury Hospital on March 4 2018, the Sturgess Inquiry heard on Thursday.

The former spy and his daughter are believed to have been poisoned after members of Russian military intelligence smeared the nerve agent on Mr Skripal’s door handle in the Wiltshire town.

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.

He said his thoughts turned to previous incidents where highly potent synthetic opiates had been used in assassinations, such as by the Israelis in Jordan and the Russians in Chechnya.

The inquiry heard that Ms Skripal’s clinical presentation was particularly bad when she arrived at the hospital.

“I was really concerned for Yulia Skripal’s welfare,” he said.

He added that he thought she had likely suffered “catastrophic brain damage”.

However, Dr Cockcroft’s time caring for the Skripals would soon come to an end.

Ms Skripal had been placed in a sedation hold, but suddenly she woke up. He said a nurse ran up to him and said, “Steve, come quick, Yulia is getting out of bed”.

He said he was “gobsmacked” at the news.

“I will be honest with you, I was actually gobsmacked, this is a girl I never thought I would see move again,” he said.

“I never thought she would be capable of having a conversation.”

He said Yulia looked “terrified”.

He defended his decision to speak to her while she was awake, saying “you can’t just not talk to them”.

He said he told her: “Your father is in the next room, we think you have been poisoned, did anybody attack you?”

He also asked her if she had been sprayed with anything.

After this incident, he said he was removed from the intensive care rota covering Mr and Ms Skripal by Dr Christine Blanshard, the medical director of the hospital.

“I always talk to my patients even when I think they can’t hear me, to explain what’s happening,” he said.

He described Ms Blanshard’s attitude as “a little difficult”.

In his statement he said he was summoned to a meeting with Ms Blanshard to discuss his handling of the incident on March 12.

“There is no formal record of that meeting, however, I was suspended from working on the ICU with immediate effect until Yulia or Sergei had either been discharged or died,” he said.

“Apparently by having had a conversation with Yulia Skripal I had been unprofessional and should have left such a conversation to the security services.”

After taking him off the rota, he said Ms Blanshard told him not to discuss any aspect of the poisoning with colleagues, and warned him it would be treated as “serious misconduct” if he did.

What followed was “a very difficult time” he said, with colleagues stopping talking about the poisoning in front of him.

He said he was prevented from talking about his experience caring for the Skripals at a debriefing and a lecture held after the incident.

The debriefing was held at Porton Down, a defence laboratory near Salisbury, in April 2018, and the lecture was at Salisbury Hospital in June of the same year.

At the April 2018 Porton Down meeting he said he was initially advised that he should speak about the presentation and recognition of the poisoning, however, Ms Blanshard intervened and steered the discussion to a different topic.

While at the hospital lecture he said he was not given the opportunity to speak

The inquiry continues.