Police launch a desperate hunt for the canister of Novichok that left a couple fighting for their lives

POLICE launched a desperate hunt for a discarded canister of Novichok that left a couple critically ill.

Stricken Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, are believed to have picked up the deadly container, believing it was illegal drugs.

Security chiefs believe they took the mystery small canister – or possibly a syringe – home, and opened it.

Tests show the deadly weapons grade substance got into their systems through the skin on their hands, The Sun has learned.

It also emerged that the two alcohol and drug users are feared to be close to death in hospital.

Doctors fear for their hopes of surviving the nerve agent, because of their weakened immune systems.

The Sun can also reveal that the police hunt for the vial was on Thursday night focusing on Dawn and Charlie’s homes, a hospice in Salisbury and a flat in Amesbury 10 miles away.

Police wearing full chemical protection equipment also sealed off a series of sites where the couple were over the preceding day.

They have cordoned off the couple’s homes, and the hostel where Dawn lived was evacuated as the police searched.

It is thought MI6 agent Sergei Skripal’s assassins “recklessly lobbed away” the vial away after daubing the Novichok on his front door, on March 4.

A source said: “Anyone could have picked it up, even a baby”.

Though Novichok rapidly loses its potency in contact with moisture in the environment, it would have remained well preserved if the vial it was in was sealed.

Public Health England Medical director Paul Cosford warned people in Salisbury not to pick up any discarded objects as a precaution.

And anyone who has believes they may have come into contact with the vial was told to wash their clothes in a normal washing machine.

But despite the alarming new threat to life in the area, the government still insisted Salisbury was a safe place to be.

The Chief Medical Officer declared that there is “no significant risk to the wider public”.

Around 100 detectives from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Network are working around the clock alongside Wiltshire police.

The Met said on Thursday night: “We now know that they were exposed to the nerve agent after handling a contaminated item.

“Detectives are working as quickly and as diligently as possible to identify the source of the contamination.”

Colonel Skripal only escaped death from Novichok poisoning because of the Salisbury rain, security chiefs now believe.

A Russian assassination team sprayed lethal quantities of the deadly nerve agent on his front door handle to infect him with it by touch.

But minutes before he arrived home with daughter Julia on March 4, a sudden downpour diluted its potency.

Novichok is sensitive to moisture and its potency downgrades with contact to water or prolonged exposure to the air.

A senior security source told The Sun: “The truth is we got very lucky.

If it wasn’t for the rain, Skripal would certainly have died, and probably Julia too”.

The revelation solves the four month mystery over how the assassination team managed to bungle the hit on the former Russian military intelligence officer.

The Kremlin has always claimed Soviet-designed Novichok could not have been used because the weapons grade nerve agent would have instantly killed the double agent.

Police search teams have scoured the Wiltshire cathedral city of Salisbury without success for the canister – which was initially believed to be a squirting canister - used by a two-man hit team to poison the spy and his daughter.

Dawn and Charlie collapsed within hours of each other on Saturday at Charlie’s home in Amesbury, near Stonehenge.

Novichok is known to take between 12 and 24 hours to take full effect when absorbed via the skin.

A source told The Sun: "The instrument used to poison the Skripals was never found despite an intensive search for it.

"It was thought to have been a canister and the PolSA teams were told to look out for anything like it.

"It was not only of crucial Importance evidentially to find it, but there was also the public safety aspect.

"But nothing was ever found and it was assumed the hit team may have taken it away with them.

"The strong suspicion is that Dawn and Charlie have now come across it while they together in Salisbury."

Recovering heroin addict Charlie and alcoholic Dawn visited a park close to the Maltings shopping area, where the Skripals were found unconscious on a bench on March 4 this year.

They bought a blanket from a charity shop to enjoy the sunshine in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, one of a number of sites sealed off for examination.

Mum-of three Dawn lives in a hostel 300 yards from the Zizzi restaurant where MI6 mole Sergei and daughter Yulia ate before they collapsed.

Dawn and Charlie were both taken to Salisbury District Hospital, where the Skripals spent weeks before regaining consciousness.

Initially it was assumed they had fallen victim to a bad batch of heroin currently circulating in Wiltshire.

However, two days later the alarm was raised after medics grew suspicious about effects on the couple.

Scientists from the Government’s nearby defence research centre Porton Down later confirmed they had been poisoned with Novichok.

It raises questions about the all-clear given by Public Health England following a giant clean-up operation in Salisbury involving around 200 personnel from the armed services following the Skripal poisoning.

Security Minister Ben Wallace on Thursday revealed it may take “years” to eventually identify Skripal’s attempted killers.

Mr Wallace said: “It may take years, because it is a very complex picture.

“But because we have world leading expertise, we will eventually find out who did it and what happened.”

Debbie Stark, deputy director for Public Health England in the South West, told the press conference that anyone who may have been in any of the cordoned-off areas after 10pm last Friday should take some precautionary measures about washing clothing and cleaning jewellery.

Asked how the 10pm cut-off period had been reached, Ms Stark said: “The scientific advice we are working from relates to the onset of symptoms for one of the cases and counts back to the longest period we would have expected exposure to cause those symptoms, so that is why we have come up with the time.”

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