Some public health advice not given until after Novichok death

A key witness for Public Health England was unwell on Monday, but the inquiry did hear from Professor Sir John Aston, chief scientific adviser at the Home Office.

He was in some of the key meetings at the time and, when challenged during the inquiry, acknowledged there was a risk of causing panic if a warning was put out about a discarded contained if there were not concrete facts.

He led a review into lessons learned, finding there could have been better communication between public health staff and counter-terror police.

In that report, however, Sir John said no mistakes were made in terms of public health that would have made any material difference to what happened.

He did warn that there was a need to be “careful about the fact that Novichok was found” because it did not “necessarily imply that the risk was high that it would be found”.

“We have to be careful that we don’t flip the timing in order to change what we believe the risk actually was,” he said.

The witness for public health will appear at a later date, but the inquiry is now due to focus on the poisoning suspects and how they were traced.