Charlie Rowley
Charlie Rowley
Charlie Rowley getting carried into an ambulance by police and paramedics in hazmat suits
In November 2015, Rowley was jailed for eight weeks for posession of eleven wraps of heroin and theft of £1,700 from Matthew Rowley.
He was already serving a suspended sentence for driving while banned.
Rowley was found unconscious along with Dawn Sturgess at a property on Muggleton Road in Amesbury in Wiltshire on Saturday 30 June 2018.
Sam Hobson, a friend of Rowley said that she pair had touched an unspecified item in Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury then began feeling ill and were getting ready to go to hospital.
The friend alleged Sturgess and Rowley "went into a zombie-like state" and "slumped against the wall".
Swindon fire brigade's operational support unit made a seventy seven mile round trip to Amesbury and made a (now deleted) tweet that the incident "wasn't serious" and that their "decontamination shower wasn't required". [7]
Rowley is a registered heroin addict and went to Boots in Amesbury while Sturgess was being rushed to hospital by paramedics.
Rowley was then taken to hospital by police and paramedics in hazmat suits.
Police initially issued a statement concerning contaminated drugs.
Ministry of Defence sources then claimed the couple were poisoned by a substance that has been retrieved and had samples sent to the Porton Down research facility for immediate testing and suggested it could be a Novichok nerve agent.
Doctors have suggested the syptoms exhibited by Rowley are similar to those exhibited by Nick Bailey, Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal.
Wiltshire Police declared a major incident and the Prime Minister, Theresa May attended a COBRA meeting on Wednesday 4 July.
Rowley was taken to Salisbury Hospital and reported to be in critical condition. Tanya P. has noted this unusual if they believed at the time it was a case of opiate poisoning.
Around 2pm on Wednesday 4 July Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, along with the press visited the street where Rowley was taken ill. de Bretton-Gordon later went on television and came up with a story of assumptions suggesting that Russian assassins had casually discarded a syringe or container with Novichok or precursors, possibly into a nearby river, which had drained and allowed the Rowley and Sturgess to find and touch it, despite no such syringe or container having been recovered. The police then announced the same thing. [1]
Around 9pm on Wednesday 4th July, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu alleged the substance which has left Rowley critically ill in hospital was the the same A-234 Novichok nerve agent that was involved with Sergei Skripal.
Craig Murray has noted it unusual that Rowley and Sturgess, despite being unemployed, were in an expensive property on Muggleton Road, Amesbury. According to Zoopla homes range from £270,000 up to £430,000 on that road, which is a new build estate. Murray noted that on Rowley's facebook page, one of his “Likes” is a mortgage broker, which Murray found to be consistent with his brand new house. Murray also speculated whether Pablo Miller might know Sturgess or Rowley from having lived in the same community.
The British government has asked the Russian government to explain the incident.
[1] The Russian government has asked the British government to stop with the nerve agent "intrigues"
See Also
Nick Bailey