‘I can no longer do the job’: Salisbury police officer poisoned by novichok quits force

A police officer who almost died after being poisoned in the Salisbury novichok attack in 2018 has announced he is quitting the force because he can “no longer do the job”.

 Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey said he was leaving Wiltshire Police after 18 years because he now knew he would “not find peace” while remaining an officer. 

At the end of a statement on Twitter, he used the hashtag #MentalHealthMatters.

“After 18 years in the Police Force I’ve had to admit defeat and accept that I can no longer do the job,” the statement read. “I wanted to be a Police Officer since I was a teenager, I couldn't envisage doing anything else, which is why this makes me so sad.

“Like most Police Officers, I’ve experienced my fair share of trauma, violence, upset, injury and grief. We deal with it, take it on the chin and keep going because that’s our job. But we’re still human and the impact this has shouldn’t be underestimated.”

“The events in Salisbury in March 2018 took so much from me and although I’ve tried so hard to make it work, I know that I won’t find peace whilst remaining in that environment. Policing will remain in my heart and I feel honoured and privileged to have been part of Wiltshire Police.”

Mr Bailey was the first investigator to enter Sergei Skripal’s home after the former double agent and his daughter fell ill in March 2018. 

Mr Bailey and other officers did not know at the time that novichok had been used, but later found the nerve agent had been smeared on a door handle.

He spent two weeks in intensive care following his poisoning, during which time his wife and two daughters feared he would die. After being discharged from hospital, Mr Bailey said he and his family had endured an “emotional battering”.

“Not only did we lose the house, we lost all of our possessions, including everything the kids owned, we lost all that, the cars,” he said at the time. “We lost everything. And yeah it’s been very difficult to kind of come to terms with that.”

Mr Bailey made a third attempt to go back to work in June this year, describing how he “couldn’t deal with being in a police environment”, after efforts to return in September 2018 and in January 2019.

The Skripals survived but the incident later claimed the life of Dawn Sturgess after she came into contact with a perfume bottle believed to have been used in the attack and then discarded.

Her partner, Charlie Rowley, was left seriously ill but recovered.

Two Russian nationals have been accused of travelling to the UK to try to murder Mr Skripal with novichok.

The suspects – known by aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – were caught on CCTV in Salisbury the day before the attack.

Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement, with President Vladimir Putin claiming the two suspects were civilians.

Additional reporting by PA