Sergei Skripal told friends Putin would ‘get him’ if he returned, inquiry told

Sergei Skripal’s former next-door neighbour has told a public inquiry how the former spy said President Vladimir Putin would “get him” if he returned to Russia.

Ross Cassidy was giving evidence as the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry resumed in London on Monday.

Mr Cassidy told the hearing how Mr Skripal and his family moved in next door to him in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in about 2010, and they quickly became good friends.

The haulage contractor and former Royal Navy sailor said they would discuss his time in Russia, including his time in the military.

Mr Cassidy was shown a statement he made which said: “In the time I’ve known Sergey (sic) he would sometimes tell us he was in the military, starting off in airborne troops and ended up that he was a diplomat.

“Sergey did say he could not go back to Russia or there would be ‘reprisals’, he would not go into much details about what this was all about, but did say he knew Russian leader Putin personally and said Putin would ‘get him’.”

Answering questions at the inquiry, Mr Cassidy said: “They were all from separate occasions but, yes, he did talk about reprisals.

“But I remember it specifically when he said about Putin will get him.”

Mr Cassidy explained how Mr Skripal talked about this to his friends at a “gathering of us chaps on a Sunday”.

He said that, prior to giving evidence at the inquiry, he checked with those friends, asking them “he did say that, didn’t he?” and they confirmed it.

Mr Cassidy told the inquiry, sitting at the International Dispute Resolution Centre, that he and his wife later googled Mr Skripal and discovered his spying activities.

The inquiry is examining how Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after she was exposed to the chemical weapon Novichok, which was left in a discarded perfume bottle in Amesbury, Wiltshire, in July 2018.

This followed the attempted murders of Mr Skripal, his daughter Yulia and then-police officer Nick Bailey, who were poisoned in nearby Salisbury in March that year.

All three survived, as did Ms Sturgess’s boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, who had unwittingly given her the bottle containing the killer nerve agent.

The inquiry, chaired by former Supreme Court judge Lord Hughes of Ombersley, opened at the Guildhall in Salisbury earlier this month but started hearing evidence in London on Monday.

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