Ex-chief medical officer says it is possible she may not have made a public warning over risks

The former chief medical officer for England claimed she had a “strong recollection” of advising the public not to pick up objects they found near the scene of the novichok attack on the Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal , despite there being no record of her making such a statement.

Dame Sally Davies, who was speaking at the inquiry into the Salisbury poisonings in Wiltshire, said she had a recurrent nightmare that a child would find a discarded container of the nerve agent.