sink hole

My thanks to Liane for her help in giving me the links to articles in this piece.

In the last two pieces, I have focused on the official timeline of events on March 4th, as stated by The Metropolitan Police on 17th March. In Part #4, I concentrated on the fact that the timeline has not been updated since 17th March to let us know what the Skripals were doing on the morning of 4th March, even though this information is both important and readily available. Then in Part #5, I focused on another very important event that occurred on the afternoon of 4th March, which has been omitted altogether from the timeline: the duck feed. Given that the duck feed occurred after the official narrative says the Skripals were poisoned, but before they went to Zizzis and The Mill, that piece of information alone is enough to completely discredit the official narrative. Which is perhaps why it has been left out.

I want to now focus on one last part of the timeline, which is not something that has been left out, as in the case of the missing 4 hours and the duck feed, but something that appears to have been inverted into the wrong order. Once again, let's begin with the official timeline:
Saturday 3rd March
  • 14.40hrs on Saturday 3 March: Yulia arrives at Heathrow Airport on a flight from Russia.
Sunday 4th March
  • 09.15hrs on Sunday, 4 March: Sergei's car is seen in the area of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road.
  • 13.30hrs: Sergei's car is seen being driven down Devizes Road, towards the town centre.
  • 13:40hrs: Sergei and Yulia arrive in Sainsbury's upper level car park at the Maltings. At some time after this, they go to the Bishops Mill Pub in the town centre.
  • 14.20hrs: They dine at Zizzi Restaurant.
  • 15:35hrs: They leave Zizzi Restaurant.
  • 16.15hrs: Emergency services receive a report from a member of the public and police arrive at the scene within minutes, where they find Sergei and Yulia extremely ill on a park bench near the restaurant.
I noted in the previous piece that the timeline is astonishingly vague in places. No more is this so than regarding the visit to The Mill Pub. As a general rule, when there is such vagueness in an official timeline, it must either be because the information that might clarify things is not available, or because those producing the timeline are attempting to conceal something or detract attention.

Is the information available? Of course, and from a number of sources. Firstly, there are a number of CCTV cameras covering The Maltings, and no less than 12 in The Mill itself, all of which could be checked and the timestamps noted. Secondly, according to witnesses the Skripals are known to have ordered two glasses of white wine whilst in The Mill, and so the cash register or card payment would have registered the time of purchase. Thirdly, there were a number of witnesses who claimed to have seen the Skripals both in the pub and the restaurant. Fourthly, Sergei and Yulia's phones could be tracked to see where they were and when, assuming they were traceable. And fifthly, as I have repeatedly pointed out, Sergei and Yulia are alive, apparently well, and so can be asked to fill in the details.

But if the information is there, why is the timeline so vague?

To answer that, I want to turn to some of the earlier reports, which rely on witness statements to piece together details about the Skripals' movements. All of these reports appeared prior to the release of the Metropolitan Police's timeline and, as you will see, there is something very striking about them:
"Sergei Skripal went for a drink with his daughter at 3pm at The Mill in Salisbury after eating at a Zizzi Italian restaurant. In the pub, they ordered two glasses of wine before Mr Skripal went to use the toilet. The witness, who did not want to be named, said that when he returned he appeared as if he was drunk. He said Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia then left immediately without finishing their drinks." (pressreader.com)

"It is not clear when the Skripals were confronted, having left a branch of Italian restaurant chain Zizzi between 2pm and 3pm. After leaving the restaurant, they are thought to have gone to a nearby a pub called The Mill. They were then seen walking through a shopping precinct and found on a bench overlooking the Avon shortly after 4pm." (dailymail.co.uk)

"The Skripals had eaten lunch in Italian restaurant chain Zizzi in the centre of Salisbury on Sunday. They are believed to have left between 2pm and 3pm and gone to a nearby pub called The Mill before being found later on a bench overlooking the Avon." (standard.co.uk)

"A witness told detectives he saw a man with a black mask covering his nose and mouth acting suspiciously around 3pm last Sunday. At the time Mr Skripal and Yulia were thought to be in the Mill pub a few yards away." (dailymail.co.uk)

"Witnesses have said that after eating at Zizzi's restaurant they went to the Mill pub where Mr Skripal appeared unsteady on his feet, as if "drunk" - even though he had only ordered a single glass of white wine - suggesting the effects of the nerve agent were rapidly taking effect." (telegraph.co.uk)

"Officers yesterday took CCTV from inside The Mill. They had gone into The Mill pub following a meal in a Zizzi restaurant." (thesun.co.uk)

"Steve Cooper, who was at the Mill pub with his wife and dog for a couple of hours last Sunday afternoon, told the BBC he was outraged. Some of his friends, who had been in the pub at the same time and seen Mr Skripal head to the toilet, could not remember what they had been wearing that day, he added. (bbc.com)

When was Mr Cooper in The Mill? Here's what he said in an interview with ITV:

'We'd been sitting on the very bench at around 3pm and then moved onto The Mill Pub and left there at 4:45pm where we saw the air ambulance.'" (facebook.com/itvnewsmeridian/)
In fact, there are three very striking things about these reports:
  • Firstly, they all contradict the official timeline by stating that Sergei and Yulia Skripal went to Zizzis first, then on to The Mill.
  • Secondly, a number of them suggest that the Skripals were in the pub at around 3pm, rather than between 1:40 and 2:20, as the official timeline suggests.
  • Thirdly, they are based on the testimony of witnesses, whereas I have yet to see a single witness statement that backs up the order of events suggested in the official timeline.
But if those reports leave you unpersuaded that the Skripals visited Zizzis first, followed by The Mill, there is more. In this early report in The Times, not only is the sequence stated as Zizzis then The Mill, but there is also an interesting detail. It is said that the Skripals left Zizzis 45 minutes after arriving, before going onto The Mill:
"Within 45 minutes the pair had left and it is assumed that they took the short stroll to The Mill." (thetimes.co.uk)
This same detail was mentioned in another article, this time in The Mail, which carried the following statement by another witness:
"He was going absolutely crazy, I didn't understand it and I couldn't understand him. They had not been seen for a little while by the front of house staff, but I think it was more than that. He just wanted his food and to go. He was just shouting and losing his temper. I would have asked him to leave. He just said, "I want my food and my bill". 'The waiter took him the bill at the same time as the main course, which was unusual. I don't think they paid all of the bill. I think they were given a discount because he was so angry and agitated. He had to wait about 20 minutes for his main course. I think it was easier for the staff just to give him money to leave as he was so angry. They were sitting by themselves at the back of the restaurant but I think people were pleased when they left. They were only there for about 45 minutes. It was a quick lunch. He just wanted to get out of there. She was silent, perhaps embarrassed." (dailymail.co.uk)
Notice how this 45 minutes does not fit into the official timeline. There it is said that they arrived at Zizzis at 14:20 and left at 15:35. By my reckoning, this is 75 minutes. Not 45. And in any case, the 75 minutes would make a nonsense of his apparent agitation at having to wait 20 minutes for his main course.

Put all this together and what can we say?

Firstly: we can be confident that the original reports, based on various witness statements and all claiming that the Skripals went to Zizzis first and then The Mill, are accurate.

Secondly: we can therefore be confident that the official timeline, which places the visit to The Mill before the visit to Zizzis, but which is backed up by no public witness statements, is wrong.

Thirdly: we can construct our own timeline of that part of the day, which although not official, and differing from the official timeline, does at least have the benefit of getting things in the right order:
  • 13:40hrs: Sergei and Yulia arrive in Sainsbury's upper level car park at the Maltings.
  • 13:45hrs: Sergei is seen on CCTV feeding ducks near the Avon Playground, and handing bread to three boys, none of whom seem to have been affected by a nerve agent.
  • 13:50-14:00hrs: The Skripals enter Zizzi Restaurant.
  • 14:35-14:45hrs: They leave Zizzis and walk to The Bishops Mill Pub.
All of which begins to answer the question of why the official timeline is so vague. It is vague because the order of events it posits is incorrect. Furthermore - and I'm sorry to say that I can think of no other plausible reason, given the "cloud of witnesses" mentioned above - it is vague because the order of events it suggests is deliberately incorrect. That is, it appears that a decision has been taken to ignore all the early reports, and to discard all that witness testimony, and instead to advance a timeline that is based on no public witness statements, using the vague and woolly statement, "At some time after this, they go to the Bishops Mill Pub in the town centre".

Which raises a number of important questions:
  1. Why have investigators ignored a large number of reports and witness statements, and have instead produced a timeline that is not backed up by any public testimony?
  2. Why have the media organisations who came up with the Zizzis to Mill order of events after speaking to witnesses, not questioned the Metropolitan Police timeline and its implication that their reports were "fake news"?
  3. Why do those who constructed the timeline seem so keen to avoid people concluding what the early reports state, which is that after leaving Zizzis, the Skripals were in The Mill at around 3pm?