boshirov petrov
Here's a question for those who have been scratching their heads over the Salisbury poisonings, and even those who haven't: How many clear pieces of CCTV footage from 4th March of people connected or allegedly connected to the case have you seen?

The images of Mr Skripal's car being driven down India Avenue and then Devizes Road do not count, since there is no clear image of the person or persons in the car. Nor does the two seconds of CCTV footage of a couple (not the Skripals) walking through Market Walk, since it is notoriously unclear and blurry. Nor do the images of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov traipsing around airports and train stations and the centre of Salisbury, since those are stills.

No, I'm talking about actual footage of actual people moving from one place to another - you know, like people do - and in which they can be clearly recognised.

The answer, unless I have missed something, is one. That's it. Yes, I understand (as people remind me from time to time), that the police are under no obligation to give a running commentary on the case, or release loads of CCTV footage. True, but you'd think that since this is the biggest investigation this country has ever seen in our lifetimes, and with so much at stake, there would have been something. An image of the Skripals, perhaps? Feeding the ducks, perhaps? Or would duck-feeding compromise national security?

Anyway, the footage I am referring to is the 30 seconds or so of Petrov and Boshirov outside the Dauwalders stamp and coin shop. Significantly, this was not released by the Metropolitan Police, but was, I believe, leaked to the Daily Mail. But it does fit the bill for what I am talking about. You can actually see the two men. Clearly and recognisably. They are actually moving. Like people do. And on the stills that were released with it, you can even see a timestamp showing real times.


It is, therefore, one of the most significant pieces of evidence released to the public domain, as I hope to explain. But before I get to that, here are some straightforward statements of fact about this footage:
  • Firstly, it is the only CCTV footage of Petrov and Boshirov on 4th March that has been released which shows the two men moving.
  • Secondly, the time stamps on the stills show them to have been outside the shop between about 13:48:40 and 13:49:06.
  • Thirdly, the timestamps put this incident after the stills put out by the Metropolitan Police of the men on the bridge at Fisherton Street and the entrance to Summerlock Approach (see the first two images in the sequence of three below), which were said to be at 13:05 and 13:08 respectively.
  • Fourthly, Dauwalders is located roughly in between the location of the image at 13:05 and 13:08
  • Fifthly, the footage shows them walking past the shop along Fisherton Street from the town, towards the train station.
  • Sixthly, what this means is that after walking towards the train station and being filmed at Summerlock Approach at 13:08, they then went back into town, to the other side of Dauwalders, before returning to walk past it once more, heading towards the train station at 13:48 - 13:49.
salisbury petrov cctv
There are some huge implications in this.

First and foremost, it shows that the time given out by the Metropolitan Police on the image of the two men at Salisbury train station that day, heading back towards London, is wrong. That image comes with the timestamp of 13:50:56 (see the third image in the sequence above).

Why wrong? Because the last time stamp of the two men at Dauwalders is 13:49:06, which means that for the Metropolitan Police time to be correct, the men would have had to get from there to the station - a distance of approximately 550 yards (or just over 500 metres if you prefer), on foot, with two road crossings on the way, plus traffic - in 1 minute and 50 seconds. It can't be done. It's physically impossible. And in any case, the two men are clearly not in a hurry when leaving Dauwalders, and clearly not out of breath when at the station.

But how do we know which timestamp is correct? Firstly, you will notice that the timestamp on the image of the two men at the station is not on the CCTV image itself, but has rather been added as a footnote by the Police. Why is this? Secondly, the owner of a shop, especially one like Dauwalders which undoubtedly has many valuable items, is duty bound to ensure that their CCTV is working accurately for insurance purposes. It is therefore highly unlikely that the time on the Dauwalders footage would be incorrect. And thirdly, one of the commenters on this blog has claimed to have received confirmation that the timestamps are accurate.

Which means what? That the Metropolitan Police timing of the two men being at the station at 13:50:56 is almost certainly incorrect. If that is so, it may be tempting to put it down to an error or incompetence (not that there should be either when the stakes are this high), but when taken together with the CCTV images of the men at Gatwick Airport, which this video rather convincingly shows were taken by the same camera, and what we have is extremely disturbing indeed.


But the Dauwalders CCTV may well have even more significance than showing the Metropolitan Police's timing at the station to be wrong. As I mentioned above, to my knowledge the footage was not released by the Met, but was leaked to the Daily Mail. Prior to its release, we had the images of the two men walking towards the train station at 13:05 and 13:08, and the image of them at the station at 13:50:56. For anyone looking carefully, this gave rise to the question of what the two men were doing during those 42 minutes (as I wrote here). Nevertheless, one still got the overall impression from the images that they were heading in the direction of the train station from 13:05 onwards.

The Dauwalders CCTV completely debunks this. As I stated in the six points above, this footage shows clearly and unambiguously that after walking in the direction of the train station from 13:05 to 13:08, the men did not continue in that direction. They actually went back into the town, and then at some point after that, they again walked in the direction of the train station.

Why did they do this?

I do not know the reason, but it ought not to pass us by that this behaviour is so far from what you would expect from highly trained intelligence officers who have apparently just carried out an assassination attempt using a chemical weapon on the territory of another country, as to make the accusations that they were deadly door handle assassins very possibly the frontrunner for the Most Risible Idea of 2018 Competition (it is up against some stiff competition, mind).

But there is something that is of even more significance than this. The men start walking past Dauwalders at around 13:48:40. This is just 3 minutes or so after Mr Skripal was seen on CCTV in the Avon Playground, feeding ducks with three local boys (of course this CCTV hasn't been released to the public, but I have been told that it does it exist). For those of you who don't know Salisbury, the distance between these two places is less than 200 yards, walkable in about a minute-and-a-half or so.

That's interesting, isn't it? The Skripals in the Avon Playground at 13:45 (and perhaps a few minutes after). Their alleged door handle assassins, Petrov and Boshirov, less than 200 yards and under 2 minutes walk away at 13:48:40. Just to put this into context, it is lot closer than the distance between the Shell garage on Wilton Road and Sergei Skripal's house.

Whether this is significant or not, I do not know. What is undoubtedly true, however, is that without that Dauwalders CCTV - the only proper footage from the whole day - there are three things we would not know:
  • Firstly, we would not have known that the time given by the Metropolitan Police for the two men at the station on 4th March, heading back to London, is almost certainly wrong.
  • Secondly, we would not have known that after the image of the two men at Summerlock Approach at 13:08, instead of carrying on towards the station, they returned to the town, which would mean either retracing their steps up Fisherton Street, or going round the back of Summerlock Approach, past the back of Sainsbury's and alongside the Avon Playground.
  • Thirdly, we would not know that Petrov and Boshirov were less than 200 yards from the Skripals between 13:45 - 13:49 on 4th March.
But thanks to the leaking of the only proper CCTV footage from the day, we do now know those things.