The brave police officer left fighting for his life during the Novichok attack in Salisbury has revealed he felt ‘overwhelming guilt’ after his family were forced to leave their home.
Former Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey admitted he first got involved in the ‘unique’ case because he was ‘incredibly nosey’ and had heard two people had collapsed.
Giving his first full interview since leaving the force last year, Bailey opened up about the ‘prolonged trauma’ he still feels following the poisonings in Salisbury three years ago.
And he described how after leaving hospital for the first time, following the ‘pure panic’ of his experience, just going to the supermarket was an activity he struggled to cope with.
He said: “The trauma for me was a prolonged trauma that then started from the point I was admitted into hospital and all the unknowns we had from there.
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“That loss of control over your life that is when it started to get very difficult. I went through a number of emotions and I have done for the last three years.
“I remember feeling pure panic and fear of the unknown because I had been poisoned by this nerve agent and you just don’t know where that is going to end.”
Bailey who served in the police for 18 years left the force in October last year because he ‘could no longer do the job’.
He spoke candidly about how while he was in hospital he felt ‘an overwhelming sense of guilt’ because he had unknowingly taken nerve agent back to his family home.
Bailey is married to wife, Sarah and the couple have two daughters.
The family lost the house and everything inside because he had contaminated it with the nerve agent.
But they were later compensated for the loss of the property by Wiltshire Police.
He said: “There was a lot of fear and a lot of guilt because later on down the line while I was in hospital my family were basically told they had to leave our house because I had accidentally taken nerve agent back and contaminated the house.
“They had to leave because it wasn’t safe. There was an enormous feeling of guilt that I had unknowingly done this and unintentionally done this.
“I had this huge overwhelming feeling of guilt around that.”
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were left fighting for their lives after they collapsed on a bench in the Wiltshire city on March 5, 2018.
Two intelligence agents from the former Soviet state were later accused of carrying out the attack, which sparked an international outcry.
Ex DS Bailey came into contact with the deadly nerve agent when he and two colleagues searched the Skripal’s Salisbury home - where Novichok had been placed on the front door knob.
He ended up in critical condition in hospital, where he was treated for more than a fortnight.
The remnants of the deadly poison, found in a discarded perfume bottle, would later go on to tragically kill mum-of-three Dawn Sturgess months later.
