DS Nick Bailey, the police officer who nearly died after being exposed to the nerve agent novichok during the Salisbury poisonings in 2018, has announced he is leaving Wiltshire Police. In a statement on Twitter, he said he 'can no longer do the job' despite trying hard to 'make it work'.
Bailey, who had served for 18 years, said: 'After 18 years in the police force I’ve had to admit defeat and accept that I can no longer do the job. I wanted to be a police officer since I was a teenager, I couldn’t envisage doing anything else, which is why this makes me so sad.' He added that the events in Salisbury 'took so much from me' and that he would not 'find peace whilst remaining in that environment'.
Bailey returned to active duty in January last year after 10 months of recuperation. He described the moment he learned he had been poisoned with novichok as 'petrifying'. Mark Andrews, chairman of Wiltshire Police Federation, called Bailey the victim of an 'unprecedented' crime and said he would be missed by every officer he had come into contact with.
Wiltshire Police Chief Constable Kier Pritchard wished Bailey 'the greatest success for the future', noting that his life was 'turned upside down' following the events of March 2018. Police and Crime Commissioner Angus Macpherson said Bailey 'found himself in a situation that no other police officer in this country has been through'.
Bailey was taken to hospital after searching the home of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, who along with his daughter Yulia was left fighting for life after collapsing on a bench in Salisbury on 5 March 2018. The UK government concluded that the assailants were officers from the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU.
