'Hoax' may be line of inquiry in Salisbury
A hoax is likely to be one line of inquiry after a couple apparently fell ill in a Salisbury restaurant on Sunday prompting a major incident, police sources have told the BBC.
Alex King, 42, was admitted to hospital with his wife, six months after a nerve agent attack in the same city.
Mr King is a convicted criminal and once hoaxed Prince Charles.
Police sources said until the man had been spoken to, "we can't rule anything in or out".
On Tuesday, Mr King's wife, Anna Shapiro, 30, told the Sun that the Russian state had poisoned her and her husband in Prezzo.
The paper reported it was "what security sources fear was a suspected rat poison attack".
The article has since been removed from the newspaper's website "for legal reasons".
Wiltshire Police earlier confirmed the pair were not exposed to any nerve agent and that it was not linking their illness with the recent poisonings in Salisbury and Amesbury.
It is understood that the couple also tested negative for any other poisons, including rat poison.