THE British army’s chief nursing officer was the first adult to help double agent Sergei Skripal after he collapsed in Salisbury last March, it has been revealed.

Colonel Alison McCourt was walking through Salisbury when her teenage daughter, Abigail, spotted Mr Skripal slumped on a bench. They then delivered first aid until paramedics arrived.

The colonel’s role remained under wraps for almost a year until she nominated her daughter for a bravery award run by local radio station, Spire FM, who broadcast an interview with Abigail late last week.

Col McCourt became the British army’s most senior nurse in February 2018, a month before the apparent poisoning.

She had previously spent 200 days in Sierra Leone with the British army where she ran an Ebola treatment centre in Kerry Town.

However, former diplomat turned rights activist Craig Murray said it was an “incredible coincidence” that Col McCourt was the first adult to attend to the Skripals.

“For the Skripals to collapse on a bench from novichok just as the chief nursing officer of the British army walks past is as probable as my vacuum cleaner breaking down just as James Dyson knocks on my door looking for directions,” he tweeted.

In another development, the Telegraph reported today that “well-placed sources” now believe Russian spies forged a Linkedin account for Mr Skripal’s MI6 handler Pablo Miller.

The dubious online account said Mr Miller worked as a “senior analyst” at Orbis Business Intelligence, founded by Christopher Steele, ex-head of MI6’s Russia desk.

Mr Steele used Russian sources to write the notorious “Trump dossier” that alleged the Kremlin held compromising material on the US president.

After the apparent poisoning, the British military’s defence and security media advisory committee ordered journalists not to fully identify Pablo Miller in any of their reports.