Draft:Safeway Poisoning Case/Agutter Case

The Safeway Poisoning Case was the attempted murder by Paul Agutter (14 July 1946 - ) of his wife Alexandre Agutter nee Shorthose (1955 - ) in August 1994. In an attempt to conceal the targeted murder of his wife, Paul tampered with bottles of Safeway Tonic Water by adding atropine to the bottles and leaving them to be sold at the Hunter's Tryst Safeway store in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ultimately, no one died from the poisonings and Paul Agutter was convicted in 1995, and served seven years of a twelve year sentence.

The Crime

On 24th August 1994, Paul Agutter placed six bottles of Safeway own brand tonic water on the shelves of the Hunter's Tryst store, after he had added between 11 and 74mg of atropine to each of them. He kept a seventh bottle for his own use at home, which he had added 103mg of atropine to. He had intended to murder his wife so he could marry his girlfriend, Carole Bonsall, and hide his motive by making it appear his wife was a random victim and not the intended target.

The Sharwood-Smith Poisonings

The first victims of the poisoning were, Elizabeth Sharwood-Smith and her son, Andrew, who were treated at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary hospital on 26th August. They had originally fallen ill on 24th August when they had drunk a Vermouth and Tonic, and a glass of tonic respectively, however they believed it to a regular illness and recovered by the 26th. They both fell ill again that same day after further tonic drinks were consumed. Geoffrey Sharwood-Smith, Elizabeth's husband, believed the source of their illness to be tonic water as he and another family member, Nicolas, had not taken ill and the tonic water was the only item Elizabeth and Andrew had consumed but Geoffrey and Nicolas had not.

Geoffrey, who worked at the hospital as an anaesthetist, tried to raise his concerns of tampering and on 27th August was able to convince the store manager at the Hunter's Tryst Safeway to remove their tonic water from sale and keep samples for testing.

The Agutter Poisonings

On 28th August, Alexandre Agutter was given a gin and tonic by her husband, Paul. She found the drink to be too bitter and only drank up to half of it. Alexandre began to feel unwell with dry mouth, dizziness, altered vision, and then collapsed. Paul called his regular GP, Dr Ross Langlands, for help knowing the doctor was away, he left a message on the answering machine in an attempt to show he was seeking medical help, although he was actually delaying finding medical help. However, Dr Judith Richardson, the locum doctor covering for Dr Langlands, received the message and rushed to the Agutter home. There she called for the ambulance and noted a high temperature in the house. One of the ambulance paramedics, James Rudyj, was able to save the remainder of Alexandre's drink for testing.

11-year old Beatrice, the Agutters' daughter, was also poisoned and taken to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh.

Police Action and Other Poisonings

With the admittance of Alexandre and Beatrice to the hospital the four cases of poisonings were connected. On 28th August the police made a statement about the poisonings, and Safeway recalled their two-litre bottles of diet and regular tonic water from all 371 stores across the UK.

By 2nd September a third case, and the fifth victim, of poisoning was identified, a 38 year old man who did not require hospitalisation and was treated by his own doctor. By December 1994, a further three victims from the public were identified, totalling eight poisoned people.

The police set up a phone tip line and received a call confessing to the crime. Wayne Smith had sent a letter sent to the Edinburgh Evening News four weeks before the poisonings, claiming that he would put weedkiller in soft drinks as God had commanded him to kill police officers. Due to the different substance used and Smith not knowing key details of the crime, such as the number of bottles poisoned, he was determined not to be the culprit. Smith went on to poison two bottles of fruit juice and leave them in the Edinburgh Morningside branch of Safeway on 2nd October 1995.

The used tonic water bottles, the samples taken from the shelves of the Hunter's Tyrst store, and the gin and tonic drink Alexandre had had on the 28th were all tested. It was discovered that Alexandre's drink had almost three times more atropine than the bottle of tonic water in the household (292mg per litre compared to 103mg) and later, traces of the chemical were also later found in Paul's car.

Trial

Paul Agutter was charged with the attempted murder of his wife and daughter, and putting the public at risk on 6 September 1994. The murder charge for his daughter was later dropped by the crown and he was not convicted of it. Paul pled not guilty to all charges, hiss trial begun on 23rd January 1995 and ended on 1st February 1995.

Paul's background as a doctor in biochemistry, having gained his PhD in molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh in 1972 and easy access to atropine sulphate through his work as a biology lecturer at Napier University gave him the opportunity for the crime.

His General Practitioner Dr Langlands testified to Paul having confided in him, feelings of depression and suicidal thoughts on 17 August 1994. Paul admitted to financial stress due to rising debts, that his marriage with Alexandre was loveless and she held him in contempt, and that his girlfriend was asking him to divorce his wife and marry her. Dr Langlands was able to convince Paul that life was worth living. The contents of this call were used to provide a motive for Paul to want to kill his wife.

In addition to the extra atropine in Alexandre's drink compared to the bottle, suggesting Paul had added more poison when making the gin and tonic, the high temperature of the house when Dr Richardson attended on 28th August was considered as evidence as warmer temperatures increase the rate of the effect of atropine. The paramedic James Rudyj testified that Paul was calm and only became distressed when Alexandre's drink was collected for testing. Traces of atropine were also found on a cassette tape in Paul's car that would not be consistent with contamination from the atropine having only been in a bottle of tonic water he had purchased.

Further evidence against Paul came from the CCTV from the Safeway store which appeared to show Paul placing six bottle of tonic water on the shelf in the Hunter's Tryst store, a staff member also came forward as a eyewitness to seeing Paul acting suspiciously in the store on 26th August.

Despite this evidence, during the trial, Alexandre believed in her husband's innocent, confirming their marriage was open. She did not categorise Carole Bonsall as a mistress, Alexandre had been made aware of her in June 1993 and her impression of Carole, after meeting her, was that Carole was a nice person but that the relationship would not last. Alexandre doubted this relationship be a motive for her murder.

Paul was found on the charge and sentenced to serve twelve years in prison on 1st February 1995.

Aftermath

In July 1995, Paul Agutter unsuccessfully appealed his conviction based on the trial Judge not giving full and adequate directions to the jury. There was contention over whether the gin and tonic with 292mg of atropine in it was Alexandre Agutter's drink. When the drink was collected on 28th August 1994 it was collected along with the ice cubes and lemon slice that were in the drink. When the drink was at the police forensic laboratory it was decanted into another container. When the drink was presented at trial in early 1995, the lemon slice was not in the drink. There was also a issue reported with the label of the drink. The label and missing lemon slice could have meant that the drink which was tested and found to have the greater concentration of atropine could not have been Alexandre's drink.

At his appeal, it was argued that the judge, Lord Morison in the original trial should have dismissed the gin and tonic evidence, however the appeal court were satisfied that Lord Morison had warned the jury about this issue and instructed them to bare these facts in mind when considering their verdict.

In September 1997, Alexandre Agutter filed a claim against Safeway stores for £100,000 in the Court of Session. Her suit claimed the supermarket chain was negligent and did not do enough to warn the public about the poisoned tonic bottles, or stop Paul Agutter when he was acting suspiciously in store. The claim was paused when Alexandre applied for Legal Aid.

In March 2001, Paul was alleged to have tried to a fellow inmate to frame Carole Bonall for drugs possession, when he was released. Paul is said to have given the inmate a drawing he made of Carole, information about her car, and where she shopped. The plan was to leave drugs in her car as she was known to not lock it when at the supermarket. The inmate did not action this plan and claimed that Paul wished to destroy Carole's reputation in revenge for her selling her story in 1995.

Alexandre and Paul Agutter divorced in 1998, with Alexandre receiving an interdict against Paul visiting her home, or attempting to contact her in June 2002. It was alleged that Paul intended to return to live with Alexandre and their daughter as if he was only been away and not charged with Alexandre's attempted murder. When he was released Paul went to live with his parents in Glossop, Derbyshire.

In 2003 Paul returned to lecturing, teaching part time at an adult education course via the University of Manchester's Centre for Continuing Education. The course was on the ethics of reproductive cloning and ran between October and December for 2 hours a week. The university completed a review into his hiring and a six week course he was to run on the evolution of evolutionary ideas, in May 2004 did not go ahead.

Paul Agutter is now retired but continued to edit scientific journals and author book chapters and articles until 2019.