A GIN and tonic taken from the home of Safeway poison case accused

Paul Agutter shortly after his wife became ill contained a high level of

the deadly drug atropine, a court heard yesterday.

Someone who drank half a glassful of the contaminated drink would have

ingested 288 times the normal therapeutic dose of atropine, Dr Howard

Okely told the High Court in Edinburgh.

Dr Okely, 48, said that he had also examined a bottle of Safeway diet

tonic found at the Agutters' home at Kilduff Lodge, Athelstaneford, East

Lothian. It contained atropine at a concentration of 103 milligrammes

per litre.

Dr Okely was giving evidence on the third day of the trial of Dr Paul

Agutter who denies attempting to murder his wife Alexandria, 39, at

their home on August last year by putting atropine in a glass of gin and

tonic.

Agutter also denies endangering the lives of eight people who drank

tonic water contaminated with atropine allegedly placed by him on the

shelves of the Safeway Supermarket at Swanston in Edinburgh on August

24.

Dr Okely said that he had examined a number of the bottles of tonic

water.

He said the bottles all contained atropine ranging in concentrations

from 74 milligrammes per litre down to 11 milligrammes.

However the concentration in the bottle found in the Agutter

household, Dr Okely accepted, was significantly lower than the level

found in the gin and tonic taken from the house.

0 He agreed with Advocate-depute Andrew Lamb that the concentration of

atropine found in the gin and tonic sample taken from Kilduff Lodge was

''far in excess'' of any other found during his tests.

Shown a glass taken from the Agutter household, Dr Okely said that if

it had been half full of the gin and tonic, anyone who drank the full

amount would have ingested about 49 milligrammes of atropine.

Cross-examined by defence counsel Mr Neil Murray, QC, Dr Okely said

that assuming the drink was half gin and half tonic it would have been

necessary to add atropine to the drink to get to the concentration of

292 milligrammes per litre.

On Tuesday, the court heard evidence from Dr Agutter's wife,

Alexandria, that she felt ''pretty weird'' after drinking about two

inches from a glass of gin and tonic prepared by her husband on August

28 last year.

Ambulance driver James Rudyj gave evidence that he was called to the

Agutter home just after 7pm on August 28 to deal with a case of

suspected poisoning.

He said that Dr Agutter had informed him that he had bought a bottle

of tonic water from Safeway at Swanston the previous Wednesday and had

noticed that the seal of the bottle had been broken.

Mr Rudyj took the almost full bottle and asked Dr Agutter if there was

any more of the tonic and he replied that there was some of his wife's

drink left.

At the ambulanceman's request Dr Agutter put the remainder of the

drink in a separate container, explaining that he would have to take it

with him for analysis.

Throughout, Dr Agutter had been calm and confident ''except when I

told him I would be taking the tonic water to hospital in the

container''.

The trial continues.