NOVICHOK survivor Charlie Rowley yesterday told how he is haunted by guilt after giving the killer nerve agent to tragic girlfriend Dawn Sturgess — believing it to be perfume.

Charlie, 45, had found what he believed was a discarded bottle of perfume and handed it to Dawn as a present.

Within hours they were both unconscious in hospital. Dawn never came out of her coma and died eight days later.

Charlie, still sounding weak following his hospital release on Friday, said: He said: “I’m feeling very low about Dawn.

“I remember finding a cosmetic bottle which I had picked up and gave it to Dawn as a present.

“I feel very sad about what happened to her, it’s awful and shocking. I was still on medication when they told me she passed away. I don’t think I will ever be able to get over it.

“My heart goes out to Dawn’s family. It’s amazing that I’m alive. In a way I feel lucky I survived but I’ve also lost so much.”

The bottle Charlie picked up had been thrown away by Russian hitmen after they used it for the attempted assassination of ex-double agent Skripal, 67, and daughter Yulia, 33, in March.

It is thought Charlie found it in Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury, close to where the Skripals were found slumped on a park bench after being poisoned.

He then took it back to his home in nearby Amesbury.

Charlie remembers little of what happened but recalls the bottle breaking apart in his hands.

Dawn, who is thought to have sprayed the nerve agent on her wrists, collapsed at Charlie’s flat and was rushed to hospital.

He said: I felt completely confused. At the time in my head I just wanted to go visit Dawn. I knew she became ill that morning.

“Hours after I took a turn for the worse.

“Then all I remember is coming out of a two-week induced coma.”

Charlie blasted the Russian agents who ended up killing Dawn in their bungled assassination.

He said: “It’s very careless of them, the way they go about their business leaving things lying around.

“It was meant for someone, it was wrong to leave it lying around for anyone to pick up.

“There could have been children playing with it.”

Charlie, staying at an address near his home, is still being interviewed by police hunting those behind the Skripals plot.

He said: “The police are still coming in from time to time.”

His flat remains behind a police cordon as detectives and forensic officers comb the house for clues and any further traces of the poison.

Detectives are trying to identify the members of a Russian hit-squad seen leaving a UK airport the day after the attack on the Skripals.

A British Army base in Cyprus intercepted a coded message to the Kremlin saying they were leaving the country. Police have spent hundreds of hours comparing footage from Salisbury to film from airport cameras to identify the suspects, who travelled using aliases.