A police twitter account has invited Russian tourists to visit Rochester, after the suspects in the Salisbury Novichok poisoning case claimed they'd been visiting Salisbury cathedral as tourists.

The claims, dismissed as an ‘insult to public’s intelligence’ by Downing Street, came in an interview conducted by Kremlin-backed TV station Russia Today with Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two men suspected of committing the nerve agent attack in Salisbury in March this year.

Kent Police's RPU twitter account has been doing its bit for tourism in Rochester (4171222)

In the interview the two men insisted they are not intelligence agents, but has simply been on a two day trip to see the cathedral, which coincided precisely with the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, with Novichok, the military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union.

Widely mocked on social media, the TV appearance also drew the attention of Kent Police's Roads Policing Unit, which tweeted a tongue-in-cheek invitation:

"Any Russian ‘tourists’ visiting the U.K.

Rochester cathedral is

- The second oldest in the U.K.

- Has a nice spire

- A magnificent 14th century door

- Great Rail Links to London if you want to visit twice in two days.

#VisitKentNotWiltshire #GardenOfEngland SL"

The array of facts are even more comprehensive than Boshirov's recollection of facts about Sailisbury - which he told Russia today was "famous for its 123-metre spire, it’s famous for its clock; one of the first-ever created in the world that is still working" - all information which can be gleaned from the first two paragraphs of Salisbury cathedral's Wikipedia page.

Sadly Kent Police RPU's information about Rochester is unlikely to reach Boshirov and Petrov - as the tweet has now been deleted.