Novichok survivor Charlie Rowley has spoken from the police safehouse where he is being kept and said he would 'really like to go out for a bottle of wine.'

Officers took the 45-year-old to the top secret location following his discharge from hospital last Friday.

Speaking to The Sun through his brother, Matthew, 47, who he called through a special phone number, Charlie said: 'I'd really like to go out for a bottle of wine.

'I'm very glad to be out of hospital but I'm trapped in a room and on a lot of medication. I've been let out for a cigarette but I'm very bored.'

Novichok survivor Charlie Rowley (pictured) is being kept in a police safehouse without access to television or newspapers

Officers have given him a special mobile phone number and banned him from watching television and from reading newspapers, his brother revealed today.

Matthew Rowley said that Charlie's girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess, who died from the poisoning, rubbed the substance on her wrists, apparently thinking it was perfume, before the bottle 'splintered in his hands', The Times reported.

Nurses are said to be fearful over Mr Rowley's wavering mental health and have been shielding him from media reports referring to the death of his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess.

Matthew told the Daily Mail: 'He rang me and said he's being driven stir-crazy. He's being kept in a plain room without TV or newspapers because they don't want to upset him.

'Police have said he mustn't say anything about where he is - all he told me was that he was safe.

'It was a short conversation because nurses said I shouldn't wear him out. He sounded really weak, almost as if he'd been drinking too much. He sounded pretty fed up.

'He's been given a strange new number which doesn't always connect. I've only been able to speak to him once. I'm hoping I'll be able to find out where he is and visit him soon.'

Mr Rowley, of Amesbury, Wiltshire, said he believes his brother and Miss Sturgess, 44, picked up the military-grade Novichok nerve agent in a bottle of perfume.

His brother Matthew Rowley, 47 (pictured) told the Daily Mail: 'He rang me and said he's being driven stir-crazy.'

He said: 'He can't remember where he they found it. He remembers Dawn spraying the perfume on his wrists and rubbing them together. He then took the bottle but it fell apart in his hands.'

Matthew Rowley spoke to his brother again yesterday evening.

Mr Rowley told the Daily Mail: 'He said he was too tired to talk. He seemed like he was on some really strong medication.

'It was really frustrating for me because I haven't really got any detail from him.

'He's been up and about and he's getting a TV tomorrow.

'I asked him about Dawn and he said he didn't want to talk about it because he's too upset about it.

'I asked him about the Russians and he said he couldn't talk about it because of the police investigation.

Police in Hazmat suits are pictured scouring sites in Salisbury where Charlie Rowley and his late partner Dawn Sturgess were before they were poisoned with the deadly nerve agent

'He's looking forward to getting a TV, he's watched all the DVDs I've given him twice, he's got a portable player. It's really upsetting talking to him because I can see he's not right.

'He can't string a sentence together. I'm told I can go and visit him, maybe on Tuesday.

'I will phone him tomorrow and I will see if he wants some clothes or anything, get some essentials or toiletries or something.

'He said police are there with him. I imaging they're listening to his phone calls.' He added: 'the phone he's got is so basic it doesn't even have a camera, let alone internet.'

One theory is that the bottle was thrown away by the hit squad which tried to kill former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, 67, and his daughter Yulia, 33, in Salisbury in March.

Yesterday it was claimed that detectives hunting the would-be assassins have been showing witnesses a photograph of a male suspect.

They have also been inquiring about the movements of a mysterious woman. Scotland Yard, which is leading the investigation, would not comment on the claims.

John Harris, 28, who stayed with Miss Sturgess at the John Baker House hostel in Salisbury, told the Sunday Express: 'They showed me a picture of a man and asked me if I had ever seen him in the city and if so, where.

Nurses are said to be fearful over Mr Rowley's wavering mental health and have been shielding him from media reports referring to the death of his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess (pictured)

'I didn't recognise him at all. I can't remember ever seeing him with Dawn or any other friends. I can't say anything else about it but I hope the police are able to identify him for her sake.

'They also mentioned a woman they want to speak to but they didn't have a picture of her.'

Detectives are continuing to probe hundreds of hours of CCTV footage and have removed some 400 items from Mr Rowley's flat in Amesbury.

They have also been sifting through Salisbury's Queen Elizabeth Gardens, which is where Mr Rowley and Miss Sturgess relaxed the day before they fell ill

They are using facial recognition technology to draw up images of the suspects, who are individuals not previously known to have been spies. They have been cross-checked with the identities of passengers on a flight which left Britain soon after the attack on the Skripals.

It was also claimed that a British outpost in Cyprus intercepted a coded Russian message to Moscow after the poisoning which said the hit squad had left the UK.