Dawn Sturgess’s ‘voice’ must be heard at Novichok inquiry, say family

A judge-led inquiry will seek to establish how and why Dawn Sturgess came to die in the Salisbury nerve agent attack in 2018
A judge-led inquiry will seek to establish how and why Dawn Sturgess came to die in the Salisbury nerve agent attack in 2018 - Facebook

The family of the only fatality of the Salisbury Novichok poisonings have said “her voice must be heard” at the public inquiry into her death.

The judge-led inquiry, which opens in Salisbury today, will seek to establish how and why Dawn Sturgess came to die in the Russian poison attack in 2018.

It will also seek to find out how the same nerve agent used against the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, came to be found by Ms Sturgess’ boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, several months later.

For her bereaved parents Stan and Caroline, and for her two sons and teenage daughter, the inquiry may finally begin to answer the questions that have hung over her death the past six years.

“What happened to Dawn was so, so sad. It was just awful,” her mother Caroline told The Telegraph. “It’s been so difficult.”

Sergei Skripal (right) and his daughter Yulia were the targets of the Russian assassination attempt
Sergei Skripal (right) and his daughter Yulia were the targets of the Russian assassination attempt - Pixel8000

Still clearly struggling with her grief, Mrs Sturgess - a retired civil servant who lives a short drive from Mr Rowley’s home, where her daughter collapsed into a fatal coma - is reluctant to speak more openly about her daughter’s death before the public inquiry reaches its findings.

But she told The Telegraph: “It’s been so long and there are so many questions that still haven’t been answered. I just don’t know what I feel at the moment.”

Dawn had just begun to “turn a corner” in her life when tragedy struck.

After a run of problems with alcohol and relationships, she had finally found happiness and was preparing to move into her own flat, enjoying time with her three children and visiting Stonehenge.

Small bottle of scent

After spraying herself with what she thought was perfume from a small bottle of scent her boyfriend had found discarded on the ground, Ms Sturgess collapsed and began frothing at the mouth.

She died eight days later, never having regained consciousness.

The events that took Mr and Mrs Sturgess’ daughter began to unfold on 30 June 2018, some four months after the attack on the Skripals.

On March 4 that year Skripal and his daughter had been found unconscious on a public bench in the centre of Salisbury by the passing Chief Nursing Officer for the British Army and her daughter.

It quickly emerged that Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the British intelligence agencies, had been the target of a botched assassination attempt by two Russian GRU officers, Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, who had travelled to the city posing as tourists wanting to see its “famous 123-metre spire and famous clock”.

The botched assassination attempt was mounted by two Russian GRU officers, Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga (left) and Alexander Mishkin, who had travelled to Salisbury posing as tourists
The botched assassination attempt was mounted by two Russian GRU officers, Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga (left) and Alexander Mishkin, who had travelled to Salisbury posing as tourists - Home Office/AFP

Both Mr Skripal and his daughter survived the attack, but spent several weeks in hospital in a critical condition. They have since been given false identities and have started a new life in an unknown country.

A police officer, Nick Bailey, was also taken into intensive care after attending the incident, and was later discharged.

For days after the poisonings, military experts in chemical warfare defence and decontamination could be seen dressed in protective hazmat suits scouring the city, as a huge clean-up operation swung into action with the aim of finding every last trace of the Novichok smuggled into the country by the two Russian agents.

Even the park bench on which the Skripals had been found unconscious was removed by military personnel and taken away for examination, as every location visited by the pair after coming into contact with the nerve agent at their home was decontaminated, including the Mill pub and Zizzi’s Italian restaurant.

For days after the poisonings, military experts in protective hazmat suits scoured the city, as a huge clean-up operation swung into action
For days after the poisonings, military experts in protective hazmat suits scoured the city, as a huge clean-up operation swung into action - Ben Stansall/AFP

Then, just as the cathedral city had begun to recover from the terror wrought by the events of the previous few weeks, Ms Sturgess collapsed and died after applying what she thought was the scent Mr Rowley gave her.

Her boyfriend, who had endured his own struggles with substance abuse, is understood to have found the perfume dispenser now known to have contained Novichok in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, close to the centre of Salisbury. The pair then caught a bus to Mr Rowley’s home 11-miles away in Amesbury, where they both collapsed.

Tests on the bottle and its contents carried out by the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory at nearby Porton Down confirmed the substance contained within was Novichok.

Charlie Rowley, Dawn's boyfriend, is understood to have found the perfume bottle containing Novichok close to the centre of Salisbury
Charlie Rowley, Dawn’s boyfriend, is understood to have found the perfume bottle containing Novichok close to the centre of Salisbury - Facebook/AFP

Visiting their daughter at Salisbury District Hospital before she slipped away, Mr and Mrs Sturgess had to wear gloves and her mother was at one stage told by doctors not to touch her face to wipe away tears after having stroked her hair.

Once more Salisbury was plunged into the fear of the unknown. Just how much more Novichok remained out there?

Footfall in local shops dropped by thirty percent just as the city’s economy had been starting to recover from the fall out of the attack on the Skripals. Visitor numbers plunged once more and American coach parties stopped coming to the city after visiting Stonehenge.

Police issued warnings, admitting traces could still be present in Salisbury and urging residents and visitors not to pick up any discarded objects in the area.

In the end it appears that no more of the deadly nerve agent was found.

But troubling questions remained.

How could a contaminated bottle containing one of the most deadly nerve agents in existence have been overlooked in the supposedly fingertip search and clean up of the large parts of Ms Sturgess’ home town?

How could an innocent mother - described by her family as a “gentle hippy” - have become an accidental victim of a deadly Russian plot carried out on British soil to execute an enemy of the Putin regime?

How did the Russians discover that the Skripals had been given supposed safe refuge in Salisbury by the British government?

And what lessons can be learnt about the risk of another chemical weapons attack in this country?

Matthew Dean, a Wiltshire councillor who was head of Salisbury City Council during the Salisbury poisonings, said: “There was a great deal of shock at the time that this seemed to have happened again, that someone else had fallen victim to this poison.

Mr Dean added: “Thankfully we have recovered as a city from the overall economic impact of the attack, but a young mother was taken from her children and it was very, very sad.

“I hope for the sake of Dawn’s family that the inquiry finds some answers as to how and why she happened to come into contact with Novichok. I hope the inquiry will allow them to have some closure to the awful events of that time and allow them to move on.”

A vivacious, fun-loving woman

They are words echoed by Dawn’s maternal uncle, Shaun Rennie, also a retired civil servant, who says he hopes the inquiry will place his niece at the centre of its search for the truth and remember her as the vivacious, fun-loving woman she was.

“Oh Dawn, she was such great fun,” he said. “She had her problems, but she was overcoming all that. She was definitely turning a corner and it was so sad that she was taken away just then. Her children are coping, but they miss their mother tremendously.”

Mr Rennie added: “I hope Dawn’s voice will be heard at the inquiry. And I want to hear what the authorities believe happened and to explain what their response was to the situation. It left a real scar on people’s consciousness.

“But why has it taken six years to get to this point? We’ve only reached it because of the fight Stan and Caroline put up to get a public inquiry. They want some answers.”