Innocent people were caught up in an assassination attempt on a former Russian spy in Salisbury in March 2018. How did this happen?
The novichok attack on Salisbury in south-west England in March 2018 was an extraordinary event, sending shock waves across the world. The targeted man, the former Russian agent Sergei Skripal, recovered from an audacious assassination attempt, but an innocent British citizen, Dawn Sturgess, died. An inquiry was heard in Salisbury and London last year investigating the attack on the Skripals, the response of the emergency services and other public bodies, and how Sturgess was tragically caught up in an international incident. Here are some of the key questions it examined.
Sturgess was a 44-year-old mother of three. On 30 June 2018, she and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, fell ill at his home in Amesbury, Wiltshire. Sturgess died on 8 July, while Rowley survived but has suffered ill health since. At first police believe it had been a drugs overdose. Within a few days it became clear they had been poisoned with the nerve agent novichok. Sturgess sprayed herself with novichok believing it was perfume. Rowley is thought to have found a container of novichok disguised as a perfume bottle and given it to his partner. The inquiry heard Sturgess was caught “in the crossfire of an illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt”.
