The inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess begins on Monday in Salisbury. The 44-year-old mother of three died in July 2018 after being exposed to a chemical weapon in the Wiltshire town of Amesbury. How a British woman came to be exposed to a Soviet-era nerve agent thousands of miles from Moscow is a story involving Russian double agents and a discarded perfume bottle, with unintended and tragic consequences. Report by Jonesia. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00On Monday, the public inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgis begins in Salisbury. The 44-year-old
00:08mother of three died at Salisbury Hospital in July 2018, a week after being admitted,
00:14having collapsed at her partner's home in the nearby town of Amesbury. What she thought
00:20was a bottle of perfume turned out to contain one of the world's deadliest man-made substances
00:26– a Novichok nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. How did a British
00:34woman from Wiltshire, 2,500km from Moscow, come into contact with a Soviet-era chemical
00:41weapon during peacetime?
00:49This ordinary-looking house in Salisbury was the residence of 66-year-old Sergei Skrepal,
00:55a dual Russian and British citizen who had lived in the UK since 2010. Just the day before,
01:03he and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia, who was visiting from Moscow, were found seriously
01:08ill on a bench in the city centre, and were rushed to hospital. A local police officer,
01:15Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, was one of the first to respond to the incident and was
01:19sent to Skrepal's house. He too fell ill and was hospitalised.
01:25Just a couple of days later, counter-terrorism police revealed that a nerve agent had been
01:30used and that Sergei and Yulia Skrepal had been targeted specifically in an attempted
01:35murder. It emerged that Mr Skrepal was a former Russian double agent, who had come to the
01:42UK eight years previously as part of a prisoner exchange.
01:47The UK government held emergency discussions, and on 12 March, Prime Minister Theresa May
01:53delivered this statement in the House of Commons.
01:56It is now clear that Mr Skrepal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve
02:02agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as
02:08Novichok. The government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible
02:13for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skrepal.
02:17Russia denied any involvement, but the UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats, with their
02:23European, American and Commonwealth allies doing likewise, after concluding that there
02:28was no plausible alternative explanation.
02:31The Skrepals and Detective Sergeant Bailey did all recover, and were released from hospital
02:37after just a few weeks. Life began to return to normal for the people of Salisbury.
02:42And then, in early July…
02:45Terror returned to Wiltshire after the attack on the Skrepals. Now, a British couple have
02:50been poisoned with Novichok.
02:53Shock and confusion returned to Wiltshire, as Charlie Rowley and his partner Dawn Sturgess
02:59were admitted to hospital with similar symptoms to the Skrepals. The couple had fallen ill
03:04at Mr Rowley's house in Amesbury, just 10 miles from Salisbury, which they had recently
03:09visited. The police cordons went back up, as officers conducted a search for the source
03:15of the poisoning.
03:17Inside Mr Rowley's home, police found a small perfume bottle. It was sent straight
03:23to Porton Down for tests, which confirmed it contained traces of Novichok. Mr Rowley
03:29said he had found a sealed box of perfume, which he had then given to Miss Sturgess.
03:34She had fallen ill within 15 minutes of spraying it on her wrists, and he had also come into
03:40contact with the perfume. Charlie Rowley recovered and was released from hospital a
03:45few weeks after admission. Tragically, Dawn Sturgess died on the 8th of July.
03:54Despite an inquest opening just 11 days after her death, it has taken more than six years
04:00for an independent inquiry to begin. In September 2018, two Russian nationals who entered the
04:07UK under the aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were named as the suspects
04:13by UK counter-terrorism police. They are thought to be members of GRU, the Russian intelligence
04:20agency.
04:21Russia does not extradite its citizens, and it is unlikely that they will ever face trial
04:26in the UK. Unfortunately for the family and friends of Dawn Sturgess, the inquiry cannot
04:32determine guilt or put anyone on trial. However, it will aim to establish the truth of what
04:39happened to Miss Sturgess, which it is hoped will provide some comfort to her loved ones.