Public inquiry into Novichok poisonings hopes to shed light on murky events

Six years ago, Charlie Rowley discovered his partner, Dawn Sturgess, foaming at the mouth and convulsing in the bath of their flat in Amesbury in Wiltshire. Sturgess was rushed to hospital in Salisbury seven miles away but died a week later. Rowley became ill too but later recovered. Wiltshire’s emergency services personnel didn’t realise at the time, but they had once more been thrust into a crisis that had begun four months earlier in Salisbury with the attempted poisoning of a former Russian double agent.

A public inquiry has now opened into the death of Sturgess. The inquiry, long delayed by the pandemic, will attempt to shed some light on the circumstances surround Sturgess’s death, who was responsible and if it could have been prevented.