A MOTHER-of-three who died after a “reckless and brazen” Russian nerve agent attack was ultimately killed by Vladimir Putin in a sick show of global power, an inquiry has ruled.
Dawn Sturgess, 44, was tragically poisoned by the deadly nerve agent in July 2018.
Dawn’s boyfriend Charlie Rowley, 45, accidentally exposed her to Novichok when he gifted her a perfume bottle containing the chemical weapon.
A public inquiry into Dawn’s death heard the bottle contained “enough poison to kill thousands of people”.
It heard how Dawn was “caught in the crossfire of an illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt”.
Her death came four months after the attempted murders of ex-spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia and police officer Nick Bailey, who were poisoned in nearby Salisbury in March 2018.
They were harmed when members of a Russian GRU military intelligence squad are believed to have smeared the nerve agent on Sergei’s door handle.
The inquiry, which was chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Lord Hughes of Ombersley, held public hearings between October and December last year.
It found tyrant Putin must have authorised the plan to kill an ex-Russian asset to send a message to the world.
A trio of Putin-backed GRU intelligence agents, Alexander Petrov, Ruslan Boshirov and Sergey Fedotov, slipped into the UK using fake identities.
Petrov and Boshirov smeared the agent on Skripal’s house door, in a quiet cul-de-sac, at lunchtime on March 4, before ditching the bottle in a public park and fleeing the country.
The double agent, now 74, and his daughter Yulia, 40, who was visiting him at the time, both survived with serious life-changing injuries after spending weeks in hospital.
The £8.3million inquiry ruled that dictator Putin must have signed off on the botched attack in a perverse demonstration of his worldwide power.
Chairman Lord Anthony Hughes wrote: “The attack on Sergei Skripal by Russia was not designed simply as revenge against him, but amounted to a public statement, for both international and domestic consumption, that Russia will act decisively in what it regards as its own interests.”
He continued: “It is clear that this attack showed considerable determination and was expected to stand as a public demonstration of Russian power.
“Attackers willing to run the risk of being seen approaching the front door by the occupants or by neighbours … were not likely to be deterred by cameras, hidden or otherwise, if their plan was to be on a plane leaving the country the same evening.”
Lord Hughes also criticised the security services for failing to adequately protect the secret agent who came to Britain in a prisoner trade deal in 2010.
The agent’s address was openly available on the electoral register, and he had turned down CCTV cameras and a new identity because he did not want to live under surveillance.
The former Supreme Court judge found spooks had also failed by not carrying out regular written assessments on the former spy.
But he concluded intelligence bosses could not have predicted Russians would target Skripal directly or unleash an illegal war weapon in the Wiltshire city.
He said: “There were some features of the management of him as an exchanged prisoner which could and should have been improved.
“Whilst there was, inevitably, some risk of harm to Sergei Skripal at Russia’s hands, the considered analysis that it was not likely was one at which it was reasonable to arrive.
“There is no sufficient basis for concluding that there ought to have been assessed to be an enhanced risk to him of lethal attack on British soil.”
“The only such measures which could have avoided the attack would have been such as to hide (Skripal) completely with an entirely new identity, and to prevent him and his family from having any continued contact.
“The risk was not so severe as to demand such far-reaching precautions.”
Skripal was described during the inquiry as a “sitting duck” who had been left exposed by a string of intelligence failures.
Michael Mansfield KC, representing Ms Sturgess’s family, said police should have known about the spy’s presence after he served four years in a Russian hellhole prison.
Officers only discovered Skripal’s Russian links when they searched his name on Google. They also looked up information about Novichok on Wikipedia.
The ex-spy also said he believed Putin green-lit the attack, adding: “If they want to kill you, they will find a way anywhere.”
The inquiry found the Russians had discarded the Novichok, disguised as a bottle of posh Nina Ricci perfume, in an act of “astonishing recklessness” as they had no plan to take it home with them.
Even the small bottle contained enough of the agent inside to kill “many thousands of innocent people against whom the perpetrators could have had no hostility”.
Dawn had innocently sprayed what she believed was perfume on her wrists after Charlie found it while ‘bin dipping’ and presented it as a gift on June 30, 2018.
She was then found foaming at the mouth in her bathtub in Muggleton Road, Amesbury, with what the inquiry ruled were “unsurvivable” injuries, including a cardiac arrest which triggered a brain bleed.
Police had initially believed Sturgess had suffered an overdose, while the ambulance service recognised the symptoms of the chemical agent.
Wiltshire Police Superintendent Kerry Lawes described her and Rowley as “two well-known drug addicts” in an email to colleagues.
Lawyers representing Ms Sturgess’s relatives had asked whether a delay in her treatment contributed to her death a week later on July 8.
But Lord Hughes found no medical intervention could have saved her life.
He wrote: “The brain injury worsened and developed into severe bleeding, all the result of the hypoxic damage.
“It follows that no different treatment by paramedics or hospital staff could have averted Dawn Sturgess’ death.
“In any event, I accept the expert evidence that the treatment given to her, whether by the paramedics or after admission to hospital, was of a reasonable standard.”
‘Look what I found’ – Dawn’s partner reveals moment he gave her poisoned perfume
The inquiry previously heard how Dawn was “caught in the crossfire of an illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt”.
Charlie had discovered the Nina Ricci bottle, discarded by the Russian poisoners seven miles away from the Salisbury attack, and innocently given it to the mum.
He told the inquiry he had unwittingly gifted Dawn the perfume as she was “a bit moody” with him.
Charlie told her “look what I found” before spilling the Novichok over his hands as he attempted to open the bottle.
Dawn fell ill just ten to 15 minutes after spraying the “oily substance” on her wrist.
He said: “She was sat on the sofa and having a discussion about finishing doing her hair. She wanted to put some hair colour in her hair, she’d just put blonde in her hair and she wanted to put some blue, blue colouring or something.
“She said that I might need to help her, but then she said that she felt ‘very, very strange’ and that she had to go and lie in the bath, which I thought was a bit strange.
“After a minute I went into the bathroom to see what she was doing and I found her lying in the bath with her clothes on, just lying in the bath, convulsing and foaming at the mouth, and I panicked, I didn’t know what to do.
“Thoughts were running through my head and I didn’t know what to do, I was thinking ‘What do I do? What do I do?’. The only thing I could think was to call 999. I did that and had a complete memory blank.”
The inquiry heard it was “pure chance” that Dawn sprayed herself with the lethal poison.
It triggered the mum’s heart to fail within minutes, starving her brain of oxygen.
She was revived by paramedics but died eight days later in hospital from an unsurvivable brain injury.
Doctors and police initially believed she had overdosed on drugs.
The inquiry concluded that Russia and Putin were ultimately responsible for Ms Sturgess’s death at the hands of the GRU hit squad.
The agents have always denied the attack and infamously insisted they had only gone to Salisbury to see the city’s Cathedral.
Lord Hughes ruled: “There is a clear causative link between the use and discarding of the Novichok by Petrov and Boshirov, and the death of Dawn Sturgess.
“I am sure that, in conducting their attack on Sergei Skripal, they were acting on instructions.
“I have concluded that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been authorised at the highest level, by President Putin.
“I therefore conclude that all those involved in the assassination attempt – not only Petrov, Boshirov and Fedotov, but also those who sent them, and anyone else giving authorisation or knowing assistance in Russia or elsewhere – were morally responsible.”