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Dawn Sturgess’s young daughter was not present when her mother fatally sprayed herself with Novichok by pure chance”, her family has said.
The 44-year-old inadvertently used a perfume bottle carrying the Russian nerve agent in July 2018, believed to have been carelessly discarded after being used to poison former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury four months earlier.
Paying tribute to her “intelligent, funny, extremely selfless and very kind” daughter on Tuesday during the inquiry into her death, Caroline Sturgess said the family took solace from the fact that Dawn’s daughter – still in primary school at the time – had not also been killed by the Novichok.
Ms Sturgess had been living in supported accommodation for the two years prior to her death in Amesbury and had been “excited that it would be a new starting block for a fresh chapter”, her mother told the inquiry on Tuesday.
Ms Sturgess recalled speaking to her daughter the night before her death, where she had spoken excitedly “at the prospect of finally leaving the hostel and living independently once more”, as they made arrangements for Dawn’s daughter to visit her the next day.
She said: “It was pure chance that Dawn had sprayed herself with the Novichok before her daughter arrived. Dawn’s death was a tragedy to us all, but the fact that her daughter was not killed as well is a solace that we often revisit.”
Ms Sturgess also read out a statement from Dawn’s daughter on Tuesday, in which she said: “Me and my mum had a bond that I will never forget. The day I heard she had fallen really ill was heartbreaking to hear.
“In my mind I thought she would push through it because there was nothing my mum couldn’t handle. The day I heard everyone go to say their goodbyes when she was in intensive care was so upsetting. Shortly after she passed away.”
Dawn’s daughter said she would never forget that, “due to my age, I never saw her or got to say goodbye”.
Dawn also had two adult sons, and her mother lamented to the inquiry that, while she would now have been a grandmother, Dawn “will never have the absolute joy of meeting her first grandchild and doesn’t get to watch her grow”.
Hitting out at the false and “extremely distressing” narrative – over which Wiltshire Police has since apologised – that Dawn was a “known drug user”, Ms Sturgess said her daughter had been “very loved” and that her main priority had been the welfare of her children.
Ms Sturgess said: “She always cared deeply for her family and many friends that surrounded her. She did not judge a single person and strived to make others happy even when she didn’t feel like smiling herself.”
Dawn and her partner Charlie Rowley, who unwittingly gave her the perfume bottle filled with Novichok as a gift, both collapsed at his home in Amesbury on 30 June. She died at Salisbury District Hospital eight days later.
The inquiry into her death is seeking to establish if the 44-year-old died after being caught in the “crossfire of an illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt”, lead counsel Andrew O’Connor KC said on Monday.
Three Russian men, alleged to be military intelligence (GRU) agents named Aleksandr Mishkin, Anatoly Chepiga and Denis Sergeev, are alleged to have worked together to poison the Skripals in March 2018. Police officer Nick Bailey also fell ill after being exposed to the chemical.
Echoing assertions by the UK government, the inquiry heard on Monday that Mr Skripal – a former GRU agent convicted in Russia in 2010 on charges of spying for Britain – believes Russian president Vladimir Putin personally ordered the attack on his life in Salisbury.
