The parents of the woman who died in the Wiltshire novichok poisonings have said they hope an inquiry into her death will answer far-reaching questions about how the tragedy unfolded and allow the family, finally, to grieve fully for her.
Caroline and Stan Sturgess said they hoped the long-awaited inquiry, which begins in Salisbury on Monday, would scrutinise the actions of the UK and Russian governments and examine how safe the UK is from such attacks now.
They said the death of Dawn Sturgess six years ago continued to devastate her family, but that they had been informed that hundreds of people could have been harmed by the nerve agent and were consoled that nobody else had lost their life. They suggested their daughter would have said: “It was only me, it was only me.”
Caroline, who is to give a pen portrait of Dawn to the inquiry, said the idea of appearing there was daunting. “But I’m going to meet it head on,” she said. “I’ve been looking up to the sky, just saying, ‘Give me a sign that you want me to do this.’ I can hear Dawn’s voice: ‘Go on, mum, you do it. You show them.’”
Caroline, a retired civil servant, said she had “detached herself” since Dawn’s death. “I don’t cry any more. This has hardened me a lot. Nothing seems important any more. I’m shut down. Totally shut down.”
Stan, a builder, has led the campaign for the inquiry to take place. He said: “I’m doing it for Dawn, but we need answers. Everyone’s under scrutiny. Everyone is answerable, from the first responder to 10 Downing Street. I think we – and the people of Salisbury – need answers.”
Since the poisonings, Stan has watched the news about Russia with horror, from the invasion of Ukraine to this week’s statement by the head of MI5, Ken McCallum, that Russia’s intelligence agency has been on a mission to generate “mayhem” on British streets.
Stan said: “There should have been more sanctions. Ukraine is unbelievable. I watch it all. I just can’t believe it.” Stan expressed alarm at McCallum’s warning. “Maybe it’s a good time for the inquiry,” he said.
The former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned by novichok on 4 March 2018 in Salisbury, where he had been settled after a spy exchange.
On 30 June 2018, Dawn, 44, and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, fell ill at his home in Amesbury, 11 miles north of Salisbury, having been poisoned with novichok that Charlie had apparently found in a perfume bottle left in a bin. The Skripals and Rowley survived but Dawn died on 8 July.
A key question to be looked at during the inquiry is how and why the novichok remained in Wiltshire after the poisoning of the Skripals.
Caroline said: “What if Charlie hadn’t picked it up … What if it had been taken into a youth club or a school? Dawn would be the first to say, ‘It was only me, mum, it was only me.’ It could have been far, far worse.
“Dawn happened to be a purely innocent young woman living in Salisbury at the time, whose boyfriend happened to pick up this bottle [that] I’ve been told could have killed hundreds of people. Thank God it was contained.”
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The couple want more details about why Skripal came to be settled in Salisbury. Caroline said: “Everyone was put in danger. I want the whole country to realise this could have happened in their town. We let Russian spies in, we’ve housed them in residential areas. There could be hundreds. How did this country let this happen?”
The Skripals will not appear at the inquiry. Dawn’s parents accept that for security reasons it is right they stay away. But Caroline said: “ I think he [Skripal] should be made to come clean about what he was involved in. His circumstances did bring this devastation on Salisbury.”
Caroline said she felt the UK was “invaded” by the Russian attackers. She said: “This isn’t about our grief. This is about, potentially, what could have happened in this country. That bottle of perfume could have travelled on the tube somewhere. It could have gone back up to London.”
Dawn had three children and three sisters. Stan and Caroline said they had reacted in different ways but the extraordinary nature of Dawn’s public death had made it difficult. “We couldn’t grieve because we went into defence mode,” said Caroline.
It still smarts that initially Dawn was wrongly portrayed as a homeless drug user. “She was a very strong person, moral, spiritual,” said Caroline. “She was sweet and she was kind. She had a big heart.”
As doctors worked to save Dawn, they told the family that if she survived she might be left with severe disabilities. Caroline said: “This is really selfish but I wish she had survived. She would have been my little girl again. I would have taken good care of her. And I would have loved her.”