Dawn Sturgess Inquiry – Final Report Published

Update

The Inquiry’s Chair, Lord Hughes, has today, Thursday 4 December 2025, published his report into the death of Dawn Sturgess. The Report is available to read on the Inquiry website here. 

In addition, Lord Hughes’ statement can be viewed via the Inquiry’s YouTube channel.

His investigation set out with the aim of:

• establishing how Dawn came by her death;
• identifying where responsibility for her death lies, including the involvement of the Russian state; and
• making such recommendations as may seem appropriate.

Factual Background

Russian GRU agents, Alexander Petrov, Ruslan Boshirov and Sergey Fedotov (all aliases), travelled from Russia to the UK at the beginning of March 2018. They visited Salisbury on the day of the poisoning seeking to assassinate Mr Skripal who is a former GRU officer. They applied Novichok, a military grade nerve agent to the door handle of Mr Skripal’s home. On 4 March 2018, Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal fell ill shortly after coming into contact with the substance and received treatment by paramedics and members of the public before being treated in Salsibury District Hospital. Both recovered thanks to the timely interventions of emergency responders, hospital and Porton Down.

Sometime later Charlie Rowley came into possession of a discarded bottle of what appeared to be perfume and, on 30th June 2018, gifted it to Ms Sturgess (aged 44 years) who sprayed it on her wrist and became seriously ill very quickly. It was later confirmed that the bottle contained the same chemical used to poison Mr and Ms Skripal.  Paramedics attended the flat and by the time they arrived, she was in cardiac arrest. Although the paramedics managed to resuscitate her, she had sustained an unsurvivable brain injury. Later on 30th June Mr Rowley was treated by paramedics and was also conveyed to hospital and survived. Ms Sturgess never regained consciousness and tragically died on 8 July 2018. 

The Chair’s Key Findings

• Ms Sturgess’ medical cause of death was hypoxic ischaemic brain injury and intracranial brain haemorrhage, attributable to Novichok poisoning.
• There was a direct causal relationship between Ms Sturgess’ death and the attempted assassination of Mr Skripal by Russian GRU agents. Novichok was taken from Russia by these agents and the operation must have been authorised at the highest level and by President Putin.

Response to Ms Sturgess and Mr Rowley 

• It is absolutely clear that Ms Sturgess’ condition was unsurvivable from before the time the ambulance crew arrived to treat her.
• Ms Sturgess received entirely appropriate medical care from ambulance staff and from the hospital.
• Without exemplary life support treatment provided by paramedics and in hospital Mr Rowley would not have survived. But he did and it was possible for him to be discharged from hospital on 20 July, after three weeks, albeit with some lasting adverse effects to this day.
• Errors were identified in the response of the Police and hospital, but these did not lead to further injury to either Ms Sturgess or Mr Rowley.
• The actions of the paramedics attending to Mr Rowley have been commended by the Chair and independent expert Mark Faulkner, and it was noted that they treated him in the knowledge that they might thereby be exposing themselves to a risk of contamination.
• Security of Mr Skripal – The Chair noted failings in the management of the prisoner exchange of Mr Skripal, including insufficient risk assessments, but found that these had no causative effect. Authorities should not have taken additional precautions to isolate him as there was not a significant risk of assassination of Russian agents on British soil between 2010 – 2018. Circumstances were different then compared to the current geopolitical situation.
• Public Health Messaging – Between Salisbury and Amesbury the authorities considered whether to issue ‘don’t pick it up’ advice to the public. A decision was taken not to issue advice at that time because of the danger of spreading widespread panic, which the Chair found to be reasonable at the time it was made – alongside a reasonable assumption that the assassins would have acted ‘professionally’ in their discard of the Novichok. The public health messaging after Amesbury did include the warning.
• Symptom Advice – There is a possibility of confusion, when considering early symptoms, between opiate poisoning on the one hand and nerve agent/ organophosphate poisoning on the other (a noticeable difference being increased salivation with the latter). While it made no difference to the treatment of Ms Sturgess or Mr Rowley, additional guidance has since been incorporated into the training of first responders.

Timeline

How we can help

Bevan Brittan represented South West Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, a Core Participant in the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry. The wider team has extensive Inquiries experience and is currently working on the Lampard Inquiry, Fuller Inquiry and Thirwall Inquiry and previously and most recently, the Infected Blood Inquiry, the Grenfell and Mid-Staffordshire Inquires. Please find further information on our team here. 

Contact George Riach, Claire Leonard, Joanna Lloyd, or Carlton Sandler to discuss your needs and how we can help.

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