A public inquiry is to be launched into the death of a woman killed in the 2018 Wiltshire novichok poisonings, the home secretary has announced.
The inquiry into Dawn Sturgess’s death will be able to consider sensitive information in secret and allow the judge leading it to examine the role played by the Russian state.
Sturgess’s family had pushed for her inquest, which is being overseen by the life peer Heather Hallett, to be converted into a public inquiry, believing that this would be the best way to get to the truth of what happened.
The home secretary, Priti Patel, said on Thursday: “The government is establishing an inquiry after careful consideration of advice from Baroness Hallett that this is necessary to permit all relevant evidence to be heard. This is an important step in ensuring that the family of Dawn Sturgess get the answers they need. The current inquest will be adjourned after the establishment of the inquiry.
“The inquiry’s investigations will be a matter for the chair. As the sponsoring department, the Home Office will provide support and ensure that the inquiry has the resources that it needs.”
Patel said the inquiry would undertaken by Lady Hallett alone as chair.
Lady Hallett welcomed the announcement and said: “My team will now work through all the necessary arrangements so the inquiry can be set up early in 2022.”
The former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was the target of a novichok attack in Salisbury in March 2018. He and his daughter, Yulia, and a police officer, DS Nick Bailey, were poisoned but survived.
In June 2018, Sturgess, 44, and her partner, Charlie Rowley, were poisoned after he found a fake perfume bottle containing novichok. Rowley recovered but Sturgess died. It is hoped that an inquiry may help to explain the gap between the attack on the Skripals and the poisoning of Sturgess.
At a preliminary inquest hearing in September, a Sturgess family lawyer argued that there was a wide public interest in investigating the circumstances, especially after a claim by the senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, Dean Haydon, that thousands of people could have been killed in the poisonings, which the UK government blames on the Russian state.