Vincent McAviney: UK/Europe Correspondent on the inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess

The family of a British woman who was killed by a nerve agent smuggled into the UK have spoken out - following an inquiry into her death.

44-year-old Dawn Sturgess died in 2018, after spraying herself Novichok from a fake perfume bottle discarded in Salisbury by Russian agents.

The inquiry states Russian President Vladimir Putin must have ordered the use of it, to assassinate former spy Sergei Skripal.

Sturgess' mother Caroline says a narrative's been created online, that's been distressing for family.

She says she wasn't a known drug user as had been reported, she was a very loved, mother, daughter and granddaughter.

UK/Europe Correspondent Vincent McAviney has the latest. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Vincon Mecavini are UK europe correspondent with uscent this inquiry
into the death of Dawn sturges. This is the Novachok
incident in Salisbury. Will we hear a result?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, that's right. You might remember back in twenty eighteen
the Scripples a father and daughter. He was a Russian
dissident living here in the UK. They were poisoned, but
they survived. Then a few weeks later, Dawn Sturgis was
the recipient of a perfume bottle and it was actually
the Novechok spray used by the Russians. She used it
on herself and tragically died from that chemical. Well, there

(00:35):
has now been a lengthy investigation into exactly what happened,
and the British now believe that Vladimir Putin himself was
morally responsible for the death, that the order to kill
the tritus killed the Scripples came from the very top
of the Russian state, and that there was sadly nothing
that could have been done given the high dosage that
she took to survive what happened. So her family have

(00:59):
long campaigned for full answers on this and this is
a pretty detailed report very much pointing the finger at
the highest levels of the Russian government for this death.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Are they, because I knowe they say that he's potent
as morally responsible. Are they saying that he gave the order?
Is it go that far?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, essentially he seems to have given the order to
take out the scripples here in the UK. The scripples,
of course survives. We know they're living somewhere quietly in
under new identities now somewhere else in the world. But
the knock on effect of that was that he allowed
a chemical which his two agents, these two gru agents,
simply disposed of in the city. They didn't get rid

(01:37):
of it themselves, and it had enough of the poison
inside it to kill as many as potentially a thousand people.
And so it was their negligence whilst carrying out his
orders that meant that Dawnstair just died. So that is
why it's come in as being saying he is morally
responsible for this.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Thanks for the uplate, Vincent appreciated. Vincent Mecavini are UK
europe correspondent.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
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