Novichok perfume bottle had enough poison to kill thousands, inquiry told

The Novichok perfume bottle that killed one contained “enough poison to kill thousands of people”, an inquiry into the incident.

Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after being exposed to the Russian nerve agent which was left in a discarded perfume bottle in Amesbury, Wiltshire, in July 2018. It followed the attempted murder of former spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia and then police officer Nick Bailey, who were poisoned in nearby Salisbury in March that year.

They were poisoned when members of a Russian military intelligence squad are believed to have smeared the nerve agent on Mr Skripal’s door handle. All three survived, as did Ms Sturgess’s boyfriend Charlie Rowley, who had unwittingly given her the bottle containing the killer nerve agent.

An international arrest warrant was issued for three Russian men thought to be involved in the attacks on British soil, but as the Russian constitution does not allow the extradition of its citizens, it is unlikely they will ever stand trial.

Andrew O’Connor KC, counsel to the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry, said on Monday: “It’s no exaggeration to say the circumstances of Dawn Sturgess’s death were extraordinary, they were indeed unique.”

Ms Sturgess “lived a life that was wholly removed from the worlds of politics and international relations”, he added.

“When Ms Sturgess was poisoned by Novichok four months after the Skripal poisoning, the real possibility emerged that she had been caught – an innocent victim – in the crossfire of an illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt.

“Whether or not that is in fact what happened will, of course, be for you to determine.”

The perfume bottle carrying Novichok that fatally poisoned Ms Sturgess contained “enough poison to kill thousands