Inquiry Hears Novichok Advice Issued After Woman’s Death

An inquiry investigating the death of a woman poisoned by a nerve agent has been informed that public guidance cautioning against handling discarded containers was not disseminated until over a week subsequent to her passing. Dawn Sturgess encountered Novichok via a perfume bottle where the substance had been concealed. This occurred four months following the 2018 poisoning of a former Russian spy with the same agent in Salisbury. Ms. Sturgess succumbed to the poisoning eight days after exposure. According to the nation’s highest-ranking counter-terrorism police official, investigators were cognizant of the potential hazard posed by a discarded bottle. Conversely, a principal advisor to the Home Office stated that no modifications to public health measures would have altered the outcome. The inquiry remains ongoing. The ongoing public inquiry has been scrutinizing whether additional actions could have been taken to alert Salisbury residents about the danger of encountering the nerve agent. Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, affirmed that it was “reasonable to say there was an ongoing risk”. Following the nerve agent incidents, certain areas of Salisbury remained cordoned off for an extended duration. Residents in Salisbury and Amesbury received guidance advising against picking up objects unless they had personally dropped them. Consequently, activities like volunteer litter-picking were suspended. Nevertheless, this specific cautionary advice was not disseminated until after Ms. Sturgess’s death from the nerve agent. The mother of three collapsed on June 30 after opening the bottle and passed away on July 8. Commander Murphy clarified that they had “made it clear had we not found Novichok, we were always concerned it was still there”. Despite this, no explicit discussion on the matter occurred with Public Health England. A crucial witness for Public Health England was indisposed on Monday, but the inquiry did receive testimony from Professor Sir John Aston, the chief scientific adviser at the Home Office. Sir John, who participated in several pivotal meetings during that period, conceded when questioned during the inquiry that issuing a warning about a discarded container without concrete evidence carried the potential risk of inducing panic. He spearheaded a review of lessons learned, which concluded that communication between public health personnel and counter-terrorism police could have been improved. Nevertheless, in that same report, Sir John asserted that no errors were committed in terms of public health that would have substantially altered the events. He cautioned that it was necessary to be “careful about the fact that Novichok was found” because its discovery did not “necessarily imply that the risk was high that it would be found”. He added, “We have to be careful that we don’t flip the timing in order to change what we believe the risk actually was.” The public health witness is scheduled to testify at a subsequent date, with the inquiry now slated to concentrate on the poisoning suspects and the methods used to trace them.