A senior police officer has apologized for calling Salisbury poisoning victim Dawn Sturgess a “known drug addict”.
Mrs Sturgess, 44, died on July 8, 2018 afterward the “unconscious application” of the nerve agentwhich was left in a discarded perfume bottle in nearby Amesbury in Wiltshire.
The bottle was probably dumped two members by That of Russia military intelligence after they tried to assassinate a former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury four months earlier.
Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal. Image: Shutterstock
Packaging for a counterfeit bottle of perfume recovered from Charlie Rowley’s home after he and his partner Dawn Sturgess were poisoned. Image: Reuters
Mr Skripal, his daughter Yulia and then police officer Nick Bailey, who had been poisoned, fell ill but survived, as did Ms Sturgess’ boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, who unknowingly gave her the bottle containing the deadly substance.
The Dawn Sturgess research previously heard that paramedics who attended Charlie Rowley decided he was suffering from nerve agent poisoning, but Wiltshire police officers, who knew Mr Rowley as a drug user, disagreed.
Temporary Chief Inspector Kerry Lawes, who was a detective sergeant at the time of the poisoning, gave evidence in central London on Monday.
Ms Lawes said in an email sent to the coroner a week before Ms Sturgess’ death that police had received a report of a possible nerve agent poisoning, which they believed was a drug overdose.
In the note she said the ambulance and fire crews at the scene were “slightly panicked”, adding that Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were “two known drug addicts”.
However, it has since emerged that there is no evidence that Dawn Sturgess was a drug user and that they had been poisoned with a nerve agent.
Ms Lawes, who was unable to attend the inquest in person, apologized in a statement read out on her behalf.
“I now know that there is no information to support the claim that Dawn Sturgess herself was a user of illegal drugs or an addict,” the statement said.
“I indicated that the ambulance and fire brigade panicked somewhat. This was an unprofessional comment and I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for this.”
Charlie Rowley unknowingly gave Dawn Sturgess the perfume bottle containing novichok
She said her belief that the incident was drug-related was influenced by the information she received from police.
She said she had always acted in good faith and based on what she believed was in the best interests of the people involved.
Detective Sergeant Eirin Martin told the inquiry that on July 2 she received a transmission from Detective Sergeant Lawes stating that they believed the medications Ms Sturgess and Mr Rowley had taken had been mixed with pesticides, causing them to overdose.
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She even asked the department’s media team to send out a press release that day warning of a possible “bad batch” of drugs, she said.
The investigation, which opened last month, aims to establish the circumstances of Ms Sturgess’ death, who was to blame and what lessons can be learned.