A CORONER wrongly narrowed the scope of an inquest into the death of a woman poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok, judges have ruled.
But they have decided David Ridley, the senior coroner for Wiltshire, does not have to investigate “Russian state responsibility” and the “source” of the Novichok when conducting an inquest into the death of Dawn Sturgess.
Relatives of Sturgess had taken High Court action in a bid to get “key questions” asked.
Lord Justice Bean and Justice Lewis considered the case at a recent virtual High Court hearing and published a ruling yesterday.
Sturgess, 44, died in hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in July 2018 after collapsing at her partner Charlie Rowley’s home in Amesbury. Relatives said Ridley had wrongly decided to limit what would be considered at an inquest.
A barrister representing them said the question of who was responsible for the use of Novichok was a matter of “almost unparalleled public concern”.
Michael Mansfield QC told two judges an act of “state terrorism” could not be “artificially truncated”.
Judges heard Sturgess was exposed to the same military-grade nerve agent believed to have been used in an attempted assassination of former agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March 2018.
Mansfield said the coroner had decided he would not consider whether any Russian state agents, other than the suspects – Russian military intelligence agents known as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – were responsible for Sturgess’s death, or issues relating to the source of the Novichok.
He said that meant the inquest would not investigate “credible allegations” that other Russian state agents were involved or “key questions” about how the operation was arranged.
Ridley had said he would consider “the acts and omissions” of Petrov and Boshirov, investigate how the Novichok came to Salisbury and look at who was responsible for Sturgess’s death – provided that issue was limited to the acts and omissions of Petrov and Boshirov.
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