Lord Hughes said the closed section of the £8million report ‘cannot be made available to the public because of the damage which might be done to national security and the risk of harm which might be occasioned to some individuals if it were to be published’
Lord Hughes’ report following the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry spans 174 pages, but one part of it is likely to remain secret for as long as 100 years.
The retired Supreme Court judge conducted behind closed doors interviews with “a number of witnesses” over several days inside a government building in London, which cannot be named. They included Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Commander Dominic Murphy, and a chemical and biological scientific adviser from the government’s secretive science and defense lab Porton Down, who can only be referred to as MK26.
Other witnesses included individuals, believed to be involved with the security services, who were personally involved in making decisions regarding double agent Sergei Skripal’s security after he was relocated to Britain. Lawyers at the inquiry say all of the evidence remains closed by virtue of a restriction order. It will be up to the Home Secretary to decide if it can ever be unsealed.
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Lord Hughes said the closed section of the £8million report “cannot be made available to the public because of the damage which might be done to national security and the risk of harm which might be occasioned to some individuals if it were to be published.” He added: “During the closed hearings, as in the open hearings, I heard oral evidence from witnesses and also received submissions from Counsel regarding documentary evidence.
“The process of determining which evidence is so sensitive that it must remain closed has been a painstaking one. I have considered with care the (very limited) material covered by the Restriction Notices, and I have no hesitation in endorsing the requirement that the relevant material remain closed.”
“Taken together, there is a considerable quantity of closed documentary evidence. I have also received a number of closed witness statements, some of which are lengthy.”
Lord Hughes found Russian president Vladimir Putin is “morally responsible” for the death of mum-of-three Dawn Sturgess, who was poisoned by Novichok left on British streets by Russian agents. Dawn, 44, died three weeks after spraying herself with a discarded bottle of the deadly nerve agent, which she thought was perfume, in July 2018.
Her partner Charlie Rowley also fell ill, but survived, as did Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey and former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were poisoned four months earlier by Novichok left on the knob of their front door. Lord Hughes said evidence the attempted assassination was a Russian state attack was overwhelming and constituted “a public demonstration of Russian state power for both international and domestic impact”.
He added: “I have concluded that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been authorised at the highest level by President Putin. I therefore conclude that all those involved in the assaination attempt, not only Petrov, Boshirov and Fedotov, but also those who sent them, and anyone else giving authorisation or knowing assistance in Russia or elsewhere, were morally responsible for Dawn Sturgess’ death.”
Lord Hughes, a retired Supreme Court judge, announced the long-awaited findings of the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in London’s St Paul’s at midday on Thursday. He had heard seven weeks of evidence, including about three Russian GRU agents known as Alexander Petrov, Ruslan Boshirov and Sergey Fedotov, who travelled from Russia to Britain to carry out the attack.
Lord Hughes said the Russian agents showed recklessness in leaving the novichok on the door handle of Skripal’s front door where casual callers, neighbours and friends, as well as emergency service workers could have been poisoned. He added they showed “greater recklessness still” in the willingness to abandon the remaining Novichok where it might cause uncontrolled collateral death or grave injury… to an “unaccountable number of innocent people”
Lord Hughes exonerated the British authorities, including the security services, of blame in preventing the attack on Colonel Skripal. He said that after being relocated to Britain, Skripal was offered the chance to change his name, but rejected it and also declined recommended CCTV at his home as he did not want to make his house “conspicuous or live under surveillance”.
During the hearings, Lord Hughes heard criticism from lawyers about the lack of security afforded to former double agent Colonel Skripal while living in the UK, but he said they “would not have prevented a professionally mounted attack with a nerve agent”.
Lord Hughes said: “The reality is that the only security arrangements for Sergei Skripal which could have prevented the kind of attack which happened – employing a novel weapon in the form of a lethal nerve agent – would have been to hide him entirely from view. That would be justified only if the risk to him of assassination on UK soil stood at a high level, and it did not.”
He added: “There is no sufficient basis for concluding that there ought to have to have been assessed to be an enhanced risk to him of lethal attack on British soil, such as to call for security measures of the kind which were suggested.” Public hearings took place in Salisbury and London between October and December 2024, while other classified details were presented behind closed doors.
Lord Hughes’ 174 page report included “a closed section which cannot be made available to the public because of the damage which might be done to national security and the risk of harm which might be occasioned to some individuals if it were to be published.”
The inquiry heard seven weeks of evidence, including about three Russian GRU agents known as Alexander Petrov, Ruslan Boshirov and Sergey Fedotov. Police have said their real names are Alexander Mishkin, Anatoliy Chepiga and Denis Sergeev. A global arrest warrant remains out for their arrests, but Russia denies involvement and won’t extradite them.
Mishkin and Chepiga were caught on CCTV in Salisbury during what they claimed was a sight-seeing trip to see the “famous 123m spire” of the city’s cathedral. The inquiry, which was set up to take the place of the inquest into Dawn’s death and has so far cost £8million, was formally established in March 2022 and heard oral evidence from 40 witnesses.
Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russian spy agency GRU, was arrested in Russia in 2004 and was serving a 15-year jail term for passing information to MI6 during the 1990s and 2000s when he was released in 2010 during a spy swap.
Dawn’s parents, Caroline and Stan, previously told how they hope the inquiry will scrutinise the actions of both governments and examine how safe the UK is from such attacks now. They said they hoped it would answer far-reaching questions about how the tragedy unfolded and allow them and their family to fully grieve for Dawn.
And they had said they wanted it to discover more information about why Sergei Skripal, who Russian president Vladimir Putin personally referred to as “a traitor who had left the motherland”, came to be settled in Salisbury following a spy-swap.
Reacting to its findings, Dawn’s family today criticised the inquiry for failing to make any recommendations and leaving them with “a number of unanswered questions”. They say they believe the British government put lives, including Dawn’s, at risk by failing to adequately protect Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.
A statement read on behalf of her loved ones, including her parents Stan and Caroline and other family members, said: “Today’s report has left us with some answers, but also a number of unanswered questions. We have always wanted to ensure that what happened to Dawn will not happen to others, that lessons should be learned and that meaningful changes should be made.
“The report today contains no recommendations. That is a matter of real concern. There should, there must, be reflection and real change. The Chair considered secret evidence from the Government and the UK intelligence services. Today’s report does not set out, publicly, how the risks that led to Dawn’s death will be prevented in the future.
“Adequate risk assessment of Skripal was not done, but no protective steps were put in place. That is a serious concern, for us now, and for the future. The Inquiry has concluded that Dawn was a wholly innocent victim, killed by Novichok, as the direct result of Russia’s cruel and cynical attempt to assassinate Sergei Skripal.
“The Inquiry’s report concludes that there were failures by the UK Government in the management and assessment of the risk that Russia posed to Sergei Skripal. Skripal was described by Putin as a traitor and convicted of treason. Yet there were no sufficient and regular assessments of the risk he faced from Russian retaliation. As we have always believed, that put the British public at risk, and led to Dawn’s death.”
Dawn’s family also criticised Wiltshire Police for initially wrongly characterising her as a drug user and they claimed “the public were wrongly led to believe that she had somehow contributed to her own death.” And they hit out at a lack of public health advice which they believe should have been issued to the public telling them about the risk of Novichok before Dawn died. In the statement, they added: “Our heartfelt aim throughout this long process has always been to do right by our daughter, mother and sister Dawn. Today is the end of this public process. We remain devastated by Dawn’s death. She is missed and always will be.”
