Today, on its second day, the inquiry opened with a statement from Dawn Sturgess’ mum, Caroline.

She described Dawn as “intelligent, funny” and “extremely selfless”.

She also strongly denied that Dawn was a drug user, “as had initially been reported and then repeated".

Met Police's counter terrorism command Dominic Murphy said the Salisbury poisoning was the first identified use of a chemical weapon in the UK as a tool to "conduct an assassination".

A covert MI5 operation also ran alongside the police’s investigation into the poisonings, he added.

Paul Mills, deputy chief constable for Wiltshire Police, said intelligence suggested that the attack on the Skripals in March 2018 was an "isolated incident".

He said with “hindsight”, more advice should have been given to the police about signs of nerve agent poisoning.

The hearing heard how Dawn Sturgess was taken ill on the morning of 30 June 2018, but Wiltshire Police were not informed of this until the evening.

Mr Mills also apologised on behalf of the force to Dawn's family about the reports of her being a drug user.

The inquiry has finished for the day, a lot sooner than most expected.

Stick with us for some more analysis and key information from what we heard this morning.

Francesca Whitelaw KC says the family wants and the wider public will ask is "was MI5 involved?"

She says Murphy has indicated in his evidence that MI5 works "closely" with the various organisations he has spoken about today, that were involved in the Salisbury poisonings.

The inquiry is now shown the witness statement of a senior officer in MI5 - written to set out the involvement of the security service's involvement in the incidents.

Not everything can be put in the open however, due to security reasons, the statement says.

MI5 protects the national security of the UK, and has a "history of effort against the Russian Federation".

The agency does not have the power to arrest people. Commander Murphy explains an investigation would usually be led by MI5 in the first instance, and then the police would take over when this type of action is needed.

"MI5 carried out a full investigation into the incident in Salisbury," the statement says. MI5's "primary role" was the "protection of national security" it adds.

Commander Murphy says this was a "covert operation".

Image source, Getty Images

Commander Murphy says the Salisbury poisoning was the first identified use of a chemical weapon in the UK used as a tool to "conduct an assassination".

"Having worked on the [Alexander] Litvinenko investigation, I understood quite quickly how significant this would be, and how completely challenging it would be," he adds.

"This really was an unprecedented investigation - not one we've seen before - but one we were able to apply our existing operational processes in order to respond."

Murphy is now being questioned around the principle of information sharing between different security agencies.

He agreed with Francesca White KC that the way they were operating prior to the Salisbury poisonings was on a "need to know" basis.

He says it involved a "very much more restricted sharing of intelligence".

"The compromise of sensitive intelligence can have a very significant impact, and it can lead to sometimes a loss of life if we're not cautious with how we handle that intelligence," he adds.

He says it is "really important" to "share the required levels of information" with other groups to assess a threat and the response that needs to be made.

Since the poisonings in 2018, Commander Murphy tells the inquiry that there has been "very significant developments" in information sharing between counter terrorism policing and the security services.

Mr Murphy continues to outline how the police and Counter Terrorism Unit work together when investigating threats to national security.

He highlights the importance of collaboration and joint decision-making when it comes to counteracting threats to national security.

"It's really important that we come together and work closely with members of the intelligence community, sometimes our international and other partners, to ensure that we're sharing the required levels of information that allow us to make an assessment of that threat".

Image source, Metropolitan Police

Commander Murphy is now being asked about the investigation into three Russian suspects believed to have conducted the Skripal poisoning.

These men entered the UK using the aliases Alexander Petrov, Ruslan Boshirov and Sergey Fedotov. Their real names are believed to be Anatoliy Chepiga, Alexander Mishkin and Denis Sergeev respectively.

Murphy tells the inquiry the criminal investigation into the suspects is still ongoing.

He presented the case in Westminster Magistrates Court in London in 2018, and charges were issued for Boshirov and Petrov, including for attempted murder of the Skripals and Nick Bailey, the police officer who attended the scene.

Other charges were for conspiracy to murder, causing grievous bodily harm with intent and possession and use of Novichok.

Fedetov was issued with the same charges in 2021.

We are now hearing from commander of the Met Police's counter terrorism command, Dominic Murphy.

He says they cover London, but have a "number of national responsibilities".

He expresses his "deepest condolences" to the Sturgess family, Charlie Rowley, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and police officers Nick Bailey and Ollie Bell, who attended the Skripal poisoning scene and became unwell.

In recent years, he has held leadership positions in handling a number of terrorist attacks in the UK and overseas and was also involved in the investigation into the fatal poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

Dan O'Brien
At Salisbury Guildhall

DCC Paul Mills' evidence, along with the police call logs, show it was days between Dawn being taken ill, and the cause being identified as Novichok.

Perhaps that’s unsurprising – why would anyone assume the nerve agent was in Amesbury?

But the key challenge here is about assumptions that were made – initially that it was a drug overdose, then a contaminated batch of drugs.

Mr Mills has just confirmed that although “police intelligence” existed about previous use of drugs by Charlie Rowley, they had no such evidence for Dawn, and to the inquiry repeated an apology about that on behalf of Wiltshire Police.

Judging by the comments made by Dawn’s family’s legal team yesterday, it is unlikely to be the last we hear about these sorts of assumptions during the inquiry – did it in some way impact the care she received?

Wiltshire deputy chief constable Paul Mills has finished this part of his evidence to the inquiry. A big part of his contribution this morning has focussed on the response to the Skripal poisoning earlier in 2018.

We reported earlier that he told the inquiry the intelligence suggested the attack on the Skripals was an "isolated incident".

At the time of the Sturgess poisoning, the item used to deliver Novichok to the father and daughter had not been located, Francesca Whitelaw KC told the inquiry.

By June that year, when Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were poisoned, Mills says "we [police] did not know" if a vessel had been discarded in or around Salisbury or Wiltshire or elsewhere in the UK.

Whitelaw asks if he agreed in those circumstances that Wiltshire Police officers “ought to have been advised to be particularly alert to any signs of nerve agent poisoning from March 2018 onwards”.

“From a local level, yes," Mr Mills says in reply.

"I absolutely reflect that we didn’t put anything further out, clearly police officers are trained in relation to generic responses, but I do believe in hindsight it would’ve been sensible just to put some advice and guidance out."

Speaking about the suggestions that Dawn was a drug user, Mr Mills apologises to her family on behalf of Wiltshire Police.

He says that there were reasons to suspect that she may have become unwell due to her association with drugs, but stresses there was no actual intelligence to suggest that she was a drug user.

He explains that at the time, the police received documents relating to Dawn Sturgess' address and her relationship to Charlie Rowley and his drug-taking behaviour.

Mr Mills says police documents which said that Dawn and Charlie were "known drug users" were "created post-incident and were not existing records prior to this incident".

Dawn's mother, Caroline, spoke to the inquiry a short time ago.

She said her family has found comfort in the fact Dawn was the only person who lost her life.

Image source, Getty Images

The hearing hears how Dawn Sturgess was taken ill on the morning of June 30 2018, but Wiltshire Police were not informed or aware of this until the evening.

Mr Mills says they were informed by the Fire and Rescue service at around 19:00 that there was a potential "hazmat" incident at 9 Muggleton Road, the address of Dawn's partner Charlie Rowley.

Police then received a call from the ambulance service, regarding a "special job" in Muggleton Road.

The operator mentioned taking a patient in at about 10:00 with respiratory arrest and severe breathing problems. They said they had been called back to the property because of a further two patients.

The first police officers arrived at 9 Muggleton Road at 19:19.

This was nearly four months after the Skripals had been poisoned in early March.

Mr Mills is now talking about the "significant response" at the home of Charlie Rowley in June 2018.

The ambulance and fire service said the victims had breathing problems and were "completely incoherent".

They were said to be suffering from "excessive drooling, sweating and were unresponsive".

They were making "really weird noises", emergency service communications said.

Wiltshire Police were advised by counter terrorism police to watch for signs of Novichok poisoning.

However Mr Mills says at the time, intelligence suggested that the attack on the Skripals in March 2018 was an "isolated incident" and that there wasn't believed to be a "further risk".

Dan O'Brien
At Salisbury Guildhall

Image source, Crown Copyright

For all the international intrigue and espionage involved in the backstory, this morning was a powerful reminder that at the heart of this public inquiry is a local woman who was clearly deeply loved and had nothing to do with the previous events.

It is hard to imagine what it must be for a mother to give such a statement to a public inquiry.

The chair, Lord Hughes, seemed visibly moved by what he heard and clearly realised others were too, so announced a pause of a few minutes for people to gather their thoughts.

For all the powerful tributes, Caroline Sturgess also had an important message here which was alluded to by the family’s legal team yesterday: Contrary to some press reports and assumptions early in the investigation at the time, Dawn was not a drug user.

It has clearly been very distressing to the family that she was ever portrayed as such.

Part of the statement was read on behalf of Dawn’s daughter, who is still school age so is not being named, who we learnt almost saw her mum on the day she became ill. If the time Dawn sprayed the perfume had been slightly different, her daughter may have also become ill.

She never got to say goodbye to her mum.

As the inquiry has been hearing, deputy chief constable Paul Mills led the strategic and tactical groups, which involved local and national co-ordination, during the event in 2018.

Mills says the UK government said the various organisations needed national advice because of the "complexity of the science" around what they were dealing with.

Some of this came from Public Health England, a government agency.

Image source, Getty Images

Paul Mills and Francesca Whitelaw are currently establishing how various bodies worked together in Wiltshire as the poisonings generated a huge response from the government and emergency services.

During the Salisbury and Amesbury poisonings, Wiltshire Police worked alongside the Counter Terrorism Police, the Strategic Co-ordination Group (SCG) Wiltshire Council and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Public Health England, Science and Technical Advice Cell STAC, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms COBRA.

These bodies joined together to investigate the poisonings of the Skripals, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, while also ensuring the public were protected.

We are hearing from Paul Mills now, deputy chief constable for Wiltshire Police.

He is answering questions from counsel to the inquiry, Francesca Whitelaw KC.

Mr Mills took up his role the day after the attack on the Skripals.

Caroline speaks of the last conversation she had with Dawn, the night before she was poisoned.

"We spoke at length about the excitement she felt at the prospect of finally leaving the hostel and living independently once more," Caroline says.

The next day, Dawn was supposed to spend time with her daughter.

"It was pure chance that Dawn had sprayed herself with the Novichok before her daughter arrived," Caroline adds.

She says her family finds comfort that it was only Dawn who lost her life that day.

Yesterday, the inquiry was told the perfume had enough poison to "kill thousands".