Safety no issue as family attends funeral of Novichok victim Dawn Sturgess
♦ Charley Rowley, the partner of the Novichok victim Dawn Sturgess, sat on the front row at her funeral as friends gathered to pay their respects.
Ms Sturgess died after coming into contact with the nerve agent in Salisbury on June 30. A black hearse carried her coffin, topped with a plume of yellow flowers and a white wreath that spelt “Mum”, to the town’s crematorium yesterday afternoon.
Sturgess, 44, had two sons, Aidan, 23, and Ewan, 19, and an 11-year-old daughter. There had been safety concerns that the coffin could have been contaminated by the deadly poison. “Nothing was different at all,” said Rev Philip Bromiley, who hosted the ceremony. “I was able to touch the coffin and do the final committal as I would have done in any other service.”