As Ms Sturgess’s parents, Stan and Caroline, watched proceedings from the front row of the inquest’s public gallery, the audience heard how their daughter had managed to turn her life around before being cruelly struck by the poison.

Ms Sturgess had struggled with alcohol while Mr Rowley struggled with drug addiction, but their relationship seemed to have given them the strength to overcome their addiction.

Mr O’Connor said: “Her family remembers that, in the months and weeks before her death, Dawn was showing signs of improvement in her health and well-being. »

CCTV footage presented to the public inquiry showed the two Russian agents walking towards the Skripal home on the outskirts of Salisbury on March 4, 2018.

The cameras did not film their movements in front of the house, but showed them emerging onto a nearby main road and heading back toward the town center.

At one point the two men disappeared from camera range again, after entering Water Lane and before emerging 30 minutes later and heading towards the station.

The inquiry will have to examine highly confidential documents which Lord Hughes of Ombersley, chairman of the inquiry and a former Supreme Court judge, said will have an impact on national security and can only be examined behind closed doors, for national security reasons.

A member of the GRU – Russian military intelligence – Colonel Skripal was convicted by a Russian court in 2004 of spying for Great Britain.

He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but received a presidential pardon in 2010 and was brought to the UK as part of a prisoner exchange.