--- title: "Former high court judge to preside over Dawn Sturgess inquest" description: "CBRNe World provides those tasked with defending against CBRN and IED threats with the essential practical, scientific and political information. Access the current and previous issues of the magazine by registering as a member." url: "https://cbrneworld.com/news/subscribers/former-high-court-judge-to-preside-over-dawn-sturgess-inquest" date: "2026-07-30T21:12:47+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # Former high court judge to preside over Dawn Sturgess inquest Written by Zoe Rutherford on 29 January 2021. According to an article in The Guardian, retired high court judge Lady Heather Hallett is to take over the inquest of Dawn Sturgess, after her family successfully challenged the way in which a local coroner had planned to limit the scope of the inquest The original Wiltshire and Swindon coroner asserted that Sturgess’s death was too remote from the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal to allow the scope of her inquest to widen, and look at the possible role of Moscow. Sturgess’s family were unhappy with this limitation being placed on the inquest and launched a judicial review, their lawyers argued that it was “inconceivable” that the men responsible operated in “a bubble”, and claimed the operation must have been authorised by the Russian state – possibly right up to Putin. This is not the first time Lady Hallett has acted as Coroner for the purpose of inquest, she previously presided over the inquests into the deaths of the 52 victims of the 2005 London bombings. ## Schema ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "News", "item": "https://cbrneworld.com/news" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Subscribers", "item": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/subscribers" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Former high court judge to preside over Dawn Sturgess inquest", "item": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/subscribers/former-high-court-judge-to-preside-over-dawn-sturgess-inquest" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "NewsArticle", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/subscribers/former-high-court-judge-to-preside-over-dawn-sturgess-inquest" }, "headline": "Former high court judge to preside over Dawn Sturgess inquest", "description": "According to an article in The Guardian, retired high court judge Lady Heather Hallett is to take over the inquest of Dawn Sturgess, after her family successfully challenged the way in which a local coroner had planned to limit the scope of the inquest The original Wiltshire and Swindon coroner asserted that Sturgess’s death was too remote from the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal to allow the scope of her inquest to widen, and look at the possible role of Moscow. Sturgess’s family were unhappy with this limitation being placed on the inquest and launched a judicial review, their lawyers argued that it was “inconceivable” that the men responsible operated in “a bubble”, and claimed the operation must have been authorised by the Russian state – possibly right up to Putin. This is not the first time Lady Hallett has acted as Coroner for the purpose of inquest, she previously presided over the inquests into the deaths of the 52 victims of the 2005 London bombings. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/29/former-high-court-judge-to-take-over-dawn-sturgess-inquest  ", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "CBRNe World Magazine", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/images/default/Asset%201.png" } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Zoe Rutherford", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/subscribers/former-high-court-judge-to-preside-over-dawn-sturgess-inquest" }, "datePublished": "2021-01-29T14:39:19+00:00", "dateCreated": "2021-01-29T14:39:19+00:00", "dateModified": "2021-01-29T14:39:19+00:00" } ```