Who was behind the novichok attack - and was Putin to blame? Inquiry to publish report today

When Dawn Sturgess was given a bottle of perfume by her partner Charlie Rowley, she couldn't have known it contained enough military-grade nerve agent to kill thousands of people.

The mother of three, 44, unwittingly sprayed herself with novichok on 30 June 2018 and collapsed in a flat in Amesbury, Wiltshire. She died in hospital a little over a week later on 8 July.

A seven-week inquiry into her death heard she was caught in the "crossfire of an illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt" on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, who - with his daughter Yulia - had been poisoned on 4 March 2018. The UK government has blamed Russia for the attack but the military intelligence agents named as suspects are unlikely to ever face justice.

With a long-awaited report by former Supreme Court judge Lord Hughes published today aiming to establish the circumstances of Ms Sturgess's death, who was to blame and what lessons can be learned, here are some of the questions that need to be answered. Did the UK government fail to stop a chemical weapons attack on UK soil? Mr Skripal served as a member of Russian military intelligence, the GRU, but was convicted in Russia on espionage charges in 2004 after allegedly spying for Britain.

He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but in 2010 he was given a presidential pardon and brought to the UK on a prisoner exchange before settling in Salisbury. The inquiry heard he wasn't on the radar of either Wiltshire Police or counter terrorism police and he was living under his real name without any apparent security systems or CCTV.

Michael Mansfield KC, representing Ms Sturgess's family, said the attack on Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia was "preventable" and that Russia had "alarming access" to where he lived. He said the threat to Mr Skripal from Russia was "manifestly obvious" and "there has been an abject failure by the UK Government to protect the UK public.