Salisbury poisoning victim Sergei Skripal believes Vladimir Putin personally ordered the Novichok attack on him and his daughter Yulia, the former spy has told the inquiry into Dawn Sturgess ’s death.

As well as with the aim of helping the family “grieve the loss of their loved one, and come to terms with her death”, barrister Michael Mansfield KC warned that openness in the inquiry will be “of great importance” in countering the “huge amount” of Russian disinformation about Salisbury.

In March 2018, a Russian double agent who had been living in Salisbury after defecting was found collapsed on a bench along with his daughter in The Maltings shopping centre. Former Russian spy and defector Sergei Skripal has told a British inquiry he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his Novichok poisoning.

Former spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia and then-police officer Nick Bailey were poisoned in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in March 2018.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia narrowly survived the attack in 2018, during which members of a Russian military intelligence squad are believed to have smeared the nerve agent on a door handle

Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal believes Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his Novichok poisoning, an inquiry into the death of a woman who was unwittingly poisoned by the nerve agent was told on Monday.