Amesbury victim Dawn Sturgess’ funeral packed with mourners as daughter leads tributes

Dawn Sturgess' daughter led tributes
EPA
Olivia Tobin30 July 2018

Amesbury Novichok victim Dawn Sturgess’ funeral was packed with mourners as her daughter spoke about how much she loved her.

Special safety measures were in place for the mother-of-three’s funeral today, after she died earlier this month at the age of 44, eight days after she was poisoned with the nerve agent.

Funeral directors worked with Public Health England (PHE) and the crematorium to prevent any further exposure to the deadly nerve agent, Novichok.

According to Rev Philip Bromiley, who led the service, Ms Sturgess's daughter told mourners how much she loved her mother and how much her mother loved her, resulting in a round of applause.

Ms Sturgess's partner Charlie Rowley, 45, was in the front row for the service, which also included a eulogy by her sister Claire.

The casket of Dawn Sturgess arrived at Sailsbury Crematorium
EPA

Among the music played at the service was James Blunt song Beautiful Dawn, the hymn Shalom Shalom, and Fame.

Ms Sturgess's coffin, adorned with floral tributes, was taken into the chapel earlier to give her family some time on their own.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Bromiley said: "There was a sense of celebration that we wanted to celebrate Dawn's life.

"As you can imagine there was a lot of mixed emotions and there was obviously still shock, and people were tremendously tearful having lost a loved one, and yet there was a bit of upbeat spirit to make sure that Dawn had the kind of send-off that they would have wanted.

"We ended the service with Fame - 'I'm going to live forever' - which is a great message for any funeral service to have.

"It summed her up because she was known for dancing to things.

"Dawn's sister Claire gave an extremely moving eulogy and Dawn's daughter got up and said a couple of lines which resulted in a round of applause from everybody.

Dawn Sturgess died on June30
EPA

"She just said how much she loved her mum and how much her mum had loved her, and really got to the very nerve of what it must be like to lose your own mother. It's an awful thing but she was so strong.

"The tragic and suddenness of her death was reflected in many of the thoughts and hearts of the public gathered there.

"Charlie was sat on the front row, obviously very emotional. It was lovely to see him there and I'm really hoping that the service will have given him a healing that he will doubtless need to have in the days and months to come."

Despite safety precautions ahead of the service, Mr Bromley said not too many details had to be changed.

Mr Rowley described his partner as a 'lovely lady with a big heart'
AFP/Getty Images

He said: "In the end nothing was different at all. I think the precautions had been so stringent that by the time the funeral directors were able to take care of Dawn they were able to behave in any other way for any other funeral.

"Pallbearers took the coffin in quite a bit before the service began so the family could have a little bit of head space to think about Dawn before they were surrounded by hundreds of people.

"I was able to touch the coffin and do the final committal in the same way I would have done for any other service."

Mr Rowley has said the nerve agent took just 15 minutes to poison Ms Sturgess after she sprayed the "oily" substance on to her wrists believing it was perfume he had given her as a gift.

It was the second nerve agent incident in four months following the case of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury in March.

Additional reporting by Press Association.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT