This has been revealed by evidence gathered by the Wiltshire police two years ago, and recovered this week.
Senior Coroner David Ridley (lead image, right) has also concealed evidence from the coroner's court inquest file and withheld it from the Russian Government after promising "to assist with the Russian Federation's investigation of Ms Sturgess' death...if the Russian Federation were to be supplied with a copy of the coronial investigation file which focuses on Ms Sturgess' death."
Asked to respond to the police evidence and to say if he had passed the file to the Russian Government, Ridley refused to say. "You are not an Interested Person as defined by S47 Coroners and Justice Act 2009 [ click for link ], and therefore [Ridley] will not be responding to your e-mails or correspondence." But last December Ridley published a ruling identifying two Russians - the alleged Novichok assassins - as "Interested Persons", declaring "the same disclosure material...will be provided to all Interested Persons including Messrs Petrov and Boshirov."
Ridley did not provide the "disclosure material", according to the Russian Embassy in London.
The reason for Ridley's cover-up is that the "disclosure material" in the "coronial investigation file" includes Wiltshire police evidence, together with blood and toxicology tests from Salisbury District Hospital; these show Sturgess had taken illegal drugs, the contamination of which caused her death. The Wiltshire police and hospital medical reports were dated more than a week before the authorities claim to have discovered Novichok on the kitchen table at the apartment where Sturgess fell mortally ill.
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