“I WOULD hope by the end of it the family and friends of Dawn Sturgess feel it has got to the truth.”

Those were the words of Theresa May, the former Prime Minister who was in office at the time of the Salisbury Novichok poisonings, in 2018.

However, speaking to a new BBC podcast about the attack, which killed 44-year-old Dawn after she used what she believed was perfume from a bottle containing Novichok, Baroness May said she thought justice was “unlikely to happen”.

UK authorities believe Russian agents entered the UK and poisoned former KGB agent Sergei Skripal, as well as his daughter, Yulia.

In the aftermath, Wiltshire Police officer Det Sgt Nick Bailey became critically ill, but later recovered.

Dawn’s partner, Charlie Rowley, also became ill after he found the perfume bottle and given it to her without knowing what it contained.

Baroness May was speaking ahead of an independent inquiry into Dawn’s death.

Dawn Sturgess died after using a perfume bottle thought to have contained Novichok

“Closure to all the people affected would only finally come with justice, and that justice is highly unlikely to happen,” Baroness May added.

Mother-of-three Dawn died in July 2018 after being poisoned, which had been disguised as designer perfume in a bottle it is suspected had been discarded by the Russian agents.

READ MORE: Salisbury poisonings on agenda as former PM Theresa May returns to city

And Baroness May said she felt “huge sadness” at her death.

“I hope family and friends of Dawn Sturgess will feel it got to the truth,” she said of the upcoming inquiry.

She also warned of how the death toll “could have been so many more” after the attack, as the Russians had shown “utter recklessness”.

“You felt they just didn’t care about anything,” she told the BBC Crime Next Door: Salisbury Poisonings podcast.

The Russian government has consistently denied involvement in the poisonings.