Fortnightly update to the Police and Crime Commissioner - 6 December 2024

Dear Police and Crime Commissioner, Philip Wilkinson,

This week marked the end of the open, public hearings for The Dawn Sturgess Inquiry which began in Salisbury on October 14.

The Inquiry will now move to closed sessions before formally concluding with the publication of a report by the Chair, The Rt Hon Lord Hughes of Ombersley, next year.

I would once again like to offer the collective condolences of everyone at Wiltshire Police to Dawn’s family and friends. I have no doubt that the evidence presented during the last six weeks of hearings will have been incredibly painful for them to relive.

Throughout the Inquiry, her family have clearly set out their disappointments with the initial police response to Dawn falling unwell.

In particular, the family raised their concerns about Dawn wrongly being described in police documents as a known drug user.

This was wrong and should never have happened.

I would also like to use this opportunity to recognise the significant consequences the Novichok poisonings have had on Sergei and Yulia Skripal, former Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey and Dawn’s partner Charlie Rowley.

In addition, it is important for us to also acknowledge the impact these events had on all those who responded to them and our communities in Salisbury and Amesbury.

It is crucial, in terms of constantly improving the service our communities receive, that we ensure we are actively learning from each incident we attend.

From the outset of the Inquiry, I assured you and our communities that Wiltshire Police is fully committed to learning any further lessons arising throughout this process.

During each day of the hearings, we’ve captured every opportunity for future learning or development so this can be translated, as necessary, into swift improvements to the policing service and response our communities receive. This is being managed by Deputy Chief Constable Craig Dibdin through our Force Organisational Learning Board.

The full statement I issued on Monday can be found here.

Throughout the Inquiry, we’ve actively listened to the testimonies of our partner agencies to identify ways of continuing to strengthen our local relationships and partnerships. Some of the evidence illustrated the criticality of ensuring these relationships are constantly developed for us all to help best protect the public.

In recent months, we’ve participated in a schedule of exercises and training to strengthen our local partnerships. These have included:

• Joint JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles) commander training for all our officers from Sergeant upwards with the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust and Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service. This aims to continue to develop and improve our collaborative working.
• We’ve been developing our Public Safety Working group who have been shaping our joint emergency services response plans for local operations.
• Just this week, we have been testing a new software system which aims to support the multi-agency evacuation of large numbers of the public in emergency scenarios such as floodings. This testing has taken place with all partners within the Local Resilience Forum (LRF).
• We’ve participated in several exercises and tabletop scenarios with partners to test and evaluate our joint response to emergency situations with several more planned in 2025. One of these will be a CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) exercise.

The actions of all first responders involved in the two incidents have been rightly scrutinised by the Inquiry so we must remain open to evolving our joint approach to the incidents posing the most significant threats to the safety of the public.

Like you, I remain fully committed to sharing the improvements we are making to our service with our communities. Additionally, I would always encourage anyone who would like to contribute ideas or shape how we can continue to develop our service, to consider joining one of our Independent Advisory Groups. You can find more information on these here.

Finally, I appreciate that the topics addressed throughout the Inquiry might have generated further questions or concerns to some in our communities. To that end, I would encourage everyone to continue engaging with your Neighbourhood Policing Teams who are there to support our communities in any way they can.

Kindest regards to you,

Catherine Roper

Chief Constable, Wiltshire Police