‘Like James Bond meets the Archers.’ So summarised Adam Straw KC on the opening day of the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry. Straw, who also described Salisbury as ‘rural’, sounds like one of those Islington lawyers who don’t get out of London much. Hopefully he’ll be a bit sharper as the inquiry progresses.

Six years is a long time for Dawn’s family to be given some answers as to what happened back in 2018. Since then, there’s been a pandemic, which slowed this case twice over – the original chair, Baroness Hallett, left to lead the Covid-19 Inquiry and was replaced by Lord Hughes of Ombersley. There has also been, as often with public inquiries, a lot of legal back and forth between the respective parties about what can and can’t be discussed.

At the heart of the dilemma that Lord Hughes has had to square is this: how can you have a public inquiry about something that is secret? The intelligence services, by their nature, aren’t that keen on having their work dissected on a live YouTube feed. Some of that is understandable: I don’t doubt there are plenty of operational reasons to keep certain elements regarding the case off the table. Similarly, Lord Hughes’ decision that the Skripals wouldn’t be interviewed makes sense in terms of their ongoing protection.

At the same time, some of the secrecy involved feels excessive. Lord Hughes ruled the inquiry would publicly follow the ‘NCND’ principle – neither confirm nor deny – as to whether Skripal worked for MI6, despite it being pretty clear that he did. Mark Urban’s excellent The Skripal Files, based on interviews with Skripal in 2017, recounts his role as a double agent and the spy swap which led to him ending up in Salisbury. Urban’s book also contends that relationship continued: ‘occasionally MI6 made use of his services … the use of Skripal as an authority on the GRU … might have been seen in Moscow as a sort of re-entry into the world of espionage.’

This was a point picked up by Michael Mansfield KC, one of the barristers representing Dawn Sturgess’s family: if Skripal was a potential target, what was being done to protect him, his family, and those of us living in the city he’d made his home? Given Skripal was on the electoral roll and had no house alarm or camera, the answer appears to be, not very much.

Here’s where the secrecy element of the public inquiry becomes more problematic: without strong leadership, it becomes a convenient way for mistakes made to remain unaccountable. I hope Lord Hughes’ stewardship is robust enough to overcome this: otherwise, the inquiry may conclude with questions unanswered rather than the closure intended.