Tainted blood: Now PM orders inquiry
Victory for Mail one week after exposing new evidence Health chiefs are facing prosecution over scandal
OFFICIALS could be prosecuted over their role in the contaminated blood scandal after the Prime Minister ordered a major inquiry into the disaster.
Theresa May yesterday announced the first full inquiry into what she called an ‘appalling tragedy’ that killed 2,400 people infected with hepatitis and HIV in the 1970s and 1980s.
The announcement is a major victory for the Daily Mail, which has been campaigning for nearly 30 years for justice for the victims of the travesty.
An estimated 7,500 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis after they were infected with contaminated stocks of the clotting agent Factor VIII, used to treat patients with haemophilia.
Minutes of papers disclosed by the Mail last week suggest patients were given the deadly blood for at least five years after health officials became aware of the danger, and the damning evidence increased pressure on Mrs May to order an inquiry.
Health minister Philip Dunne yesterday confirmed that criminal prosecutions could result from the inquiry, following a precedent set by the Hillsborough Inquiry.
Mrs May said the scandal ‘should simply never have happened’.
She added: ‘ Thousands of patients expected the world-class care our NHS is famous for, but they were failed.
‘ While this Government has invested record amounts to support the victims, they have been denied those answers for too long and I want to put that right.’
MPs speaking during an emergency debate in the Commons accused officials of covering up evidence of the scandal. They said documents had been destroyed and medical records changed – and called for officials to be prosecuted if evidence of wrongdoing was found.
Mr Dunne confirmed court cases may follow. The Crown Prosecution Service last month announced the prosecution of six people over the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy.
‘If anyone in this House or out- side has any evidence of criminality they should take that evidence to the police as soon as possible,’ Mr Dunne said.
Anneliese Dodds, Labour MP for Oxford East, said victims did not just want transparency, but justice. She added: ‘If we do find evidence of a cover- up those individuals should face the full weight of the law.’ Papers seen by the Mail revealed that as early as 1981, government scientists were so sure the blood was dangerous that they even planned to use victims as guinea pigs to develop a new test for hepatitis.
Yet it was not until 1986 that supply of the contaminated blood was stopped. Alison Thewliss, SNP MP for Glasgow Central, said some patients’ records had been changed to hide the circumstances in which they had been infected, adding: ‘We must find out what was known, when and by whom.’
Mrs May’s spokesman said victims will be consulted about the form of the inquiry, which will be announced in the autumn.
He said: ‘It is a tragedy that has caused immeasurable hardship and pain for all those affected and a full inquiry to establish the truth of what happened is the right course of action to take. It is going to be a wide-ranging inquiry.’
The Government is considering either the model set by the Hillsborough Inquiry, in which a panel considered the evidence before them, or a statutory judgeled inquiry, as was used for the Francis Inquiry into the Mid-Staffs Hospital scandal.
Diana Johnson, MP for Hull North, who has led the Parliamentary campaign over the contaminated blood scandal, called it the ‘one of the worst peacetime disasters’ in British history, involving a ‘criminal cover-up on an industrial scale’.
She said: ‘Today the Prime Minister has earned a place in history as someone who has listened to an issue which her predecessors had ignored and put party politics aside in the name of giving the people the basic right to answers, and for that she has my gratitude.
‘In welcoming this announcement we must also be mindful of those who will never see its results – the more than 2,400 people who have tragically lost their lives. Many never even knew of the true scale of the scandal that was happening to them.’
Jason Evans, 27, whose father Jonathan died in 1993 with HIV and hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood products, said the announcement was the ‘beginning of the end’.
‘Tragically lost their lives’
FOR many who work in it, the ‘gig economy’ is a blessing – not that you’d believe this, listening to hard-Left trade union activists posing on yesterday’s airwaves as ordinary delivery riders.
It can offer the freedom they want to choose their own working hours and pay lower rates of National Insurance. It has also been a huge contributor to the health of Britain’s labour market.
But it has great drawbacks, too. It gives no guarantees of work and no holiday pay, sick pay or maternity leave, while allowing companies such as Uber to escape NI contributions and other responsibilities.
So this paper applauds Matthew Taylor’s attempt to find a middle way, which rejects Labour’s call for an outright ban on zerohours contracts, while offering workers more protection against exploitation.
One reservation. Wouldn’t the Chancellor have done well to wait for Mr Taylor’s report before introducing, abandoning and now ruling out increases in NI for the selfemployed? If workers in the gig economy are to have fairer rights, shouldn’t they be asked for fairer contributions? AFTER 30 years of campaigning, this paper is proud of its role in securing a public inquiry into the blood contamination scandal that killed 2,400 people infected with HIV and hepatitis. It comes far too late for the victims. But with evidence mounting of criminal negligence and a cover-up, those they left behind may at last have a measure of justice.