Devastated wife who lost two husbands to deadly infections
LIZ Hooper lost two husbands – her ‘first love’ and then her ‘soulmate’ – to the infected blood scandal.
The 53-year-old married haemophiliac Jeremy Foyle after they met at a village disco as teenagers.
Mr Foyle was a talented salesman and his work allowed the couple to have a comfortable living. But Mr Foyle’s blood condition made much of life a struggle.
He relied on a coagulant to stem the bleeds, and by the time he found out about his exposure to hepatitis C, the damage had already been done.
In December 2008, Mr Foyle was taken to hospital after suffering a bleed at home but then developed a further bleed and suffered a cardiac arrest. Hepatitis C was recorded as the official cause of death. He was 43. Mrs Hooper, a mother from Warwickshire, later met Paul Hooper on the internet and they married in 2011.
Mr Hooper, a former civil servant had told his wife that due to his haemophilia he had been infected with both hepatitis C and HIV. Last December, the 53-yearold lost his health battle.
According to campaign group Tainted Blood, Mr Hooper is one of more than 70 victims who have died since Theresa May announced the inquiry.
‘They were both fantastic men... who deserved their lives, they didn’t deserve what they had done to them,’ Mrs Hooper told the BBC.
‘I had my first love and I had my soulmate. They’ll always be with me.’