Wiped out by NHS blood

Four brothers killed by HIV and Hep C in transfusions

A FAMILY of seven brothers was almost wiped out by tainted NHS blood, the public inquiry into the scandal heard yesterday.

John Cornes, 61, told the hearing how four of his siblings – and one of their wives – died as a result of contracting the HIV and hepatitis C viruses.

The haemophiliac brothers were given contaminated blood- clotting treatments during the 1970s and 1980s.

Mr Cornes told how, one by one, he watched three of his brothers diagnosed with both of the deadly viruses, while he and two other siblings got hepatitis C alone.

Between 1992 and 2017 he lost four brothers, Garry, Roy, Gordon and Alan – and Garry’s wife Lee, who was infected with HIV by her husband as they tried for a baby.

Describing the day Garry – the first to die in 1992 aged 26 – realised he was HIV positive, Mr Cornes said: ‘He was sobbing his heart out.’ A month after Garry was diagnosed with HIV, Roy too was told he had the condition and he also died at 26, in 1994.

Mr Cornes said Roy had been a bit of a ‘Jack the lad’ and, before his death, inadvertently infected a girl with HIV. She went on to die and the episode led to the family being vilified in their home city. ‘In Birmingham we were known as the scumbags, the Aids family,’ he said. ‘It ripped the family apart.’

Eighteen months after Roy’s death, in 1995, eldest brother Gordon, a father of five, died aged 40.

Lee died in 2000 – leaving her young son with Garry orphaned.

The last brother to die was Alan, who had not long been clear of hepatitis C in 2017 when he suffered a haemorrhage believed to have been linked to the virus. The father of seven, who was 58, is buried alongside Garry, Roy and Gordon in a Birmingham cemetery.

The dead brothers are survived by Mr Cornes, their sister Merle, a brother who wished not to be identified and Paul, 64, the only brother not born with haemophilia.

Mr Cornes told the inquiry: ‘I have got a load of nephews and nieces from the brothers who have died and I have nephews that haven’t got a mother or a father. I am here to represent not just the infected, but also the affected.’

The inquiry is sitting looking at how thousands of patients were given infected blood in the 1970s and 1980s in the ‘worst treatment scandal in NHS history’. Nearly 3,000 are thought to have died. The hearing in Leeds continues.

IT appears to be the perfect family wedding snap, as six brothers and their sister gather to celebrate a sibling’s nuptials. But months after the picture was taken in 1991, groom Garry Cornes was dead at 26, having contracted HIV and hepatitis C from infected NHS blood. In 1994 youngest brother Roy (far right) also died from HIV. The next year eldest brother Gordon was dead too. He had been unable to attend the wedding as he was in hospital. Tragically, bride Lee Cornes was the next to die, after being infected trying for a baby with Garry. Alan (far left) died in 2017 aged 58. The dead brothers are survived by Paul (third left), John (second right), an unnamed brother (second left) and the boys’ sister Merle (third right).