Wife who lost two husbands to contaminated blood scandal
‘Men who need their stories told’
A HeArTBroken widow described yesterday how she lost two husbands to the contaminated blood scandal.
Liz Hooper, 54, saw her ‘first love’ Jeremy Foyle and then later her ‘soulmate’ Paul Hooper both die after being treated for haemophilia with infected blood by the nHS.
She described them as the ‘best human beings who ever walked this earth’ as she gave evidence at the public inquiry into the disaster in central London yesterday.
Thousands of Britons were infected with HIV and hepatitis in the 1970s and 1980s through contaminated blood donations, many of which were imported cheaply from the US where they had often been taken from high-risk groups such as addicts, prostitutes and prisoners.
Mrs Hooper met her first husband, Mr Foyle, at a village disco when they were teenagers, and they married in 1987. She told the inquiry: ‘It was like something out of a love story. our eyes met... it was love at first sight. You always knew he was in a room. If you were in a party you knew Jeremy was there. He was in the middle of everything, laughing and joking.’
She added: ‘We were the epitome of an executive family. We were living the dream. We went on foreign holidays and we had a nice house. Having a baby, Lewis, was the icing on the cake.’
By the time her husband found out about his exposure to hepatitis C – as a result of contaminated blood he received during his treatment for haemophilia – the damage had already been done.
In December 2008, Mr Foyle was taken to a hospital after suffering a bleed at home. He developed a further bleed and suffered a cardiac arrest. Doctors were unable to save him and he died, aged 43. The cause of death was recorded as hepatitis C. The following year Mrs Hooper met her second husband online, whom she described as her ‘soulmate’. They married in 2011. Mr Hooper, a former civil servant, had told his wife that because of his haemophilia he had been infected with both hepatitis C and HIV.
Mrs Hooper told the inquiry: ‘I was smitten. We saved one another. God brought us together.’ But over the years Mr Hooper’s health began to decline. He suffered excruciating headaches, strokes and lost his sight. He died in December 2017, aged 53.
According to campaign group Tainted Blood, Mr Hooper is one of more than 70 victims who have died since 2017 when then Prime Minister Theresa May announced the inquiry into the scandal. Mrs Hooper said: ‘I’ve known and lost two of the best human beings who have ever walked this earth.
‘I want to know why. I had my first love and my soulmate. My heart overflows for the pair of them. They’re amazing men and they need their stories told.’
She concluded her evidence by reading a poem calling for inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff to ‘take things into hand’ so ‘justice that is so much deserved can finally be found’.
The inquiry continues.