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loss. From

1:04

the times and the Sunday times,

1:07

this is the story. I'm

1:09

Manveen Rana. It's

1:12

been called the worst treatment

1:14

disaster in NHS history.

1:19

This is a disaster that has

1:21

taken lives and ruined lives. It's

1:24

taken decades, thousands of deaths

1:27

and a relentless battle to have

1:30

their harrowing stories heard. In

1:33

the 1970s and 80s,

1:36

tens of thousands of NHS

1:39

patients were given blood

1:41

infected with HIV and hepatitis

1:43

C. A public

1:45

inquiry was launched in 2018 and

1:48

yesterday it finally

1:50

published its report. What

1:52

I've found is that

1:55

disaster was no accident. People

1:57

put their trust in

1:59

doctors. and the government to keep

2:01

them safe and that

2:04

trust was betrayed. It's

2:06

not only a cover-up, it's actually

2:08

an abuse by many people who

2:10

were set to supposedly care for

2:13

us. We've

2:15

been gaslit for generations. This

2:19

report today brings

2:21

an end to that. But

2:31

to thousands of victims, it

2:33

comes far too late. And

2:36

as I sit here as one of 27,000 blood-transcision

2:41

victims, that's what echoes

2:43

in my head. Behind every one of those

2:45

27,000 is a family. This

2:50

is a day of shame for the British

2:52

state. I want to make a wholehearted and

2:55

unequivocal apology for this terrible

2:57

injustice. We will

2:59

pay comprehensive compensation to those

3:01

infected and those affected by

3:03

this scandal, accepting

3:05

the principles recommended by the inquiry.

3:08

Whatever it costs to deliver this scheme, we

3:11

will pay it. Today

3:17

we're revisiting our conversation with

3:20

Caroline Wheeler from The Sunday Times,

3:22

whose journalism helped to bring about

3:24

this landmark inquiry, and will bring

3:26

you an update from her on

3:29

what the inquiry actually found. The

3:35

story today, a bloody

3:37

disgrace, how the infected

3:39

blood victims were betrayed by a

3:42

cover-up. I'm

3:52

Caroline Wheeler and I'm the political editor of

3:54

The Sunday Times. Caroline, this

3:56

is a very personal story for

3:58

you. You've got a copy of... the

4:00

book you've just written about it on the

4:02

desk, but this is a story

4:05

that you have followed for a long time. Just take

4:07

us back to where it began for you.

4:10

Well, it began right at the very beginning of

4:12

my career. I mean literally at the very beginning

4:14

of my career. This

4:19

was in 2001 and I'd

4:22

been given a place on the Trinity Mirror

4:25

trainee scheme in Birmingham and

4:27

one of the very first phone calls that I

4:29

ever took into the newsroom. There were always these

4:32

things called wing-ins and they were

4:34

always a bit of a kind of initiation test

4:36

of dealing for the first time with the great

4:38

British public. I had this amazing

4:40

phone call from a guy called Mick Mason.

4:47

He called straight through to the newsroom and

4:49

the call got passed on to me and

4:51

it was this 34 year old who was

4:53

telling me that he had been infected with

4:55

hepatitis C HIV and

4:58

he now feared that he had been

5:00

infected with the human version of the mad

5:02

cow disease which was all in the news

5:05

at the time. Oh God. And started telling

5:07

me this absolutely unbelievable

5:09

story about how he'd been

5:11

infected by contaminated blood products.

5:24

And this is one of your first days on the job,

5:26

you know when you're hearing this. First days

5:29

on the job. What are you thinking? I'm thinking

5:31

this is a conspiracy theorist. This is somebody that

5:34

is trying to catch me out or has been put up to

5:36

it by the news desk. And I

5:38

came off the phone call and started doing

5:40

a bit of research into this particular subject.

5:43

And although what he told me is the stuff of

5:45

nightmares, actually every word of it

5:47

turned out to be true. It was

5:50

such an eye-opener to me at that time. I was

5:52

only 21 years old and

5:54

to be told such an absolutely horrific story.

5:57

I found absolutely astonishing that this wasn't on the

5:59

phone. front page of every newspaper that this

6:01

has occurred and yet all I

6:03

could really find was snippets of information on the

6:06

internet. And for you, this begins

6:08

a two decade journey

6:10

pursuing this story. It

6:13

just takes back to Mick though, the

6:15

man who phoned in. So

6:17

Mick was a hemophiliac and

6:19

this story affects mainly

6:21

hemophiliacs but not exclusively

6:24

hemophiliacs. And hemophilia basically

6:26

means that you have a coagulation

6:28

factor that's missing from your blood which

6:30

has to be supplemented using

6:33

blood products in order to ensure

6:35

that your blood clots when

6:37

you've had a knock or a bum. Hemophiliacs

6:39

need to have this coagulation factor in

6:42

order to not basically bleed to death

6:44

which is a very real concern for

6:47

hemophiliacs that this could happen. And

6:49

Mick found out when he was 18 that

6:52

he'd been infected with HIV

6:54

having received these contaminated blood

6:56

products. So these are blood

6:59

products he's given in order to make

7:01

his blood coagulate, to stop it

7:03

being too thin. He's actually being supplemented. Yeah, exactly.

7:07

So the very drugs that ostensibly

7:09

are being given to him to save his life

7:11

to ensure that he doesn't suffer a

7:13

life threatening bleed in

7:15

this blood factor is HIV and

7:18

he is infected with HIV but

7:20

he doesn't know he's infected with it. And

7:23

actually the way in which he discovers

7:25

that he's been infected with HIV is

7:27

again another jaw-dropping episode in

7:30

this story. At

7:32

18 years old he's sent a diet

7:34

sheet by his doctors advising

7:36

him on the best types of food to

7:38

be eating for individuals

7:40

that have been infected with HIV. That's

7:43

how he finds out. That's how he finds out.

7:46

And this is not a one-off. Of

7:49

all the individuals that I spoke to

7:51

for the book, many of whom had

7:53

been either co-infected with HIV and hepatitis

7:55

C or had one or

7:58

the other, the stories were similar. similar

8:00

in almost every occasion

8:02

that they were diagnosed with these

8:04

infections but were not told for

8:06

a substantial period of time. And

8:09

also they received these blood products

8:11

but were not warned of the

8:13

risks even though the risks were

8:16

well known which raises really profound

8:18

questions about what was going

8:20

on during this period. It's shocking and

8:22

then you say that Mick wasn't unusual.

8:24

I mean do we have a sense of

8:26

how many people ultimately

8:29

were infected with contaminated

8:31

blood? How many people's lives were changed

8:33

by this? So the estimates put it

8:35

around 5,000 people. It's

8:38

known as the worst treatment disaster

8:40

in NHS history and of those

8:42

5,000 more than half have now

8:44

died. And the scale of it

8:46

is not really known. It could

8:48

well exceed that because it

8:50

also affected non-hemophiliacs from

8:52

those who were given blood products during

8:55

routine blood transfusions for example if there

8:58

had been a car crash or during

9:00

childbirth. And it's estimated that around 35,000

9:02

people in addition

9:04

to the hemophiliacs that were infected

9:06

were also infected particularly with hepatitis

9:08

C during this period. Just

9:11

take us back a step. I

9:13

mean how exactly do we end

9:15

up with contaminated blood in

9:17

the NHS? I mean where does this begin? Well

9:20

it's really a sort of story of medical

9:23

advancements really. In

9:27

the 1960s Dr. Judith Gray and

9:29

Paul discovered a process

9:31

of freezing and thawing plasma so

9:34

that they could get a kind of rich layer of

9:37

factor-rich plasma that could be

9:39

used to transfuse hemophiliacs. That

9:42

factor is this and stuff that

9:44

coagulates the blood? That's exactly right.

9:46

So as I mentioned before particularly

9:48

in hemophiliacs they're missing this coagulation

9:50

factor and the coagulation factor for

9:52

hemophiliacs of hemophilia A

9:54

is factor A. And

9:58

after this discovery of how

10:00

this plasma could be frozen and

10:03

thawed, this led to more

10:05

advancements in the treatment of hemophilia. So

10:12

you've got an amazing period of

10:14

amazing discoveries that could transform the

10:16

way hemophiliacs in particular live.

10:20

How does that lead to

10:22

contaminated blood? So

10:25

putting it simply, you just couldn't make

10:27

enough of this stuff in the UK. Demand

10:30

very quickly, outstripped supply. There

10:32

was a real clamour for

10:34

this life-changing plasma, and

10:36

indeed the UK has never been self-sufficient

10:38

in this ever since the

10:41

start of this process. So not

10:43

enough people? Not enough people. So

10:45

it meant that often the establishment

10:47

turned to places like America, which

10:49

had a very different donation system to

10:52

the UK and was based on people

10:54

being paid to give

10:56

donations. And there was a really obvious

10:58

warning about some of the horrors that were

11:00

to come right away back in 1975. A

11:05

World in Action investigator spent four

11:07

weeks visiting plasma centres, selling plasma,

11:09

talking to donors and examining safeguards.

11:13

Tonight, World in Action investigates the health

11:15

risks of Britain's hemophiliacs from the men who

11:17

sell their blood in America. So

11:20

World in Action went, there were 24 highland

11:22

clinics across the United States, and the clinics

11:24

would take blood. That's correct.

11:27

It focused on one in San

11:29

Jose near San Francisco, and

11:31

the film crew turned up and saw

11:33

and witnessed individuals often down and

11:35

out. Drug addicts and

11:38

alcoholics were on a kind of list

11:40

of individuals where it was deemed to

11:42

be a risk, particularly

11:44

of hepatitis, for example. And so

11:47

it was deemed that they should not give blood. But

11:50

often the rules were completely ignored. on

12:00

the false addresses we gave that can

12:02

admit down on us a high hepatitis

12:04

risk. Two, highland doctors

12:06

did not always carry out the only

12:08

checks that can detect drug users. Drug

12:11

users are among the highest risk for hepatitis.

12:14

Three, physical examinations were not

12:16

always done fully, though certified as such.

12:18

Four, certain medical questions were not

12:21

asked but were filled in as

12:23

having been answered satisfactorily. It

12:25

became a really established practice, particularly on Skid

12:27

Row, for people to go and do this,

12:29

so much so that there was even a

12:31

kind of nickname given to it which was

12:34

Ooz for Booze. So people would

12:36

go and Ooz give blood to get the

12:38

money to pay for the booze and the

12:40

story kind of gets worse from there really,

12:42

which was it wasn't just people

12:44

that were being paid to give blood

12:47

on the streets. There were

12:49

also setups within prisons where

12:52

inmates were paid up to seven

12:54

dollars for a pint of

12:56

blood which was then cooled with other

12:58

blood and that was where it became

13:01

really dangerous. It was pulled so all

13:04

the blood was mixed together and then

13:06

made into the fact concentrate which meant

13:09

effectively if one batch of blood had

13:11

been infected with any of these diseases,

13:13

if one person out of

13:15

that pool was infected,

13:17

then the entire batch became infected.

13:20

That's astonishing. I mean that world in action came out in 1975

13:22

so people in Britain, they knew there

13:26

was not the same sort of

13:28

screening. When did it start coming

13:30

into the NHS? Well it

13:32

was there at that particular time and it didn't stop.

13:34

In 1975 there was reports in some of the medical

13:40

journals in the United Kingdom that

13:42

a group of hemophiliacs had been

13:44

infected with hepatitis. The

13:46

issue had been around one

13:49

particular maker of factor eight

13:51

and that factor eight had come in from the United

13:53

States. So for anybody to argue

13:55

that the risks were not known about at

13:58

that time That

14:00

warning in 1975 was one of

14:02

a whole host of warnings about

14:05

the impact of contaminated blood and

14:07

it entering the NHS supply chain.

14:10

And back then, once it's come into

14:12

the NHS, as you say, it's not

14:15

only hemophiliacs who are being given

14:17

the factor VIII. I mean, I was

14:19

really surprised to read that Anita Rodick, for

14:21

example, was one of the early patients

14:23

who was given it. I mean, tell us a

14:25

bit about her story. Yeah, I

14:28

mean, lots of people kind of don't remember

14:30

that bit about Anita Rodick's death. Anita

14:32

Rodick was obviously the founder of the Body Shops, she was

14:34

one of Britain's richest people

14:36

at the height of her empire.

14:38

Great female entrepreneur. And a great

14:40

female entrepreneur. And she allegedly, and

14:42

it's only ever been claimed that

14:44

this was the case, was

14:47

infected in 1971. So

14:49

she would have been one of the first

14:51

cases and she believes, or her family believe,

14:54

that she was infected when she gave birth

14:56

to her daughter, Samantha. But she didn't

14:58

find out for another 30 years. And

15:00

it was only when she was having some

15:02

medical tests done that it was actually flagged

15:04

that she did have hepatitis C. And

15:08

she quickly became fairly vocal about

15:10

it, became a member of the

15:12

hepatitis C trust, and talked

15:14

about the fact that she had, by that point,

15:16

got cirrhosis of the liver. And

15:19

it's important to remember with hepatitis C

15:21

that it can stay dormant for a

15:23

very long time and hacking the liver

15:25

without anybody knowing about it, which is

15:28

why we're never really going to know

15:30

the true scale of this tragedy. Because

15:33

still today, there could be people who

15:35

were infected who have no idea that

15:37

they were infected. But

15:39

it will be silently eroding their

15:41

liver function. Wow. And

15:43

for Anita Rodick, who did die

15:45

young tragically, for

15:48

her family, they think this, factor

15:50

eight, contaminated blood was

15:52

part of the problem. So I spoke

15:55

to her daughter, Samantha, several years

15:57

ago about it, And her

15:59

daughter very much... A quite

16:01

an early demise with this confusion

16:03

that she received and she actually

16:05

thinks it's in as incredibly sad

16:07

to than any trouble. Dicks commitment

16:09

to looking at the supply chains

16:12

and making sure that they were

16:14

ethical supply chains in the production

16:16

of goods and a body shop

16:18

that actually she herself died because

16:20

of the contamination of the blood

16:23

supply chain. And.

16:25

As you say in a she was

16:27

given the success rate during childbirth. It

16:30

A lot of the people who did

16:32

get his around that era were hemophiliacs,

16:34

many from children. Yes, the

16:36

most shocking part of the

16:38

story for me has been

16:40

the way in which particularly

16:43

children were effectively experimented on

16:45

by hematology during this period

16:47

in order to work out

16:49

with the blood products were.

16:51

Infected. With Etti diseases and

16:53

they're all memories of which I've

16:56

included in the birds which shows

16:58

that these individuals would knowingly being

17:00

tested on. So

17:04

in in January ninth snakes to.

17:06

Professor Blame who is it one

17:09

of the t Hematology that's been

17:11

involved in the treatment of hemophiliacs

17:13

and actually pay the very important

17:16

role in this story. He wrote

17:18

a letter that basically confirmed he

17:20

misses the ad for being experimented

17:23

on. This is what blue light,

17:25

although initial production purposes may have

17:27

been tested for infectivity by injecting

17:30

them and. Chimpanzees. it.

17:32

Is unlikely that the manufacturers will

17:34

be able to guarantee this form

17:36

of quality control for all future

17:38

batches. It is therefore very important

17:40

to find out. By. Studies in human

17:43

beings to this extent be infectivity

17:45

of the day with concentrate had

17:47

been reduced the most. Creative to

17:50

a feeling this is bad ministering.

17:52

Days concentrates to patients

17:54

not previously exposed to

17:56

loads Pool concentrate. And

17:59

have to. those that were not

18:01

previously exposed were generally children, which

18:04

is why when there's

18:06

been analysis done of this particular tragedy,

18:08

around a third of those that

18:10

were infected with HIV were children.

18:18

I mean, this is jaw-dropping.

18:22

You don't really imagine scientists thinking like

18:24

that. You don't imagine medics sort of

18:26

thinking it's cheaper to experiment

18:28

on children. How exactly

18:30

did they go about doing that? Well,

18:34

there were a number of trials that

18:36

were done during the course of these

18:38

infectivity trials. The one that stands out

18:40

for me was a trial which took

18:43

place again in 1982. There was

18:47

a school that is in Alton in Hampshire,

18:49

which has become known as the School of

18:51

Death. The

18:56

College and Trust were founded over 75 years

18:58

ago by Sir William Purditt for Law, Lord

19:00

Mayor of London, to alleviate the suffering

19:03

of the little cripples of the City of London

19:05

to educate and to train them. Today,

19:07

the Lord Mayor for Law College is the

19:10

largest independent co-educational boarding school of its kind

19:12

in the country, devoted entirely

19:14

to the needs of disabled boys and girls.

19:18

From the 50s onwards, it became a place

19:21

and a magnet for children with

19:23

hemophilia, simply because it was much

19:25

easier to manage the condition when there was

19:27

a health centre on site. And

19:30

in 1982, there was a trial done

19:32

at this particular school,

19:35

which involved 50

19:37

schoolchildren by one particular pharmaceutical

19:39

company. And I have

19:42

been told that of the 50 children who

19:45

were involved in that particular trial, all

19:47

50 of them were infected with HIV.

19:55

Thank you. children

20:00

with hemophilia already. They're at a school

20:02

for special care and

20:04

instead they're being infected by HIV

20:06

while they're there. Have

20:09

you managed to speak to any of them? So

20:12

I've spoken to quite a number of them. The

20:14

story that I have chosen to tell in the

20:16

Sunday Times with the launch of the book is

20:19

the story of Aide Goodyear. Aide

20:21

Goodyear, who you wouldn't believe is

20:23

the most cheerful, upbeat human being

20:26

you could possibly ever imagine given such

20:29

tragedy has befallen him, he found

20:32

out in 1985 that he had been infected

20:34

with HIV in the most extraordinary

20:39

way. He was

20:43

summoned to the health centre on a

20:45

very beautiful sunny afternoon in May 1985.

20:48

There were five of them, him and his

20:51

schoolmates called in to see the

20:53

director of hematology at the centre called

20:55

Dr. Aaron Stan and

20:57

as they were gathered one of the

20:59

nurses that was with them started weeping. Aide

21:05

was told that he had

21:07

been given HIV as Dr. Aaron Stan pointed

21:11

to the boys and told them which one

21:13

of them had been infected or hadn't been

21:15

infected with the words, you

21:17

have, you haven't, you have, you

21:19

haven't. And

21:21

the last time he uttered the words, you

21:23

have, it was when Dr. Aaron

21:25

Stan was pointing at Aide and

21:28

that's how Aide found out that he had

21:30

HIV. And the headmaster study in

21:33

front of other boys. Yeah and

21:36

actually one of the saddest things that I know

21:38

from what Aide's told me since is that although

21:41

they were not always hold that day

21:43

that they'd been infected with HIV they

21:45

did all subsequently get infected and

21:47

Aide is the only one alive today. What's

21:55

actually happened to the school

21:58

that was known as the school of death? Is

22:00

it... was it shut down

22:02

after that? The school is still there.

22:05

It's still there. It's no longer the magnet

22:07

that it was for hemophiliacs, but it's still

22:09

there. There is a class action,

22:11

which has been taken by some of the former

22:14

peoples against the school. But the

22:16

school believes that it didn't fail in its duty

22:18

of care, but that the liability for what happened

22:20

to these students rests with the NHS. Coming

22:30

up, a public inquiry

22:33

was finally launched after decades

22:35

of silence. Yesterday,

22:37

its findings were published.

22:40

So what did we learn? That's in

22:43

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love of home. Caroline,

24:35

you told us earlier about some of the experiments

24:37

that were being carried out by

24:40

medics at the time by Dr Blumen

24:42

particularly you mentioned a very renowned hematology

24:45

expert back then. One

24:47

of the final chapters in your book is

24:50

just called Colin. Tell

24:53

us a bit about his story. So

24:57

Colin Smith was infected

24:59

with HIV when

25:01

he was just two years old. He

25:04

was a previously untreated patient. He

25:07

was infected or certainly he

25:09

found out that he'd been infected with

25:12

HIV in 1983 and

25:14

what is most shocking about Colin's

25:17

story to me is that one

25:20

month prior to him being

25:22

infected Professor Bloom who

25:24

was in charge of his treatment had

25:27

actually issued a new memo to

25:29

the kind of hematology community advising

25:32

them to stop using the factor

25:34

8 imported factor 8 because

25:36

they knew of the HIV risk. It's

25:39

never been explained why Colin was

25:41

given factor 8 particularly because

25:43

he hadn't needed it in the past. It

25:46

was for a routine operation for grommets

25:48

on his ears and so

25:50

there had been no need for him to

25:53

be given that. So the only conclusion that

25:55

his parents can really come to is that

25:57

he was one of these unwitting guinea

25:59

pigs He we can fix just

26:01

as they make programmers trying to find

26:03

out when it a try to stay

26:06

away. Dangerous and he's infected.

26:08

A month after his position has

26:10

told people to stop insight feel

26:12

the people with correct that's correct

26:14

and calling story is the one

26:16

that breaks my heart the most.

26:19

He weighed less than a a

26:21

six month old baby when he

26:23

died. He'd been completely emaciated.

26:25

He used have to be lifted

26:28

of been sheepskin to stop him

26:30

from being injured by his parents

26:32

and when they came to take.

26:34

Him. Home from hospital because he was

26:36

dying for his last Christmas. The

26:39

doctors tried to stop him. From

26:42

being taken home because they told

26:44

his parents that no one would

26:46

precast concrete. Because he had features a.

26:49

And all the time. While. This

26:51

say issue with it. To

26:53

the since with into fitness family. Who

26:56

attending tail a very very poorly.

26:58

To my old they were having

27:00

Aids daubed on their door and

27:02

being subjected to abuse and harassment

27:04

and ostracized but community of and

27:07

them at the very time when

27:09

they needed more support than ever

27:11

before and I I just wanna

27:13

say painful I just find that

27:15

that to say painful. Was.

27:19

There ever any senses talked

27:21

to pay the physician who

27:23

administers the citrate Conan was

27:25

he ever held to account.

27:29

No. Not really sees no longer

27:31

and around he he died sometime ago

27:33

and a bit but there has been

27:35

some retrospect is since know about his

27:37

well with the unit that was once

27:39

named after him his name is now

27:41

been removed from that unit and the

27:43

bus to him that with there has

27:45

been taken down to the has in

27:47

the hospital where he worked where he

27:49

worked in Cardiff the there has been

27:51

a kind of acceptance of his Weldon

27:53

the scandal. Caroline. You.

27:57

Have been bringing me stories to light.

27:59

See. And the reason

28:01

many of us managed to hear

28:03

the accounts, you know, the personal

28:05

testimony of people like Colin's parents

28:07

was because there has been a

28:10

big public inquiry into infected

28:12

blood. How did

28:15

that inquiry finally come about

28:17

and what was your role in that? Well,

28:20

for a start, we never thought we'd get this

28:22

far. And really the

28:24

breakthrough came in the most surprising

28:26

of ways. To me, we'd been

28:28

sort of building a campaign and

28:30

a consensus. And I say we, myself

28:32

and Diana Johnson, who's the Labour MP

28:35

for Hull North, and also the

28:37

co-chair of the All-Party

28:39

Parliamentary Group on Hemophilia and

28:42

Contaminated Blood. And we'd

28:44

been sort of working away on the political

28:46

parties for many years, trying to

28:48

get them to put a commitment to holding

28:50

a public inquiry into the various manifestos.

28:54

And in 2017, we had quite a few

28:56

manifestos that were signed up to the notion

28:58

of a public inquiry, including

29:00

crucially the DUP. But

29:03

obviously, you know, in 2017, for a

29:05

large portion of the Conservative Party campaign,

29:08

Theresa May, who was the Prime Minister at the time,

29:10

was 20 points ahead in the polls. And

29:12

the prediction had been that she was going to

29:15

sweep to a landslide victory. But

29:17

as you will remember, things didn't

29:19

quite go to plan for the Conservative Party

29:21

at the end of the day. Theresa

29:24

May lost her majority, and

29:26

she was propped up by the DUP. I'd

29:31

recently changed newspapers, and I'd come to join

29:34

the Sunday Times. And one of

29:36

the first times I'd gone back into Parliament after

29:38

that election, I bumped into Diana Johnson. And

29:40

we were talking about Contaminated Blood and where the

29:43

campaign was going to go next. And

29:46

I just sort of casually mentioned to her that

29:48

I thought we now had a majority for a

29:50

public inquiry, because we had had

29:52

the support of the DUP. And

29:55

then I thought, Diana, well, you know, we could

29:57

get a letter together, perhaps, and try and get

29:59

all the lead. leaders of the parties that

30:01

are in support of a public inquiry to sign

30:04

a letter to the Prime Minister and try and,

30:06

you know, bounce them into it. And Diana

30:09

thought about it and she said, leave it with me. Within

30:12

a couple of days, she duly, and

30:14

to have full credit, came

30:16

back with a letter that was signed by

30:18

all the party leaders. And yeah, it's quite

30:20

funny that really the story that I'm most

30:22

proud of in my journalistic career was a

30:24

350 word

30:26

story on page four of the Sunday Times, which

30:30

made reference to this letter. And

30:35

just several weeks after Theresa May

30:37

was returned to Downing

30:39

Street, it was about two hours before Theresa

30:41

May was due to stand up and address the

30:44

comments on the issue. And I got a

30:46

phone call and it

30:48

was Prime Minister's special advisor saying,

30:51

would you take a call from the Downing Street switchboard?

30:53

Yes, I would. A guy called

30:55

Tim Smith came on the phone and

30:58

he just said the words that I will

31:00

never forget as I was

31:02

standing in Portcullis House. Congratulations, two

31:04

weeks into your new job and you've

31:06

got your public inquiry. And

31:15

that public inquiry has

31:17

been underway now for some

31:19

time. Were there any moments

31:21

in it that really startled

31:23

you? So many

31:25

moments and just so much, you know,

31:28

I think the powerful testimonies were

31:31

just unbelievably emotional, some of

31:33

them. Were you told

31:35

anything about any risks associated with

31:37

the use of the factor eight

31:39

product? No, nothing

31:41

could do. Were

31:44

you told anything about differences between

31:46

NHS products or American products? It was

31:48

never spoken about. We just believed the

31:50

doctor, you know, they were

31:52

treating Colin and it sounds

31:55

terrible but it was like we got to us, prof

31:58

plume, because it was her after my son. So

32:01

why would I ask

32:03

any questions about who thought it was getting

32:05

the best treatment possible? Colin

32:08

and Jan Smith, the parents of Colin

32:10

Smith, their evidence was

32:12

the most powerful evidence I've

32:15

seen. I've got a

32:17

coat with death but not with a death, my

32:19

son. I still have trouble today,

32:22

the fact that he's in a grave

32:24

on his own and

32:26

the guilt will never go away. But

32:30

also moments where there was

32:32

fury in the inquiry, the evidence

32:35

of Ken Clark. Given

32:37

the medical knowledge

32:40

at the time, did

32:44

anyone behave carelessly or negatively?

32:46

And all I can

32:49

say personally, insofar as the

32:51

areas I've now seen or I've been

32:53

involved in, no, I don't think anybody...

32:56

I can't see anything where I think

32:59

anybody in the department should have acted

33:02

differently. And the slightly nonchalant

33:04

way in which he delivered his response to

33:06

the inquiry really sent

33:08

shockwaves through the inquiry room too.

33:11

And everything, the whole everything

33:14

depends through all these inquiries

33:16

which we now set up so regularly. With

33:20

hindsight, of course you

33:22

can see things that we

33:25

would do and

33:27

would have done had we known

33:30

the eventual outcome. And

33:34

they obviously did not realise that

33:36

I think as Skoornos, almost 3,000

33:38

people were eventually, sadly, going to

33:41

die. If they'd

33:43

known that, they would

33:45

have stopped factor A straight away. You

33:48

mentioned Ken Clark there. Was

33:50

there more that governments in the interim

33:53

could have done? The

33:55

one thing that would have been a game changer

33:57

would have been if we'd reached self-deficiency. in

34:00

terms of the blood products that we made in

34:03

the United Kingdom. And David

34:05

Owen, who again is one of

34:07

the heroes of the peace in this, who

34:09

was the health minister in 1975, when

34:12

this burgeoning health crisis was emerging,

34:15

was very clear that we needed to

34:17

put in the infrastructure and the money

34:20

to make sure that we became self-sufficient, but

34:22

it never happened. During

34:27

the course of writing this book, there

34:29

were around 10 characters I used to

34:32

tell the story of the

34:34

infected death scandal, and two of

34:36

them died in the very short period of time

34:39

it took for me to write this book. One

34:41

was a guy called Nick Sainsbury, and

34:44

he died in April. He'd given

34:46

evidence to the inquiry, and obviously we'll

34:48

never see the findings of it. And

34:50

the second was John Cornes, and he also died

34:52

in April. He had given

34:54

evidence to the inquiry, and he will never

34:56

find out how it ended. It

35:02

does feel like they are slowly dying

35:04

out, and that's especially put into

35:06

kind of stark focus when

35:09

the statistics point to the fact that

35:11

one hemophiliac is dying every four

35:13

days of contaminated blood poisoning.

35:15

What they

35:20

want is answers and a sense of justice

35:22

before it's too late. People

35:31

don't realise just what this

35:35

thing has done to people. You

35:38

know, it took lives, maimed people,

35:41

you know, they tripled with, you know,

35:44

such horrible things. You

35:50

need justice. There's something to

35:52

do about this. Caroline,

36:05

when we spoke to you last

36:08

September, the inquiry was still underway.

36:10

We're speaking to you now on

36:12

Monday afternoon. The inquiry

36:15

has finally published its report. You've

36:17

seen the report, you've managed to

36:19

get through it very, very quickly.

36:22

Give us a sense of what are the most important

36:24

things that have come out of it. The

36:27

most important thing, the top line in this

36:30

is that the judge that

36:32

has chaired this inquiry, Sir Brian Langstaff,

36:34

has concluded that this was not

36:36

an accident. That's something that

36:39

the government has been hiding. I'm

36:41

talking governments of all colours and

36:43

successive governments over the past five

36:45

decades have been hiding behind

36:48

and saying this was something that

36:50

was unavoidable. The report makes

36:52

it clear that the risks of

36:54

this blood being used were

36:57

known. It also talks very

36:59

directly about that sense of cover-up. Yeah,

37:02

exactly. I think one of the things that was

37:04

really shocking and there was a sort of

37:06

intake of breath when the judge was

37:08

talking about this in his summing up this afternoon

37:11

was that actually there

37:13

had been conclusive proof that

37:15

HIV was infecting people through

37:17

the blood supply chain as

37:19

early as 1982. If you

37:21

actually put that into context,

37:23

if you think about the

37:25

fact that still in 1983,

37:28

Ken Clark was saying to the House of Commons

37:30

that there was no conclusive proof that

37:33

HIV was bloodborne. That really puts

37:35

into context the fact that there

37:38

was a really long time delay

37:40

between the risks of this being known and

37:43

actually the government doing anything to warn people

37:45

about it. It's very

37:47

critical of ministers like Ken

37:49

Clark and Prime Ministers, Margaret

37:51

Thatcher, John Thatcher. Also

37:53

more recently, Rishi Sunak, because not only

37:55

was there a cover-up for years, but

37:57

also there's been a failure.

38:00

to pay any form of compensation. That's

38:03

right, that was what was quite interesting. There was a

38:05

whole almost part to devoted

38:07

to the last sort of

38:09

year and a half. During that time

38:11

period almost 700 people

38:14

have died who have been impacted

38:16

and affected by this scandal without

38:18

seeing justice, without seeing compensation, often

38:21

dying in appalling circumstances given the

38:23

financial impact that this scandal has

38:25

had on them. So he

38:28

basically said to them at the end he

38:30

wanted to see a timely response to

38:32

this report and thereby he expects

38:35

them to come back with a

38:37

package of compensation in short order

38:40

because on so many occasions the

38:43

attempts to address this have been down the road

38:45

because the government has not wanted to pick up

38:47

the pair. There's a real kind

38:49

of nervousness that in some ways

38:52

the government might try to shortchange the victim.

38:54

So until we see that report tomorrow I've still got

38:56

the kind of gnawing feeling in the pit of my

38:59

stomach that even now it

39:01

might not be the redress that they're looking for and

39:03

I just want to put that into context which is

39:06

this isn't about them running off into

39:08

the sunset in a Ferrari or going

39:10

on a world cruise. These people

39:13

have been through the most

39:15

unimaginable suffering either directly

39:17

because they have been ill themselves

39:20

or they have lost loved ones but

39:22

the impact on their finances has been

39:25

immeasurable, not being able to work, not

39:27

being able to get a mortgage, not

39:29

being able to get married, not having children,

39:32

children that lost both parents and ended

39:34

up in care and children's homes. I

39:37

mean you cannot put a price on that

39:40

and this is about coming up with a package

39:42

of redress which gives them a nice

39:45

equivalent to that of which they might have

39:47

had to have this lot have happened to them. The

39:50

report is very critical of successive governments

39:52

for the cover-up. It also talks about

39:54

the NHS closing ranks,

39:56

losing documents, destroying

39:59

documents. What about

40:01

the claim that we talked about earlier that it

40:04

was also knowingly experimenting on

40:06

children in particular? What

40:09

did it say about that charge?

40:12

It's really interesting because when I

40:14

was researching my book that

40:16

was the thing that struck me the most when I

40:18

was kind of pulling all the documents together and looking

40:21

at what had happened was that it was

40:23

unavoidable to conclude that

40:25

doctors had been experimenting on

40:28

children and previously untreated patients.

40:31

It was very clear to me doing

40:33

all the research that that was going

40:35

to have to be one of the key findings of

40:38

this public inquiry and indeed it

40:40

was and in some ways it's kind of a

40:42

relief because that was such a

40:44

controversial thing, the idea that in

40:47

this country doctors

40:49

who have signed up to a

40:51

Hippocratic oath, who have signed up

40:53

to a commitment to do no harm, had

40:56

tested potentially lethal blood

40:58

products on previously

41:01

untreated patients who for most

41:03

part were children to test

41:05

their infectivity. I mean

41:07

it's a staggering, staggering finding.

41:10

Given that these children, these students

41:12

had no say in the matter, they

41:14

didn't even know the potential

41:17

side effects of being of infection, what

41:19

was happening to them, will

41:21

there be any kind of criminal charge? That's

41:24

a really live debate with campaigners at the

41:26

moment. I mean there is a one school

41:28

of thought that it's taken so long to

41:31

actually get to the findings of this report

41:33

today that actually it's robbed

41:35

the families really of there ever

41:37

being any kind of prosecutions because

41:40

so many of the people that appear to have

41:42

been culpable in all of

41:44

this have already died. It's very

41:46

unlikely that anybody will be brought to

41:48

book for this. I think it's

41:51

been a systemic failing and I think that

41:53

lessons will have to be learned from this

41:55

but I don't think that they're going to be learned by sending

41:57

people to prison. you've

42:00

been speaking to some of the victims

42:02

and their families who've all gathered for this

42:04

report's launch, what

42:07

has their response been? It's a

42:09

funny word to say delighted because there is

42:11

no jubilation in any of this, there

42:13

is no celebration in any of

42:15

this. In fact, you know, most of us today

42:18

talking about it sort of described the feeling of

42:20

numbness and sort of feeling hollow but

42:22

it is of indication. I think,

42:25

you know, so much of what was

42:27

written about had been known and

42:29

campaigners have been talking about it for decades

42:31

but had never got anybody to listen

42:34

and to, you know, acknowledge what

42:36

they were saying. Everything that they had previously

42:38

said was being kind of dismissed as, you

42:40

know, them being conspiracy theorists. Today

42:43

we heard from one of the

42:45

country's most prestigious judges who

42:48

put in black and white what

42:50

these victims had known had happened for years

42:53

and had put rocket boosters

42:55

under it by gathering so much

42:57

damning evidence to support the

42:59

fact that this had gone on and

43:01

this had happened, that there had been

43:04

wrongdoing, that there had been decisions making

43:06

at every level that had been faulty

43:08

and that the people that had made

43:10

those decisions then went to huge effort

43:12

to cover it up. And

43:16

the judge said all of those things, so

43:18

huge vindication for the campaigners today but as

43:20

I say they won't be a party. That

43:30

was Caroline Wheeler from The Sunday Times

43:32

and you can find her full breakdown

43:34

of the Infected Blood Inquiry at

43:37

thetimes.co.uk with a subscription.

43:40

She's also written the most authoritative

43:43

account of this scandal in her book

43:45

Death in the Blood. This

43:48

episode was produced by Taryn Segal,

43:51

the executive producer with Kate Ford

43:53

and sound design was by David

43:55

Crackels and Mal Nisetto. If

43:58

you found this a useful guide and

44:00

you think others should hear it too, then please do

44:02

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44:04

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44:07

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