Killed by the State 

My Family your family? 

My name is Monica Summers and I am the widow of Paul, our daughter was five when Paul died in 2008. Paul was a husband, father, architect and haemophiliac who was infected with HIV and Hepatitis C through NHS blood products.

We previously had a good standard of living, both Paul and I worked as best we could, up until a week before he died. I now receive ‘discretionary’ support from one of the charitable schemes set up by the Government. The Government scheme is means tested preventing me from working part time and ‘discretionary’ because there is no acceptance of liability and the payment may be with drawn at any time.

Our family, like the similarly affected families below, have been campaigning for justice for over 25 years and we continue to be stigmatised, mentally tortured and pushed to the margins of existence.

We rely on the continued support of our families and friends to survive this nightmare.

Discretionary payments are made thorough a variety of trust mechanisms designed to prevent families prosecuting a case against the state. Many widows and families who have sought justice through the pharmaceutical companies have been gagged by restraining orders or legal threats, families seeking justice through the courts have been priced out of the system and the rest are exhausted by the fight or dead.

Paul is one of 70 who have died as a result of contaminated blood in Wales and one of over 2000 in the UK as a whole. Paul was one of the many, who through no fault of their own, were condemned to a life time of ill health, denied access to life assurance and mortgage protection, and forced to endure the daily mental torture of hiding the facts of their illness from friends and family before a premature, lingering and predetermined death in the full knowledge their families were left unprovided for.

I am one of the many partners or family members who have had to care for their dying loved ones, who have lost their right to a family life and to their own careers, aside from having to cope with an entirely preventable bereavement.

Colin and Janet Smith from Newport South Wales have had their lives torn apart after their 7 year old son Colin died from AIDs and Hepatitis C as a result of contaminated blood products used to treat his Haemophilia. “Our son ‘little Colin’ had every chance of leading a normal life before he was admitted to hospital for a routine ear operation at 4 years of age and was injected with the HIV and Hepatitis C virus via NHS contaminated blood products. Colin died weighing just 13 lbs.” The family have been denied any answers about why this was allowed to happen and continue to be ignored by Welsh Govt.

David Farrugia is 44 years old and lives in Port Talbot. His father Barry was a mild Haemophiliac who rarely needed treatment and when David was 14 years old he was told that his father had been infected with AIDs and Hepatitis C as a result of receiving contaminated NHS blood products. His parents could not cope and his father was sectioned under the mental health act, dying as a result of the infections in 1986.

David was taken into care and split up from his twin brother, being forced to take an AIDs tests before being allowed into the children’s home, they did not meet again for 24 years. David’s two uncles also died as a result of HIV and Hepatitis C infection and his mother never recovered sufficiently from the trauma to maintain a normal life. The family home was ultimately sold as the insurance company would not pay out under his fathers life insurance policy leaving his mother destitute.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Successive Governments of every persuasion have failed to accept responsibility for what has been done. While Colin, Janet and David along side myself and countless others, continue to fight to have this tragedy recognised, one person in the UK dies every month as a result contaminated blood products.

We aim to raise £10,000 initially but the overall fees are likely to be in the region of £50,000. This is to secure a judicial review to challenge Welsh Government’s refusal to conduct a consultation on financial support for affected families. The next stage is a Public Inquiry into the State’s failure to act in preventing the deaths of 70 people in Wales and the infection of over 2000 NHS patients across the UK with HIV and Hep C.

This could have happened to your family not just Colin, Barry and Paul’s please donate whatever you can.

About the claimant

We are Monica Summers, Colin and Janet Smith and David Farrugia and our stories are a snapshot of what has happened to those who have been affected by the contaminated blood disaster. Haemophilia Wales is the charity representing our community and it is run entirely by affected volunteers and does not receive Government funding. Please donate whatever you can to help us achieve our goal and to prevent this unnecessary tragedy happening to future generations.

Fast facts

Future safety of NHS treatments are at risk, this could happen to anyone receiving a blood transfusion.

The next step in proceedings will be a Judicial Review to give victims and their families the right to have their say.

The solicitor leading the case is Michael Imperato, Partner at Watkins&Gunn. Michael Imperato has acted for individuals and campaign groups in a number of high profile judicial review cases against national and local government in Wales over the past years.