Infected blood scandal: Ex-students and relatives sue Hampshire school | contaminated blood scandal

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A group of survivors and relatives of people who died in the infected blood scandal are suing a school in which they contracted hepatitis and HIV after undergoing experimental treatment without informed consent.

A proposed class action lawsuit filed by Collins Solicitors in the Supreme Court on Friday alleges that Trailware College, a boarding school in Hampshire that specializes in educating hemophiliacs, failed in its duty to care for these students in the 1970s and 1980s.

The allegation could result in millions of pounds in damages, and is based on new testimony provided by former employees of the school to the ongoing investigation into infected blood.

Gary Webster, a 56-year-old former student who contracted hepatitis C and HIV after being treated with contaminated blood at school in the early 1980s and gave evidence to an investigation last year, is the lead plaintiff for the 22 survivors in the group.

Speaking to The Guardian, he said: “We were lab mice or guinea pigs. We always thought that maybe experiments were done on us for research purposes, but we had no evidence until the evidence was presented in the investigation.”

Last year in testimony to the investigation, former Treloars director Alec Macpherson confirmed that doctors at the school were “experimenting with factor VIII,” imported pooled plasma that was later found to be contaminated with HIV and hepatitis.

He said he and other faculty members did not question doctors about the experiments. He told the investigation, “We have no authority or reason to interfere. You cannot – doctors are God, right?”

Macpherson said he agreed to the treatment because he trusted the doctors, and couldn’t remember whether the parents had been informed and consulted.

“Neither of our parents were informed,” Webster said. “I’m sure my mum and dad would have asked why I had changed my treatment, and by 1983 they would have known there were problems with the imported factor VIII.”

He added, “I am really angry, especially after hearing evidence from the school. It should never have happened. The staff had a duty of care and I think they were negligent.”

Webster was 18 years old in 1983 when school doctors told him he had HIV – and he was given two years to live. “I was with my best friend, Stephen, who died of AIDS in 1990, and we were just told by the doctors at school that we had been infected and would probably die in a couple of years,” he said.

Two years later, Webster was told he also had hepatitis C as a result of contaminated blood given to him at school.

He said, “I had full-blown AIDS in my late twenties and early thirties. I was only able to cure it that happened. Many others did not.”

A public inquiry heard last year that 89 hemophiliacs who attended Treloar treatment in the 1970s and 1980s, less than a quarter of them were alive.

Webster said the survivors left psychological scars and did not receive any counseling at the time. “We’re all mentally and physically damaged. I got off the bars and started drinking a lot. I once stuck a car through a wall trying to kill myself. Many of us had suicidal thoughts with the stigma of AIDS and news that you wouldn’t live long anyway, and that relationships were a nightmare.”

Despite his problems, Webster said he was fortunate, as he survived and was able to work, first as a tailor and then as director of the Red Cross before being forced to retire for health reasons at the age of 46.

“It was hepatitis C that really hurt me, the liver was completely damaged, and I can’t physically function anymore,” he said.

Desmond Collins, Principal Partner at Collins Solicitors said: “This is a case of outright breach of duty. The school has been acting in the place of parents, but has failed in its primary duty of caring for these already vulnerable boys. We are determined that they receive due recognition and compensation for the trauma they have suffered. and their families for decades.

He added, “There was a fatal lack of school curiosity about what was happening. The boys were treated as a dataset that the paramedics decided to try. The parents were entitled to an explanation of what was going on. The school didn’t tell them anything because they didn’t know anything – it handed them everything to the nurses. “.

In a statement, the college – which has since changed its name to Treloar’s – said: “We are truly saddened that around 100 of our former students are among the 4,500 men, women and children across the UK who have contracted hepatitis and/or HIV from products Infected blood that is provided under the NHS treatment programme.

“We cannot comment on the legal action taken against Treloar at this point, but we will continue to cooperate with the public investigation into these cases and await its outcome.”

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