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Daily Mail
21-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Treating these children as guinea pigs and lab rats was unforgivable: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV
The British Blood Scandal: Poisoned at School (ITV1) The grief of mother Angela Newcombe is almost unbearable to witness. It hits you in the stomach and twists up towards the heart, a physical anguish. Angela's adored son Neil Hilliard died of Aids aged 22, in 1994 — the result of HIV from an injection of infected blood plasma when he was 12 years old. The injection was carried out at school, and the doctors and teachers who oversaw his treatment were well aware that the blood extract they were using could be crawling with disease. The existence of Aids was not widely known at the time, but the doctors were certainly aware that the injections they administered frequently to more than 120 boys in their care were likely to carry other contagions, such as hepatitis. The evidence was in front of them every day, as children sickened and even died, yet still they carried on. Mrs Newcombe is haggard with self-recrimination and guilt — though she has absolutely no reason to reproach herself for sending Neil to the school, Lord Mayor Treloar's College, a boarding school for children with disabilities in Hampshire. She could not possibly have known that her son, a haemophiliac like many others at Treloar's, would be subjected to trials of a new treatment, Factor Eight, without regard for his safety. The children and their families were not told what was going on until much later. Every line was powerful, but the victims' statements, at the end of a public inquiry which concluded last year, were especially telling But she cannot help blaming herself. 'As parents, you're supposed to keep them safe,' she told The British Blood Scandal: Poisoned At School (ITV1). 'I could have stopped it, if I hadn't agreed for him to go to Treloar's. That's the main grief I suffer, the grief of sending him there. Sent him to his death.' Of course, she would not have done it if she'd had even a suspicion that NHS doctors at the school were experimenting on children. But the fears of parents were routinely ignored in any case. One boy was given regular injections even though his father wrote to refuse permission for the trials. This documentary, the precursor to a future ITV drama, focused on four of the survivors, now in their 50s and 60s. Adrian Goodyear, Steve Nicholls, Richard Warwick and Gary Webster have suffered a lifetime of illness, and seen at least 90 of their friends and fellow pupils die from the toxic plasma jabs. 'Guinea pigs, lab rats,' said Steve, through tears. 'They had carte blanche to do what they wanted, really. They exploited those opportunities to do research on children. I'll never forgive them for that, never.' Every line was powerful, but the victims' statements, at the end of a public inquiry which concluded last year, were especially telling. 'It's hard to avoid the conclusion that we were deemed expendable, collateral damage,' said Richard. 'For the voices who fell silent, who lived a secret life and were forced to die a secret death, we're here today for you,' Adrian pledged. 'No one is left behind.'
Telegraph
20-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
The British Blood Scandal, review: a story to fill you with rage
It's a dull cliché to compare every national scandal to Mr Bates vs the Post Office, but The British Blood Scandal: Poisoned at School (ITV1) had enough jaw-dropping moments for a Gwyneth Hughes or a Jack Thorne to spin out half a dozen establishment-shaming mini-series. Unlike when Mr Bates aired, however, the campaigning is largely done, last year's Infected Blood Inquiry having found catastrophic failings and the government announcing a £11.8bn compensation fund for victims. That doesn't stop this documentary from filling you with the same eye-pricking, skin-tingling rage that the Horizon scandal did. The story it tells is unfathomable. The Lord Mayor Treloar's College in Hampshire, set up in 1907, is a specialist boarding school for children with various disabilities. In the 1970s and 1980s it was a 'haven' for boys with haemophilia, with the 24-hour care allowing them to treat bleeds instantly and giving the pupils the chance at a normal life. In an idyllic countryside setting, the boys could sail, fish, ride bikes and play football. Better still, they had access to what they were told was a revolutionary 'wonder' treatment, Factor Eight. There were gifts for taking part in the treatment, punishments if you missed it. 'It was really pushed, everyone was on it,' said Richard, one of four former Treloar's boys – all of whom contracted hepatitis, HIV or both at the school – who made the backbone of this devastating film. The plasma – much of which was imported from the US, where private companies would often recruit from the homeless – was infected. Doctors at Treloar's, whose haemophilia unit was run by the NHS from 1978, were aware of the high risk of infection with the imported plasma. Not only did they not change anything about the treatment, they doubled down, using the boys for research projects. 'Guinea pigs. Lab rats. They exploited that opportunity to do research on children,' said Steve, another former pupil, barely able to get that final word out of his mouth. 'I'll never forgive them for that.' The truly sickening thing is the implication that at every level – pharmaceutical, government, the school – the risk of infection was known. All four of the courageous men here – Richard, Steve, Ade and Gary – told their stories with dignity, but they never stopped reminding us what a privilege it was that they could do so at all. 'We used to come back to the school for reunions every year,' said Ade, 'and every year we'd lose two or three guys.' Of the 122 haemophiliac boys to have gone to Treloar's, around 90 have died. There were details in Tom Whitaker's film that hit like a hammer. Ade remembers being invited to one of his doctor's houses to play with the doctor's son, and finding the man crying. 'We f--ked up,' he said, 'we f--ked up, boys.' Another pupil, Neil, was diagnosed at the school as HIV+ when he was 12. His mother, Angela, was not told for three years. 'I sent him to his death,' she said. 'He was a good boy.' It was 1983 when the Mail on Sunday ran the front-page headline, 'Hospitals using killer blood'. The teachers at Treloar's hid the newspapers that day. It wasn't until 2024 when Richard, Ade, Steve and Gary got to give their evidence to an inquiry, now grey-haired men in their 50s, most of their mates dead.
