ANYONE who knowingly supplied contaminated blood to a patient who subsequently died is guilty of murder and should be prosecuted, an inquiry has been told.

Sam Stein QC, appearing at the infected blood inquiry on behalf of North-East widow and campaigner Carol Grayson, also said there had been a “systematic attempt to destroy evidence” of the scandal.

During the 70s and 80s, over 4,500 haemophiliacs in the UK were given HIV and Hepatitis C by treatments provided on the NHS, of which about half have since died.

Mr Stein is representing Ms Grayson, 58, whose husband Peter Longstaff and brother-in-law, Stephen, were both infected with HIV and other illnesses, along with three other ‘core participants’.

He said: “The person who knows that the blood products they supply contain a high risk of infecting another person with a disease, such as Hepatitis B/C or HIV commits the offence of inflicting GBH if the person supplied does not immediately die.

“If the supplied person dies as a consequence it is murder.

“Those who are part of the supply chain when either supporting or assuring such a supply with the requisite knowledge of what they are doing are guilty of conspiracy to murder.

“It is clear that those who were responsible for the criminal infection of people through the supply of contaminated blood should be prosecuted.

“Those people who wiped out thousands of haemophiliacs and other people should be made to pay for their crimes.”

The Northern Echo launched its Fight for Justice campaign in 1986, the year Ms Grayson lost her brother-in-law, to highlight how the Government had failed to act quickly enough to prevent contaminated blood from American prisoners on death row being supplied to haemophiliacs.

After her husband’s death, aged 47, in 2005, Ms Grayson, who is from Hartlepool and lives in Newcastle, researched and wrote an acclaimed dissertation on contaminated blood.

She critiqued the findings of the now discredited Government Report ‘Self Sufficiency in Blood Products in England and Wales from 1973 to 1991’ published by the Department of Health in 2006.

Her research revealed previously unpublished documents that had been allegedly destroyed or lost, which exposed glaring omissions and inaccuracies, pointing towards a Government led cover up, the inquiry was told.

Mr Stein said: “In the United States, this scandal has been labelled ‘the haemophilia holocaust’.

“The haemophiliacs infected and killed, died horribly, their lives made a sheer misery, their families broken and all too often also infected.

“This inquiry cannot turn the clock back for the victims but it must establish the truth behind this terrible atrocity.”

Mr Stein said, once the inquiry, chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff, a former High Court judge, is over the victims and their family should receive an apology from the State.

He said: “The medical profession must wake up to what has happened and people must be treated with respect.

“Everyone needs to find some measure of peace from the knowledge at least, belatedly, the State through this inquiry has thoroughly investigated this tragedy and made recommendations to ensure that nothing of the like ever happens again.”