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Documents submitted to the Infected Blood Inquiry reveal the blood service in the UK was taking donations from British prisons up until the late 1980s, despite warnings to end the practice.

It is evidence of how unsafe, by today’s standards, the UK blood supply was until the early 1990s when testing for life-threatening viruses like hepatitis C and HIV became available.

Much of the inquiry has focused on haemophiliacs, the group harmed most in the infection scandal due to blood products imported from the US made from contaminated blood from paying donors including those in jail.

But the vast majority of people infected with hepatitis C in the UK acquired their infection via blood transfusions in the NHS for things like routine surgery, cancer treatment or following childbirth.

Blood given to this silent majority in the infected blood scandal was sourced almost exclusively from donors in Britain.

“I felt so guilty I passed it on,” says Daphne Whitehorn.

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She contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion she received during a kidney transplant in 1971.

“But I didn’t know I could pass it on because I was never told anything about it,” she says.

Daphne Whitehorn
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Daphne Whitehorn

Her daughter Janice tested positive for the virus in 2019, probably infected when she was born. Neither knew they had the infection for decades.

Symptoms can be mild at first, many people naturally clear the virus and treatments introduced in the last decade can cure most people of their infection without serious side-effects.

But chronic infection can cause severe liver damage, liver failure and liver cancer.

The Whitehorns and thousands of other victims of the scandal are looking to the Infected Blood Inquiry for answers.

Key among them, why so many people were infected with hepatitis C.

There are no precise numbers, many of the records of donors, recipients and procedures have been lost or destroyed.

But statistical experts for the inquiry estimate around 27,000 people may have been infected with hepatitis C via transfusions. Most have subsequently died of other causes but they calculate around 1,600 have died so far from causes related directly to their hepatitis C infection.

The inquiry has heard how more could have been done to keep viruses like hepatitis out of the blood supply.

Janice Whitehorn
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Janice Whitehorn tested positive for the virus in 2019

Documents show how calls to end the practice of taking donations from the prison population were slow to be heeded.

The inquiry was shown evidence that in 1973 rates of hepatitis viruses were found to be fives times higher in prisoners than the general population.

While this led to many regional blood services to stop taking donations from prisons, others continued. The last prison donation took place in 1987.

But the inquiry is expected to consider far wider failings too.

Like why, when testing for HIV for and then Hepatitis C became available, was the blood service slow to adopt using them. Also why infected frozen stocks of blood taken before Hepatitis C testing was introduced were not retrospectively tested before being given to patients in the early 1990s.

In addition, victims of the scandal want to know why it took four years for the Department of Health to approve a “look-back” exercise to identify those who may have been infected due to a blood transfusion. Also why that exercise left so many still unaware they had been infected.

A photo wall of victims of the scandal
Image:
A photo wall of victims of the scandal

“We’re very sorry for the parts that we played in the past,” says Dr Gail Miflin, chief medical officer of the NHS Blood and Transplant Service.

“Listening to the stories of those infected and affected, they are dreadful stories.

“My job as chief medical officer is to ensure that the blood supply today is safe and that people who need a transfusion today, get blood that comes from one of the safest blood services in the world.”

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And much has changed.

Donors today are screened for lifestyle factors and travel history that might have put them at risk of blood-borne infections.

Each donation is also tested for a number of infections including HIV and hepatitis C, and a sample of each donation is archived for three years in case re-testing is required.

The Infected Blood Inquiry is due to publish its final report on 20 May.

If you think you may have been at risk of hepatitis C infection, free testing is available in England: https://hepctest.nhs.uk/ in Wales: https://www.shwales.online/wales-sti-testing-kit-test-and-post.html In Scotland you will need to speak to your GP.

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Heathrow bosses ‘warned about substation’ days before major power outage, MP committee hears

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Heathrow bosses 'warned about substation' days before major power outage, MP committee hears

Heathrow Airport bosses had been warned of a potential substation failures less than a week before a major power outage closed the airport for a day, a committee of MPs has heard.

The chief executive of Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee Nigel Wicking told MPs of the Transport Committee he raised issues about resilience on 15 March after cable and wiring took out lights on a runway.

A fire at an electricity substation in west London meant the power supply was disrupted to Europe’s largest airport for a day – causing travel chaos for around 200,000 passengers.

“I’d actually warned Heathrow of concerns that we had with regard to the substations and my concern was resilience”, Mr Wicking said.

“So the first occasion was to team Heathrow director on the 15th of the month of March. And then I also spoke to the chief operating officer and chief customer officer two days before regarding this concern.

“And it was following a number of, a couple of incidents of, unfortunately, theft, of wire and cable around some of the power supply that on one of those occasions, took out the lights on the runway for a period of time. That obviously made me concerned.”

Mr Wicking also said he believed Heathrow’s Terminal 5 could have been ready to receive repatriation flights by “late morning” on the day of the closure, and that “there was opportunity also to get flights out”.

However, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said keeping the airport open during last month’s power outage would have been “disastrous”.

There was a risk of having “literally tens of thousands of people stranded in the airport, where we have nowhere to put them”, Mr Woldbye said.

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Zhenhao Zou: More than 20 new potential victims come forward after ‘prolific’ rapist jailed for assaulting 10 women

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Zhenhao Zou: More than 20 new potential victims come forward after 'prolific' rapist jailed for assaulting 10 women

Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.

The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.

Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.

Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.

“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”

Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
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Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth

Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.

Read more: How a student described as ‘smart and charming’ was unmasked as a prolific sexual predator

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He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.

“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.

“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.

“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”

***ONLY USE IF HE IS CONVICTED OF AT LEAST TWO RAPES***It is feared Zou may have carried out dozens more sex crimes. Pic: Met Police
Image:
Pic: Met Police

Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.

He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.

Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.

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Moment police arrest rapist student

Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.

“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.

“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.

“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”

Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”

Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”

The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.

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Girl, 11, who went missing after entering River Thames named

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Girl, 11, who went missing after entering River Thames named

An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.

An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.

Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.

A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.

Location of Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich, where 11-year-old girl Kaliyah Coa went into the River Thames on 31/03
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Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames

Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.

He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.

He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”

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“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”

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On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.

When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.

Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.

Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.

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