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Highland News & Media
  • 2 days ago
Transcript
00:00To be disappointed by the lack of settlement would say that I had an expectation that this
00:06scheme was actually going to work properly without significant changes. I have no expectation
00:15like that. For those of us infected in early childhood, the pathologies of disease are
00:20so different. Those things have not been written into the scheme. They have been created as
00:28a separate entity, which is they're calling the supplemental. It's going to be considered
00:33at some later date, should those of us that wish to claim live long enough. But again,
00:41this is just another delaying tactic for things that could have easily been considered in
00:46one fell swoop. The delays are destroying people mentally. They are... I have watched my friends
00:58get worse over the last 12 months. And that moment of not elation, of confirmation, of reaffirmation
01:08that we were right, that came the day Sir Brian announced his report and in reading it and feeling
01:17vindicated after four decades in the haemophilia community of campaigning for justice, disappeared
01:28the day Richie Sunak, 24 hours later, started to come down on what the numbers were going to
01:37actually be and how they were going to run it. And it became clear that they weren't really sorry,
01:44that they were looking for the cheapest way out, that they were going to ignore any costs in relation
01:51to the destruction of our childhood, that they were only going to value us as adults,
01:55that they were going to try and steal years, make use of the fact that our notes had been edited.
02:01There was no need for this. The fact that Sir Brian has been forced to keep this inquiry open
02:07is because the government's running true to the boot, just as they've done with Horizon,
02:12just as they've done with everybody else. They are never willing to pay the true cost.
02:18We're asking them to come a damn sight closer. You've destroyed people's whole lifetimes.
02:26And you have, through lying and deceit, travelled that harm, broadened it into families, parents
02:36who will carry guilt for the rest of their lives about their children dying of AIDS,
02:41wives, broken families, kids with mental health problems because they watched their father die.
02:48Those things could have been mitigated way back when this started.
02:56But because we have a government that relies on attrition as a tool for victory against its own victims,
03:05those things were just going to keep happening.
03:08Where do you think you'll be in a year's time?
03:11Probably still arguing with government.
03:15Probably still running news stories.
03:18I hope not.
03:20I would like to think that I could be in my completed house
03:25and reading a book.
03:31It's where I should be.
03:33But after 40 years of fighting to survive,
03:38fighting for recognition,
03:39those of us that are left are going to have a hard job walking away from this battlefield
03:44without the job being done.
03:47And this job's not done
03:49until the estates are properly recognised,
03:52until the impact on families is properly recognised.
03:56And I expect, because government is government,
03:59for each one of those points to involve another battle.
04:04And I have no intentions of leaving this field
04:07until the last sword is laid down.
04:11You