Ex-model fails in challenge over infected blood damages scheme

A QC for Sharon Moore said at a recent hearing in London that it appeared the Department of Health was "looking for ways of not making payments" to a whole category of people accidentally given contaminated blood in the mid-1980s during "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS".

But yesterday Mr Justice Kenneth Parker ruled the ex gratia scheme had been operated "rationally and lawfully".

Ms Moore, 50, from Dunstable in Bedfordshire, received her transfusion at Luton and Dunstable Hospital in June 1987 after collapsing with severe anaemia caused by ulcerative colitis, an inflammation of the intestine.

It was not until March 1998, almost 11 years later, that the National Blood Service wrote to her GP and Ms Moore was told she may have been infected with hepatitis C.

She underwent tests and had to wait six weeks before being told the virus had "cleared naturally" from her system at some point since 1987.

But she was warned there was an increased risk of developing liver cancer and variant CJD because of the contaminated blood. Her claim for state compensation for the ordeal she suffered was rejected on three occasions by the Skipton Fund, the independent body responsible for administering the Government's compensation scheme.