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Compensated?

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Andrew: I think that it's right that people should have answers to what was a huge tragedy. I mean, comparably, other disasters that have happened, train crashes etcetera, that have had full inquiries put into them have not been on a tenth of the scale of the disaster that happened at the NHS back then. I do think it does deserve answers.

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Ben: Mum and dad, they knew about that - they kept it in trust until I was eighteen. When I got that money, I just thought, "Oh wow! It's party time now. It's time to enjoy myself." I spent all that money in three years. I had no real responsibility either, so I just thought, 'Let's go spend some money!' It's not like I spent it all on myself either, all my friends had a good time. It was great fun. It was more escapism, as well.

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Charles: So we're going to take a certain number of HIV positive haemophiliacs from this country and take the case to court in America. We've got nothing to lose, everything to gain. I pray it actually goes to court. We've been down this road before, where it's quite easy to take the money and shut up. I don't care what kind of money they're talking about. I would rather it went to court and we got a bit of truth out of in the end.

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Dave: I've seen some video tapes that were produced, and it was all about that they knew what was going into the blood, into the vats that made Factor Eight. And the fact that these drug companies were paying people who were homeless and drug addicts and people like that, and also advertising in specifically gay papers for people who've had multiple partners, because they were trying to get a vaccine for Hepatitis. Then once they'd finished with that blood, even though they knew it was contaminated with Hepatitis, they put it into the big vats of blood, so they didn't waste it. But they knew they were infecting everybody else with the Hepatitis. So that's when it could have been infected with the HIV as well. So I am angry about it, because they knew what they were doing, but carried on doing it because there was more money to be made than anything else.

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Haydn: As the years went on - '88, '89 - it didn't seem a lot of money to acknowledge or address the severity or the absolute horrendous situation we found ourselves in. I felt pretty disgusted and insulted by it.

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Ian: I've always held fairly strong views that compensation possibly doesn't help a lot of people. And that particularly the kind of compensation that we've had, which has been tied to need and medical need, and that it discourages people from being healthy and discourages them from taking an active and healthy role in life.

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Joseph: We had no choice really, but to accept the levels of payment that they were proposing, because if we didn't accept them, it had been arranged that legal aid support would be withdrawn. So there was no option to pursue a legal case for compensation. And the amounts that they provided I felt were frankly an insult to the challenges that were facing us. The structure they created meant that each and every time there was an issue that was facing us, we basically had to go and ask for charity, to help deal with the situation.

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Paul: It was a pittance. They'd taken my whole life off me; they'd taken my sex life away from me; they'd taken my ability to have kids, my career, my ambitions. They gave me a disease that was contagious; they gave me a disease that I couldn't even talk to my closest friends about; and they gave me twenty grand for it. I remember when the cheque came and I went down to the Post Office, and I deposited the money in my savings account. I was in a queue at the Post Office and the woman behind the counter said, 'I think you filled it wrong, love, you've put the noughts in the wrong box,' and I said, 'I haven't,' and she says, 'Oh you haven't - oh that's a lot isn't it? You must be lucky, have you won the pools or something?' I had a queue of four or five people stood behind me, and I just glared at her and said, 'No I haven't, can we get this over and done with, please?' I sat in my car and cried again.

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Stuart G: All the haemophiliacs received a lump sum to start with and a lump sum a few years later. Because I was under 18 on both occasions, my mother had to sign a waiver saying that she wouldn't, or we wouldn't, take any further action against the Government. Because of how things were at that time, and the environment and how people's attitudes were to HIV and how many people were dying, she felt that it was the only option for her. So that at least I had some sort of financial support, or the chance to do something with my life, for the last few years of my life.