By Victoria Mckeown-
The Uk government broke the law by failing to protect more than 20,000 elderly or disabled care home residents who died after contracting COVID-19, according to a damning High Court ruling.
A barrister representing Dr Gardner and Ms Harris told the judges that more than 20,000 elderly or disabled care home residents had died from COVID-19 in England and Wales between March and June 2020.
Jason Coppel QC said the fathers of both Dr Gardner and Ms Harris were part of that “toll”.
“The care home population was known to be uniquely vulnerable to being killed or seriously harmed by COVID-19,” said Mr Coppel in a written case outline.
“The government’s failure to protect it, and positive steps taken by the government which introduced COVID-19 infection into care homes, represent one of the most egregious and devastating policy failures in the modern era.”
Mr Coppel told judges: “That death toll should not and need not have happened.
The case was brought forward by Dr Cathy Gardner and Fay Harris whose fathers Michael Gibson and Donald Harris died after testing positive for coronavirus.
In a ruling on Wednesday, Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham concluded that policies contained in documents released in March and early April 2020 were unlawful because they failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of the virus.
The ruling said that despite there being “growing awareness” of the risk of asymptomatic transmission throughout March 2020, there was no evidence that Matt Hancock, who was health secretary at the time, addressed the issue of the risk to care home residents of such transmission.
Mr Hancock’s spokesman has said the High Court found he acted reasonably but Public Health England “failed to tell ministers what they knew about asymptomatic transmission” of COVID-19 and “Mr Hancock has frequently stated how he wished this had been brought to his attention earlier”.
Hancock was forced to resign after it emerged that he broke lockdown rules, following cctv footage that showed him snogging university pal Gina Colagandelo
Image: Cathy Gardner, left, and Fay Harris, right, all took High Court action against the government
Dr Gardner, whose father died at the age of 88 in a care home in Bicester, Oxfordshire, in April 2020, said in a statement after the ruling: “My father, along with tens of thousands of other elderly and vulnerable people, tragically died in care homes in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I believed all along that my father and other residents of care homes were neglected and let down by the government.”
A government spokeswoman had in a statement outside court during the hearing: “Every death is a tragedy and we worked tirelessly to protect the public from the threat to life and health posed by the pandemic and specifically sought to safeguard care homes and their residents.
“We have provided billions of pounds to support the sector, including on infection and prevention control, free PPE and priority vaccinations – with the vast majority of eligible care staff and residents now vaccinated.