Brandon and Liliana Toni are still haunted by losing their dad to Covid. Nick, a former RAF police officer who was a guide dog instructor, was a fit and healthy 61-year-old before contracting the disease and being admitted to hospital.
“My children lost their father in March 2021 when they were just 10 and 13 years old,” their mum, Sarah, 41, from Telford, Shropshire. says. “They had to say goodbye over FaceTime. They have night terrors from seeing their father on life support. They suffer constant anxiety, which is particularly acute when going out in public. And when anyone in our family feels unwell, they worry that I too will die and leave them all alone.”
This was the evidence Sarah wanted to give at the UK Covid inquiry, which resumed hearings on Monday. But this week she learned that families like hers have been barred from giving evidence in Module 8 – which will cover the impact of Covid on children and young people.
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group say they feel “betrayed and silenced” by Baroness Heather Hallett and her inquiry after having their application for core participant status denied for Module 8.
Meanwhile, only two out of 23 representatives they asked the inquiry to hear from will be heard as part of Module 3 - which will cover the NHS-related section of evidence this autumn.
READ MORE: NHS workers forced to make harrowing end-of-life decisions at height of Covid, inquiry hears
“There has been no closure for my children, and I believe this will impact their lives for ever,” says Sarah, a housekeeper at a local hospice. “My children are also incredibly angry. They are now 13 and 16 and don’t trust anything the Government says – and now they feel they have been betrayed by Baroness Hallett not wanting to hear their experience. It’s heartbreaking.”
Anne Steadman, 52, who lost her dad Frank Nunes, was among those not called as witnesses for Module 3. After Frank, 79, was admitted as a new cancer patient, she described scenes as “like a warzone” where “individuals were walking back and forth installing doors, cleaning vents above him, and no one was wearing PPE. The hospital has confirmed he contracted Covid in hospital”.
She says a Do Not Resuscitate order was applied against Frank’s explicit wishes. “I will never forget what’s happened and I will never forgive the Government,” she says. “No one got to say goodbye – we didn’t make it in time.”
Anne believes Baroness Hallett needs to hear more in-person testimony. “The inquest needs to be able to listen to our stories,” she says. “It’s all well and good reading a statement but you have no idea how that makes us feel. You need to be able to hear and see, as well as listening to our words.”
Module 3 will examine the impact of the pandemic on NHS workers, patients and the delivery of healthcare. It will also cover the use of masks and PPE in hospitals, the “shielding” policy, and Long Covid.
Those denied a place at the inquiry say they collectively witnessed flaws in the NHS 111 service, watched loved ones acquire Covid in hospital due to inadequate PPE, saw their relatives given controversial DNR orders, and watched people with disabilities failed as hospitals were swamped.
Like the Grenfell families, these bereaved men, women and children believe the deaths of their loved ones were preventable. The Mirror has heard the families’ testimonies.
“For us not being called as witnesses when we saw what went wrong just adds to the devastation,” says Rivka Gottlieb, 52, a music therapist whose 73-year-old dad Michael died from Covid. “We’re not being heard. The state must learn from our experiences to save lives when the next pandemic hits. That is why we fought so hard to bring about this inquiry.”
As the inquiry resumes, Baroness Hallett again faces the dilemma of who to hear from when the pandemic impacted millions. While the Grenfell inquiry had 72 bereaved families, at least 235,000 people are thought to have been killed by the virus in the UK since the pandemic began – with further fatalities caused by the disruption to the NHS. Meanwhile, the NHS – the subject of Module 3 – employs 1.5 million people.
This module will hear in person from seven bereaved people in total, as well as experts from across the board. The inquiry has run several listening exercises, alongside a project called “Every Story Matters”, which saw the anonymous stories of over 40,000 people entered formally into evidence on Monday. It has its own “Bereaved Forum” and every module begins with an often harrowing video which gathers stories together.
Meanwhile, the inquiry must also balance the need to gather evidence with the speed of publishing life-saving recommendations.
An inquiry spokesperson said: “Chair of the Inquiry, Baroness Heather Hallett, has been clear that the experiences of those most directly impacted by the pandemic are central to the inquiry’s work, especially the bereaved. The inquiry has, through its listening exercise, Every Story Matters, heard more than 43,000 stories of life during the pandemic from people from everywhere in the UK, including many stories of bereavement. The inquiry extends sincere sympathies to these individuals.
“The scale of the pandemic and the issues the inquiry must look into means we cannot hear from everyone who may wish to give evidence. Nonetheless, hundreds of witnesses will be called to give evidence, including many who experienced loss in the pandemic.”
CBFFJ represents around 7,000 families who fought for the inquiry to happen. “The experiences of our members are vast,” says Matt Fowler, co-founder. “Within our group we have young children with PTSD who freeze at the sight of an ambulance or who are scared to go near a hospital because they associate it with death. We have adults trying to raise traumatised young children alone while suppressing their own grief and PTSD, through to professionals who work with children and young adults.”
This week, as well as Sarah and Anne, Real Britain heard from more families who have been denied the opportunity to give evidence. Jane Roche lost her beloved sister Jocelyn Pettitt, aged just 54, after she was admitted to hospital in spring 2020. Jocelyn, who worked in retail, was deaf and her sister says she had her hearing implant removed and was placed on a DNR without permission. “If they had not put her on end-of-life care, she could still be here today,” says Jane, from Birmingham. “She had a grandson six weeks away from being born.”
James Telfer, 50, a technical director from Cheam, South West London, lost his mum Jacqueline, 78, to hospital-acquired Covid during over the Christmas of 2020 – as Downing Street was partying. A proud grandmother, she had been admitted with a suspected myeloma – but after contracting Covid in hospital, she endured weeks of “panicked survival” before her death.
Jeanne Asquith, a 57-year-old finance manager from Rainham, East London, lost her mum Jean to hospital-acquired Covid after she was admitted following a heart attack. She had just finished chemotherapy and was extremely vulnerable. “My mum had spent her whole life caring for other people,” she says. “She died alone and scared.”
Rivka Gottlieb had to fight for her desperately sick father Michael to be admitted to A&E due to inadequacies in the 111 service – only to find staff “overwhelmed” when he arrived.
Michael was an active 73-year-old who worked in a golf shop. “Had lockdown been announced just a week earlier, he would still be with us today,” says Rivka, from East Finchley, North West London.
Leigh Morgan-Jones, 57, from Walsall, West Midlands, lost her dad Ivor Morgan, 75, a former electrical engineer, after what she says were failures of the 111 process.
Ivor, from Newport, was not admitted to hospital until he became so unwell he fell and hit his head.
“We wanted to be front and centre of the inquiry, but this has been denied which is a great travesty to all of us,” she says. This new phase of hearings follows a scathing report into the UK’s pandemic readiness last month which concluded the Government had failed woefully to prepare for the “entirely foreseeable” event.
Nicola Brook, solicitor at Broudie Jackson Canter, which represents the CBFFJ’s 7,000 families, said: “This module of the inquiry is one of the most important in understanding the true horrors of the pandemic.
“The sad fact is people died unnecessarily. Groups like the disabled and the elderly were written off because it was considered that their lives were not worth saving.”
READ MORE: Jeremy Hunt says sorry after Covid Inquiry report unearthed devastating failings
