Lawyers representing 450 bereaved people whose relatives have died due to Covid-19 have called on Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock to hold an immediate public inquiry into the government’s handling of the crisis to help prevent many more deaths.
The formal petition to the government from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group argues that there is “a compelling need to set up the inquiry immediatelyâ€, to consider the best measures necessary to “minimise the ongoing effects of the virusâ€. The inquiry should ultimately examine the key government decisions and state of preparedness, which the families argue contributed to their relatives dying, the petition states.
It adds: “There is a widely held public belief that the government is making wrong decisions in this crisis and that the government errors have cost and will continue to cost lives.â€
Members of the group include Ken Sazuze, the husband of Elsie Sazuze, a nurse at a care home who died aged 44, the daughter of the London bus driver Ranjith Chandrapala, who died aged 64, and Fiona Kirton, whose father, Bernard Kirton, was transferred from a hospital to a care home without first being tested for the virus.
The families’ petition to Johnson and Hancock states: “There is criticism of the government’s handling of the crisis from all quarters.†It says when a full public inquiry is held, it must consider:
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The timing of the UK lockdown on 23 March, which was later than almost all European countries.
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The state of the government stockpile of personal protective equipment and testing capacity.
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The response to warnings in the 2017 Exercise Cygnus report that the UK was not adequately prepared for a pandemic.Â
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The disproportionately high number of black and minority ethnic people who have died from Covid-19.
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The transfer of patients from hospitals to care homes and several other key issues that have been subject to intense criticism.
The group’s lawyers, led by Pete Weatherby QC and Elkan Abrahamson of Broudie Jackson Canter, who represented 22 bereaved families at the 2014-16 new inquests into the Hillsborough disaster, argue that the government is under a legal duty to hold a public inquiry. The chief coroner, Mark Lucraft QC, issued guidance in March that in most cases deaths from Covid-19 should not be investigated at inquests, and that where there were inquests, they were not “the right forum†for addressing concerns about the government’s policy.
Johnson and other ministers have so far rejected calls for an immediate public inquiry, including from 27 medical and public health experts who wrote to the Guardian on 5 June. Johnson has acknowledged there will be a time to learn lessons, but said he is “very proud†of his government’s response.
