'It's astonishing that this could happen in this country' - Beloved 'soulmate' was given the infected blood that killed him

It’s been almost six years since Dr Raymond Walmsley died, aged just 53. But his family has spent those years fighting for some form of justice that they have only now received a semblance of – all too late.

Dr Walmsley, an administrator at the University of Manchester, underwent a blood transfusion for renal transplant surgery back in 1991, only to discover to his horror that the blood was contaminated with hepatitis C. He was among some 30,000 people who were infected with HIV, hepatitis C and other deadly viruses while receiving NHS care between the 1970s and 1990s, and one of more than 3,000 dead as a result.

After decades of deaths and those left behind campaigning for the truth to be heard, the Infected Blood Inquiry finally concluded in May 2024, finding that the scandal is the NHS’s biggest treatment disaster – covered up at the highest levels of government in a ‘chilling’ and ‘pervasive’ ‘catalogue of failures’.

As the victims and their families reckon with the inquiry’s conclusions that the scandal was ‘not an accident’, and ‘could have been avoided’ for tens of thousands, loved ones like those of Dr Raymond Walmsley’s are getting their own moment in court. Today, a Manchester coroner ruled that the beloved husband and brother’s death ‘could have been avoided’ if he had not been given an infected blood transfusion that led him to develop hepatitis C.

READ MORE: 'My husband was told to be grateful he didn't have HIV after getting hepatitis C from an infected blood transfusion'

After her husband’s sudden death in September 2018, Louise Walmsley gave evidence to the Infected Blood Inquiry. Dr Walmsley, known as Ray to his loved ones, had a transfusion that came after he developed nephritis following a severe