Memorial to 122 infected blood victims unveiled at Treloar's school

A bronze memorial to the 122 haemophiliac boys infected with HIV and hepatitis at Lord Mayor Treloar College has been unveiled. The statue shows two pupils, one with a cane and one with a sling, embracing. Its inscription remembers the 122 haemophiliac pupils of Treloar's, infected as children, victims of unethical research. The chair of the infected blood inquiry, Brian Langstaff, is quoted on it saying the disaster was not an accident.

The boys were pupils at the boarding school in Hampshire, also known as Treloar's, during the 1970s and 1980s. They had haemophilia, a blood clotting disorder, and were given a new treatment made from donated human blood plasma. The infected blood inquiry's 2024 report found they were treated as objects of research and experimented on without their knowledge. Only around 30 of the 122 were still alive when the report was published.

Survivors described holding out their arms two or three times a week for treatment as children. One former pupil, Steve Nichols, who attended from 1976 to 1983, was left infected with hepatitis A, B and C. He said the school gave him an outstanding education and opportunities he would not have had in mainstream school, but there was a trade-off. Another survivor said the boys looked up to doctors and staff and only later found out that staff knew what was going on. He said the treatment was all on children who were away from home without consent from their parents.

The wider scandal infected more than 30,000 people in the UK through blood products, and more than 3,000 have died. The infections were caused by clotting factor imported from America, donated by prisoners and drug users who were themselves infected. At Treloar's, three out of four boys with haemophilia at the school between 1970 and 1987 lost their lives because of the treatments given.

The memorial was recommended by the infected blood inquiry, which published its final report in 2024. It was described at the unveiling as a scandal within a scandal. Treloar's school later apologised and recognised that the treatments were unethical and wrong.

Survivors have been given £60,000 in compensation, but there are calls for that to be increased. They have filed crime reports, and police are considering whether there should be any prosecution. Campaigners say there is still enough documentary evidence to support a prosecution. Comparisons were drawn with French prosecutions, which campaigners said followed European directives warning against using the material. The UK continued to use it because it was cheaper, they said.

Outside the school gates, the statue of two boys supporting each other now stands as a permanent reminder of what happened behind the walls.