PRESS RELEASE – 26 JULY 2023 – SCOTTISH COVID BEREAVED CONDEMN SHAMBOLIC START TO SCOTLAND’S PUBLIC INQUIRY
Press Statement issued at 1:15pm by Aamer Anwar- Lead Solicitor for the Scottish Covid Bereaved- following the start of today’s Scottish Covid19 Public Inquiry.
The Scottish Covid Bereaved campaigned for this Scottish Inquiry to be set up and to run parallel to that of the UK Inquiry.
In the last year the Scottish Inquiry has spent nearly £8 million- so the very least the families were entitled to expect was a gold plated, robust and fearless inquiry, no different to the UK Inquiry. Sadly, their experience has been the exact opposite.
The families we represent were told by the Scottish Government, then the first chair who resigned, followed by Lord Brailsford, that they would be front and centre of this Public Inquiry, that has not happened.
It is deeply disrespectful that the Inquiry started today without even paying their respects to those who lost their lives to Covid.
It is shameful and retraumatising for the bereaved to see this Inquiry teetering once more on the edge of a cliff with an embarrassing and shambolic start.
Whilst the UK Inquiry can tell the public the dates that hearings will take place for the year in advance, the Scottish Inquiry was unable to tell the bereaved what is happening a month away.
The families we represent raised grave concerns on Dr Croft being led as an expert witness at the start of the Public Inquiry, yet they were ignored. The Inquiry stated: “Dr Croft will present his report on the accepted scientific and medical understanding of coronavirus and COVID-19 as it existed in late 2019 and developed during the pandemic, up until the end of 2022”.
Firstly, Dr Croft was being asked to stray beyond what the presentation purports to be about. Issues relating to significant issues such as the provision of PPE to the public and medical, health and care staff cannot be encompassed in an epidemiological presentation.
A simple google of this ‘expert’ witness would have exposed the High Court judgement at the Royal Courts of Justice, delivered by the then Deputy Judge of the High Court, Richard Hermer QC. (Darrell Stewart Jones v Ministry of Defence [2020] EWHC 1603 (QB))
Any witness being so criticised in a High Court judgement would cause alarm for those carrying out due diligence in selection of an expert. There were just some of the terms used to describe Dr Croft:-
- lack of cogency, consistency and rigour
- flawed, unreliable, unconvincing
- little to instil confidence in his analysis of the epidemiology generally
- blissfully unaware of the ‘gold standard’
- cavalier approach to important evidence.
It is of note that the Inquiry avoided raising this issue at all with Dr Croft. For the Inquiry to start with this witness, gives cause for the bereaved to question the credibility and robustness of this inquiry. Dr Croft’s presentation was described as evidence, yet why then were the families denied the right to effectively participate today by not being allowed to question this expert. As for Dr Croft’s whistle stop tour of Covid19 this is simply not expertise.
The Covid bereaved, and the people of Scotland deserve better, after all they have watched world class experts deliver evidence at the UK Inquiry. The bereaved refuse to be passive spectators, the families previously lost confidence in the Inquiry headed by Lady Poole, sadly, today’s start appears deeply flawed, disrespectful, basic and a betrayal of the promises made to them.
