A new memorial now stands at Lord Mayor’s Treloar’s College in Hampshire. It honors schoolboys with haemophilia who were infected with HIV and hepatitis through experimental medical products during the 1970s and 1980s.
Bronze Sculpture Marks Unethical Research
The statue depicts two pupils embracing. One wears a sling; another holds a cane. It serves as a permanent marker for what the Infected Blood Public Inquiry formally concluded was unethical research carried out without patient or parental knowledge.
Inquiry Findings on NHS Clinicians and School Staff
According to the main report published by the Infected Blood Public Inquiry in 2024, 122 pupils with haemophilia attended Treloar’s between 1970 and 1987. The inquiry found that very few of these children escaped infection, concluding they were treated as objects of research by NHS clinicians who understood the associated viral risks.
Medical staff at the school prioritized research advancement over the safety of the children. They administered multiple commercial concentrates known to carry higher infection risks rather than alternative safer treatments.
Of the 122 pupils who attended during those decades, only around 30 remained alive by the time the inquiry published its findings in 2024. Contaminated blood products have caused the deaths of more than 90 boys.
Inscriptions and Surviving Pupils Gather
The newly unveiled bronze-style sculpture bears the inscription: “Remembering 122 haemophiliac pupils of Treloar’s. Infected as children, victims of unethical research.” It also features a quotation from inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff stating, “This disaster was not an accident.”
Surviving pupils gathered at the college for the installation to honour their classmates and maintain public awareness of the tragedy.
Personal Accounts from Survivors
Adrian Goodyear, a 55-year-old survivor who arrived at the school at age nine, recalled being told by a doctor in 1985 that he had two to three years left to live. “We left school with death sentences,” Goodyear told the Press Association, noting he is now the last survivor remaining from a group of five boys given diagnoses together.
Gary Webster, 61, who attended from 1975 to 1983, stated that the eight years of treatment provided no health benefits and ultimately introduced fatal viruses.
Steve Nicholls, 59, who entered the school at age eight, emphasized that parents placed trust in the institution only to have their children subjected to secret research. Richard Warwick, another former pupil, described the installation as a symbol of enduring friendship and mutual support among survivors.