Families to take legal action over Covid deaths of loved ones

Ian Laidlaw lost his mother Margaret last April.

As a vascular dementia sufferer, she was at high risk from coronavirus.

She was moved to a care home where she caught Covid and died in the space of two weeks.

Ian and his family think the care home were negligent and are now taking legal action.

He told STV News: “It’s just a sense that there’s more than one party who is at fault for the ultimate outcome and we feel like these parties should be held accountable and admit their liability for what happened.”

Robert Gold also lost his father William, and is seeking redress.

Robert said: “I know it sounds cliche but I really want justice. To put not too fine a point on it, the lack of strong management, procedures being followed, led to the direct death of my dad.

“It doesn’t matter if he was 89 or 49 or 69, he was taken away wrongly simply because people didn’t do their job.”

Decisions and policies made by the Scottish Government during the last 18 months are also in the hands of solicitors.

Patrick McGuire from Thompsons Solicitors said: “There’s going to be far more evidence coming out against the Scottish Government and of course the UK Government when that public inquiry arrives.

“But we do already know that certain terrible decisions were made that Scottish Government themselves, the cabinet secretary for health, has apologised for.

“The decision to send people out of hospitals and into care homes when they were positive for the virus, that’s unforgivable. And that’s one of the primary bases upon which we’re looking to see what legal avenues can be pursued against the Scottish Government.”

The First Minister says the actions of her government will be reviewed in a public inquiry.

Nicola Sturgeon said: “I’m not going to comment on any potential legal action, it would be completely inappropriate for me to do that.

“Any individual of course has the right to consider whether their rights have been in any way breached so that they think legal action might be appropriate and people will take their own legal advice.”

The date for a UK wide public inquiry into the handling of coronavirus has been set by the Prime Minister for next spring.