MP Paul Waugh has urged the Government to use its new “Hillsborough Law” to help two Rochdale pensioners who have spent decades fighting for justice
In a speech in Parliament to mark the introduction of the new Public Office (Accountability) Bill, Mr Waugh raised the cases of John Morris, an 88-year-old nuclear test veteran, and Sylvia Mountain, an 83-year-old victim of the Primados pregnancy test scandal.
The new legislation follows a long campaign by families of 97 Liverpool fans killed at the Hillsborough crush disaster in 1989 to prevent police or any other public authority from lying about such events and engaging in a cover-up of wrongdoing.
The bill will make it a criminal offence for any public official to deliberately mislead the public and bereaved families will benefit from the largest expansion in legal aid for a decade, providing non-means-tested legal help and representation for inquests.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Waugh said Mr Morris was one of 22,000 British troops who were exposed to nuclear radiation while on service in the South Pacific in the 1950s, and who have campaigned for years about the cancers and other side effects they endured.
“John’s son Steven died at just four months old from birth defects,” Mr Waugh said. “For 50 years, John and his wife faced repeated indignities. They were wrongfully questioned on suspicion of having murdered their son, denied information about how and why their son died, and denied John’s own medical records.”
Mr Morris had sent him a message that the Hillsborough law was “great news”, adding “for us vets, it’s very positive” because it will make it easier to demand answers from the Ministry of Defence.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has agreed to meet Mr Morris to discuss his case.
Mr Waugh also highlighted the plight of Mrs Mountain, whose own son died at 22 days from birth defects after she took a pregnancy test drug Primodos.
Many other women who were prescribed Primodos suffered similar birth defects in their children, as well as stillbirths and miscarriages.
Mr Waugh said: “For more than half a century, these families have faced a culture of concealment—of suppressed evidence, misleading official conclusions, and denial of responsibility.
“John and Sylvia—two Rochdale pensioners in their 80s, whose lives have been overshadowed by tragedy and loss in ways that are very different, but also very similar—personify the decades of injustice that this legislation is intended to prevent from ever happening again.”