Still of campaigner Haydn Lewis from RTS nominated BBC Newsnight documentary (April, 2007) where Carol Grayson was the official researcher (posted on Youtube by Tainted Blood)
It came as no surprise to long standing campaigners (though a great deal of disgust) that Jason Evans, Factor 8 Group was recently nominated for and won the Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMF) Campaigner of the Year award. The SMF website states, “it feels it is the right year to recognize Jason’s work. Outstanding work over the past 10 years.” However Evans is known to long standing campaigners including this author Carol Anne Grayson as someone who falsifies Timelines of discovery of evidence to the media thus distorting Contaminated Blood scandal history and plagiarising the work of others.
Grayson lost both her husband Peter and brother in law Stephen both haemophiliacs to HIV/hepatitis C infection through their factor concentrate treatment used to treat those with an inherited bleeding disorder. Much of the treatment was imported from the US. Plasma used in the manufacture of this treatment came from high-risk” sources such as prisoners, gay men, sex workers, “skid row” donors and drug addicts.
Evans campaigns on Contaminated Blood and lost his father to the scandal as a young boy. The 10 year figure of years of campaigning stated by SMF is somewhat confusing as Evans only began campaigning publicly in the media in 2017. In his 3rd statement to the Infected Blood Inquiry under the Chair of Sir Brian Langstaff, Evans himself highlights that, “in or about March 2017, I set up Factor 8 Independent Haemophilia Group” and that “in February 2018 Factor 8 Independent Group was registered at Companies House”.
The nomination of Evans (in the “Who else was involved section”) of the SMF website, appears to have been supported by his lawyers, Des Collins & Dani Holliday at Collins Solicitors, 600 Members of Factor 8, and Dame Diana Johnson MP. Johnson is vice Chair of the APPG Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood. She is also vice Chair of the controversial Labour Friends of Israel, an organization that came under scrutiny in the recently published book, Friends of Israel: The Backlash Against Palestinian Solidarity by Hil Aked. Information about the book on the Verso Book website states,
Friends of Israel provides a forensically researched account of the activities of Israel’s advocates in Britain, showing how they contribute to maintaining Israeli apartheid. The book traces the history and changing fortunes of key actors within the British Zionist movement in the context of the Israeli government’s contemporary efforts to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Offering a nuanced and politically relevant account of pro-Israel actors’ strategies, tactics, and varying levels of success in key arenas of society, it draws parallels with the similar anti-boycott campaign waged by supporters of the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa.
Dame Diana Johnson sat on the ESRC awarded Contaminated Blood research dissertation of this author, Carol Anne Grayson for years despite being sent this and other documents numerous times both by Grayson and her campaign colleague Colette Wintle, a haemophiliac infected with hepatitus B and C. Therefore it appears somewhat hypocritical that Johnson should be supporting Evans who has rehashed much of Grayson’s work without any referencing.
Johnson is seen as a divisive figure by long standing haemophilia campaigners. She breached confidentiality during a mass mailout and was subsequently threatened with legal action. It is alleged that a case may have been won against Johnson with a substantial pay out and a silence clause attached. Knowing that Johnson was vice Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Grayson asked her why she had failed to highlight and support the case of Palestinian haemophiliacs who were suffering due to being subjected to medical apartheid treatment. The case of Grayson’s friend Jad K Jadallah Tawill is well known to human rights groups, he is Director of the Palestinian Society For Bleeding Disorders (PSBD).
Grayson also raised her concerns over the alleged use of NSO Israeli Pegasus spyware on campaigners, lawyers, NGOs, journalists and politicians now the subject of legal cases in the UK. Johnson’s response was to weaponize antisemitism, falsely accusing Grayson of “antisemitic conspiracy theories” and blocking her from the APPG Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood. A new publication on this very subject, the weaponization of antisemitism by a faction within Keir Starmer’s Labour Party can be read in what is described as an “explosive” book just now hitting bookshelves. Grayson has just received her own copy. This has not only impacted Corbyn but ordinary human rights campaigners like Grayson standing up for Palestinian rights, see review of this book as follows,
Weaponising Anti-Semitism
HOW THE ISRAEL LOBBY BROUGHT DOWN JEREMY CORBYN
Meticulously researched while reading like a fast-paced thriller, this explosive new book details the way the Israel lobby deployed charges of anti-Semitism to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for power as leader of the Labour Party.
In an electrifying account, investigative journalist Asa Winstanley shows how Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis was manufactured by pro-Israel groups. Despised and feared by Israel and its allies because of his long-standing support for the Palestine solidarity movement, Jeremy Corbyn became a target of enemies determined to abort his left-wing project.
Drawing on new interviews with many of those victimized in purges the Labour leadership claimed were necessary to tackle anti-Semitism, Winstanley exposes a plot by the Israel lobby, in alliance with the Labour right and Israeli and British intelligence agencies, to prevent a socialist entering Downing Street.
An essential historical corrective, Weaponising Anti-Semitism shines light into the murkiest corners of the British state and those who work with it.
Back to Jason Evans and the Sheila McKechnie Foundation award. No surprise that Evans won the award. As someone promoting fake timelines he is an asset to government that can then ignore the fact that these damning documents from Grayson accompanied by her campaign colleague Colette Wintle were presented in meetings at Westminster over 2 decades ago. Ministers and civil servants actually acknowledge this fact in internal emails shown to Grayson recently from the Infected Blood Inquiry. They are some of the same documents Evans is claiming falsely were”newly discovered” by him years later from 2017 onwards.
Grayson did manage to elicit changes and apologies from some journalists who altered their articles when shown evidence of the original dates of discovery. Grayson was not able to take complaints further during the course of the Inquiry or legal action as she was informed that this would tie up key documents that could not then be submitted as evidence to the Inquiry and that would have interfered with obtaining truth and justice.
It is worthy of note that the Patron of SMF is none other than former Prime Minister Gordan Brown.
To long standing Contaminated Blood campaigners, the name Gordon Brown is met with disgust as haemophiliacs remember the repeated efforts of sick and dying haemophilia activist Haydn Lewis to get Brown to respond to his letters and concerns, even inviting him to visit his home. Lewis, who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C and had developed cancer, was selfless to the end wanting to ensure justice for the haemophilia community and that his wife Gaynor be cared for after his death. He had endured a liver transplant, only for the cancer to return. Haydn was at that time supporting the Contaminated Blood Bill written by Minister for Disabled, Lord Morris of Manchester which would have put into legislation the recommendations of Lord Archer who was Chair of a privately funded Inquiry and protected both infected haemophiliacs, infected and affected partner/carers and other family members. Archer was set up because successive governments had refused time and time again to fund a full and open public inquiry.
On 2nd February, 2010, a letter from Haydn Lewis was published in the Guardian in response to the article Contaminated Blood Bill Will Bring Justice, it read as follows,
There is only one person who has the power to make this bill law – Gordon Brown. But to date he has never spoken publicly about this issue. Surely no one in full knowledge of this issue, and with the power to make this bill law, could remain silent. The haemophilia community and all infected deserve this wrong to be righted. I write this letter with a current worse-case prognosis of six months due to HCC liver cancer caused by hepatitis C, so to finally hear the PM state his support would mean so much to my family after 30 years of waiting for some accountability.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/02/contaminated-blood-bill-justice-hiv
The BBC reported in May 2010, “Haydn died disappointed that Gordon Brown felt unable to take up an invitation to visit him, to learn about how widows of haemophiliacs often struggle to make ends meet.” Brown showed no interest either in knowing how haemophiliacs were infected as children and the experimentation and treatment trials that took place at Lord Mayor Treloar College a residential school for children with disabilities.
Haemophilia campaigner Colette Wintle wrote on the BBC website at that time,
God bless Haydn and his family at this tragic time. I knew and respected Haydn as a fellow campaigner in what remains a terrible NHS treatment disaster which has stolen so many lives with devastating consequences. like Haydn I am battling with the disease that has robbed him of his life, and I am so angry that his last request to Gordon brown fell on deaf ears, and despite supporting him myself by writing we never had a response. Shame on you Gordon for ignoring the plight of this good man, and every other family affected by this, whom he fought for through his campaigning. In Haydn’s name and the haemophilia community we will not give up the fight for justice.
Colettew
Brown turned out to be a hypocrite in general where females were concerned, not only with regard to bereaved haemophilia widows. He later championed Malala Yousafzai the Pakistani schoolgirl who promoted education for girls but had no interest whatsover in upholding the human rights of girls and women, carers and bereaved partners in the UK haemophilia community harmed through contaminated blood who were subjected to repeated and distressing human rights abuses and testified to such at the Infected Blood Inquiry.
Brown does not appear too interested in the truth either. For years he relied on a false western media narrative that Malala was “shot for going to school” one of the biggest global propaganda statements of recent times assisted by one of the world’s biggest PR companies. This statement was in fact false but it suited the narrative of “saving Asian women” and developing schools on a western non Islamic model in Pakistan. Grayson STRONGLY condemned the attack on Malala but she was NOT shot for going to school.
At the time of the attack, Grayson had been running a website with her mentor Pakistani investigative journalist Saleem Shahzad covering the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Grayson had completed her Masters (Distinction) on Gender, Culture and Development which included a module exploring “media interpretations of the War on Terror” hence her work with Shahzad and the then respected Asia Despatch Online intended to bring honest and challenging reporting from the region. They and other Pakistani journalists regularly received “statements of claim” direct from militants following attacks as they were on their media distribution list. The statement on Malala claimed the opposite, that she was NOT shot for going to school but for allegedly maligning Islam. (This however did not suit western narratives.) Grayson was not the only one claiming this. Beenish Ahmed highlighted the following comment from Ehsanullah Ehsan spokesperson for a key militant group in Pakistan.
In a lengthy statement describing their rationale for taking a gun to the head of an unarmed 15-year-old girl, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan wrote, “If anyone thinks that Malala was targeted because of education, that is absolutely wrong, and [the] propaganda of media.” Instead, Ehsan claims, “Malala was targeted because of her pioneer role in preaching secularism and so-called enlightened moderation. And whomsoever will commit so in [the] future too will be targeted again by TTP.”
Brown who is now Chairman of the UN’s Education Cannot Wait fund also failed to mention that many children were prevented from going to school not due to the Taliban but due to the Pakistani army taking over schools to use as military bases in their fight against insurgency and the displacement of thousands in areas such as Waziristan from their homes to refugee camps during military operations. Brown made no comment that schoolchildren in conflict areas were too afraid to attend school on clear days when they could see and hear US drones overhead that often mistakenly targeted civilians, incinerating pregnant mothers and decapitating children, shredding their bodies to pieces. Grayson saw many of these highly distressing photos direct from the scene working with Shahzad who was often on the ground in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
Grayson recalls one of her own interviews with Ehsanullah Ehsan (not his real name) and comments on Pakistani schoolchildren when writing on polio vaccinations in Pakistan. In the quest to kill Osama bin Laden, the US had enlisted the help of Dr Shakil Afridi (now in prison). The plan was to use the front of a vaccination programme to attempt to gain access to bin Laden’s compound to extract DNA from a close relative in order to identify it was him and then assassinate him. Aside from killing bin Laden, and because of a “rogue” doctor, the result was that other unfortunate and inncocent polio workers were then targeted as spies and killed. Grayson interviewed the spokesperson in the hope of stopping this and ensuring safety of polio workers who were trying to vaccinate children during a ban by suspicious militants. She asked Ehsanullah Ehsan the following question (extracted from one of her interviews) to which he gave his reply…
Question… What are your thoughts on polio programme?
Answer Sister, we are not opposed to healthcare per se but have to take certain measures to curtail spy operations carried out undercover. We simply cannot ignore spy operations under their cover. Our enemies want to vaccinate our children before droning them.
There have been cases similar to that of Dr Shakil Afridi.
For Allah and His Nabi (PBUH) sake we are willing to sacrifice our lives, vaccination is petty. Drones and Pakistan army killing our children. The ground intelligence is provided to the US by ISI, we have attacked Camp Chapman, others.
Why don’t you get military establishment to end their treachery for Allah & Nabi’s (PBUH) sake? Please visit our areas and check the stats. Our children are not dying of polio but other factors.
The present world order that kills 30,000 children every day wants to vaccinate children – children they will kill later on anyway.
There are many Shakil Afridis and collaborating NGOs on the ground.
Brothers, sisters, we appreciate your naseeha (meaning advice). Barak Allahu fiek (may Allah bless you… Arabic). We understand the challenges on the ground better. Things will change. Over 30,000 children die everyday around the world owing to the policies of the secular world order.
When your house is raided, you fight. Vaccinations and green tea afterwards.
END
Prior to the Inquiry beginning, this author Grayson was threatened with cancelling out of her own Contaminated Blood campaign history due to her long standing global campaigning on human rights, particularly on the rights of Palestinians. Her honest writing may not be palatable to some whose political motivation is to silence her. The truth can be bleak and disturbing but that doesn’t mean we should not hear it. Grayson’s mentor Shahzad was kidnapped, tortured and killed for his honest reporting, and like Grayson he could not be bought. His name was added to the Journalists Memorial at the Newseum Washington, D.C. he received the Ischia National Journalism award and a street was named after him in Paris, Rue Syed Saleem Shahzad, Wikipedia stated also that,
Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day announced the annual PPF-Aslam Ali Press Freedom Award-2012 for the slain journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad. The Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships (AFPF) and the Pakistani Press Foundation (PPF) announced the Daniel Pearl-Saleem Shahzad Fellowship in 2012 that would train up to 15 Pakistani reporters in conflict and investigative reporting as well as safety for journalists working in conflict-affected regions. A fellow from Pakistan was be chosen for this fellowship that honors an American and a Pakistani journalist killed in the line of duty while covering a common war against terror in Pakistan.
Jason Evans is allegedly a trained journalist but is the exact opposite of Shahzad regarding honest reporting. Grayson and others recently complained to the Sheila Mckechnie Foundation about Jason’s nomination due to this fact and many examples of his falsification of timelines were previously submitted to the Infected Blood Inquiry. The concern of Grayson and others regarding the SMF award is that it has being given to a person known for rehashing and plagiarising the work of others that deceives vulnerable Contaminated Blood victims which in turn lets government off the hook. Grayson has always presented an honest account of both the history of Contaminated Blood and other global rights and health issues. She refuses to compromise her integrity in giving a true account when writing. She was given awards years ago for what Jason is only now rehashing. What use is campaigning or awards if you can’t tell the truth?
Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights/WOT and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad. She was a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.
Carol Anne Grayson (Radical Sister) blog 