Of some showers. Ill have all the details coming up. Well, good morning. Leading the program this morning. The infected blood scandal in independent inquirys final report is set to be published later on today. Yes. So the scandal has been subject of the biggest ever pubuc subject of the biggest ever Public Inquiry in the uk. After tens of thousands of people were infected with contaminated blood, while Political CorrespondentKatherine Forster has more. Some of my friends have said to me, are you sure . Are you sure this is the nhs . Are you sure this is the nhs . Are you sure this is the nhs . Are you sure this is the infected blood . Sure this is the infected blood . Scandal . Is a story so shocking it almost beggars belief. In the 1970s and 80, the nhs gave contaminated blood to over 30,000 people. To haemophiliacs whose blood doesnt clot properly and to people needing blood transfusions infected with hiv or hepatitis c, over 3000 have died. Sue wathen was infected died. Sue wathen was infected with hepatitis c through a blood transfusion. I had so many years of being unwell. Well, very ill actually, unwell. Well, very ill actually, but , just didnt know what was but, just didnt know what was the matter with me. She only found out decades later, and i literally fell back into the chair id been sitting into the chair id been sitting in thinking, this cant be right. The blood product factor eight was largely imported from the states , with blood often the states, with blood often coming from prisoners and drug addicts. Warnings it was not addicts. Warnings it was not safe were ignored for years. Safe were ignored for years. There are still two people dying every week that were infected as a result of this scandal. Author and sunday times Political EditorCaroline Wheeler has been campaigning for victims for decades. Ive spoken to many people whove said that theyve lost count of the number of funerals that theyve attended because of this, but also the financial effect that this has had people not being able to work for many, many years of their working lives. Some of them have made choices where they havent had families, they havent got married. Married. Colin smith was given infected blood during a routine ear operation aged two, despite an edict that it was not to be given to children. He died from aids at seven and at a boarding school for medically vulnerable youngsters, 122 boys were infected. Victims say they were infected. Victims say they were used as guinea pigs with no proper consent. The 30, still alive , are fighting for redress. Alive, are fighting for redress. Victims have appealed to politicians for many years. Politicians for many years. Finally, the then Prime Minister, theresa may, announced a full Public Inquiry in 2017. The final report is published this lunchtime. This was covered up for many years and the governments of all complexions have said there was nothing to see here, nothing that could have been done differently. Differently. Labour mp Diana Johnson, whos been campaigning for victims for years, is optimistic and now we will get the answers, hopefully to what actually happened and who took the decisions which allowed that dirty blood to enter our nhs. And what we know is that this was probably the biggest treatment disaster in the history of the nhs. And on compensation, Caroline Wheeler believes this government is set to act. My understanding is set to act. My understanding is that there will be a compensation package announced that it will be northwards of 10 billion. That is a significant amount of money. It cant come soon enough. It cant come soon enough. It cant come soon enough. We have a Whatsapp Group on of a few of us and we call ourselves blood friends. Two of those people are terminally ill. This is whats happening to people. They are dying. People. They are dying. Katherine forster gb news. Katherine forster gb news. Well, there we go. Okay so Political Correspondent at the spectator, james hill, joins us now for some analysis. Good morning. James, jeremy hunt is expected to unveil £10 billion worth of compensation , perhaps worth of compensation, perhaps even more today for victims. Is that going to be enough . Well, i dont think anything can really undo the sort of great stress that these people have endured for many years. Obviously, i think not only was, you know, the initial infection and what thereafter happened bad enough, but also the way in which successive governments have been involved in cover ups for many decades has obviously exacerbated whats gone on here, i think obviously, you know, the bare minimum that could be done is the necessary compensation, but also an apology from the Prime Minister, rishi sunak. But also an apology from the Prime Minister, rishi sunak. And Prime Minister, rishi sunak. And we just hope, perhaps, that this is going to go some way to helping those people, many of whom are terminal. And of course, its not just an issue of the past. We think if someone dies every 3 or 4 days, still, from tainted blood to this day, its such a shocking story. When you hear the reports and you read all the details about it and the fact that this was covered up. And to be honest, the can has been kicked down the road so many times, and yet now were told theres going to be a consultation period to work out exactly the sort of tariff system about how the money is going to be assigned to the victims. In all of this, more delays. Surely there could be a quicker way of resolving all of this. And are we sure that all of that 10 billion is going to go to all of those whove been infected, affected by this . Well, this is what we hope and obviously weve seen from other scandals, such as, for instance, the post Office Scandal recently about the concerns that a lot of this money ends up in the pockets of lawyers. I think, you know, ultimately you have to get a sort of, you know, middle ground here between making sure the money does go as quickly as possible to the victims, but also ensure that normal processes are followed. There should be about a five week penod should be about a five week period of consultation. Theyll obviously have to be an act of parliament to kind of sign off this 10 billion to go through as well. The families just hope that its not going to be caught up in any kind of july election. And thereafter delay for a matter of months as a consequence of that. Well, sir keir starmer has over the weekend pledged to make sure that if we do have a Labour Government then this situation wont be affected. But i do wonder, with £10 billion rumoured to be up for grabs, you did. You alluded to it there . So many victims are dying day by day by day. Is this going to have to be ratified by certain Government Departments which will inevitably, as isabel alluded to, kick the can down the road even further . How many more victims are going to be dying whilst we wait for this to happen . And also, will the victims be able to sue the government and indeed the nhs after this . So i think that the report today by sir Brian Langstaff, who has been the inquiry chair of this, is expected to be very damning and one of the reasons for the recent delay in this inquiry has been the process called maxwell ization, which is whereby everyone involved gets a chance to feed into the report before it comes out. And i think its because its going to be very damning of the institutions and individuals involved from the 70s. 80s 90s. So as a result of that, thats going to be one of that, thats going to be one of the delays. And what about the idea of criminal prosecutions . I mean, nobodys ever been prosecuted for this. Individuals who were responsible for, frankly , injecting humans with frankly, injecting humans with poison. And, you know , it was poison. And, you know, it was a long time ago, maybe some of these people have deceased, but will this perhaps open the door to not only civil cases, but but some criminal trials . There certainly will be those calls. I think you can look at other countries as well where these inquiries have wrapped up much sooner. So france and japan, for instance, are some examples. They had the opportunity to kind of go for criminal prosecutions there. So i think we will see those kind of things. And i think also that anyone involved in these kind of scandals, as weve seen from, for instance, the post Office Scandal where Paula Vennells has been very much in the headlines. Therell be a lot of pressure for them to come forward into the spotlight as well. You mentioned it there. Some people that were named in the sunday times in recent weeks of having apparently, i mean, theyre dead. So they cant defend themselves. But apparently, having known that this blood was dirty, it was coming from america. Instead of using british clean blood, and they were allegedly getting, bnbes they were allegedly getting, bribes, payoffs from the pharmaceutical companies for choosing us blood. Is there any thing of that of note in the inquiry set to be alluded to . Well, i think itll definitely be kind of going on. The relationships between the department of health, the nhs and these pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical companies as well. I think also just the way in which the sort of the nhs sort of road in behind some of these Civil Servants and the department of health as well, and sort of was able to hush it up because they thought they were actually from good intentions, actually , you good intentions, actually, you know, it should have been much more investigation done sooner. And lets hope they try and get some redress for these grievances and the way in which the mechanisms were conducted. Absolutely. James heale, thanks very much indeed. Just to say, after 7 00 this morning, were going to be speaking to one of the victims of this infected blood scandal. He himself a haemophiliac, and he was given these products at a school for disabled children, ruined his life. And he will give us his reaction. What he wants to see from the inquiry published a little bit later on. That school after seven that school down in hampshire, the treloar school, i mean just as a as a story on its own was fascinating. All these young kids were sent off to board. Theyre all haemophiliacs, around 90 of them, and they were used as guinea pigs by doctors , used as guinea pigs by doctors, by medical experts. And theres only a few of them left. So richard warwick, he was one of the students. He will be with us a bit later on. Yeah. And you were telling me you have a personal sort of interest in the whole story because your brother has haemophilia. Ive got skin in the game. Yeah, my brother is a haemophiliac. Hes a bit older than me, but i remember back in the day, my mother taking him down to hospital when he needed factor eight, and one of the doctors who actually he was accused of in recent weeks of being one of the doctors who knew about the infected blood. He was accused in the sunday times of taking money from pharmaceutical companies. That surprised me, reading that his name was jeff savage. Hes passed away now because doctor savage was the person who warned my mother not to give so called mucky blood to my brother because he knew he was ringing the raising the alarm. But now, for some reason, it seems hes been thrown under the bus. An easy scapegoat then, perhaps because hes dead. But a sliding doors moment in your family anyway. How things could have been very different. If youre affected in any way, let us know as well this morning. Wed love to hear from you and also whether youre not or whether or not you think that this is enough. An apology from the government. £2 billion. Do we need to hear an apology from sir keir starmer as well . Because this is the responsibility of failure of successive governments. So let us know what you think. Gbnews. Com forward slash usa okay. Moving on now the president of iran, ibrahim rac, has been confirmed dead after a helicopter carrying him and other officials has been located following its crash in a mountainous region in the north of the country. Well the president was travelling in a convoy of three helicopters on the way back from a visit to the border with azerbaijan. Varne border with azerbaijan. Varne joining us now is Security Specialist, will get. Good specialist, will get. Good morning will, thank you for joining us, give us the latest on this situation because overnight it seems there was a little bit of, not so clear detail, should we say, about whether theyd located the crash site, whether there was communications from the helicopter . What is the actual situation . Well, i mean, as far as we know, again, information is reasonably sketchy, and were still waiting, obviously, for a very clear picture. But from what we understand, and, the weather was very inclement, very foggy , to be honest, having foggy, to be honest, having travelled in many sort of rotary , aircraft myself, usually helicopter pilots will be very cautious about travelling in that kind of conditions because ultimately, you know, the difference between rotary and fixed wing is the chances of recovery if everything goes wrong, is very, very slight because its literally going to drop out of the sky. So what happened obviously was the conditions were very bad , conditions were very bad, certainly up in this northwest region, obviously, of iran, where it borders azerbaijan. The president had been up there to look at and celebrate the opening of a new dam that had been built , opening of a new dam that had been built, and the opening of a new dam that had been built , and the helicopter been built, and the helicopter basically lost contact and dropped, there were suspicions that he was dead. These are now that he was dead. These are now being confirmed by the iranian red crescent, who are the sort of the equivalent, if you like, to the International Red cross. To the International Red cross. They went out and did a major search and rescue. Russia lent a lot of assets as well, being an ally to iran to try and find obviously and recover anybody. There was an initial communication by radio, by the crew of that helicopter when it had crashed. But again, that was then subsequently lost and theyve now confirmed all the passengers dead and because of who it is being president ibrahim rac obviously people will always question whether or not there was any foul play in all of this. Obviously we cant speculate, but the fact that we do know theres a history of these sorts of flying accidents happening, senior members of the government have died in iran in several cases in iran, the weather was terrible. And talking about assets a moment ago, i mean, i believe that the helicopters are all quite outdated. So on the all quite outdated. So on the surface of things, does it look like foul play to you . I wouldnt say, i mean, i wouldnt say its leaning towards foul play. I mean, yes, its in very close proximity to the recent counterattack by iran against israel. You know, there would be a lot of reasons for third actors, you know, third party actors, you know, third party actors to certainly get involved. But i would say its more down to technical failure, which sadly is always the case with the rotary wing, the second thing is the fact that the weather was terrible, as you say. You know, the helicopters were bought in 1979 and getting parts would have been very difficult as well as iran is under sanction. Just crazy. Just doesnt seem worth it for a for a dam opening. Why youd get into a chopper in bad weather. It seems a bit bizarre. Well, the thing that really surprises me, i mean, having done a lot of journey management for sort of prominent individuals, you dont necessarily put people all on the same plane. So you have the president , you the same plane. So you have the president , you had the head of the foreign ministry, you had a lot of dignitaries on the same helicopter. So the problem is, is that then cuts into resilience. But rice didnt really have a great deal of influence overseas. He was purely domestic. The khomeini still remains really the ultimate Supreme Leader in dictating what happens with iran overseas. So you think that there could be quite smooth sort of transition of power in terms of president s, because the ayatollah, Supreme Leader is the man who effectively calls the shots . Well, he does call the shots. Yeah. I well, he does call the shots. Yeah. I mean, what will happen initially is that the head of the head speaker, if you like, for the parliament, certainly the Vice President , for the parliament, certainly the Vice President , and they will be involved in trying to decide exactly who is going to potentially take over. And it could be either it goes to election, which i think is highly unlikely, or as you very rightly say, the khameneis going to decide. And i think theres a good chance my moneys on his son mojtaba. Oh, there we go. Interesting. Oh, there we go. Interesting. Okay. Will geddes always fascinating to talk to you. Thanks very much. Thanks yeah. Queen elizabeth, of course. Famous for not allowing prince william, prince harry, her son to king charles ever travel in the same choppers. Put all your eggs. Have you beenin put all your eggs. Have you been in the helicopter . I have been in a helicopter, i wouldnt dare. Im too. Im too scared. Youre quite cautious, especially now ive got kids about you. Yeah, i really want to do it. Because ill tell you. My wedding anniversary. And i quite fancy a helicopter ride over the city or something. But my husbands a bit like you. Hes not keen, but i wouldnt put my kids in at the same time. No, there was one in vegas last year when i was there, and i was about to do it. Then i thought, is it worth the risk . Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So yeah. Right. 615 is the time. Lets take a look at some of the other stories coming into the newsroom on this monday morning. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is expected to find out today whether he can officially appeal his extradition to the United States. Back in march, the High Court Said assange could launc