Bereaved relatives call for immediate inquiry into Covid-19 crisis

Lawyers for 450 people call on Boris Johnson to start public inquiry to help prevent deaths

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Lawyers representing 450 bereaved people whose relatives have died due to Covid-19 have called on Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock to hold an immediate public inquiry into the government’s handling of the crisis to help prevent many more deaths.

The formal petition to the government from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group argues that there is “a compelling need to set up the inquiry immediately”, to consider the best measures necessary to “minimise the ongoing effects of the virus”. The inquiry should ultimately examine the key government decisions and state of preparedness, which the families argue contributed to their relatives dying, the petition states.

It adds: “There is a widely held public belief that the government is making wrong decisions in this crisis and that the government errors have cost and will continue to cost lives.”

Members of the group include Ken Sazuze, the husband of Elsie Sazuze, a nurse at a care home who died aged 44, the daughter of the London bus driver Ranjith Chandrapala, who died aged 64, and Fiona Kirton, whose father, Bernard Kirton, was transferred from a hospital to a care home without first being tested for the virus.

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