Bristol woman orphaned aged nine due to infected blood scandal denied compensation

• Watch the full report

A woman from Bristol who was orphaned at the age of nine due to the infected blood scandal is still fighting for justice decades later.

Lauren Palmer's father, Stephen Palmer, received HIV-infected blood while undergoing treatment for haemophilia - a rare condition which affects the blood’s ability to clot.

He was given a blood transfusion known as Factor VIII - a form of plasma.

Unaware of his own HIV-positive status, Stephen then passed the virus on to his wife Barbara.

In 1993, the couple died within a week of each other. Lauren was just nine years old at the time.

Despite a compensation scheme for victims of the scandal being expanded, Lauren is not entitled to a penny.

"It's not about the money, that's not going to bring these people back," she told ITV News West Country.

"It's about the ownership of what's happened.

“No amount of money will ever replace my parents, but it’s the liability we’re looking for and the justice. That’s why I’m fighting for my parents for that.

"It's affected so many other people and I think everyone deserves the answers."

She said her mum's dying wish was to seek answers and get justice.

Lauren said: “Mum had sat us down and said she was really, really ill and that she wasn’t going to get better - that she had this virus called HIV.

“She was taken into hospital, she couldn’t stay with us. Within a couple of months, both my mum and my dad passed away within eight days of each other.

“I cannot imagine how my mum must’ve felt, knowing that she ultimately had a death sentence and was leaving her three children behind,” Lauren said.

“I know it was her dying wish to get some kind of justice for us and for everyone out there affected."

After her parent's died, Lauren's half-brothers were taken away from the family home.

Lauren's parents were two of 2,400 people who died as a result of Factor 8.

An ongoing inquiry recommends that only living victims and spouses should be compensated, therefore Lauren does not qualify.

Now families of the victims have launched a group legal action against the government.

The group action will have its second hearing at the Courts of Justice tomorrow (Wednesday 17 August).

What is the Factor VIII blood scandal?

The Factor 8 Scandal - also known as the Contaminated Blood Scandal - saw thousands of people in the UK infected with Hepatitis C, HIV, or both by a commercial medicine made from donated plasma known as Factor 8. Most of those infected were haemophiliacs.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the British Government imported Factor 8 from the USA but its American manufacturers had used donated blood from drug addicts and sex workers.

It is thought that anyone using the medication before 1985 was exposed to Hepatitis C.

At the time, because of the stigma which surrounded HIV, few families came forward.

But, after vigorous campaigning, Teresa May announced a full public inquiry would be held in 2017.