GREATER Manchester mayor Andy Burnham demanded that those responsible for the infected blood scandal face prison yesterday. 

Nearly 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. More than 3,000 people have died since.

An inquiry into the scandal is due to publish its final report on Monday.

Mr Burnham told Sky News yesterday that those responsible should be behind bars because “there has to be accountability.”

The former shadow health secretary said that the “official line” given to him when he was an MP was that “nobody had knowingly been given infected blood products,” but he maintains “that simply isn’t true.”

Six siblings lost their brother Peter Lloyd who had liver cancer in 2008. Lloyd was infected with hepatitis C after receiving blood transfusions following a car accident. 

His sister Helene Huxley said: “I feel angry because he was given blood and we’ve seen evidence of this, at the time when they knew that the blood was infected.

“Words fail me how something like this, which is the biggest case in national health history, can go on for so long without redress.”

Jason Evans, who was four when his father died after being infected, said he remembers spending his birthday with his father who had been “ravaged” by Aids, and seeing his mother “crumble to pieces because of everything that happened.”

He said: “As far as I see it, maybe there will be compensation, maybe some people will be stripped of their honours, maybe some doctors will be struck off the General Medical Council register — none of it is a victory in my eyes.”