Sir Brian Langstaff | |
---|---|
Justice of the High Court | |
In office 3 October 2005 –30 April 2018 | |
President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal | |
In office 1 January 2012 –31 December 2015 | |
Preceded by | Mr Justice Underhill |
Succeeded by | Mrs Justice Simler |
Personal details | |
Born | Brian Frederick James Langstaff 30 April 1948 |
Nationality | British |
Spouse | Deborah Weatherup (m. 1975) |
Alma mater | St Catharine's College, Cambridge |
Sir Brian Frederick James Langstaff (born 30 April 1948) is a British judge. Called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, he served as a High Court judge from 2005 to 2018 as Mr Justice Langstaff, and was the president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal from 2012 to 2015.
From 2018 to 2024, Langstaff chaired the Infected Blood Inquiry, which investigated the causes and effects of the contaminated blood scandal in the United Kingdom from the 1970s to the 1990s. In his seven-volume final report, Langstaff found that the scandal could "largely, though not entirely, have been avoided", and that successive governments and the National Health Service covered up the risk to patients who received infected blood products.
Langstaff was born on 30 April 1948 to Frederick and Muriel Langstaff ( née Griffin). He was educated at George Heriot's School, Edinburgh, and then at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Before his legal career, he worked in Sri Lanka with VSO in 1966 and 1967. [1]
In 1971, Langstaff was called to the Bar of England and Wales at the Middle Temple, where he received the Harmsworth Scholarship in 1975. He became a bencher of the Middle Temple in 2001. [1] Langstaff was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1994, [2] and became a recorder for the South Eastern Circuit in 1995. [3]
Langstaff was appointed a justice of the High Court on 3 October 2005 [4] and assigned to the Queen's Bench Division. [5] He became the president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal from 1 January 2012, succeeding Mr Justice Underhill, [6] and was succeeded by Mrs Justice Simler on 1 January 2016. [7] [8]
Langstaff was appointed on 8 February 2018 to chair the Infected Blood Inquiry, which investigated the contaminated blood scandal in the United Kingdom during the 1970s to the 1990s. He retired from the High Court on 30 April 2018 [9] [10] to work full-time on the inquiry. [11] In an interim report published in July 2022, Langstaff concluded that the 4,000 victims were provisionally entitled to £100,000 each and the payments ought to be made quickly. [12] [13]
Langstaff married Deborah Weatherup in 1975. They have a son and a daughter. [1]
The Employment Appeal Tribunal is a tribunal in England and Wales and Scotland, and is a superior court of record. Its primary role is to hear appeals from Employment Tribunals in England, Scotland and Wales. It also hears appeals from decisions of the Certification Officer and the Central Arbitration Committee and has original jurisdiction over certain industrial relations issues.
Heather Carol Hallett, Baroness Hallett,, is a retired British judge of the Court of Appeal and a crossbench life peer. The first woman to chair the Bar Council and the fifth woman to sit in the Court of Appeal, Hallett led the independent inquest into the 7/7 bombings. In April 2019, she was appointed Chair of the Security Vettings Appeal Panel. In December 2021, she was announced as the chair of the public inquiry into the UK Government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 29 June 2022, the Government accepted Baroness Hallett's proposed terms of reference for the inquiry, with minor changes suggested by the devolved administrations.
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The contaminated blood scandal, also known as the infected blood scandal, is a British medical scandal in which a large number of people were infected with hepatitis C and HIV, as a result of receiving contaminated blood or contaminated clotting factor products. Many of the products were imported from the US, and distributed to patients by the National Health Service throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Most recipients had haemophilia or had received a blood transfusion following childbirth or surgery. It has been estimated that more than 30,000 patients received contaminated blood, resulting in the deaths of at least 3,000 people. In July 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May announced an independent public inquiry into the scandal, for which she was widely praised as successive governments going back to the 1980s had refused such an inquiry. May stated that "the victims and their families who have suffered so much pain and hardship deserve answers as to how this could possibly have happened." The final report was published in seven volumes on 20 May 2024, concluding that the scandal could have been largely avoided, patients were knowingly exposed to "unacceptable risks", and that doctors, the government and NHS tried to cover-up what happened by "hiding the truth".
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The HIV Haemophilia Litigation [1990] 41 BMLR 171, [1990] 140 NLJR 1349 (CA), [1989] E N. 2111, also known as AMcG002, and HHL, was a legal claim by 962 plaintiffs, mainly haemophiliacs, who were infected with HIV as a result of having been treated with blood products in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first central defendants were the then Department of Health, with other defendants being the Licensing Authority of the time, (MCA), the CSM, the CBLA, and the regional health authorities of England and Wales. In total, there were 220 defendants in the action.
Law Courts and Offices: Hon. Sir Brian Langstaff, born 1948, apptd 2005.
In an interim report, Sir Brian Langstaff said payments should be made "without delay" to those infected or to their bereaved partners.