I BLAME YOU FOR SON'S DEATHS

Family's anger at Covid report criticism | Failing to heed warning caused carnage

- VIVIENNE AITKEN

A GRIEVING dad has laid the blame for his son's death at the feet of the governments who Ileft the -country unprepared for the Covid pandemic.

Lee Dodds died in April 2021 and his dad, also Lee, hit out after the first UK Covid Inquiry report concluded that the "citizens of all four nations" had been failed.

Lee jnr, 32, a dad of two from Ayr, had been turned away from hospital three times before he was admitted. He was placed on aventilator but died a week later from multiple organ failure.

His dad told how he could see the fear on his face and the tears in his eyes when he went on the ventilator and said yesterday that his son's death is "in my head every day'.

After reading the report yesterday Lee snr said: "I was really, really angry when I heard how unprepared we were.

"They didn't even respond when they knew about it from the December.

"They knew it was coming along and they still didn't do enough to protect the country.

"I can always remember when we saw it coming into Italy, I remember shouting at the television, Close the borders now, because that's what all the surgeons and medical professionals were telling us.

"But nobody listened to them. The government said wait. They were playing with 250,000 people's lives and they weren't ready for it.

He said: "I blame the death of my son on the UK Government but also on the Scottish Government.

He blames the UK Government primarily for the virus coming into the country and spreading because there was no proper preparation for a pandemic. But he also points the finger at the Scottish Government and Nicola Sturgeon in particular for allowing schools to return after the lockdown too quickly.

Scottish schools went back two weeks before those in England.