A PUBLIC inquiry into the blood contamination scandal that led to the deaths of almost 3,000 people will begin today.

Patients at the Oxford Haemophilia Centre at the Churchill Hospital in Headington were among approximately 7,500 people infected with hepatitis C and HIV from tainted blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.

The inquiry will open with three days of preliminary hearings overseen by inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff, who previously served on the High Court.

The inquiry intends to start to hear oral evidence shortly after Easter 2019. 

Things will start this morning with a commemoration designed by a group of volunteers from among the long-term campaigners and will use filmed interviews, photographs, poetry and music to convey the scale of what happened. 

Speaking ahead of the opening, Mr Justice Langstaff said: “The preliminary hearings are an important moment for the inquiry.

"Many of the people infected and their families have campaigned for the inquiry for many years.

"They helped to shape the inquiry’s terms of reference. This is now their opportunity to tell me where they want the inquiry to focus its investigative powers."

He added: "The sheer scale of the task the inquiry is undertaking is demonstrated by the fact that over a thousand people and many organisations have already engaged with the inquiry by contributing to the terms of reference, by providing documents, and by preparing to make witness statements.

"The inquiry has already received over 100,000 documents and expects to acquire several times that number.

"There will also be many hundreds of witness statements. I am grateful for each and every contribution.

"There must however still be more who have knowledge, documents and their own accounts to add. I know that going over the past can be difficult but I encourage them to come forward.”