The son of a man who died after catching Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic in the UK says he feels vindicated by the evidence given by Dominic Cummings yesterday.
Mr Cummings, who was Boris Johnson's most senior adviser until late last year, provided explosive testimony to MPs yesterday as he revealed the chaotic scenes at the heart of government when the virus arrived last spring.
Jamie Mawson believes his dad, Richard, caught Covid-19 when he went to watch Liverpool take on Atletico Madrid in a Champions League match at Anfield on March 11, 2020.
The match was allowed to go ahead despite the escalating covid situation and nearly 3,000 fans were allowed to travel from Madrid to Liverpool, despite their own city being locked down because of rising infections.
Two weeks after the game, fit and healthy Richard, 70, from Kirkdale, became ill and rapidly deteriorated.
After a short time on a ventilator in hospital he died, with his family forced to say goodbye over a phone screen because of covid protocols.
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Jamie is now a lead figure in a Covid-19 families justice campaign and is hoping to provide evidence at the planned public inquiry next year.
He said that watching Mr Cummings give evidence yesterday was a major milestone in the campaign for justice and answers as it confirmed what the families already know - that the government got things badly wrong with decisions that are likely to have cost many thousands of lives.
Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Mr Cummings said that events like the Liverpool-Atletico match and the Cheltenham Festival were allowed to go ahead because the government feared that cancelling them would push people into busy pubs.
He added that the idea of closing pubs to avoid this had not been considered.
He said: “The official advice at the time was doing that wouldn’t really make much difference to transmission.
“Which seems obviously bizarre in retrospect – the idea that we keep having mass events going on through this whole thing."
Mr Mawson, who has been campaigning to highlight the errors he believes were made by the government in those early days of the pandemic for over a year now, said yesterday's evidence was a key milestone for his and other families.
He said: "I wasn't surprised to hear what he said, but I was pleased to hear it confirmed for everyone to hear.
"This is what we have all been campaigning for - we know they locked down too late, we know they failed to stop mass events at the right time and we know they failed to stop people flying in as well.
"These are things we have been saying for the past year and it is important to hear them in this setting from someone who was so heavily involved."
Jamie said his dad was fit, healthy and had a love for life before he was suddenly struck down by the virus and believes he would still be here today if the correct decisions had been made.
He added: "It makes me really angry, because I know my dad would be sat here with me today if they had done the right things at the right time - but they didn't.
"There are thousands of people who should still be here."
Jamie is leading on the mass events element of the campaign for families - he said he hopes to speak at the public inquiry but believes it should begin right away - rather than next year.
He said: "We really believe the inquiry should start now and follow the evidence of Mr Cummings, but whenever it is, we will be hoping to get justice for those we lost because of these decisions."
