Statement from Jason Evans
Wednesday 8th January 2025
Dear Factor 8 Community,
I'm writing to share a personal and professional update, along with details about the future of Factor 8.
After almost a decade of daily campaign work at Factor 8 and its humble beginnings, I'm moving on to a new role as a consultant with the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA).
Given the stage we have reached, I can best assist now by working within IBCA to help ensure compensation is delivered as quickly as possible. I'm acutely aware of our shared feeling that compensation is long overdue, and I also recognise many of the practical and technical challenges faced by Sir Robert and his team.
I believe working with IBCA is the most effective thing I can do to help compensation be paid.
I hope that you will support and understand my decision.
I hope that you will know all I have done and will do is with all those infected and affected at the forefront of my mind.
From a deeply personal point of view, I hope that my father Jonathan and his parents Daphne & Idris would be proud to see me helping to deliver some form of closure for all who are infected or affected.
Not everyone is expected to support my decision, and I hope this does not cause problems for any of you. Please don't worry about me and criticism; it's part of the job.
From small beginnings around a decade ago, Factor 8 quickly became one of the leading infected blood campaign organisations. Our goals were focused on securing a public inquiry and compensation. We never wavered from this and took actions every single day. You are all fighters and heroes.
In particular, I want to thank Maximus (Anonymous), Tony Farrugia, Donna Shaw, Eric Weinberg, Kat Lanteigne, Ade Goodyear and Joseph Peaty, who lent so much support and guidance to me in the beginning. Eric, who was a lawyer based in New Jersey, very sadly passed away in 2022.
I was four years old when my Dad died. I was twenty-four years old when I first met others impacted by the scandal at a protest in Westminster. That day, I met the people who it felt like I'd been waiting my whole life to speak to. People like Tony, Joe, Graham Manning, Jo, Steve Bartram, Steve Nicholls and so many others. A lot has changed since then.
I will be forever grateful to Collins Solicitors, in particular Des & Dani. They've stood by us through all the trials and tribulations, backing us when we had nothing. I strongly suspect that without them, we would be in a very different position today.
Factor 8's shared progress has only been possible because of the work of the entire community. Without your collective persistence and support, what was achieved simply wouldn't have been.
We built this movement together through tireless work, difficult decisions, and the determination to fight for what many viewed as impossible or forgotten goals. I thank everyone who has supported and acted upon Factor 8's campaign initiatives over the years, perhaps most notably in relation to this message, Factor 8's successful proposal and campaign for a compensation framework exercise to take place, which was undertaken by Sir Robert Francis.
While I have acknowledged some of Factor 8's progress, I also want to acknowledge that we have not achieved everything through the campaign that I wished we could, and I apologise for that. For example:
There is still a lack of public and media understanding about Factor VIII / Factor IX products.
Pharmaceutical companies and individuals have evaded the public level of criticism found in the IBI Report and have given little or no response.
There was a failure to convince the previous government to act in-line with the timescales recommended in the IBI's second interim report. This means work which could have been done setting up the IBCA in 2023, is being done now.
Some of you still have concerns about IBCA's governing legislation, while others are content with it. I respect that some will continue to make representations to government.
Factor 8 will continue as a Facebook Group guided by the same administrators. They will decide how the group is run.
One of the most challenging parts about what we have all been through and the fight we've endured is deciding where to draw a line in that fight, if you ever do.
For many, like my dad and his brother, that fight ended involuntarily.
For myself, the feeling of needing to fight largely ended with the publication of the IBI Report, and that feeling increased when the Victims & Prisoners Act became law. Since then, my mindset has changed from primarily fighting to delivery and refinement, which is what I will help do now.
When you have helped build from scratch and worked within a community like Factor 8, it is very difficult to know when to move on. When you've fought every day for such a long time, it's unusual to begin to unpeel yourself from that mindset.
I'm privileged to have something my dad, and so many others, didn't have; a choice. The choice I am making now, is to focus on the delivery of compensation for all those infected and affected.
I know that nuanced campaigns continue for some of you. In addition to compensation, some would like to see pharmaceutical companies reimburse part of the compensation bill, criminal investigations and prosecutions, the revocation of honours and peerages, and more.
I respect that there will be differing points of view, and I hope that whatever you decide, you will find some peace soon.
I am proud of everything we've accomplished at Factor 8 and thankful to all the amazing people I've met along the way. Without the support, encouragement, and friendship of so many of you, I may well have given up on campaigning many years ago.
Although this might sound like a goodbye, it isn't. I'm still here, but now I'm working on the delivery of compensation rather than the fight for it.
My greatest wish is that this work can be a tribute to my father's memory and help as many people as possible. I truly mean that.
I look at my almost 2-year-old daughter, and I'm grateful the campaign will not run another generation in my family, though I have no idea what I will tell her about all of this someday.
Thank you for being a part of the most important ten years of my life and thank you for allowing me to be a part of yours through the campaign. I'll do everything I can.
- Jason Evans