Former blood bank officials to stand trial

TWO former senior blood bank officials are to stand trial accused of infecting women with hepatitis C in an unprecedented action which could have implications for other investigations into contaminated blood products.

Detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested Dr Terry Walsh and Cecily Cunningham at their homes in Dublin yesterday, before bringing them before the district court on charges relating to the infection of seven named women between 1977 and 1992.

Dr Walsh, aged 61, of Hollypark Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin, and Ms Cunningham, aged 62, of Hollybrook Road, Clontarf, Dublin 3, were charged under Section 23 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. A piece of legislation rarely used in modern times, it accuses them of administering, or causing to be administered, a “destructive or noxious thing“, thereby causing grievous bodily harm, and carries a possible prison sentence of up to ten years.