Contaminated blood inquiry: NI man ‘begged’ wife to kill him

In her evidence to the public inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal, Sharon Lowry said her late husband Richard – who she described as a “gentle giant” – lost the will to live as the virus ravaged his body.

Breaking down at times as she shared her harrowing story, she also recounted the terrible moment she had to tell her two sons that their father was going to die.

Richard, a former teacher and vice-principal, contracted hepatitis in 1991.

He was given a liver transplant in 2009, but died in 2011 from chronic renal failure with cirrhosis.

On the final day of witness hearings in Belfast, Mrs Lowry recalled the rapid deterioration of Richard’s health.

She described how, at the end of his life, he was “a skeleton with skin on”.

He also became very depressed, his personality changed and he “shut down”.

“He had just given up completely,” she said.

“He wasn’t getting better. He was so low looking and there was no fight in him.”

“He begged me to kill him. He just wanted to die.”

Mrs Lowry said she and her husband had been robbed of the life they had planned together.

“Both our sons miss their dad. Every milestone of their lives they want to share with him, just be able to talk to him,” she added.

Mrs Lowry said she “desperately hoped for a positive outcome” from the inquiry.

She also hoped the government would “accept responsibility and liability for what something that should never, ever have happened”.

“Sadly, I feel as if I am having to prove that my husband’s life was important enough to matter.”