A PUBLIC inquiry into an infected blood scandal that cost thousands of lives has heard that major failings occurred in Hampshire.

Dr Frank Boulton cited what he described as "disgraceful" record-keeping at the former Wessex Blood Transfusion Service (WBTS) before he joined the organisation in 1990.

He said attempts to locate the records of men infected with HIV unearthed hundreds of documents covered in bird droppings in a leaky building.

Dr Boulton told the Infected Blood Inquiry in London that the records had to be destroyed.

The UK-wide inquiry is looking into why as many as 30,000 people with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders were given blood contaminated with HIV and hepatitis during the 1970s and 1980s.

At least 2,400 people are believed to have died after being given infected blood and infected blood products.

Yesterday Katie Scott, Junior Counsel to the inquiry, said figures from the WBTS in 1972 showed that blood donations from prisoners and naval staff were ten times more likely to be contaminated with hepatitis B than those from the general public.

But she alleged that prison donations to the organisation continued until at least 1983.

Ms Scott also said a blood donor in the Wessex region was found to have AIDS in 1984. The discovery resulted in the recall of 485 Factor VIII vials from haemophilia centres, but only 186 were recovered.

Dr Boulton, medical director of the Southampton-based WBTS, gave evidence earlier.

Referring to practices that existed before he joined the organisation he said paper records "were basically disregarded or forgotten about". Some were "farmed out" to a former mental hospital near Basingstoke.

Dr Boulton added: "These records were contaminated with bird droppings through a leaky roof.

"Some of the people who went there felt they were themselves susceptible to health hazards from the state of the records. A few hundred, I think, had to be destroyed or were inaccessible."

As reported in the Gazette's sister paper the Daily Echo, victims include Hampshire social worker Paul David Le Bourn, who was given infected blood after a road accident in 1981.

He was 63 when he died from liver failure in 2013.