HAEMOPHILIA campaigners have rejected moves to tone down their demand for redress over a deadly infection.

The national Haemophilia Society has revealed it is to ask the Government to set up a hardship fund for people who have contracted hepatitis C through infected blood products.

But North-East campaigners claim the fund might not benefit some of the worst sufferers - and it fails to address the question of responsibility.

Carol Grayson, of the Newcastle group Haemophilia Action UK, said they were looking for compensation along similar lines to the 1990 payouts for HIV infection, averaging about £20,000 per family. Haemophiliacs in Ireland have already received compensation averaging £250,000 for hepatitis C infection through contaminated blood.

Of the 95 haemophiliacs in the North-East infected with HIV, 95 per cent have also been infected with hepatitis C, which attacks the liver and now accounts for the bulk of all haemophiliac deaths. Haemophilia Action UK is also calling for a public inquiry into why the Government exposed patients to both viruses, without informing them of the risks.

Ms Grayson said: "A hardship fund does not acknowledge the damage that has been done - it is a sympathy fund.

"We strongly believe that decisions were made that resulted in significant loss of life and we want that looked at and investigated."

She said a means-tested hardship fund meant some haemophiliacs who had access to other sources of income would lose out, however badly they had been affected.

She said: "Somebody who has been exposed to hepatitis C but does not have the symptoms and is not working would get something, but somebody else who has liver failure and has a pension won't get anything."

Haemophilia Society spokesman Ben Abbott said details of how the fund would work were still being discussed but the majority of their members supported the idea. He said: "We felt that the hardship fund was a more appropriate and more achievable way to get recompense for people suffering from this condition.