Richard Packer was the youngest-ever Permanent Secretary in MAFF. In his book “The Politics of BSE” (hardcover £50) Packer admits that he was “not above using subterfuge to help his political master, whoever it was.” (The Guardian Review June 3rd 2006). As the title of his book suggests, for many people, BSE and the tragedy of vCJD was about politics. Scientists and officials sought to promote, then rescue, their careers. Politicians sought to protect their parties. Civil Servants sought to keep the wheels of Whitehall moving. The victims were young people, like my Andy.
The Phillips report criticised Richard Packer for not devoting more time to devising further anti-BSE controls, but like most of Whitehall he argued that the Treasury would “not have agreed” to safeguards that ran into billions of pounds. For me, Packer's statement and lame excuses show that the Government wasn't prepared to put profits at risk in order to safeguard lives. One of those lives belonged to my son Andy who would die at just 24 years of age.
As Andy’s mum, I find it an insult that an official at the heart of the BSE scandal can admit, in his book, that he used subterfuge to support his masters. Worse still, he uses his book to exonerate himself from any responsibility, and in a self-congratulatory tone concludes that: “Outside the beef sector, the effects of the BSE crisis or crises have been limited and such lessons that might be drawn from them are obvious.“
I read those words while sitting in my Andy’s empty bedroom, his favourite Converse shoes under his bed, his designer-clothes in his wardrobe, my home echoing with the emptiness of his immeasurable loss. Andy - at 24 - has been cheated out of at least fifty years of life, love, smiles and laughter. He never bought his first home, never married or had the chance of a family. He was too young to even get cheap car insurance and was still using spot cream for his acne...As I read those trite dismissive word s in the book's closing chapter, I wept, heart-broken at the value Richard Packer and the Government put on human life, and death. My son's life. My son's death.
When Richard Packer 's book was published in the late spring of 2006 Andy was freelancing. At the weekend he was night-clubbing with his friends in Manchester and Birmingham. He was also starting to loose weight, one of the first signs that the incubation period was over. Within eighteen months my beloved only son would be dead from vCJD .
In 2001 Richard Packer was knighted. He is a non - executive director of Arla , the UK's largest dairy company. He is married with seven children.
Richard Packer
