Father speaks out over CJD deaths (From Western Telegraph)

Father speaks out over CJD deaths

THE father of a young musician who died after contracting the human form of BSE has spoken out for the first time, since a television documentary linked his son's death to infected meat he may have eaten at school.

Richard Cole was a pupil at Greenhill School, Tenby, in the late 1980s when meat was supplied to the school by a west Wales wholesaler whose produce may have been infected by mad cow disease.

A BBC programme screened on Thursday linked Richard's death to that of 25-year-old Marianne Harvey who had also been a pupil at the school.

Richard's father, Billy, who lives at Reynalton, voiced support for the programme findings.

"I believe that the more people who see such programmes will only serve to increase the awareness of what's happening in the human food chain and such programmes will be a stark reminder that what happened to our children can happen to theirs,'' he said.

Mr Cole said the programme would never bring Richard or the other victims back, but by co-operating with the documentary makers, the families were not letting their children down.

"They deserve this at the very least for all the suffering that they and the families endured,'' he said.

Richard was a folk musician who was hoping to land a record deal when he was struck by variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in 2000.

Marianne Harvey, a potter who lived at Amroth, died within a year of symptoms of the brain disease appearing.