Fay Harris' dad Donald was one of up to 24 people who died in his Hampshire care home during an outbreak of Covid.
She joined the legal action after Mr Harris, a former Royal Marine, died on May, 1 2020, days before a planned sailing trip to celebrate his 90th birthday.
Yesterday, the High Court gave hope to thousands of bereaved families by ruling the Government acted unlawfully in the early months of the pandemic.
Judges reached the conclusion over the policy of discharging Covid patients to care homes without testing them for the virus.
Ms Harris said it had given her “some comfort” that the Government had been found to have acted unlawfully.
She added: “It has only increased the distress to me and many others that the Government have not been honest and owned up to their mistakes.
“I have lost precious years with my wonderful dad. I left him fit, well and happy on March 22, 2020 when his home went into lockdown.
“He should have been safe and protected, but I never saw or spoke to him again.
“Many people died of Covid in his care home.
“I hope this judgment will help the thousands of other families who have lost parents due to this Government’s reckless and unlawful policies.”
Cathy Gardner’s father Michael Gibson died aged 88 in April 2020, following an outbreak of Covid-19 in his Oxfordshire care home.
Dr Gardner, 60, who has a PhD in virology, said her father died after a patient with the virus was discharged from hospital to Cherwood House Care Centre. She was forced to say goodbye to her father through a window of the home and has accused the Government of turning care homes into “death traps” where care workers are “exposed to unacceptable and avoidable risks”.
“There are so many reasons why the Prime Minister should resign,” Dr Gardner said outside the High Court.
In a statement, she added: “My father, along with tens of thousands of other elderly and vulnerable people, tragically died in care homes in the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I believed all along that my father and other residents of care homes were neglected by the Government.
“The High Court has now vindicated that belief, and our campaign to expose the truth.”
Lawyers believe the ruling could increase the chances of successful compensation claims.
One bereaved daughter said: “The anger will only dissipate when we have justice.”
In a bombshell judgment, Dr Cathy Gardner, 60, and Fay Harris, 58, defeated the Government over the care home policies released in March and April 2020.
The women, whose dads died of Coronavirus, brought the case against the Health Secretary and Public Health England.
After the court’s ruling, Dr Gardner, of Sidmouth, Devon, and Fay, of Alton, Hants, called on Boris Johnson to resign.
Dr Gardner added that the repeated claim by the then Health Secretary Matt Hancock that the Government “threw a protective ring around care homes in the first wave of the pandemic was nothing more than a despicable lie”.
Amos Waldman, whose gran Sheila Lamb, 94, died in a North London care home on April 2, 2020, said the court’s judgment “brings some hope that there will be justice for more families over the whole catalogue of failures”.
Asked about Mr Hancock claiming to have been exonerated by the High Court yesterday, Amos told the Mirror: “It’s difficult to see how that squares with him saying they put a protective ring [around care homes]. In reality, it was anything but.” He added: “This government is incapable of learning lessons.”
He said it had been “painful” to hear again the factors that led to his gran’s death.
Amos, 42, said Sheila moved to the care home in March 2020 and died of Covid within weeks.
He added: “She was pretty ill for two weeks and was delirious.
“There was no video calling at the time, so we had some tough phone calls. She was having paranoid delusions about the home.”
The High Court ruled the policies on discharging patients to care homes were unlawful because they failed to take into account the risk to other residents from those who had no Covid symptoms but could still have had the virus. Judges added it was “irrational” for the Government not to have advised that asymptomatic patients should isolate from other residents for 14 days on admission.
The ruling said there was no evidence Mr Hancock considered the question of whether to quarantine care home arrivals for 14 days.
But judges added there was also no evidence “he was asked to consider it”.
The court dismissed other aspects of the case brought by the two women.
It comes ahead of the public inquiry into Covid, which will include probing what happened with care homes. Thousands of patients were offloaded from hospital into care homes at the start of the pandemic as health chiefs feared an influx of intensive care cases.
It was later found many of the patients “seeded” infections into care homes.
A PHE study found 97 out of 5,882 care home Covid outbreaks were “due to hospital associated seeding” – leading to 286 deaths. That study probably underestimated the scale of the problem as it only looked at those confirmed with a positive Covid test – at a time when testing was scarce. Nearly 20,000 Covid-linked deaths were recorded in care homes in 2020.
Charlie Williams, who lost his dad in a care home in April 2020, said: “We kept him there because we had been told no one in [there] had Covid. Later we learned from the staff, who were fantastic, 27 patients had died from the virus there.”
Charlie, of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, added: “For the thousands of families like mine who lost loved ones in care homes, the last two years of cover-ups and denials have been unbelievably painful. We’ve always known our loved ones were thrown to the wolves by the Government.”
Jean Adamson, whose dad Aldrick died of Covid in a care home in April 2020, praised the court’s decision but added: “We’ve had cover-up and denial after denial. I can’t tell you how incensed I fee.”
A spokesman for Mr Hancock said: “This court case comprehensively clears ministers of any wrongdoing and finds Mr Hancock acted reasonably on all counts.”
