We write in response to articles by Jonathan Freedland (Don’t condemn just our lying PM: save some anger for the cowards who enabled him, 20 May) and Robbie Hadden (We obeyed Covid rules as our dad died. I’m angry the PM has dodged a Partygate reckoning, 20 May). Our son died a year ago, on 21 May 2021 – he was 18. He’d been admitted to hospital with a severe brain injury in October 2019 – in the old world, the pre-pandemic world when we could be with him day and night in hospital.
Then lockdown happened. We naively believed that we would still be able to be with our son – he was vulnerable, brain damaged and, we were told, most likely to die. We drove to his hospital in London the following day but were told to leave immediately – the kind consultant could hardly bear to look at us as she gave us our instructions. She knew and we knew that we might not see our son alive again.
