After Devon teenager Claire McVey died from vCJD, her mother Annie began a law degree with the OU to help her navigate the legal system in her battle for compensation...
“Claire had been interested in law and she might well have gone on to study it herself if she had had the chance,” she said. “It was a terrible loss to the family – it should have been us going to her graduation ceremony.”
Claire McVey died from the human form of BSE, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, in 2000. She was aged just 15 and was one of only 177 known victims worldwide. Her death plunged mother Annie into a long battle over compensation claims for victims’ families.
Annie began studying law with the OU in 2004. “When Claire died, we were thrown into this political and legal melee, but it wasn’t a legal system that I recognised," she said. "There was this yawning gap between the pure sense of justice that most of us have, and the legal system I was suddenly involved in. I felt I needed to understand it.”
Ms McVey is disabled and the OU was able to support her in her studies, allowing her to take exams at home and giving her extended deadlines on coursework. “My health has actually improved while I was doing the course, and I think a large part of that is the discipline of the OU and having to meet deadlines," she said. "It was also a good distraction and I met some fantastic people – it also made me more argumentative and more determined.”
Last year Ms McVey and other families took their case to the High Court over what they claimed was a ‘flawed’ Government compensation scheme. But their challenge and a subsequent Court of Appeal action failed.
Annie now plans to become a qualified legal executive, and hopes to go on to take a Masters degree in Medical Ethics.
“I cannot praise the Open University highly enough,” she said. “It allows people like me who can’t go to university full time, to study for a degree. And the quality of the courses and the support they have given me has been excellent.
“My partner Wayne and other members of the family are now following my example and studying with the OU.”
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