THE widow of a CJD victim from Bolton today sends a stinging reply through the Bolton Evening News to Tory politicians blamed for mishandling of the BSE crisis.

Maria Wood, of Baker Street, Kearsley, whose husband Graham caught the disease two years ago, told the BEN: "No amount of apologies or money will ever bring him back."

Mrs Wood travelled to London to hear details of the report in person.

The emotional response came as Lord Phillips submitted his independent report yesterday into the crisis which revealed a large number of blunders made by the Conservative Government in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The 17-volume study, which followed three-years of research, said ministers and officials were too keen to protect the cattle and beef industries.

It also said the Tories did not pay sufficient attention to the possibility that humans could get the disease.

The human form of mad cow disease, it added, was believed to have come from the eating of contaminated beef.

Mrs Wood had battled with doctors and nurses in a bid to convince them her 39-year-old husband, a father-of-two, was suffering from something more serious than depression.

She said: "Graham didn't get any help at all and the cause of his death was not given to me until I received his death certificate.

"I am so angry with the Government. They should have come out with all of this so much earlier."

The report is damning over delays by the previous Government to respond to the growing problem, saying officials "showed a lack of rigour in considering how policy should be turned into practice." Mrs Wood, who travelled to London to hear the report, added: "The MPs have now come out and admitted what we suspected all along.

"No one knows the hurt you feel when somebody dies of CJD until you've experienced it and while I don't know if early action would have saved Graham it would certainly have made his last months easier. He didn't get any proper care from the authorities."

More than 80 dead and dying people had suffered from the disease, many of them young, the report said.

It added: "They and their families have suffered terribly. Families all over the UK have been left wondering whether the same fate awaits them."

Chillingly, Lord Phillips' report follows a warning from senior Government adviser Professor Peter Smith that "tens of thousands" of people could still die as a result of infection.

Labour has promised compensation for every family affected by the disease and payments could run into tens of thousands of pounds under plans laid out by Agriculture Minister Nick Brown.

Mrs Wood said: "The money means nothing to us. Now that we have the answers to our questions I want to put the whole thing behind me. I wouldn't wish what we have been through on anybody."

Graham Wood died in October 1998 after battling with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease for 12 months. Mrs Wood, a nurse at Royal Bolton Hospital, spent days by his bedside at Hope Hospital, Salford, and said the disease began with flu-like symptoms before leading to double vision and mood swings within a matter of months.

Mr Wood became confined to a wheelchair, lost the ability to feed himself and eventually lost his sight and speech. He was previously an engineer at British Aerospace's plant in Lostock.