The mountain of dumped Covid PPE blighting this beauty spot includes batches that helped a couple rake in an estimated £1.9billion of taxpayer cash.
Unopened boxes of gowns, gloves and masks later found to be unsafe due to incorrect storage were sold to the Government by Sarah and Richard Stoute in the single largest pandemic PPE contract.
Before Covid struck, their firm Full Support Healthcare only made a relatively modest profit. The Stoutes are since said to have since embarked on a spending spree, buying a £30million Caribbean villa, an equestrian centre and a country mansion in the south of England for £6m.
The pair also own a £1m superyacht. And last month Mrs Stoute – an NHS nurse turned saleswoman – shared on Facebook a photo of herself in a designer dress worth thousands of pounds.
Meanwhile boxes of some of the PPE the couple supplied, marked with the Full Support Healthcare brand name, are part of this Covid rubbish tip on a caravan park next to the New Forest in Hampshire.
Lib Dem Health spokeswoman Daisy Cooper told us: “The Government spent billions buying useless PPE. Now we discover tons of it dumped in one of the country’s most beautiful natural areas.”
In December it was reported £84m of PPE produced by Full Support Healthcare was designated “Do not supply” by health officials – part of an estimated £1.9bn worth of equipment produced by the company in its government contract.
Lawyers for the Stoutes, who live in Bedfordshire, said the couple played a crucial role in the pandemic, were not responsible for the dumped boxes and had nothing to do with the decision to dispose of them.
Also the couple, who have insisted they are not Covid profiteers, state the PPE became unusable because of the way it was stored after delivery, not due to wrongdoing on their part.
They insist they delivered the PPE in full to the required standard ahead of schedule – and any unused kit was the result of “government decisions”.
Yesterday anger was mounting over the boxes at Little Testwood Farm Caravan Park near Calmore.
Russell Webb, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, added: “We spent so much on PPE and a lot of people made a tidy profit. I’m appalled by this. Hopefully the local authorities can resolve it.”
Environment Agency officials are understood to have identified a number of organisations, including Full Support Healthcare, in their investigation to find the source of all the dumped kit.
Last week the local council was told the agency is looking at “whether [the PPE] was discarded by a health trust as substandard”.
New Forest District Council said it would be removed within weeks.
Covid bereaved families campaigner Brenda Doherty – who was banned from seeing her dying mum – said: “People working and dying on the front line without protection, while others profited from the provision of substandard PPE, is beyond disgusting. ”
There is no suggestion Full Support Healthcare supplied substandard PPE.
