A retired printer died from contracting hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood during heart surgeries in the late 1980s, an inquest heard.

Dale Robertson, who lived in Woodland Drive, Norwich died at the N&N on February 25 this year.

The 71-year-old was given the infected blood following three heart surgeries during 1988 and 1989.

Mr Robertson was one of more than 30,000 people in the UK who were infected with hepatitis C and HIV by contaminated blood products between 1970 and 1991.

This became a national scandal and resulted in victims, including Mr Robertson, being awarded compensation.

During the inquest, a statement from his wife, Deborah Robertson, was read out. It said: "I remember the day Dale came home from work and told me he had hepatitis C.

"We were in complete shock.

"Treatment was tough on him and eventually he had to give up work while learning how to inject himself and deal with the side effects of it.

"Dale had a number of blood transfusions as a result of heart valve surgery, so we requested his medical records to understand what he had and when.

"After some research he was able to apply for initial compensation through Skipton and later, received discretional payments from the Caxton Foundation.

"His physical and mental health started to decline which had a huge impact on our whole family."

Mr Robertson was admitted to the N&N on November 27 with onset confusion and symptoms of progressive decline and frailty before being moved to the cardiology department a few days later.

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The decision was made to fast-track him to a nursing home for palliative care once it appeared he was suffering from multi-organ failure.

Unfortunately he died before this could happen.

Area coroner for Norfolk, Johanna Thompson, said: "Mr Robertson had suffered with health problems after receiving the infected blood products."

She concluded that his cause of death was from "multi-organ failure, decompensated cirrhosis with hepatocellular cancer due to hepatitis C and aortic valve disease".