NEVER AGAIN

THE FIGHT FOR GLORIA'S LAW: URGENT PLEA TO MINISTERS

- LUCY THORNTON

RELATIVES of tragic care home residents who died alone, afraid and denied the loving touch of family in their final days today share their tales of heartbreak.

Families joined forces to demand pensioners are never again separated from those closest to them like they were in the dark days of the pandemic.

Led by West End musicals legend Ruthie Henshall, they are demanding Gloria's Law is urgently brought in by No10 to give people the legal right to a care supporter who could be with them in a care home or hospital.

The relatives released 63 pictures of lost loved ones, to mark the third anniversary of the nationwide lockdown on March 23, 2020.

Their poignant dossier comes as Boris Johnson faces a Commons grilling over Partygate on Wednesday, which will rekindle the agony for those who stuck to the rules and could not visit ailing relatives.

UNSPEAKABLE 

Gloria's Law is named after Ruthie's mum, who died in a care home aged 88 in 2021. The 56-year-old I'm a Celeb star, who is about to join Coronation Street, told how Gloria was in a room for a year with no stimulation.

Ruthie said: "It was the cruelest thing I have ever seen, to watch my mother dying through a window and her not even being able to have a family member touch her.

"It is unspeakable, the loneliness that she went through. She did not understand why we were not visiting.

"For a whole year, she had no quality of life. I got to touch her and see her for five weeks before she died."