A champion jockey has had his Covid payout claim rejected for his wife who was left paralysed and hospital bound following three jabs.
Seb Sanders has been fighting on behalf of, Leona, 52, who was told she was able to have the vaccine – despite suffering from a rare autoimmune disorder that causes blood vessel inflammation.
She had her first AstraZeneca jab in February 2021, followed by two boosters, one of which was Pfizer, in April and December that year.
Leona began experiencing paralysis after the third vaccine and was left unable to walk for seven months with her condition continuing to deteriorate to this day.
The rejection of Mr Sanders’ claim comes as new figures show nearly 1,400 people in the UK have applied for compensation from the Government for alleged harm caused by the Coronavirus vaccines.
The vast majority of successful claims so far, 97 per cent, concern the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, the Telegraph has reported.
Mr Sanders, a former British champion flat race jockey, said: ‘It was only a day or two after that she collapsed in the bathroom, her left leg had given way, but we weren’t blaming the injection because nobody had warned us, so we never put two and two together.’
His wife’s condition then became considerably worse after she had her third jab when Leona began to experience paralysis moving upwards from her feet.
Leona was admitted into Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge where doctors diagnosed her with transverse myelitis, a swelling on the spinal cord.
This condition is a known side-effect of the Covid-19 vaccine and left the 52-year-old unable to walk for seven months.
Her health has since continued to deteriorate, and was made even worse when she contracted Covid and sepsis in hospital.
Mr Sanders, who now works as a racing pundit for Sky News, said medics rejected their claims that his wife’s condition was caused by the jabs.
He said before she had the vaccine his wife was ‘very active’ and ‘was always out with the horses’.
The couple, from Bury St Edmunds in West Suffolk share one daughter together.
New government figures show that payments have already been given out for a range of conditions supposedly caused by the vaccine such as strokes, heart attacks and blot clots.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was first approved for use in the UK in December 2020 when the Government ordered 100million doses of it as part of its inoculation programme.
Despite a growing number of warnings about the dangers of blot clots, the government continued their rollout of the jab, alongside those produced by Pfizer and Moderna.
Other European countries, however, such as Spain, France and Germany all halted their use of the vaccine after the concerns were raised.
While some people have had their claims accepted, more than 5,500 applications have been rejected with 519 dismissed before a medical assessment took place.
A spokesperson for AstraZeneca said: ‘Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has lost loved ones or reported health problems.’
They added that patient safety was their ‘highest priority’ and that the vaccine ‘has continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile.’
A Pfizer spokesman said that ‘patient safety is paramount’ and that ‘adverse event reports do not imply causality’.
A government spokesperson said: ‘The 60% disablement threshold is aligned to the definition of ‘severe disablement’ consistent, with the Department for Work and Pensions Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit.
‘In the case that an individual’s application is turned down on the basis of disability threshold, there is the option for claimants to appeal the decision.’
has contacted AstraZeneca and Pfizer for further comment comment.
Last year, the widower of a BBC presenter who died from coronavirus vaccine complications launched legal action against AstraZeneca together with 75 people whose ‘relatives died or suffered injuries related to the jab’.
Mother-of-one Lisa Shaw, 44, died from ‘vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia’ in May 2021, about a week after receiving her first Covid jab. She worked for BBC Radio Newcastle.
Lawyers for her husband, Gareth Eve, reportedly sent pre-action protocol letters to AstraZeneca in 2022 on the behalf of nearly 75 people who allege that their relatives died or suffered injuries related to the vaccine.
Her husband, Gareth Eve, reportedly spent two years trying to get the Government, MPs and three prime ministers to address what happened to Lisa and now feels he has ‘no alternative’ but to pursue legal action.
Mr Eve, who is vaccinated himself, says the lawsuit is not about ‘whether somebody is anti-vax’ but about those who lost loved ones and have been ‘made to feel like it’s a dirty secret’.
‘It’s not about Covid, it’s not about how many lives the Covid vaccination has saved, it’s about what this vaccination has done to Lisa and other families,’ he told the BBC.
A spokesperson for the pharmaceutical giant declined to comment on pending legal action at the time.