The Crown has dropped all criminal charges against the former national medical director of the Canadian Red Cross Society, who was one of several officials named in connection with Canada's tainted blood scandal.

Six nuisance charges against Dr. Roger Perrault were withdrawn by the Crown in a Hamilton court Friday.

Crown prosecutor John Pearson said a review of the remaining charges against Perrault had been conducted and as a result "we have concluded that there no longer remains a reasonable prospect of conviction in this case."

The decision follows Perrault's acquittal last October on charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and common nuisance endangering the public in relation to the blood scandal.

In that 18-month trial, Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto acquitted Perrault, along with former officials from Health Canada and New Jersey-based Armour Pharmaceutical Co.

Those counts of criminal negligence focused specifically on four victims — who cannot be named under a court order — who contracted HIV from tainted blood. Three of them have died.

The counts of common nuisance related to people living in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta.

"There was no conduct that showed wanton and reckless disregard," Benotto said in delivering her verdict on Oct. 1.

But Perrault still faced a second criminal trial in Hamilton on several charges stemming from allegations that the Red Cross and senior officials failed to take adequate measures to screen donors.

After Friday's decision, Perrault's lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, said his client should never have been charged or named for the tainted blood crisis.

"Not every tragedy requires a scapegoat," Greenspan said.

But John Playter, of the Canadian Hemophiliac Society, said he was extremely disappointed in the Crown's decision to withdraw the charges.

"There are a lot of people out there that are hurting as a result of what happened," Playter said.

"They are going to walk away from this very confused, very upset with a lot of questions, and it's going to generate a lot of anger. People can say the system has failed them once again."

Some 20,000 people contracted hepatitis C and more than 1,000 were infected with HIV through transfusions of blood and blood products in the 1980s and 1990s.

It's not clear how many people have died as a result, but in 1997 the toll reached 3,000.

Krever changed blood supply management

In 1993, Ontario Justice Horace Krever looked into what went wrong with the country's blood supply during the 1980s and recommended at the conclusion of the inquiry that all victims, not just those covered by Ottawa's original package, be compensated.

The Krever royal commission also led to a change in how the blood supply is managed. Canadian Blood Services, a non-profit organization, now oversees the blood and blood products supply across the country, except in Quebec, where it's managed by Héma-Québec.

In May 2006, the Red Cross apologized to tens of thousands of Canadians infected with HIV or hepatitis C.

The Crown withdrew charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and common nuisance against the charity in exchange for a guilty plea under the federal Food and Drugs Act.

The Red Cross accepted responsibility, paying a $5,000 fine and dedicating $1.5 million to a scholarship fund and research project aimed at reducing medical errors

With files from the Canadian Press