A haemophiliac boy was not told for four years that he was known to have contracted hepatitis C through NHS-prescribed blood products, and his mother was not told he was being enrolled in a medical trial, the infected blood inquiry has heard.

Returning to London on Tuesday after hearings in Belfast, the inquiry examined the case of Luke O’Shea Phillips, who endured years of ill health as a result of his treatment.

The inquiry, based at Fleetbank House near Fleet Street in central London, is expected to last up to three years. It is taking evidence from patients who contracted HIV and hepatitis C through transfusions and blood products, many of which came from the US. About 3,000 people are estimated to have died and more than 25,000 may have been infected.

Phillips, now 37, was diagnosed with mild haemophilia at the age of one but did not have frequent bleeds and did not need to receive factor VIII blood-clotting products until he injured himself in a fall when he was three.

A letter sent to his consultant at the Royal Free hospital in north London in June 1985 said he was to be tested for the presence of viruses and it was hoped “he would be suitable for the heat-treated trial”. The letter was copied to a pharmaceutical firm, Alpha Therapeutics.

Phillips’s mother, Shelagh O’Shea, 59, told the inquiry she was never told he might have been exposed to infection through factor VIII products or that he was being prepared for a medical trial. The NHS letter referred to him as a “virgin haemophiliac”.

“I had never heard that expression before,” O’Shea said. “There was never any discussion about him being entered into a trial. I would never have allowed my child to be part of [it]. I would have picked him up and walked out of the hospital.”

Phillips’s notes at the time were stamped with the warning “danger of infection”. The doctor treating him said such a notice was standard in haemophilia cases, the inquiry heard.

O’Shea said she did not discover her son was infected with hepatitis C, a potentially fatal disease, until she received a hospital letter in January 1997 “casually informing me that I was aware that he had hepatitis C”, she said. “This was the first time I had heard about it. I was shocked beyond belief.”

Phillips’s doctors told the inquiry his mother was warned earlier, but the inquiry was shown NHS documents from 1993 that said: “Patient and family unaware at present.”

O’Shea said: “I felt overwhelmed by the deceit. I felt totally and utterly powerless.”

Phillips told the inquiry the diagnosis disrupted his life, forcing him away from social situations in case he infected friends. “I became disengaged from school work. It became hard to build friendships with new people. I felt like a walking infection machine. I had a sense of hopelessness because there was no treatment at that stage,” he said.

“I went into hospital with a non life-threatening disease and came out with a life-threatening disease. Someone saw me as so irrelevant that they can do that to me. When you are treated with that much disrespect you feel utterly worthless.”

He eventually underwent a year-long treatment with interferon proteins and the antiviral drug ribavirin at Chelsea and Westminster hospital, which temporarily knocked down his white cell level and cleared the infection.

“I managed to clear the virus from my system,” he said, but he was left with anger and fear that the infection might return. He has since had counselling to help him recover and is now married with a young child.

There have been renewed calls for compensation for relatives and victims since the inquiry began. Last month Jeremy Corbyn and the leaders of six other parties wrote to the government calling for compensation for those who have been infected or affected by disastrous medical treatments.

The hearing continues.