Mum's anguish over Alder Hey baby

Wendy Bury, of Union Road, Oswaldtwistle, hit out after spending hours poring over yesterday's inquiry report, which revealed hundreds of body parts and organs had been taken from dead children stretching back to the end of the Second World War.

She said she still didn't know whether all her son Carl Michael, above, Broderick's body parts had been returned to her or the full scale of the problem and she demanded to know if any action was going to be taken against the doctor who treated her son.

Carl died during an operation to repair a hole in his heart just after his first birthday, in September, 1983.

For 17 years Wendy, who has three other children, believed her son was laid to rest at Immanuel Church, Oswaldtwistle.

Then, last summer, she was told doctors at Alder Hey had kept hold of her son's heart, windpipe and oesophagus at the old Myrtle Street hospital in Liverpool after he died. At the time, Frenchman Jean-Marie Bouton was in charge of the pathology unit but Wendy has been told he was too ill to be interviewed as part of the inquiry into the scandal.

Often there was no medical purpose for the keeping of the organs at the hospital, which as a regional centre for child care treated scores children from East Lancashire, and many of the organs have not been matched up to the patients they came from.

The numbers of organs kept soared dramatically when Dutch pathologist Professor Dick van Velzen took over in 1988.

He kept every organ in every case, and could face criminal charges after lying to parents and hospital managers.

After leaving Liverpool he worked in Canada, where police have found 13 boxes of organs in his home.

Wendy, along with dozens of other families, travelled to Liverpool yesterday to receive the thick inquiry report before it was made public. She said: "I had hoped it would answer questions but it didn't. There are so many things we still don't know.

"No-one can assure me there are not some other parts belonging to my son somewhere in the world.

"I want to know if anything is going to happen to the doctor who dealt with my son and where he is now. We don't know the scale of the problem before Dr van Velzen and we need a public inquiry to let us see everyone being interviewed so that everyone who is at fault can be held responsible."

Inquiry chairman Michael Redfern QC told a Press conference yesterday that compiling the report, released yesterday, had had a deep impact on his life.

But Wendy, who found it too distressing to attend a Press conference for families affected by the scandal yesterday, added: "That is as maybe, but most of the attention seems to be on van Velzen and my son wasn't in the hospital during the time of van Velzen. He may well have got hold of some of my son's body parts, but they won't have been removed by him. The surgeon there when my son was in hospital has not been interviewed because of his ill health.

"I can't believe they are taking that into consideration in a situation like this.

"There should be criminal charges for this. We need to know we can trust our doctors and until we have a public inquiry, there is a niggling feeling things have been covered up."

Mr Redfern rebuked suggestions that a public inquiry was the best way forward, saying his private inquiry had made it easier to deal with sensitive issues in a shorter space of time. He thanked the families for handling themselves with dignity and respect 'at a very difficult time.'

Labour MPs Greg Pope and Peter Pike both said they were appalled by the report's revelations.

Mr Pike said: "There needs to be proper medical research but we need to have proper rules and transparency."

Ribble Valley Conservative MP Nigel Evans said he agreed with Mr Pope and Mr Pike despite their political differences.

He said: "This should never have happened and it should never happen again. I carry an organ donor card and organs should only be taken with the full and informed consent of either the donor or their next of kin."