"We have one person who has committed suicide, so the levels of compensation will be different."

Solicitor Mervyn Fudge

Lawyers have made a High Court application for a group litigation order.

One of the solicitors behind the campaign, Mervyn Fudge, who is instructed by the National Committee Relating to Organ Retention (Nacor), admitted a successful group campaign prove expensive for the health service.

He told BBC News Online: "Some people feel appallingly aggrieved and want to try and find out more about what's happened.

"Others have been very badly damaged, and have very severe post-traumatic stress because of what's happened, and would be entitled to significant damages."

May hearing

"Every claim is different. There will be a base rate if the claim is successful, and then there will be people who are severely damaged who, because of the way they have reacted, will not actually be able to work again.

"We have one person who has committed suicide, so the levels of compensation will be different."

The court application will be heard on 11 May, and relates to the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Ellen Webster: her organs were removed

The test case is that of Ellen Elizabeth Webster who died from septicaemia aged 13 hours at the Leeds hospital, almost 14 years ago.

Her mother Ruth, the national co-ordinator for Nacor only discovered last year that Ellen's organs had been retained, and that the family had buried just 12 pieces of her at her funeral - her skull, face, arms, hands, legs, feet, pelvis and some of her ribs.

After Ellen's death, her parents had consented to a post-mortem, but were told only that "limited tissue samples" would be removed.

National class action

Mr Fudge said the proposed action was designed to pave the way for compensation claims relating to up to 134 hospitals across the UK.

It will be a separate claim to the organ retention cases at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, in Liverpool, which are already being treated together.

Mr Fudge, legal adviser for the Bristol Heart Children Action Group in the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry, said the application was not intended to single out Leeds.

"It is the first step towards establishing a national class action on behalf of all the relatives of deceased people who have had their organs removed and retained," he said.

Mrs Webster, from Leeds, told BBC News Online the family did not know there may be a problem until a newspaper article about organ retention at Alder Hey, published in 1999, said that Leeds had employed similar practices.

She contacted Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and on Christmas Eve that year received a letter admitting that some of Ellen's organs had been retained.

It was not until Easter 2000 that the couple were told how little of their daughter's body they had actually buried.

She said: "I felt absolutely bewildered. I couldn't see why they done that for a case of septicaemia when they knew it was septicaemia."

The family has since had apologies from the hospital, including one from the head pathologist, but the pathologist who actually carried out the post-mortem has not apologised to the family.

Mrs Webster said she wanted to draw attention to the fact that it was not just families associated with Alder Hey that were affected.

Left behind

Litigation began in Liverpool following the Redfern Report into Alder Hey Hospital.

Mr Fudge said: "It is important for everyone else affected that we proceed on the same basis as Alder Hey.

"I am quite sure that the rest of the country does not want the perception that justifiable claims are being left behind while Alder Hey progresses."