Susan and Alan Carpenter lost their case

More than 2,000 families sued the NHS and Judge Mr Justice Gage said the NHS had been negligent.

The mother of Laura Shorter was awarded �2,750, but the judge said not all the families would be entitled to compensation.

Around two-thirds of the claimants, whose children had hospital post-mortems, may receive pay-outs.

The families of Rosina Harris and Daniel Carpenter lost their cases.

Families across England and Wales had reportedly refused �1,000 in compensation before launching the case.

They had claimed compensation for trauma suffered and said the action was being taken because they wanted to show that something illegal took place.

Judgement on the rights and wrongs of practices, now changed, was long overdue Richard Lissack QC

Lawyers for the 2,140 families said before Friday's judgement that hospitals broke the Human Tissue Act in removing organs or tissue from the bodies of dead children after relatives had objected.

Breached

They also said the European Convention on Human Rights was breached.

Richard Lissack QC said to the judge after the ruling: "But for the courage and composure of the three lead case claimants, these matters would never have come to court.

"Judgement on the rights and wrongs of practices, now changed, was long overdue and your lordship has resolved them definitively."

The barrister said he hoped it would now be possible to resolve the more than 2,000 other organ retention claims in the light of the judge's ruling.

He said the court's decision would have a profound impact on the treatment of bodily matter by the medical profession and was likely to give "a fair wind" to the Human Tissue Bill, currently before Parliament.

The new legislation makes it compulsory to gain consent before taking organs. Doctors who do not do so could face up to three years in prison.

Parents

After the ruling, Mervyn Fudge, one of the lead solicitors for the claimants, said it was a 'very satisfactory result' for all the families.

However, he said: "It means that persons who are claiming in relation to hospital post-mortems will be entitled to compensation.

"Those persons who are subject to Coroner's Courts post-mortems will not be given compensation."

He added: "In the hospital post-mortem cases the judge has found the claimant was owed a duty of care and that was breached.

"The doctors were guilty of negligence and provided that we can show psychiatric damage then they are entitled to damages."

Around two-thirds of the cases before the court involved hospital post-mortems.

The NHS Litigation Authority, which had challenged the parents' claims, said the finding of the judge was both "important and complex" and noted the NHS had succeeded in winning two of the three lead cases and two of the three issues the court was called upon to decide.

The authority added: "This case arose because society decided that it wished its doctors to be more candid about what was involved in a post-mortem, as a result of which normal hospital practice up to about 1999 became outmoded.

"This did not mean that the doctors of the preceding 30 years had been doing anything other than acting bona fide in the interests of their patients and the relatives, as the judge has found."

Professor James Underwood, president of The Royal College of Pathologists said: "The pathologists involved in the lead cases are caring doctors whose intentions were to find out why the deaths had occurred.

"These doctors have been actively involved in improving the arrangements for post-mortem examinations to minimise the distress experienced by affected families."