Kay Wadey lost her son

One mother tells the BBC how she found out that her son's brain and lungs had been kept by doctors.

Kay Wadey's son Harry died aged five months from chronic lung disease.

She gave permission for a small section of his lung to be taken for research and teaching.

But years later she discovered that his brain and his entire lungs had been taken and a total of 34 blocks and 99 slides of tissue were being stored.

Mrs Wadey says the court case which concluded on Friday was about ensuring no other families had to go through what she went through.

Harry was born two months premature and was put on a breathing machine. After three weeks it was clear he was not responding to treatment and he died after just five months.

No family should have to go through what these families have gone through Kay Wadey

Mrs Wadey, from Newmarket, said: "They asked if it was OK if they took a slice of lung. That sounded a very small amount to me. They explained they needed it to explain the cause of death."

In 1999, she learnt his brain had been taken and two to three years later the full scale of the situation became clear in a letter from the hospital, Addenbrooke's in Cambridge, to her solicitor.

Angry

"I was very angry," she said. " I would have liked them to have told me exactly what it was they were going to take, why they wanted to take it and what they wanted to do with it.

"I am fairly confident that I would have been happy for them to have used the whole lungs. The brain I have still not had an explanation for."

Harry died from chronic lung disease

She is fully supportive of medical research and teaching and said with proper explanation and consent it is right for certain body parts to be taken for specific reasons.

Mrs Wadey joined the court case brought by 2,140 families asking for compensation because some form of "closure" was needed by many relatives in the same situation as her.

Mrs Wadey added: "Whatever the court finds, there is no question that a wrong has been done - an ethical wrong, a moral wrong.

"No family should have to go through what these families have gone through."