A HEARTBROKEN mum will be forced to bury her son for a third time after discovering his body parts were held in a top NHS hospital for nearly thirty years after he died.
Distraught June Dunn, 65, first laid 12-year-old boy Ben Mallia to rest in 1997 after he died while suffering from a one-in-a-million brain condition.
June Dunn holding a picture of her son Benn[/caption]
He died aged 12 in 1997[/caption]
The heartbroken mum has already been forced to bury him twice[/caption]
She will now have to hold a third funeral[/caption]
She was forced to hold a second funeral 18 months later after finding his brain had been removed without permission during an autopsy at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.
Nearly three decades later the mum found out Guy’s Hospital, in central London, had continued to store his cells – which she believes includes a lump of Ben’s skin and blood.
After a lengthy battle, the hospital last week offered to pay for the cost of Ben’s third funeral and return all remaining parts to her.
It is believed the skin was stored after doctors conducted a biopsy on the boy while he was still alive, before failing to dispose of the sample after his death.
Emails seen by The Sun show a consultant admitting test tubes with Ben’s remains had been kept in a liquid nitrogen storage container and would have to be washed of toxic chemicals before being passed back to June.
Officials insisted no medical research had been conducted on tubes containing his remains.
Today, the mum-of-three said she felt relieved to be proven right but demanded a sit-down meeting with Guy’s Hospital bosses to hear an apology in person.
Devout Catholic June told The Sun: “I never gave consent for any of this.
“My son suffered enough in life – I only wanted them to leave him alone in death and let him rest.
“This has been a battle for the last 30 years.
“The people who are to blame are the ones at the top and the executives who aren’t being held accountable.”
She went on: “Anything being used in a lab, they have to prove they have permission.
“Hospital bosses have tried to hide everything from me at every turn about what happened to my son’s remains.
“I have post-traumatic stress disorder from dealing with this, and what I have found out from Guy’s Hospital has tipped me over the edge.
“No parent should have to bury their child once, let alone twice, and three times is shocking.
“There are serious questions to be answered.
“How many other people do they have in the lab that their families don’t know about?
“I never, once, ever gave permission.
“The hospital has continued to tell me that I may have forgotten, but I know everything that happened with Ben because he was my son.”
She added she was concerned the hospital may have held on to his remains as they had listed Ben under the wrong date of birth – meaning they may have assumed there was no next of kin.
The teen suffered from rare brain condition dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy, which slowly triggers memory and cognitive decline over thirty years.
At the time the law said organs could only be taken out if there was “no reason to believe” relatives would object.
However, June insisted she had ordered medics not to touch her son after he passed.
A Guy’s Hospital spokesman said: “We apologise to Ben’s family for any distress we may have caused, and we recognise how difficult the circumstances are when a child dies.
“We will work with Ben’s family to address any concerns.”
