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A MUM whose baby son died 13 years ago has been told his BRAIN has been found in a hospital jar.

Horrified Julie Middleton, 40, thought cot death victim Regan was "complete" when she buried him and had no idea doctors removed the six-week-old child's brain during a post mortem at Southampton Hospital.

Julie, of Poole, Dorset, said: "It feels like they stole a piece of my baby." The case could trigger another organ "harvesting" scandal like the one at Alder Hey hospital in 1999.

Julie was shattered when cops told her earlier this week that the "harvested" organ from six-week-old cot death victim Regan had been found in a hospital storage jar.

The mum and her ex-husband Michael Wilson, Regan's dad, are taking up an offer for the brain to be buried in the child's grave.

But Julie said: "We won't be able to attend — it will be too painful for both of us. I thought I'd said goodbye to Regan all those years ago. I can't face going through it again.

"They offered me a free funeral and I thought, 'What are they going to do? Have the brain in a jar on the pulpit?'"

The discovery of the organ, which is in storage at Southampton General Hospital, was made during a nationwide audit being carried out into human tissue samples kept by police.

It is thought many more similar cases of dead people's organs being kept without the permission or knowledge of their loved ones may surface as the audit continues.

Julie, of Poole, Dorset, knew tissue had been taken from Regan during a post mortem examination aimed at determining how he died. But she had no idea the complete brain was removed by doctors at the behest of Dorset Police and the local coroner.

The bombshell news was delivered to her by two plain-clothed police officers who knocked on her door on Wednesday afternoon. Julie, who found Regan dead in his cot in 1999, said:

Close_quoteI thought it was my M&S delivery but it turned out to be a visit that has turned my world upside down.

I could tell from their faces they had something horrible to tell me. They said, 'Regan's brain has been found in Southampton Hospital in a jar.' I didn't take anything else in after that.

I couldn't believe my ears and just went numb.

All these years I'd been thinking he was complete when I buried him. How on earth could something like that happen? I'm devastated.

His death has been like a volcano in my mind over the years, bubbling away in the background. But this has made it erupt like never before. It has brought back all the pain of losing him. I feel hurt and let down by people I thought I could trust at the worst time in my life. I trusted the pathologist with my son's body and he returned it to me incomplete. I don't know how he slept at night.

I feel lied to and duped and let down. It feels like they stole a piece of my baby and kept it hidden for 13 years.

She added: "I won't be leaving it here. I don't want other bereaved parents to have this kind of shock."

The audit was launched after the Association of Chief Police Officers instructed forces around the country to draw up a list of all post mortem samples they had in storage.

The ACPO said the aim was "to identify and consider the most appropriate way of sensitively dealing with tissue no longer needed for criminal justice purposes".

The audit was part of a "tidy-up" operation following a change in the law introduced in 2006. Before then, police did not need permission from a deceased person's next of kin to remove and keep organs or body parts. They were routinely taken and stored as part of investigations into deaths and could be kept for significant periods because of possible future court cases or reviews.


Dorset Police found Regan's brain — and the stored organs of others — during their audit.

They decided to tell Julie in the interests of transparency but declined yesterday to reveal how many other cases were involved.

The mum, who has four daughters aged from five to 16, said she was given three choices — allow the brain to be kept for medical research, let the hospital "dispose" of it or arrange a burial.

Julie said: "I wasn't going to let them keep it — they've already had it for 13 years without me knowing.

"I knew at the time tissue samples had been taken because I wanted answers to Regan's death but I never knew the whole organ had gone.

"Because it was an unexplained death the police were involved and they interrogated me. There was an inquest which found he had died from cot death and he was buried. After the funeral I thought I could grieve in peace and start to get over it. Now I have to deal with this.

"When you hear about cot deaths you think, 'That will never happen to me.' And bang, it did. When you read about body parts being kept you think, 'That won't happen to me.' And it has."

Julie told how the two police officers who told her about the jar left contact numbers and a letter of explanation from a detective chief inspector. But her heartache was compounded as the letter at one point referred to Regan as her DAUGHTER.

Southampton Hospital said yesterday they had been asked to retain Regan's brain following his death "on the request of the Home Office/Dorset Police as part of a forensic case for the coroner".

A spokesman added: "Regan was not a patient at our hospital. We take bodies from around the region for post mortem examinations — and his was performed by a Home Office pathologist at the request of Dorset Police.

"In forensic/coroner cases, they often ask for organs to be retained in the event of ongoing investigations.

"We are asked to hold these specimens at the request of the police/coroner until told what they want us to do — for example sensitively dispose, return to families for burial etc."

A Dorset Police spokesman said: "We have decided on a policy of openness with families but at this stage we will not be revealing how many are involved until they have all been visited."

In a statement, the force added: "We are very aware of the sensitivities of the families affected and are working closely with hospitals, pathologists and coroner's departments to complete the audit and inform families as quickly as possible.

"We know this is incredibly difficult for the family and friends of those people whose tissue we have identified and we are providing all the support we can to help them."

The ACPO said they expect the national audit to be finished by March, when a report will be published.

A spokesman said: "It is down to individual forces to decide what to do with what they find, whether the material is needed or not. In some cases the retention period may have been longer than necessary."

The review was ordered after two forces independently released information on tissue and organ retention.

West Mercia Police kept 44 items over a period of 20 years. And the Avon and Somerset force held on to more than 100 samples for 25 years without the knowledge of families.

THE organ audit could turn out to be a grim echo of the scandal involving children at Liverpool's Alder Hey hospital in 1999 — the year Regan died.

A total of 2,080 hearts from babies and the organs of more than 800 other youngsters were "harvested" and kept without consent.

Staff also retained 400 foetuses collected from the region's hospitals.

An inquiry report published in 2001 triggered an outcry when it was revealed Dutch pathologist Dick van Velzen had systematically ordered the "unethical and illegal stripping" of every organ from every child who had a post mortem in his time at the hospital.

He admitted using some for research without the permission of a coroner or the consent of parents. He was eventually banned from practising medicine in the UK.

In some cases Alder Hey parents had organs returned to them for burial only to face the agony of another funeral months later when more tissue samples were handed back.

The report also revealed that more than 104,000 organs, body parts and entire bodies of foetuses and stillborn babies were stored in 210 NHS facilities.

It later emerged Alder Hey and Birmingham Children's Hospital had given thymus glands, removed from live children during heart surgery, to a pharmaceutical firm for research in return for financial donations.

In 2003 claims by families of Alder Hey victims were settled out of court for £5million — or an average of £5,000 for each one.