Legal Action
Following the truth about Brendan's post mortem and the revelation's that his body parts were retained, I approached a solicitor Mr Ken Thomas of Harding Evans solicitor's in Newport. Mr Ken Thomas is one of the few medical negligence solicitors in Wales.
I went see him not originally to seek financial compensation for the retention of Brendan's body parts but for some kind of retribution against the Gwent healthcare NHS Trust and their Chief Executive, Martin Turner.
I had been told by Martin Turner for 2½ years that they had NEVER carried out post mortems on children, NEVER carried out a post mortem on my son Brendan and therefore could not possibly hold any parts of him. This was an out and out deliberate and malicious lie that has caused me psychological problems for over the last four years.
During the interview with Mr Thomas it became clear that I was not in a financial position to take the Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust on by myself, but there was a multi-party action against the NHS generally that was being formed by many other people who were in a similar situation as myself, so I joined this.
On January 24, 2004 this civil case opened in the High Court in London and was being heard before the Honourable Mr Justice Gage. The case was heard for about three weeks and then we waited until the judgement was heard in court on March 26, 2004.
There were three test case's, two of these were coroner post mortem's and the third was a hospital post mortem such as in my case.
Of the three test cases, the coroner post mortem's lost but the hospital post mortem's won. At present the legal eagles are mulling over the verdict to see what this actually means.
To read the Judgement of this case then please click HERE then click on the webpage HTML symbol ab-v-nhs_trusts.htm at the bottom of the page.
The judgement says that the medical profession should have known that when the parents or relatives found out that organs, body parts or samples of their loved ones had been removed and kept then this would have caused psychiatric injury and therefore the actions of these medical staff was ILLEGAL. As far I am concerned, the lies that I was told, aided and abetted these illegal acts and are themselves, ILLEGAL.
Although initially I did not seek financial compensation for this wilful act, it seems that this may BE the only retribution I will get, so I will take it. What I want obviously can be seen by the theme that runs through this website,
HEADS to ROLL
and 'heads to roll' as same as anyone else who fails to do his job properly, get your cards, up the road and more importantly, NO severance money.
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Update's to the Judgement of March 26, 2004
The update's below are from the lead solicitors in the case and outlines the position between the parties since the judgement of March 26, 2004 in the High Court, London by the Honourable Mr Justice Gage.
Summary of Judgement
May 26, 2004
July 12, 2004
August 3, 2004
August 24, 2004
Click images