When 15-year-old Shauna Davison was operated on in 2012, researchers from University College London seemed to think that her transplant could pave to way to a medical breakthrough.

Her family agreed to her undergoing an experimental “tissue engineered” trachea transplant, and scientists hoped that their regenerative stem cell treatment would transform the quality of life for thousands of people suffering from windpipe and voice box difficulties.

Her smiling face was – until recently – paraded on UCL’s website on a page where it boasts about its “life-saving” operations.

Following Miss Davison’s operation, the UCL team of researchers successfully applied for millions of pounds of Government funding for clinical trials, which were given the green light from the UK’s regulatory authorities.

But there was one important point that had been overlooked: Miss Davison’s transplant was a disaster. Within two weeks of the operation, her new trachea had collapsed leading her to suffer irreversible brain damage after suffocating.

It emerged that doctors had failed to tell Miss Davison and her mother Karen that another young woman, Keziah Shorten, had already died after undergoing a similar transplant two years earlier.

They were told about Ciaran Finn-Lynch from Barnet, north London, who was given a trachea transplant in 2010, at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).