Greater Manchester police first to get sued but case could lead to similar legal action against other UK forces

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

The families of murder victims are taking legal action against police for secretly retaining the body parts of their relatives.

In the landmark legal action which could lead to a multi-million pound payout hundreds of families could be awarded compensation after police kept relatives’ organs without their consent, long after investigations into their deaths ended.

Bereaved mother Janine Aldridge, whose newborn baby, Leah, was murdered in 2002 by the child’s father, Andrew Ashurst, is the first to take legal action and is suing Greater Manchester police (GMP).

Aldridge, 32, had to hold three separate burials for her five-week-old daughter after new body parts were discovered.

The mother of three from Atherton in Greater Manchester said: “For years I was tormented by the images of parts of my little girl on dusty shelves in forgotten laboratories. I felt as though she was lost. I had to live through the trauma of losing my daughter to her own dad, then had to relive the nightmare over and over again at her funerals.

“But my primary concern is this should never happen to any other family. I’m suing police for the distress that they have caused to me and my family. It’s been absolutely heartbreaking.”

Aldridge’s daughter was poorly and not sleeping when she was shaken to death by her father. Ashurst was jailed for three years for manslaughter.

Her body was returned to the family for burial but in 2017 Aldridge discovered that all of her internal organs and some other parts of her body were missing through Freedom of Information requests and postmortem papers.

Aldridge is among at least four families taking legal action against GMP. The case could lead to legal action being taken against forces across the UK.

Victims involved in the scandal include those of serial killers Harold Shipman and the Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

The family of Pauline Reade, who was murdered by Brady and Hindley in July 1963, buried her in Gorton in 1987 following the discovery of her body during a three-month search of Saddleworth Moors.

However, an audit staged after the death of Brady in May 2017 revealed that some of her remains were housed at the University of Leeds on behalf of GMP.

GMP contacted Jackie, Reade’s niece, before they returned a wooden coffin including her jaw bone and hair samples to the family’s solicitors.

Experts say the families could be awarded £5,000 each – the same amount given to the victims of the baby organ scandal at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool.

GMP said: “One family have made a complaint and this is subject to an investigation by GMP’s Professional Standards Branch.

“Officers continue to maintain regular contact with Janine Aldridge. It would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this stage.”

In 2012 an official investigation found that police forces have stored almost 500 major body parts, including organs, unnecessarily without telling the victims’ families.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says the human tissue samples were from murder investigations or cases involving other suspicious deaths that date back as far as the 1960s.

An Acpo audit found that the 492 body parts retained by police forces in England and Wales included brains, hearts and limbs.

Police say there is a legal requirement for them to retain human body tissue samples after a postmortem in murder cases and those where a coroner believes there were suspicious circumstances.

The body parts can be stored “until the convicted prisoner has served his sentence” but it is thought that the samples uncovered by the Acpo audit relate to cases no longer subject to investigation.

The audit did not include samples from current criminal investigations or cases that were still subject to appeal.