FOR the last four years of her life it was all she wanted. But tragic mum Margaret Yule died without ever seeing justice done.

Her life had been turned upside down in March 2000 when she discovered organs including the brain of her baby son, who had died from cot death 17 years earlier, had been retained at Southampton General Hospital.

Since receiving the devastating blow she, along with thousands of other parents, had fought to get the case to the High Court.

Sadly, just three days before a trial date was finally announced, Margaret died.

The 45-year-old had sunk deep into depression after discovering that organs belonging to her three-month-old baby boy Peter had been kept against her will.

Her worst fears about just what happened to the tot were confirmed to her on March 1, 2000. She had made enquiries after becoming suspicious watching a Panorama programme.

A hospital boss told her in a phone call to her home in Carnation Road, Bassett, that Peter's brain and some other body tissues had been retained.

Mrs Yule's depression became so bad that she refused to leave the house, even to visit Peter's grave, ever again.

Instead she became overweight and died after suffering a heart attack.

Mrs Yule was one of a number of people planning to sue the NHS as part of a multi-party High Court compensation claim.

Her daughter, Sarah, received a date for the hearing just three days after her mum's death, but said the four-year fight for justice had finally taken its toll on her.

Miss Yule, 26, said: "She just went into complete depression. She didn't go out of the house for a good few years because of it, she wouldn't even go to the cemetery.

"She died from a heart attack because she was overweight and she was overweight because she didn't go out.

"She didn't go out because she was depressed and she was depressed because of the organ retention. So me and my other two younger brothers feel this killed our mother."

The mother-of-two, from Irving Road, Maybush, is hoping to go to the High Court trial on January 26, which is expected to last for at least a month.

Siobhan Davies, associate solicitor with Clarke Willmott in Bristol, which is representing the majority of people in the claim, said about 2,200 families were involved.She said it was not possible to say how much compensation they would receive if the claim was successful.

But she added: "We carried out a ballot to see what our clients wanted and they instructed us that they wanted to claim maximum compensation.

"You can't go to these things with a definite figure in mind, but if you look at Alder Hey, which was a similar case, they were awarded £5,000 per death, so that's the ball park."

But Miss Yule said any compensation the family received would now have to pay for their mother's funeral which took place following her death last November, instead of going to charity as they had first planned.

She added: "Sometimes I think 'why did she delve into it?' because it's caused so much devastation, but you can't just take things from children without the parents' consent.

"Mum always said she would have given them the organs if they'd asked.

"It's hard enough to lose a child without 17 years on discovering that his body parts had been taken."

The Daily Echo revealed in May last year that Southampton General Hospital had retained a total of 2,000 whole organs, mostly brains, from patients for research.

Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman Marilyn Kay said it was not possible to comment on individual cases because of patient confidentiality.

But she said: "We regret that the issue of retained organs has caused families distress."

Efforts kept families informed

Efforts kept families informed

SOUTHAMPTON University Hospitals NHS Trust carried out a number of measures to ensure families whose relatives' organs had been retained were kept fully informed.

A helpline was set up during the Bristol inquiry which received a total of 1,500 calls from concerned families following that and the Alder Hey inquiry.

Senior staff including chaplains, nurses and pathologists were specially trained to man the helpline and talk to callers.

Careful searches were made of all laboratories to establish exactly how many organs had been retained and families traced through the trust's comprehensive database.

Families were invited to visit the hospital for meetings or home visits were arranged if they preferred when they were able to talk to chaplains and nurses trained in bereavement counselling.

Trust spokesman Marilyn Kay said: "We were very open and honest from the word go.

"We held a media briefing so that it got the information out to as many people as possible and most of the senior staff were involved in that.

"But we never lost sight of the fact that there was enormous gratitude at being able to retain organs because of the good it had done in helping us find out things about genetic problems and research into diseases."

The organ retention helpline number is 023 8079 5075.