Baby scandal hospital admits storing 400 foetuses

A spokesperson at the scandal-hit Alder Hey Hospital has confirmed that as many as 400 foetuses have been kept there.

A spokesperson at the scandal-hit Alder Hey Hospital has confirmed that as many as 400 foetuses have been kept there.

The hospital is already under investigation over the storing of organs from 800 babies and the retained foetuses were included in the external inquiry, the spokesman said.

A lawyer for Alder Hey parents' group Pity2, Ian Cohen, told BBC News 24 that keeping the foetuses had been "wrong".

He said it appeared the foetuses had been kept without the permission of the parents.

A spokesman for Alder Hey said that parents' groups had been told about the collection of foetuses in December last year and added that talks were going on to decide what should be done with them.

The foetuses were sent to the Liverpool hospital by other hospitals in the city and the majority were from stillbirths and terminations.

They were collected by Professor Dick Van Velzen, the pathologist at the centre of the organ retention scandal at the hospital, who also carried out pathology work for other hospitals.

He worked at the hospital between 1988 and 1995 and the foetuses date back to that time.

Some have been used for research at Liverpool University.