A GRIEVING couple has been awarded more than £50,000 compensation after being mistakenly given a bag containing their dead son's organs.

Carole Raeburn believed she was unpacking her son Wayne's belongings but was horrified when she found what the bag really contained.

The horrified mot-her says her life and the lives of her family will never be the same again after being mistakenly given the bag of 26-year-old Wayne's organs.

Carole and her husband Colin, of Barnhorn Road, Bexhill, collected the bag from funeral directors Mummery Ltd after it had been passed to the firm, along with Wayne's body, after a post-mortem examination at The Conquest Hospital, Hastings.

Thinking the yellow sealed bag contained nothing more than clothes and equipment from his work as a window cleaner in America, they loaded it into the boot of their car and went shopping.

When they got home, Mr Raeburn, a race driving instructor at Brands Hatch, left for work and his wife, eager to sort out Wayne's possessions, dipped her hand into one of the bags.

She said: "I couldn't understand why the contents felt mushy and thought perhaps the bags had got wet.

"I pulled out an object which I thought would be Wayne's belt but when I looked at it I realised it was an organ.

"I replaced the object in the bag and thought to myself that they had given me somebody's insides by mistake."

But to her horror the bag was marked with her son's name.

She said: "I dragged the bag out into the hall and just stood there for about 20 minutes in a state of complete shock.

"I couldn't let go of the bag."

In her panic she telephoned a relative and the funeral directors came to her home immediately to take it away.

The traumatic incident has haunted Carole, who thought of herself as Wayne's natural mother after marrying Colin when his son was a toddler.

She still has constant nightmares, has regular psychiatric treatment, cannot eat meat and is unable to even walk near the meatsection of her local supermarket.

Her psychiatrist, Dr Michael Bott, says the incident has left her with post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition she will never be totally free from.

Wayne died in March 1997 after being found by colleagues at his window cleaning firm, hanged from the top of a ten storey office block in Tampa, Florida.

He had fled to America after being wanted for questioning by police in Kent in connection with a fraud inquiry.

At an inquest held in Eastbourne on Tuesday, coroner Alan Craze said Wayne may have committed suicide but in the absence of a note or witnesses to his fall an open verdict was recorded.

The family decided to take action against Mummery Ltd's for not checking the bag and Hastings and Rother NHS Trust for not putting the organs back after the examination. But in August this year, after failing to secure legal aid, the family reluctantly accepted a £50,000 out-of-court settlement.

Mr Raeburn says the money, mostly used for legal costs, is nothing compared to what his family, including Wayne's brothers Jack, 11, Nicholas, 22, and Peter, 20, have had to endure.

Now they have decided to make the incident public in a bid to force funeral directors and hospitals tighten up procedure so this can never happen to another family again.

He said: "We have had to live with this for two years and more to come. It is unbelievable that this was ever allowed to happen. How much of this is going on?"

A spokesman for Hastings and Rother NHS Trust said the trust was not liable for Mummery's actions.

"However, since the incident the trust has reviewed its procedures and any organs which cannot be returned to a body following a post-mortem are now placed in a clear bag to avoid confusion."

Phil Edwards, from Mummery Ltd, said the damages were met two thirds by Mummerys and one third by the hospital.

"This is the only incident of its kind we have ever experienced and have worked to ensure it does not happen in the future," he added.

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