Bosses of the four Sussex hospitals named last week as having stored patients' organs took exception to our headline "Shame of the Body Snatchers."

Alan Randall, chief executive of Eastbourne Hospitals NHS Trust, writes on behalf of Robert Lapraik and Roger Greene, chief executives of the Royal West Sussex and Worthing & Southlands Hospitals NHS Trusts respectively, and David Long, director of general services at the Princess Royal, Haywards Heath, that it was "inaccurate, irresponsible and deeply damaging."

He continues: "Of course, everybody was shocked and disturbed by what had happened at Alder Hey but the situation in Sussex is fundamentally different in nature and scale.

"Hospitals have a responsibility to carry out post-mortems both on behalf of the coroner to assist in determining cause of death and, when requested, by doctors with the agreement of relatives to assist in learning lessons for future treatment.

"This work inevitably involves removing some tissue and organs for analysis within the laboratory under microscopes.

"We wonder how many of us would be prepared to carry out this difficult and often unpleasant work. Our consultant histopathologists and their teams do post mortems and take responsibility for the subsequent analysis work, day in day out.

"They often face the grim task of dealing with patients who have died in traumatic circumstances. They carry out their work with a high degree of professionalism and skill.

"It may suit us all not to think about the reality of their work and we rarely, if ever, think about the debt we owe them for undertaking such a demanding job.

"In the light of the horrors of Alder Hey it is perfectly right to challenge this practice and make sure that in future relatives are involved and consulted before organs are retained for longer than legally required.

"The consultant histopathologists and hospitals locally fully accept that these practices must change but to describe these highly professional and caring staff to whom we owe such an enormous debt as 'body snatchers' is shameful.

"Nobody could blame them if they reacted angrily or decided to leave their chosen profession. As a responsible paper, you owe them an apology."

You make your point well, gentlemen, but rather play down the crucial issue that hospitals had been supporting a practice of removing and storing organs without relatives' permission.

Professor Liam Donaldson said this was "shocking" to the public and supported by a law that was "unclear, ambiguous and ageing." I call it shameful. Why else would you, as our headline in later editions revealed, say "sorry"?

Apologies to Sussex police employees for the front page headline in Tuesday's AM edition, "Clean Up On Corruption" above the story about how the force was bringing in tougher vetting of some staff to prevent corruption (not cure) and leaks.

And thanks to Detective Constable Kevin Reay for pointing out the error and who says the staff affected have a proven record of reliability, honesty and integrity.

Last Saturday's report of a road accident on a bridge over the River Arun, near Steyning, should, of course, have referred to the River Adur. Thanks to Allan Shaw, from Upper Beeding, who calls it a "pathetic blunder" and Mr R Weedon, from Lancing, who jokes, "I don't know whether the Arun has changed coarse (sic) or Steyning has moved!" Anyway, apologies.

Still on geography and last Thursday's report of an award made to two Hove street cleaners for doing a good job - unlike our reporter who referred to the "town centre" when, of course, Hove is now part of our newly-created city, as Mr F W Parkhouse, of Brighton, spotted.

Still, I can think of a few Hove residents who wish we'd actually been right!