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Tragedy of body in mortuary unclaimed for 10 years
A BODY has lain unclaimed in a council morgue for the past 10 years, a Yorkshire Post investigation has revealed.
Hull City Council has declined to say why the frozen body has been kept for so long, stating only that it is taking steps to resolve the "unusual situation".
The revelation comes just weeks after Leeds nurse Helen Smith was finally laid to rest more than 30 years after she fell to her death from a balcony in Saudi Arabia.
Her father had her body kept in a Leeds mortuary in the hope of proving her death was not an accident.
Hull Council said it has written to the Hull and East Riding coroner asking for the body to be released for burial. The coroner's office is understood to be in contact with the deceased's next of kin in Nigeria, and the case is expected to be resolved in January.
Andy Brown, the council's head of customer services, said: "The decision to release the body rests with the coroner, not with Hull City Council. We have requested that the coroner release the body and he is reviewing this request."
Contested wills, murder hunts and problems identifying anonymous corpses are among the other reasons why bodies have been stored for long periods in Yorkshire's mortuaries.
Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust's mortuary contains the only other body still retained more than six months after death. The trust has been holding a corpse since January owing to a legal case involving the family of the deceased person, who died from a perforated and obstructed bowel and consequent stroke.
Harrogate and District Hospital said that during the past decade it had kept one body for a three-year period, adding only that such incidences are normally at the request of the coroner – particularly when a corpse cannot be identified.
This was also the situation regarding the body of baby Leah who was kept at Friarage Hospital in Northallerton for 12 months during 2008 and 2009, after her corpse was found in woodland. Police attempted without success to trace her mother before Leah was finally laid to rest in June.
Airedale General Hospital at Keighley said it had also held a body for 12 months in recent years at the request of the police due to an ongoing murder inquiry. Sheffield City Council, said it kept the body of "a wealthy man" for 18 months during a will dispute.
York and Chesterfield Royal Hospitals both said they had kept bodies in storage for nine-months, while Bassetlaw Hospital near Worksop held a body for eight months "several years ago" for a murder investigation.
Doncaster Royal Infirmary held the corpse of an illegal immigrant for three months last year while trying to trace relatives.
Hospital bosses said it was difficult to estimate the daily cost of keeping a body within their facilities, though Airedale estimated it to be around 15 per day.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust failed to respond to the Post's Freedom of Information inquiry.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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