Parents bury wrong baby

Grieving parents buried the wrong baby after a distressing mix-up by funeral directors.

The distraught couple were forced to hold a second ceremony for their own child when the undertakers told them that they had buried another newborn by mistake.

Staff at the Watford branch of the Co-operative Funeral Service told the parents that their baby had been found at the funeral parlour - three days after the funeral in St Albans last Friday. The family, who do not wish to be named, then held a second ceremony at the same cemetery yesterday afternoon.

Parents of the baby mistakenly buried last week agreed that the coffin containing their child's body should be not be disturbed.

Co-operative officials have accepted full responsibility for the mix-up and have suspended two employees from their Watford branch while an investigation is carried out.

A spokesman said: "This was a regrettable identification error for which we were responsible. The family of the first baby have requested that the buried baby should remain undisturbed, and the other was buried nearby.

"As soon as the error was spotted, we alerted the hospital and we have obviously expressed our regret to both families.

"As a result of this incident, we have suspended two members of staff while we carry out a full investigation. It would appear at this stage that our very strict identification procedures were not followed. This is obviously deeply distressing for the families involved. It is a rare occurrence but will be fully investigated."

A spokeswoman for West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust said that staff at Watford General Hospital were not responsible for the mistake.

She said: "Our only involvement has been to support the families through a very distressing experience. We have worked with the undertaker for many years and have always found them helpful and professional. This is clearly a regrettable and unique incident which does not relate to the trust."

In 1997, a worker at a Cooperative Funeral Services office in Nottingham was dismissed after a similar mistake. In that case, a family unwittingly cremated an empty coffin before the body of their child was found at the undertakers.

Babies who die in hospital are brought to the undertakers in a special Moses basket to enable families to pay their respects. Bodies are then transferred to a coffin under the supervision of funeral staff.

Arranging funerals for babies is an emotive issue. Thousands of parents have held more than one funeral for their children after discovering that hospitals took illegal organ and tissue samples from their children's bodies.

Alder Hey hospital was at the centre of the scandal in 1999 when it was revealed that a doctor based at the Liverpool site hoarded thousands of organs without the consent of parents.