A MOTHER who discovered skin samples from her stillborn baby were taken without consent has won a four-year battle for compensation.

Zoe Clarke, from Darlington, said she was pleased after a High Court judge ruled she will be compensated for the suffering she endured when doctors removed tissue from her child for medical research.

Mrs Clarke, nee Holman, suffered depression and blames the ordeal for the break-up of her marriage after she discovered tissue had been taken from son Owen without her permission.

Her family also had to go through the distress of a second funeral for the baby, after the body tissue was returned.

Mrs Clarke has received written confirmation that she will be compensated following a ruling by Justice Gage in the High Court in London.

She said last night: "I am relieved that it is all over. We have been locked in a legal battle for four years.

"We had originally been offered £250 each. It was an insult, so we decided to go to court.

"I am just waiting to hear from the judge to find out what compensation we are getting. I am over the moon with the ruling.

"No amount of money can make up for losing my son and what happened to him, but the NHS had never even said sorry."

Mrs Clarke contacted the South Durham NHS Trust hotline after an information ban on NHS Trusts was lifted in the wake of the Alder Hey organ retentions scandal in Liverpool.

She found out that skin samples from her son's legs and arms had been removed at Darlington Memorial Hospital for medical research without permission.

Mrs Clarke joined together with the Nationwide Organ Retention Group, representing families outside Liverpool, to fight for compensation. About 30 families from the North-East were represented by Hartlepool solicitors Tilley, Bailey and Irvine.

Justice Gage ruled that the practice of organ removal was unlawful and said organs had been taken in a morally and ethically "objectionable practice".

Those families whose dead relatives had organs removed following coroners' post-mortem examinations will not receive any compensation but those taken after hospital examinations would get payouts, the judge ruled.