THE North-East family who were forced by Greek authorities to exhume the body of their son have branded the country "evil" for their lack of subsequent co-operation.

Christopher Rochester from Chester-le-Street, County Durham, died after falling from a balcony on the Greek Island of Rhodes in 2000, aged 24.

He died of internal bleeding after being left on a trolley in a Greek hospital unattended for three hours.

When his body was flown home to Britain it was missing a kidney.

A kidney was later sent to the UK at the request of his family, but testing revealed it was not Mr Rochester's.

But Greece refused to accept the finding, insisting that Mr Rochester's family dig up his remains to extract further DNA for testing in Belgian, a neutral country in the affair.

Now, eight months on from the exhumation Mr Rochester's stepfather George Cummings has revealed the Greeks remain uncooperative, unwilling to release the results of the Belgian tests.

He said: "We've got to keep the case moving and we are absolutely disgusted that after eight months we are no further forward after the horror the family have gone through.

"Chris has been disturbed for no purpose other than to satisfy the evil intentions of the Greeks."

He said that the exhumation and re-burial of Mr Rochester's remains has had a traumatic effect on the family, including Mr Rochester's litte sister, Liz, 18.

It took ten years of campaigning before the family received wider support from British authorities, helped by North Durham MP Kevan Jones.

Durham Police have been assisting Mr Cummings and his wife, Pam, Mr Rochester's mother, organising the exhumation last June.

Mr Cummings is now convinced that the tests have proven to Greece that the kidney did not belong to Mr Rochester.

He says the Belgians have refused to reveal the results of the tests to the family directly because they were commissioned by Greece.