THE family of a young holidaymaker who died in a Greek hospital plan to take their campaign for the truth to the country's authorities.

Christopher Rochester, 24, of Chester-le-Street, County Durham, died after a balcony fall while visiting his brother in Rhodes in June 2000.

His condition was misdiagnosed, he was neglected and his body was returned minus one kidney. When the organ was eventually returned, DNA tests revealed it not to be Christopher's.

His mother Pam and step-father George Cummings are still awaiting answers about the tragedy from the Greek authorities.

In the meantime, backed by North Durham MP Kevan Jones and North-East Euro-MP Stephen Hughes, they are urging people to boycott Greece as a holiday destination because of the poor standard of medical care given to tourists.

The couple now hope to fly out to Greece later this year to have their questions answered by Greek ministers.

Mr Cummings said the Euro-MP was looking to arrange meetings in Brussels with EC officials and in Greece, which he hoped would include the country's justice and health ministers and would take place in March.

He said the family had still not received a report into the tragedy from the Greek authorities.

"We had been promised a report for the end of November, then the end of December. We don't know when it will be released now.

"I think the Greek authorities have no defence and anything they release to this family of the Foreign Office will shoot them in the foot.

"They think that if they keep their heads down long enough we'll have gone away. This family will never go away and the sooner they realise, the sooner they will answer the questions we have been asking for 18 months.

"We are sick and tired of waiting for any little snippet of information from Greece.

"We are going to receive nothing so we are going to take our case to Brussels and Athens.

"We are going to ask them to answer the basic questions we have been asking - where is Christopher's kidney and why have the four medical people on duty that night not been held accountable in any way for their gross medical negligence.''

Mr Cummings said some people were heeding the family's holiday boycott campaign.

"I have had several people coming up and saying they are going on holiday but they won't go to Greece.''