PARENTS involved in an organ retention row have criticised a doctor's decision to stand as a candidate against Health Secretary Alan Milburn.

The move comes after Midlands pathologist Dr Craig Platt, who is standing in Darlington, was reported to have said that pathologists had been hampered by increasing government regulations.

But parents of children whose organs were taken and kept without their consent at Alder Hey Hospital, on Merseyside, said they were appalled at the comments.

Jan Robinson, of the Parents Interring Their Young Twice group, Pity II, said: "Pathologists claim they were being subjected to a witch-hunt because of Alder Hey, but I have no sympathy for them.

"We have parents in our group whose children died 40 years ago, and they are finding out their heart and lungs have been kept.

"I feel the public really need to have the other side of the story and pathologists need to stop portraying themselves as badly done to."