A FAMILY is demanding justice after their sister travelled to Lourdes seeking healing from her cerebral palsy but returned with two broken legs.

The family of wheelchair-bound Patricia Mitchell says she suffered the injuries when she fell out of a hoist.

She survived the fall, but – her family claim – never recovered and died earlier this year, aged 63.

Now sisters Pauline Scarr and Terry Featherstone are suing the organisers of her French pilgrimage.

If successful, they could get compensation running into tens of thousands of pounds.

However, they say they just want justice for their sister.

Mrs Featherstone, 60, said: “You go to Lourdes to get cured and she came back with two broken legs.

It’s unbelievable.”

Mrs Scarr, 62, said: “We want justice now for Patricia. I want answers.”

Mrs Mitchell, from Bowburn, near Durham City, was born with cerebral palsy, meaning she could never work.

But she battled on, surviving breast cancer and the death of her husband, Ian Mitchell, in 1995.

A devout Roman Catholic, she travelled to Lourdes, a popular pilgrimage site in south-west France said to have witnessed many miraculous healings, several times – on one occasion meeting Pope John Paul II.

She returned for a £450 weeklong stay in August 2005, with HCPT: The Pilgrimage Trust and Disabled Together.

Two volunteer carers had just helped bathe Mrs Mitchell when fell about 4ft to the ground from a hoist.

She was assessed by a nurse but was judged to have sustained no serious injuries, her sisters say.

It was only when Mrs Mitchell returned to the North-East that it emerged she had broken her left leg in three places and her right leg once. For a time, doctors feared they may have to amputate.

After a few weeks, Mrs Mitchell left hospital but – her sisters say – was never the same and died on February 4.

Mrs Scarr said: “It’s so sad. She was disabled, but she led a good life and I think if it wasn’t for the fall, she would still be here today.”

A spokesman for HCPT said he was unable to comment as the matter was with the organisation’s insurers.

Disabled Together did not respond to The Northern Echo’s request for an interview.