Horror of the families caught in Sellafield organ scandal

Relatives have reacted with horror to news that tissue samples, which could include hearts, lungs and other organs, were taken from at least 65 staff over a period of 29 years.

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It is not known whether families of the deceased, who were mostly from the Sellafield plant, were properly informed about the practice, which was carried out to establish if the workers had radiation damage.

Launching the inquiry, Trade Secretary Alistair Darling insisted that living relatives of those involved are told "sensitively" over the next few days.

But it will take months to discover the full facts about the tissue sampling which went on from 1962 to 1991.

BNFL is expected to have to check medical records for 20,000 staff to discover the full extent of the problem.

The inquiry will look into the medical records of 57 workers at Sellafield, six at Aldermaston in Berkshire, one at Springfields in Lancashire and one at Capenhurst in Cheshire, who had transferred from Sellafield.

British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which operates Sellafield in Cumbria, said in most cases the tissue was taken following a coroner's request – suggesting at least some information may have been available to families.

But it said that in a handful of cases no record of consent exists at all.

In an emergency statement to the House of Commons, Mr Darling said the families of workers "wanted answers".

Michael Redfern QC – who conducted the inquiry into the Alder Hey hospital scandal where body parts from more than 850 infants were stored secretly – has been asked to carry out the investigation.

Gerald Walker, 52, whose father Roland Walker began work at Sellafield in the early Fifties and died at 69 in 1989, said: "This issue needs to be investigated. I knew my father had a post-mortem but nothing was mentioned about retaining any organs. I would be very angry if I found out that one of my father's organs was taken."

The widow of another Sellafield worker described the practice as "arrogant and cold-hearted".

The 58-year-old, from Whitehaven, said: "I don't even want to think that my husband could have been one of those people. It is too horrific to consider after all these years."

The tissues were taken to Sellafield, Britain's largest nuclear plant, from all the sites after post-mortem for examination and kept in freezers.

BNFL said the tissue was destroyed during analysis.

It added: "Files exist at Sellafield for 65 cases. In 56 of those cases the sampling was done associated with coroners' post-mortems or inquests.

"In five other cases it was done under instruction from other legally correct bases, such as family solicitors.

"For the remaining four cases there is no record of instruction or consent although this does not mean appropriate requests were not made.

"There is no tissue stored on site today and taking samples for radiological analysis ceased in 1992."

Mr Darling told the Commons it was "assumed" the requests were made to help establish the cause of death of as part of a coroner's inquiry.

"But we cannot be sure of that because there is not an audit trail," he said.

"It is clearly important to establish why these requests were made.

"The records held by BNFL do not disclose whether the next of kin knew of these examinations and analysis. That needs to be established.

"Most cases appeared to come following a coroner's request. It is possible, therefore, that in some cases there was such knowledge.

"But it is not clear that even if they had known about the analysis, they would have been aware that data was used as part of wider research studies. It will be necessary to examine the coroner's records."

The UK Atomic Energy Authority will also look at data from its former research sites at Dounreay, Windscale (as Sellafield used to be called), Harwell and Winfrith to discover if similar tissue sampling took place.