A TRAGIC mother today called for an overhaul of guidelines governing how sudden infant deaths are investigated after she was cleared of killing two of her children.

Donna Hanson, of Church Street, Accrington, believes proposed new rules governing paediatric and pathology probes have to be brought in to ensure no-one suffers in the way she did.

Last week, an inquest into the death of three-month-old Toby Woods, in September 1999, returned a verdict of natural causes -- effectively ending a nightmare which began in the weeks after Toby died. Donna had been under suspicion of murdering Toby -- and another of her sons, Ashley, who died in December 1998 -- until last year, when police said they wouldn't bring charges.

A verdict of natural causes was given for Ashley's death in 1999.

Toby's inquest comes just three weeks after the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health drew up new guidelines for investigating sudden unexplained infant death. Their aim is to reduce the risk of mothers being wrongly accused by only using pathologists specially trained in children's medicine.

They call for all those involved in investigations to keep open minds and only to consider prosecution once all the evidence is available. One of the reasons Donna was under suspicion for so long is because medics were still gathering evidence after she was accused.

Donna, who has one other child, said: "I would hope that no-one ever has to go through what I have been through. It has been a nightmare which just kept going on. I think people need to look at what happened here and in other cases and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Donna also hopes the way information is passed between hospitals about patients will improve. Doctors at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital did diagnose a possible cause for Toby's sudden collapses, but failed to flag it up.

As a result, nurses at both RMCH and Queen's Park Hospital, where Toby was also treated, continued to think Donna was causing the collapses by harming her child.