A COUPLE whose daughter's organs were retained at Alder Hey Hospital today said they were angry and appalled that doctors and medical staff had been cleared of wrong doing.

Jane and Peter Morris, of Cliviger, said the news that 15 people referred to the GMC had been found to have done nothing wrong left them fearing the matter had not been properly dealt with.

The couple's daughter Sophie died aged ten months in January 1993, 24 hours after heart surgery.

They were forced to hold a second funeral service last year after it emerged that the hospital had kept Sophie's heart and other organs.

Now the couple have said they will join 700 other parents affected in writing to health secretary Alan Milburn to express their anger at yesterday's decision.

Jane, 40, and Peter, 42, had hoped that a full investigation would expose those responsible. Then, in January, 16 doctors were referred to the GMC for investigation in connection with the Alder Hey organs scandal.

But yesterday Jane, a midwife at Burnley General Hospital, and Peter, a driving instructor, found out that only the case of a doctor who retired from his post as medical director of Alder Hey, four years ago, is still proceeding.

Ian Cohen, the solicitor who represents Alder Hey Support Group Pity2 revealed he had been notified that all bar one of the '16 or 17' doctors and medical staff referred to chief medical officer Liam Donaldson and the General Medical Council in the wake of the inquiry into the scandal, published in January, had been cleared.

A General Medical Council spokeswoman said she was unable to comment on the claims and Alder Hey NHS Trust said it had received no official notification of the decision.

The GMC inquiry was conducted in private, despite calls for public accountability.

Mr Cohen said: "Only one of all those doctors has been sent forward to the Professional Conduct Committee (of the General Medical Council). Without them being put before a formal committee at this screening stage, they have decided that there is no case to answer.

"When you consider the emotive language used by Health Secretary Alan Milburn at the time of the inquiry regarding issues of openness and honesty in the NHS, this is going to create an awful lot of anger."

Prof Dick van Velzen, a former pathologist at the Liverpool hospital, is already under investigation.

Jane said the decision felt like the GMC, which is run by doctors, was closing up to protect its own.

She said the health service was trying to be more open, and this would not help challenge an image of secrecy.

An inquiry report, released in January, said that often there was no medical purpose for keeping organs at the hospital, which, as a regional centre for child care, treated scores of children from East Lancashire.

Jane said they received a letter from the hospital last week which informed them that more of Sophie's organs could now be returned to them.

This, coupled with yesterday's decision, makes it difficult for them to move on with their lives.

Jane said: "We still have some organs that we have to decide what to do with.

"We had a letter last week saying we could get the organs because a moratorium had been lifted.

"We've already had enough services so I don't know what we are going to do with them."

"I'm appalled by the decision yesterday but it doesn't surprise me.

"I just think that the health service is trying to make things more open at the moment and this doesn't reassure people."