MORE devastated mums have told of their heartbreak at learning the brains of their children were secretly stored at Southampton General Hospital.

The anguished mothers are demanding to know why the brains have been kept at the hospital for up to 15 years instead of being buried with the bodies.

One mum, Maria Luke, 58, from Southampton, said she could no longer bear to visit the grave of her son Kevin, who died of organ failure in 1995 aged 15, after she discovered the hospital secretly kept his brain.

At least three other mums have been told the brains of the dead children were kept without their knowledge at the hospital.

The fresh revelations come after the another woman was told this week that the brain of her six-week-old son had been found in a jar at the hospital 13 years after he died of cot death.

Hospital bosses said they were acting as a “storage facility” on the request of the police and coroner's office.

The Daily Echo can also reveal today that Hampshire police kept the body parts from 20 people in storage - and some relations may not have known they had them.

Ms Luke said she contacted the hospital four years after her son died and “cried for days” when she was told her son's brain was removed in a post mortem, kept for six weeks then later thrown away. “We were disgusted,” she said.

She said she used to lay flowers at the cemetery where Kevin was born but has not visited for years.

She said: "It doesn't feel like it's really him there, it feels like a shell.

"His brain is him, it's his personality, his memories."

Kevin had Tuberous sclerosis, a rare genetic disease that causes non-malignant tumours on the brain and other organs. He suffered heart and kidney failure in 1995.

Mum Julie Middleton, 40, said she was devastated by the news this week that her son Regans' brain had been kept in a jar at the hospital. The revelation resulted from a nationwide police audit into human tissue samples.

The mum of four daughters, aged 16, 13, nine and five, said: “I just felt numb. I was angry. I felt the wheel of grief all over again.

“What got to me was that he (Regan) was not together, he was here, there and everywhere. When he was carried in a coffin we thought he was whole.

“People that I trusted let me down. I knew tissue samples were being removed, I didn't know a whole organ was being removed.”

Human tissues and organs are retained in cases where they may be needed for police investigations, but since a change in the law in 2006 relatives must be informed.

As part of an audit launched by the Association of Chief Police Officers police forces nationwide have been ordered to draw up list of post mortem samples kept in storage.

Specially trained officers have been visiting relatives involved to tell them they still have the remains.

In Hampshire's audit, which concluded in October, police identified 20 cases where “significant organ tissue” was found to have been retained.

Dorset Police declined to reveal how many other families were involved.

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the General, said it takes bodies from around the region for post-mortem and is often asked by police or coroner for organs to be retained in ongoing investigations.

A spokesman said: “We are asked to hold these specimens (at the request of the police/coroner) until told what they want us to do, for example sensitively dispose or return to families for burial.”