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Today's Date

Crown Prosecution Service

You will probably have seen the extensive media reports when the CPS released their advice in December to Merseyside Police in relation to the Royal Liverpool Children's Inquiry - the Redfern Report.

The advice falls into two parts.

The first deals with the removal and retention of organs without consent at post-mortem examination.

The second deals with issues relating to Professor Dick van Velzen.

With regard to the removal and retention of organs without consent, briefly, the CPS state that although they are sympathetic to those who have been affected and recognise the distress and suffering that has been caused by this practice, they say, quote: " It would be wrong to advise the police to commence an investigation, though, where there is no prospect of being able to establish that a criminal offence has been committed".

This speaks for itself. There is no law in this country that states that the removal and retention of human organs at post-mortem examination without the knowledge or consent of parents or relatives is an illegal act or in the words of the CPS, quote: " does not constitute a criminal act "

With relation to the Refern Report's criticism of the conduct of Professor van Velzen in that he went much further than others in terms of the extent of the removal of organs, the same principals apply. i.e. no criminal offence was committed.

The second part deals with personal issues relating to Professor van Velzen other than organ stripping and retention.

The CPS have advised the police that there are other issues addressed in the Redfern Report that give rise to reasonable suspicion that a criminal offence may have been committed and that these issues refer to allegations in relation to misconduct, dishonesty and the falsification of post mortem examination reports. The CPS, in this instance, has advised the police that there are grounds to start a criminal investigation. The falsification of Reports comes under that category of 'Misconduct in a Public Office'

With regard to the future outcome?

The last two paragraphs of the CPS announcement are reproduced as follows. QUOTE:

The Code for Crown Prosecutors.

"At this stage it is impossible for us to give any view as to whether an investigation would reveal enough to prosecute the case, i.e. sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. Equally, until the specific detail of any resulting investigation is known, we cannot judge at what public interest issues may arise. However, on what is known at present, the police have been advised that our view is that the above matters should be investigated."

Extradition

"We understand that Professor van Velzen's present whereabouts are unknown. His last known address was in Holland. Our enquiries indicate that, while it would be possible to extradite Professor van Velzen for the dishonesty matters, it would not be possible to extradite him for the offence of Misconduct in a Public Office, as there is no similar offence in the Netherlands. In these circumstances, we would be unable to request his extradition for this offence. We will discuss the implications of the extradition issues with the police as their investigation progresses"

ENDS

It has not been explained what form the police investigations will take or any details given at all of the evidence gathering process.

For example, Will the families involved be included in the investigations and if so, how?
In the meantime, if you feel that you have evidence relating to the issues for investigation that you think the police should know about, it is important that you pass it on to them.

So, with regard to the stripping and retention of organs from the bodies of our children without our knowledge or consent, again it appears that no one is to be made accountable. The above investigations relate to Professor van Velzen only.

We have a copy of the CPS press release and an 'extract' of the relevant parts of the CPS advice to the police. A copy is available to members on request.

 

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