A GWENT mother whose son's tissues were retained by a hospital says she is still struggling to put the trauma behind her.

Sue Rogers discovered in 2001 that the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, had kept tissue from her son Gareth Freeman, who died in 1981 aged 22 months, of bronchial pneumonia and a chest infection.

She suffered a nervous breakdown - and in 2001 learned some of her son's tissues had been kept by the Royal Gwent.

"When the Alder Hey organ retention scandal came up I phoned up the Royal Gwent Hospital and said: 'you don't happen to have any of my son there do you?' " she said.

"They said no, but a couple of weeks later I had a letter saying they had found some of Gareth."

Mrs Rogers, aged 46, of Llanyravon, Cwmbran, forced herself to go to the hospital and saw the tissues.

"I tried hiding it because I didn't want to upset my family again," she said.

"They have been through enough without this. They told my ex-husband Gary Freeman, Gareth's dad, that they had nothing of Gareth's so when I told him it came as a great shock."

Then Mrs Rogers read an article in the Argus about someone suing over the issue. But she was told she couldn't get legal aid as she and husband Stephen both work.

Now the mother-of-four, who has remarried, has missed the July 31 deadline for compensation claims and says she feels like the law is against her.

"I feel like we are the forgotten people. It makes victims of people and it's not fair. This has already been proven, the hospital has admitted it, so why are we forced to pay to get what others are having?

"I thought it was all over and done with. My son was gone and I had to live with the fact. This has smacked me in the face and brought it all back. It just shouldn't be like this, I shouldn't have to go through this again."