The body of a County Durham man who died on the Greek island of Rhodes 11 years ago has been exhumes so a row over a missing organ can be settled.

Christopher died after falling from a balcony, but one of his kidneys was missing when his body was flown home. An organ later sent pout failed a DNA match and hence the Greek authorities have further demanded further samples from the body.

A forensic team from Durham police led the exhumation at Ropery Cemetery lane in Chester-le-Street on Monday. A Greek doctor was convicted of neglecting Mr. Rochester during his treatment in hospital after a trial in 2008. Rochester’s mother and step-father Pam and George Cummings has long claimed for action against kidney-mix up. Mr. Cummings said that if they wanted the DNA then they would have taken sample from Christopher’s mother and that was enough” but sadly the Greek authorities stood by their request for Christopher’s body to be exhumed and to extract DNA from the source.

North Durham MP Kevan Jones who has campaigned on behalf of the family added “Chris fell off a balcony and survived. He had a small tear on one of the arteries going to his kidney, which lead him to death due to severe bleeding. If action would have taken, he would have survived”.

The kidney, which was important in determining how he died, was missing and he was replaced with another kidney, which was not Christopher’s. This was a key point in proving that there was negligence.

DNA samples taken from Christopher will be sent to a laboratory in Belgium for independent analysis.

Report by Alka