CM v Executor of the Estate of EJ (deceased) and another [2013] EWHC 1680 (Fam), [2013] All ER (D) 148 (Jun)
Family Division, Cobb J, 14 June 2013
The Family Division has an inherent jurisdiction to authorise the removal, storage and use of a deceased’s human tissue samples, and may do so in order to ascertain whether the deceased had in fact been suffering from any serious blood-borne illness that might have been transferred to a person treating the deceased shortly before the death.
James Berry (instructed by RadcliffesLeBrasseur) for CM. The first respondent executor and the coroner were neither present nor represented.
The applicant, CM, was a medical doctor, a consultant and professor at one of London’s principal teaching hospitals. In May 2013, she was driving home, off duty, when she saw the body of the deceased, EJ, lying motionless on the pavement. EJ was seriously injured and had bled profusely. CM performed emergency first aid on EJ but the latter died at the scene. In the course of the resuscitative
