The hearing is being held at the GMC

Dr John Martin, who is now retired, was informed that "rogue" pathologist Dr Dick van Velzen had kept a 15-year-old child's organs without consent.

He was accused of not taking "adequate steps" to prevent this happening again.

However, he was found not guilty of serious professional misconduct after a three day hearing in Manchester.

More than a dozen doctors were referred to the GMC in the wake of the highly critical Redfern report into Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.

It found that thousands of organs had been "retained" by hospitals including Alder Hey, where Dr Martin was medical director until 1997.

Dr Martin's case is the only one which has led to a full hearing before its conduct committee, although some of the remaining doctors received letters warning them about their future conduct in the light of the report.

'Failed to act'

Dr Martin, from Flintshire in north Wales, was charged with "serious professional misconduct", accused of "failing to take adequate steps" when he was told in his capacity as Medical Director of problems with post-mortems and tissue samples at the trust.

On Monday, Andrew Collender QC, for the GMC, said Dr Martin was made aware of inadequacies in the hospital's pathology service by a written report from Professor van Velzen and a letter from Dr Heather McDowell in 1991.

The letter was concerned with delays in post-mortem reports.

Mr Collender said: "Dr Martin as medical director should have taken steps to act upon that information.

"The Council's case is that he took no proper steps to deal with that knowledge."

Dr Martin should also have acted, said Mr Collender, when he heard that Professor van Velzen had disregarded a request on a post mortem consent form for a 15-year-old boy - and taken more organs than the parents had wanted.

The GMC's counsel said that if he had taken action at this point, then future excesses could have been prevented.

The mother of the 15-year-old had to have a second funeral for her son years after his death when she realised the hospital had retained body parts without consent.

She told the hearing: "The pathologist had gone further than we had asked."

She said she never received any letter of explanation from Dr van Velzen even though Dr Martin had told her she would.

'Never again'

Dr Martin was referred to the GMC by England's Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, who pledged that a situation such as Alder Hey could never be allowed to happen again.

Most criticism was levelled at pathologist Dr Dick van Velzen, who built up his own hoard of children's organs in a basement at Alder Hey.