A mum desperately in need of a kidney transplant has been denied the "perfect match" organs of her dying daughter.

Laura Ashworth, 21, died at Bradford Royal Infirmary - days after she suffered massive brain damage when she stopped breathing because of a suspected asthma attack. She had been unconscious since the attack.

But as her mother Rachel Leake, 39, who has kidney failure, prepared to pay her last respects to her only child a transplant co-ordinator broke the bombshell news that Laura's kidneys would go to strangers against her personal wish to help her mum.

Family and friends, who all knew of Laura's verbal instructions, tried to get the authorities to change their mind, enlisting the help of their constituency MP Gerry Sutcliffe to lobby health ministers on their behalf, but to no avail.

One of Laura's kidneys went to a man in Sheffield and the second to a man in London. Her liver was given to a 15-year-old girl.

As a diabetic, Rachel could also have benefited from Laura's pancreas.

"I am angry, really angry," said Rachel. "I am not finding comfort at the moment in the fact that she helped three people. I just want Laura. All I wanted to do was carry out her wishes. She would have been so upset that she was able to help other people and not her mum.

"Even the transplant co-ordinator was crying her eyes out, she really tried to get them to change their minds but her bosses would not budge."

Rachel, now the main carer for Laura's two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Macie, is left languishing on the transplant list and has to undergo dialysis three times a week at St Luke's Hospital to stay alive.

She has suffered from kidney failure for seven years after developing diabetes while pregnant with Laura. She had a kidney transplant five years ago, but that organ failed after four years.

Laura, who knew the importance of donating organs and was on the organ donor register, had told her mum she would be a living donor but, crucially, this was never formally recorded.

Rachel's 50-year-old sister Carole Spence is registered as her first living donor.

"My sister has had all the tests and we hope to go ahead with that but I wanted to save her all that," said Rachel, whose ill health had meant she too was a patient in the intensive care department at BRI only six weeks ago.

Laura, who had always been an asthmatic and used an inhaler, suffered a coughing fit on the morning of Monday, March 31, and collapsed on the kitchen floor of the farmhouse she shared with her daughter, mother and grandad Jack Ashworth, in Spen View Lane, Bierley.

Rachel called an ambulance which took 15 minutes to arrive, in which time Laura's brain had been starved of oxygen.

Attempts to revive her were made by paramedics but they could not open her airways. She was taken to the intensive care unit at BRI and put on a ventilator, but the family was warned she was in a critical condition and had suffered brain damage.

By the following Wednesday it became clear that Laura, who worked at Nexus Vehicle Management in Pudsey, would not survive, which is when transplant co-ordinators became involved.

Rachel said she was still not clear why her request to receive her daughter's organs was refused. She said: "Everyone has gone mad and everyone is disgusted. The thing that hurts the most is how Laura would feel. She would be devastated that she was not able to help me.

"My sister has now written down her wishes that I get her kidney if anything was to happen to her. I will not let this go - there could be another person it could happen to."

The transplant of Laura's organs was co-ordinated by the Yorkshire region transplant co-ordinators based in Leeds. The team referred the Telegraph & Argus's request for an explanation to UK Transplant, whose key role is to ensure organs donated for transplant are matched and allocated to patients in a fair and unbiased way.

A spokesman said the final decision in this case was taken by the Human Tissue Authority, the body responsible for making sure the Human Tissue Act is adhered to.

The Act makes consent the fundamental principle underpinning the use of organs and tissue from the living or the deceased.

"They were the ones who in this circumstance were asked if the daughter's kidney could go to the mother," said a spokesman for UK Transplant. "Their judgement, under the law, was that it was not allowed to happen."

No-one at the Human Tissue Authority was available for comment last night.

Because of the sudden nature of Laura's death an inquest was opened at Bradford Coroner's Court yesterday and adjourned.

Laura's funeral takes place at St Andrew's Church, Oakenshaw on Thursday at 2pm followed by cremation at Park Wood Crematorium, Elland. Family flowers only are requested but donations can be made to ICU at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

e-mail: claire.lomax @telegraphandargus.co.uk