Tearful mum Loraine Fyfe said goodbye to her tiny daughter for the third time after a hospital held onto the youngster's body parts.

Mrs Fyfe read a poem for little Jodie Mae as a tiny white casket containing tissue samples from the baby was lowered into her grave at windswept Guiseley Cemetery.

It was the third time she had held a funeral for the tot, who was born premature, after the hospital discovered stored tissue samples on two separate occasions.

In the latest incident, Leeds General Infirmary uncovered the samples, taken from the baby when she was delivered 21 weeks prematurely on Boxing Day 1995, in November last year.

Yesterday, family and friends gathered around the white marble headstone at the grave which Jodie shares with her grandfather, as local Methodist Minister The Reverend Andrew Howorth read two prayers in her memory.

The tiny casket, containing 13 tissue samples, was then lowered into the four-foot deep grave as Mrs Fyfe fought back tears to read the poem, written by a friend she met in the ward where Jodie was stillborn.

"Jodie Mae was my snowflake, but she landed in my heart and I will carry her through life with me," she read. "She gave me a twinkle of joy and happiness and I gave her 19 weeks of life, but no one can take that away."

The casket will lay alongside Jodie's coffin and a further casket containing tissue released in 2000 when the hospital first admitted taking the baby's organs without Mrs Fyfe's knowledge.

Speaking after the baby's third funeral yesterday, Mrs Fyfe, of Hawkhill Avenue, Guiseley, said she prayed that Jodie could now be left in peace.

"I just desperately hope they have all been recovered now," she said. "I feel there can't possibly be any more. "It has been very emotional, but I feel I had to do it for her sake and it was the only way I could put her to rest. Any mother would feel it their duty to do this for their child."

Her close friend June Green, who was among those at the ceremony, said it had been important to lay Jodie to rest once again.

She said: "Loraine is a very brave lady for doing this, she really is. You would never believe the tears we have cried over this little baby. We have been friends with Loraine for years and felt she needed our support today."

Mrs Fyfe said she hoped the ceremony would bring to an end seven difficult years since Jodie's death.

But she remains angry that it has taken so long to uncover the truth about what happened to Jodie's body, which was subject to a post-mortem without Mrs Fyfe's knowledge.

"At the time, they didn't think it was right to tell the families what was happening, but I think 'whose life is it?' Why shouldn't we be told what happens to them?

"Jodie is mine, she'll always be mine, and that doesn't give (the hospital) the right to do what they have done," said Mrs Fyfe.

"She should never have had a post-mortem as there was nothing wrong with her. She was simply born early."

A spokesman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said they realised the distress the situation had caused Mrs Fyfe.

"We have tried to be as sympathetic as possible at this very difficult time and Trust staff remain available to support Mrs Fyfe throughout the process,"