Published Date: 17.05.2012

The Police Ombudsman's Office has today (Thursday May 17) released the following statement regarding the retention by the Office of human tissue samples.

A spokesman for the Office said: "When we became aware that the Association of Chief Police Officers was carrying out an audit of retained human tissue samples, we initiated our own internal audit.
"We have completed this work and have established that we hold items of human tissue from the bodies of four people.

"The people in question died in incidents during the period from 2001 to 2006, all of which have been subject to Police Ombudsman investigation.

"The families of these people will have been contacted by the end of the week.
"We will provide them with more specific details and apologise in full for not having provided them with this information much earlier."