June Dunn, formerly from near Bury St Edmunds, to bury her son Ben Mallia for a fourth time

A mother has spoken of the trauma of preparing to bury her child for the fourth time – after further DNA of his was returned.

Twenty-eight years after her son Ben Mallia died, June Dunn, formerly of Hargrave, near Bury St Edmunds, said she ‘just cannot believe’ she is burying him again.

June, 65, who now lives in Fordham, Cambridgeshire, has been on a quest to uncover the truth about what happened to her 12-year-old son’s body after he died.

Ben had a rare brain disease called DRPLA and passed away from bilateral bronchopneumonia in August 1997. Eighteen months later, June learned organs – including his brain - had been taken after his death, without permission.

Last year, she made contact with each hospital that had looked after her son to check what medical information they had on him or human material.

‘Out of the blue’ it turned out Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, in London, had been storing samples of Ben’s – June said without her permission.

Now, it has transpired another hospital trust had also stored DNA of Ben’s, which June said had been returned and would be buried with him at his plot at Bury St Edmunds Cemetery.

The burial later this month, which is the fourth June will have undertaken for Ben, will be a private affair and there will be a wake afterwards.

June told SuffolkNews: “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? I buried him for the third time in November last year. My PTSD has gone through the roof.”

Just like the last burial, L Fulcher Funeral Directors are handling it and a Catholic priest from St Edmund's Catholic Church in Bury will be presiding at the ceremony. It will include prayers and a blessing.

June said the wake, in Fordham, would include balloons being let off, blue cakes – Ben loved cake, June said – and blue candles for people to take home to remember him in their own way.

She said it would be a ‘celebration of his life’.

Speaking of her fight, June said: “Believe in your gut instinct. The amount of times they said ‘we have nothing’. I fight for my children, all of them, and my grandchildren now.

“If you know you are right, you don’t give in. Maybe that’s an East End thing I was taught as a child.”