A CORONER was so distressed by the case of a toddler whose body had to be kept in a mortuary for 18 months that he has risked a legal challenge in a bid to spare other families the same trauma.

West Dorset coroner Michael Johnston has commissioned extra post-mortem examinations off his own bat in a bid to avoid the kind of torment which faced the family of tragic two-year-old Ryan Franklin.

When two sisters were killed in a car crash in Weymouth this year, he commissioned independent second post mortems so that the bodies could be released to the family.The results were kept to be made available to defence lawyers in case there was a criminal charge.

"I have put my neck on the line a couple of times to try and prevent it happening again," he said. "So far I've got away with it. Someone could take me to the Court of Appeal, it seems to me, but I think that's a small price to pay."

West Dorset coroner Mr Johnston was involved in the case of Ryan Franklin who died at the hands of his father Lee Khair in May 2002.

Mr Johnston had wanted to release Ryan's body to his mother Cathy Franklin but Khair's lawyers blocked the move. A judge ruled that the body should not be released until after Khair's trial for manslaughter was finished in case defence experts wanted a further examination.

The family did not get their loved one's remains until Khair was sentenced to seven years in October 2003.

Mr Johnston said: "I was horrified at what went on with Cathy and the little baby. It was scandalous, the victims are trampled on.

"I wrote to the Home Office and got a very shaky response. They were not going to back me if I released the body.

"They (the defence team) never did have the boy's body examined again but I knew even if they did, it wouldn't have shown anything."

A Home Office spokeswoman said funerals should go ahead at the earliest opportunity but delays could occur when the death was a result of a crime.

"In such cases the coroner will always be dealing with competing pressures - to release the body as soon as possible but also not to put at risk the likelihood of a successful prosecution," she said.

Cathy Franklin from Blandford St Mary has campaigned hard to get the law changed for the sake of other families with the full support of her MP, Robert Walter.

It took the Home Office six months to respond to a 1,000-signature strong petition presented in the House of Commons and the reply said the government was "considering" changing the law.