'I don't want any family to go through what we did'

When police officers turned up at Rachel Baker and her husband's house to deliver the news that their son had died, they immediately wanted to view his body but were told "no".

The 20-year-old Royal Navy engineer, Joe Baker, died in a crash on 27 November 2023 while travelling to his base in Yeovilton, Somerset.

Mrs Baker, from Hoptonheath on the Shropshire-Herefordshire border, is now campaigning to get the rules around mortuaries changed after they said they were refused access to their son for 10 days on the grounds it was a closed mortuary.

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, which manages the mortuary, said it was keen to speak to the family about their experience.

"We just wanted to see our boy," Mrs Baker said and added the family begged to see Joe but were told to wait until his body was released to undertakers.

"In our rural areas here, the mortuaries that have tiny provisions even provide a tiny curtain that they pull across," she said.

"If we can do that on our rural provisions why can't that happen on a much bigger scale?"

On 7 December 2023 she said the family were able to "hold our boy".

"I kissed his perfect face, held his hands and told him it was 'all going to be OK, mum's here, I’ve got you son'...how I adored every bone in his body," Mrs Baker added.

Mrs Baker said her fight for a change in the law would be one way of honouring her son's life who she described as "a young lad that stood up and was accounted for what he believed in".

"[The] mortuary took time away from us and our Joe, that we simply can never get back. I want to make sure that going forward no other families are ever told 'no'," she added.

"I understand that with every tragic accident, there are different circumstances...in Joe's case, by the time we actually got him back, his face was perfect and there was no reason to have kept us away for the time that they had done.

"Under 'Joe's law', no direct family members will ever be told no - if they're OK physically that is OK enough to be viewed."

The family have organised an online petition and want 1,500 signatures to support their campaigning efforts.

A spokesperson for the NHS trust said they wanted to extend their condolences to the family for their loss as they understood it was a difficult time.

They added they wanted the family to speak to their patient advice and liaison service so "we can understand their experience".

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