Final fight for fall death family

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The family of a holidaymaker who died in Greece have begun the final stage of their fight to convict three doctors of manslaughter by neglect.

Christopher Rochester fell from a Faliraki hotel balcony in 2000 and died after being left on a hospital trolley.

His family is privately prosecuting Stergios Pavlidis, Georgos Karavolias and Mihalis Sokorelos, who were cleared on appeal of causing his death.

If they are acquitted, the Greek legal system does not allow a further appeal.

Mr Rochester, 24, died of internal bleeding at the Andreas Papandreou Hospital in Rhodes, after being left unattended for three hours.

The doctors were each sentenced to three years in jail for manslaughter by neglect, but cleared on appeal in 2005.

However, the Greek Supreme Court later ruled the appeal should be overturned and subsequently approved the retrial.

Mr Rochester died after being left on a hospital trolley

Mr Rochester's stepfather George Cummings and mother Pam Cummings have raised almost £10,000 to pay for the prosecution, which is being held before Rhodes magistrates on Tuesday.

Speaking from his hotel on the island, Mr Cummings said: "When we set out to get justice for Chris, we didn't imagine for one minute that it would take this length of time.

"We've had no option, as the only other option was not to take any action at all, in which case doctors like them think they can get away with it.

"This is the end now. If it were to go on for another seven-and-a-half years we would still fight it to the end.

"We always said we would never give up."

When the holidaymaker's body was returned to the UK, a post-mortem examination found one of his kidneys was missing.

An organ was later sent to the family, but tests failed to produce a DNA match. A separate investigation into the kidney mix-up is continuing.

An inquest in Britain recorded a verdict of accidental death contributed to by neglect.