A woman's dying wish to be buried wearing her treasured wedding ring was denied after it disappeared following her death in hospital.

In the 63 years from the day of her marriage in the final year of the Second World War until the day she died, Margaret Edmonds had never once removed her wedding ring.

But her family have been unable to carry out her last wish when they could not find the gold ring among her property after death in Maidstone Hospital in May,

Acorrding to daughter Dawn Edmonds, hospital chiefs have not provided a satisfactory explanation for the disappearance, which almost went unnoticed.

“What worries me is how many times this has happened,” she said. “We only found out by accident that her ring had been taken off when my sister-in-law went up to collect her belongings and couldn’t find it.

“It was on the list of property. They checked in the morgue and it was gone – for some reason the wedding ring was taken off her finger.”

But a Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust spokesman said there was no reason to believe the ring was “anything other than lost”.

He said if the family wanted to go to the police, it was “up to them to make that decision.”

Meanwhile Miss Edmonds said the disappearance had left her 85-year-old father, Eric Edmonds – who still lives at the home he shared with his wife in Buckland Road, Maidstone – utterly distraught.

“He was absolutely gutted,” said Miss Edmonds. “He couldn’t believe it. He can’t understand how it could happen, or why it was taken off.

“It was a war bride wedding ring. They had saved for months and months and gold was hard to come by. It hadn’t come off her finger for 63 years.

“My mother deserves better than to lose her most treasured possession.”

The bereft family’s grief has been compounded further by vandals, who have repeatedly ripped up a temporary cross on Mrs Edmonds’ grave at Maidstone Cemetery, Sutton Road.

But the grieving daughter, of Mostyn Road, Maidstone, said the vandalism had been overshadowed by the loss of the ring.

She said the family had now taken its complaint to the Healthcare Commission, adding: “It’s too late for us but hopefully we can stop it happening to anyone else.”

A spokesperson for the Healthcare Commission said they had since asked Maidstone Hospital to review the way the family’s complaint had been handled, and were continuing to monitor the Trust’s response.

The spokesperson added: “We looked at the response the Trust had provided and decided that more work needed to be done, so referred it back to them.”

In a statement, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said it was reviewing the investigation into the loss, after being contacted by the Healthcare Commission.

The statement said: “We are very sorry that Mrs Edmonds’ wedding ring was lost while she was in our care. We carried out an immediate search and investigation but were unable to find out what had happened to it. We apologised to Mrs Edmonds’ family at the time, and do so again now.”