Jon James McGregor, of Hereford Road in Hindley, suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy and spent a long period in local hospitals before his death at Wigan Infirmary on September 4 last year.

An inquest heard the 18-year-old, known to his family as "JJ", had become malnourished after being admitted to hospital following seizures.

Surgeons operated to put a feeding tube into his "small bowel" but the area was so massively inflated – arising from the impairments of cerebral palsy – that the specialist inserted the tube into the wrong area.

Dr Prathap, who did the operation, said: "When I got inside I could see that this was not normal anatomy and I could not clearly identify the small bowel."

Feeding down the tube was later started due to the patient's urgent need for nutrition and epilepsy medication.

Despite the tube going to the wrong place, the results would not have been damaging to the patient, according to experts. Radiographers carried out a scan to find out where the tube was and it was decided further surgery was needed.

The scan failed to show up any leaks in the bowel, a result not uncommon even if a small leak is present, but the patient later showed signs of infection.

Exploratory surgery revealed difficulties had been caused by a hole where the feeding tube was inserted, a problem which is common when bowel surgery is performed on weakened patients. Mr Prasad, who carried out the procedure, indicated to the court that a healthy bowel might be the size of a walnut but was larger than a grapefruit in JJ.

He said: "Faecal peritonitis has a very high mortality rate.
"We used litres of cleaning out fluid but there is only so much you can achieve."

Bacteria from the noxious waste had slowly poisoned JJ's system leading the pathologist to conclude the youngster had died of organ failure caused by sepsis.

Coroner Jennifer Leeming recorded the verdict that Jon McGregor had died as the result of a complication from the surgical procedure to insert a feeding tube.