Siamese twin op details revealed

Mr Alan Dickson operated on the twins

Doctors have revealed that the final separation of Siamese twins Jodie and Mary was carried out in respectful silence, as the team knew that it meant certain death for the weaker girl.

Members of the 22-strong team who carried out the 20-hour operation at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, have been talking for the first time about the controversial case.

I think was probably the most meaningful and intense situation we'd been in

Mr Alan Dickson

Two paediatric surgeons, Alan Dickson and Adrian Bianchi, elected to make the final cut together as they felt it was inappropriate for one person to shoulder the burden of consigning Mary to death.

Speaking on ITV's Tonight With Trevor McDonald programme, Mr Dickson said: "We've worked together a lot over the past 12 years and shared difficult moments but that, I think was probably the most meaningful and intense situation we'd been in.

"And one doesn't do that kind of thing without having a lot of thought and a lot of heartache at the time.

"It was a very intense moment. We looked at each other because we knew what we were doing at the time.

"The theatre was very quiet. People knew what was happening and it was done with great respect."

Mr Bianchi said it was impossible to steel himself for the operation, no matter how much he tried to prepare for it mentally.

"It was a shared experience which I have to say I didn't relish."

Fused spines

Jodie and Mary were born with fused spines which left them joined at the abdomen and with their arms and legs joined at right angles to their upper bodies.

Their parents, Michaelangelo and Rina Attard, from the Mediterranean island of Gozo, did not want to separate the girls, as they knew Mary could not survive.

However, the Court of Appeal ruled last month that the operation could go ahead after hearing that if the girls were not separated both would die.

After the separation two medical teams worked on the children - one reconstructed Jodie's lower body while the other tried to revive Mary, but she died within hours of the separation.

Jodie is now three-and-a-half months old and is a happy, healthy, smiling and responsive baby who last week weighed 8lb 9oz.

She should be able to walk and one day have children of her own but she must remain in hospital for several months.

Real fighter

Mrs Attard describes her as "a real fighter".

Mr Attard said: "The thing is we can't take both of our daughters back the way they were."

The couple accepted the court's decision that the operation must go ahead.

But there is lingering bitterness over a comment by Lord Justice Brook to the court.

In presenting a photograph of the twins to the court he said: "What is this creature in the eyes of the law?"

Mr Dickson, a Catholic who said he prayed in his car on the way to operate on the twins, is pleased with Jodie's progress particularly as she "looks so well and is so happy and so normal".

Mr Bianchi, an Evangelical Christian, believes that Mary is now looking after her surviving twin.

He said: "I look at it as her twin sister looking on her and helping her along. For me it is that vision of having a child who has been lost but is there having given life to her sister and who hopefully will look after her sister."