The brother of a woman who died during a routine operation has been granted leave to apply to the High Court for a third inquest into her death.

Carmel Bloom, 54, who lived in Snakes Lane East, Woodford Green, underwent the operation to remove a kidney stone in a Bupa hospital in Roding Lane South in Clayhall, now known as Spire Roding Hospital, in 2002.

Her brother Bernie Bloom says he has spent £1million on legal bills trying to find out why she died.

In a rare decision, Mr Bloom, of High Road, Chigwell, has now received permission from the attorney general to apply to the High Court, which will consider new evidence he claims undermines the conclusion of the previous inquest.

Mr Bloom says documents obtained from London Ambulance Service undermine the inquest’s narrative verdict that she died as a result of a pre-surgery infection which worsened after the procedure.

The first inquest in 2003 gave the cause of death as scepticaemia.

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office said: “The High Court may order a new inquest to be held where it is satisfied it is necessary or desirable in the interests of justice another inquest should be held.”