TERRI SCHIAVO’S parents claimed that her husband refused to let them be at her bedside when she died yesterday, as the bitterness that had surrounded her final days showed no sign of abating. Police barred Mrs Schiavo’s family from her room because her husband, her legal guardian, wanted to be there, said Frank Pavone, a priest and family friend.

Father Pavone said: “Bobby Schindler, her brother, said, ‘We want to be in the room when she dies’. Michael Schiavo said ‘No, you cannot’. So his heartless cruelty continues until this very last moment.”

The Schindlers’ advisers said that Schiavo’s brother and sister had been at her bedside a few minutes before the end came,but were not there at the moment of her death because Michael Schiavo would not let them into the room.

“Mr Schiavo’s overriding concern here was to provide for Terri a peaceful death with dignity,” George Felos, the husband's lawyer said. “This death was not for the siblings, and not for the spouse and not for the parents. This was for Terri." Father Pavone, who heads a group called Priests for Life, said: “This is not only a death with all the sadness that brings, this is a killing. We not only grieve that Terri has passed, we grieve that our nation has allowed an atrocity such as this.”

Mrs Schiavo, 41, died in a Florida hospice 13 days after her husband won a 12-year legal battle to have her feeding tube removed, against her parents’ wishes.

Her body was taken to the Pinellas County Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy that her husband believes will prove that she was in a permanent vegative state from which recovery was impossible. The case split America and triggered a constitutional showdown between the judiciary and Congress and her death provoked angry reactions.

President Bush, who had sought unsuccessfully to save Mrs Schiavo, said: “The essence of civilisation is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in favour of life.”

The Vatican said the circumstances of Mrs Schiavo’s death had “rightly shocked consciences. A life was interrupted.”

Oustide the hospice Christian and pro-life activists wept and offered prayers. Some gathered around makeshift altars, singing hymns. A lone trumpeter played Amazing Grace.

The case that began as a family squabble swelled into a bruising national controversy, with political leaders trapped between pressure to save her from her parents and the pro-life movement, and calls from her husband and the right-to-die lobby to let her go.

In the end, it came down to a wrangle over which branch of government — legislative, judicial or executive — had the right to decide. The judiciary won, despite 11th-hour moves by Congress to pass a Bill supporting her parents’ fight that President Bush signed into law at 1am on March 21.

Mrs Schiavo suffered a lack of oxygen to the brain when she collapsed in her Florida home 15 years ago, apparently as the result of an eating disorder, and was left in a persistent vegetative state.

Most doctors said she would never recover. Michael Schiavo sued for medical malpractice, was awarded $1 million and three months later halted therapy and posted a “do not resuscitate” instruction on his wife’s medical records. He claimed that she had once told him that she would not wish to be kept alive artificially. In 1997, he moved in with a new girlfriend and fathered two children.

The Schindlers never accepted that their daughter could not recover and produced harrowing videotapes that appeared to show her responding to stimuli. They spent 12 years fighting to keep her alive, but after more than 60 court actions, and no fewer than six refusals by the Supreme Court to hear the case, they had no option but to watch her die.

The Schindlers’ lawyer, David Gibbs, said the family were relying on their strong Catholic faith for comfort. “While they are heartsick, their faith in God remains consistent and strong. They are absolutely convinced that God loves Terri more than they do and that while they grieve for Terri, she is at peace with Him.”

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