Mother Finds Baby's Coffin Empty After 42 Year Battle to Discover What Happened

[dan-b]

A mother who won a court order to find out what had happened to her baby's remains has discovered that his coffin was buried without a body.

Lydia Reid's 42-year quest looked to have come to a conclusion when a court granted her an order for an exhumation.

Ms Reid had been a leading member of a campaign to reveal the extent to which Scottish hospitals used dead children's body parts for research.

In 2001 an official report in England found that 104,300 organs, foetuses and body parts were in storage, the majority at 25 hospitals.

Ms Reid feared that the same thing had happened to her son, Gary, who was only seven days old when he died at Edinburgh's Sick Kids hospital in July 1975.

Following the court order and exhumation was carried out by Professor Dame Sue Black, an eminent forensic anthropologist.

She concluded that the coffin had been buried without human remains, the BBC reported.

Prof Reid reached her conclusion following the exhumation at Saughton Cemetery in Edinburgh.

The coffin itself had disintegrated. Prof Black, who did discover a hat, shawl, cross and name tag said there were neither skeletal remains nor evidence of decomposition.

"Ultimately there is only one possible logical explanation and that is that the body was not put in that coffin."

Ms Reid, 68, said she was devastated by the findings.

She recalled that when she asked to see her dead son, she was shown the body of a child which was not hers.

"I objected but they said I was suffering from post-natal depression," she said.

"This baby was blonde and big, my baby was tiny and dark-haired. This was not my son."

In the wake of the English inquiry, NHS Scotland admitted the same practice took place north of the border.

Ms Reid is now demanding to know what happened to her son who, she said, deserved a proper burial.

Funeral directors Scotmid Co-operative Funerals said as soon as they heard of the allegations they informed Police Scotland.

A statement said: "We also recently met with Mrs Reid and close members of her family to offer our full support in what has been an extremely distressing situation for them.

"We hope that our actions in contacting the police will help give Mrs Reid the answers to the questions she has raised about her son's funeral."

NHS Lothian deputy chief executive Jim Crombie said: "Our condolences are with the family of Gary Paton. This matter is now being looked into by the police and we are unable to comment further."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...over-happened/

[dan-b]

More information and short video at link below.

Prof Black said: "If I was a betting woman I would say this is not an isolated incident and the reason is that it seems to incredibly well executed."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41122888

[kellyhound]

There was a lot of shady shit going on back in the days inside Hospitals, Children's homes, Psychiatric wards, Monasteries etc.
This is only the top of the iceberg i'm afraid.

[Jere]

stealing babies and selling them to people who couldn't have children themselves...

[William May]

Originally Posted by Jere

stealing babies and selling them to people who couldn't have children themselves...

And selling the dead ones to people who don't have a dead baby of their own?

Also, I wonder if these were Catholic hospitals? Remember how they found hundreds of babies buried at Catholic orphanages that cared for unwed mothers? That may have been Ireland, though, and not Scotland.

[commondenom]

it's the UK....im sure there will be loads of people offering condolences and 'sharing in their pain' and 'extremely sorry' but no answers

[Flapmon]

Experiments! Turning them into zombies!!

[-NocturnalPulse-]

Grim ending for this mother.