Mum Campaigned For 42 Years To Know What Happened To Her Baby Boy But Found Out His Coffin Was Empty

A mother was left devastated after finding out that her baby boy’s coffin was empty, after 42 years of campaigning to find out what happened to him.

Lydia Reid, 68, was granted by a Scottish court to allow the exhumation of her baby’s body at the burial plot in Edinburgh last week, The Sun reports.

However, she was shocked when there were no human remains of her baby Gary inside the coffin at Saughton Cemetery.

Forensic anthropologist Professor Dame Sue Black, who conducted the exhumation, concluded that the coffin was buried without human remains.

The nameplate at the coffin had also spelled Gary’s name incorrectly. There was also a shawl, a hat, a cross, and a name tag. Ms Black said that since there were no skeletal remains, there were no signs of decomposition.

“So we had wool, cotton and even a little cross, all preserved incredibly well “” but there were no human remains. There was no baby in the coffin. There is no other answer because you never get that level of preservation of coffin and not have a body be preserved.

“There is no hair inside the hat; there is no bone inside the coffin shroud. It was not there and I have never seen that before.

“Ultimately there is only one possible logical explanation and that is that the body was not put in that coffin,” she said.

Gary was only seven days old when he died at Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children in 1975.

Ms Reid said that at the time, when she asked to see her son, she said she was shown a child that wasn’t hers. “I objected but they said I was suffering from post-natal depression. This baby was blonde and big, my baby was tiny and dark-haired. This was not my son,” she told BBC Scotland.

She said she has campaigned for 42 years to know the truth behind what happened to her son. She became well-known in Scotland, pushing to expose how hospitals had unlawfully retained dead children’s body parts for research.

It turned out, after an investigation into organ retention at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, NHS officials in Scotland were forced to confess that the practice is widespread and around 6000 organs and tissues were retained by Scottish hospitals between 1970 and 2000, many from children.

Ms Reid was convinced that her son’s organs were taken without permission, but she doesn’t have any proof.

“I wanted to prove the fact that he wasn’t there. Until I could prove that he wasn’t there I could not fight to find him. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to be called a stupid old woman but the minute Sue lifted the shawl out of the ground I knew there was nothing in it.

“My heart hit my feet and I did not know what to say. It is devastating to know that all years I have been coming here to honour my son and he’s not been here. He is my son and he deserves the respect of a proper burial,” she said.

Only one thing is certain, Ms Reid said — someone knows what happened to her son.

“Even if he has been incinerated I want to know. Even if he is lying in a jar in a hospital somewhere I want to know. If it is possible to get my son back, I want my son back. If it is not possible then at least tell me and let me have peace,” she said.

Funeral directors Scotmid Co-operative Funerals said that they immediately informed police as soon as they heard of the allegations. In a statement, they said that they met with Ms Reid and her family to offer their full support.

NHS officials expressed their condolences to Ms Reid and her family and confirmed that police are now investigating the case. However, they are unable to comment further.

Source: News.com.au