Mum gets baby son's remains after 48-year fight

Lydia Reid has been campaigning for decades

A terminally ill mother has finally had her baby son's remains returned to her almost 50 years after he died.

Lydia Reid's baby, Gary, was a week old when he died in 1975.

She later discovered his organs had been removed for tests, and five years ago experts concluded that his coffin did not contain human remains.

However, the Crown Office said a new investigation by independent experts had concluded that Gary had been buried at the time of his death.

It also found no evidence of criminality or unlawful organ retention.

Ms Reid, 74, who has bowel cancer, said she was "elated" that she could finally now give her son a respectful funeral before she dies.

She told BBC Scotland that she had been "desperate" to get her son back.

"Now I have it's very difficult to put into words how I feel," she said.

"It feels unreal that my son at last will have a burial.

"The hurt has been horrendous. Now I can bury him before I die, I feel great relief."

Remains from the grave were transferred to a white coffin after the exhumation in 2017

Ms Reid, who is currently in the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, said she would check herself out for 24 hours in order to be able to hold his funeral on Saturday.

Ms Reid has been a leading figure in the Scottish campaign to expose how hospitals unlawfully retained dead children's body parts for research.

The NHS in Scotland was forced to admit the widespread practice after an investigation into organ retention at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool.

About 6,000 organs and tissues were kept by Scottish hospitals between 1970 and 2000, many from children.

Ms Reid said that when she asked to see her son a few days after he died in 1975, she was shown a different child.

Over the years, she discovered her son's organs had been removed. Pieces would be shaved off for microscope tests, without Ms Reid's permission, and the rest were stored in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Ms Reid says she still does not know what happened to the rest of Gary's body.

In September 2017, a court order was granted which allowed an exhumation to be carried out at Saughton Cemetery in Edinburgh.

The coffin was exhumed from a plot at Saughton Cemetery in Edinburgh

Forensic anthropologist Prof Dame Sue Black concluded the coffin had been buried without containing any human remains.

A shawl, a hat, a cross and a name tag were found in the burial plot, as well as the disintegrated coffin - but no skeletal remains and no sign of decomposition.

Prof Black told BBC Scotland at the time: "Ultimately there is only one possible logical explanation - and that is that the body was not put in that coffin."

Ms Reid said that when Gary's funeral was held in the 1970s, his coffin was carried in the front seat of the car because they did not have a way of securing small coffins in the back.

"A coat was lying on it and it was covered in cigarette ash and his name was spelled wrongly," she said.

"Now we know it was empty too. It was horrendous."

Ms Reid has campaigned for years to find out what happened to her son, and camped outside the Crown Office in Edinburgh while on hunger strike in 2022.

A hat and shroud were recovered from the coffin but there was no trace of human remains

"They wouldn't give them back to me, and would give silly reasons," she said.

"They said I already had his body because we had held a funeral, but now we know the coffin was empty."

She said she would never have given up the fight for answers.

"How could you give up?" she asked. "Every morning for all this time I've woken up and felt like my heart was ripped out of my body and forgotten to be put back.

"His wee body could be anywhere."

She paid tribute to Labour MSP Foysol Choudhury and his assistant for helping to get her son's body parts returned.

Mr Choudhury said he would continue to help Ms Reid and other affected families, and would keep highlighting the issue.

"Lydia has been fighting for over 40 years for her son and has helped countless other families," he said.

"I am pleased that she will finally be able to lay her son to rest in what will undoubtedly be a poignant and difficult day."

Lydia Reid went on hunger strike outside the Crown Office in Edinburgh last year

Ms Reid said: "I feel elated that my son is getting a burial at last.

"I want to be there for him when he arrives in the hearse."

The mother-of-three lost another son, Bruce, to cancer in 2006.

She said Gary had been born with Rhesus disease, a condition where antibodies in a pregnant woman's blood destroy her baby's blood cells.

Her third son, Steven, was also born with the condition.

"He was given a blood transfusion and he was fine, but instead they decided to do an experimental procedure on Gary and that left him brain damaged," she said.

She added that Steven would carry on her campaign in the future.

Lindsey Miller, deputy crown agent at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), said an "extensive and thorough" multi-agency investigation had been carried out into the case.

"All independent experts were consistent in concluding evidence indicated that Gary was buried, and that there was no criminality or evidence of unlawful organ retention identified," she said.

"COPFS was responsible for undertaking the investigation to establish the facts of this matter and provide Ms Lydia Reid with answers sought.

"The lord advocate has offered to meet Ms Reid in person to answer any questions that she may have and discuss the conclusion of this investigation."