A FORMER police detective is to re-investigate one of Scotland's most notorious unsolved murder cases after being contacted by the victim's sister and asked to end 48 years of anguish.

A police investigation into the mysterious disappearance of 12-year-old Moira Anderson from Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, in 1957 has been all but closed though her body has never been found.

But police have always been convinced that she was abducted while travelling home on a bus, then murdered.

Now, in a last-ditch attempt to recover the schoolgirl's remains and give her a Christian burial, Anderson's sister Janet Hart has contacted Les Brown, a retired Strathclyde Police detective chief inspector who now runs an agency investigating unsolved crimes.

Hart, 61, who now lives in Australia, told the Sunday Herald she would never give up fighting to find her sister but believed that Brown's investigation may be her final chance for answers, as the police were unwilling to devote resources to the so-called "cold case".

Last year it emerged that detectives had closed a reinvestigation of the disappearance, despite accusations by the daughter of 84-year-old Alexander Gartshore, a former bus driver, that he was responsible for the death, and a separate prison confession from a sex offender who claimed that he, Gartshore and a third man had carried out the murder.

Police have also said that a feasibility study conducted at Coatbridge's Tarry Burn - where it is claimed the girl's body was dumped - found it would be almost impossible to find anything because there was so much silt at the site.

Hart said: "I have contacted Les Brown because this case has been ignored for too long.

"The Scottish system seems to be saying that this is a case that should be swept under the carpet. They don't seem to want to spend the money but she's my sister. If it was a police officer's child or the child of someone that really matters it would be a different story.

"Finding her would bring closure, and at last the family would be able to give Moira or her remains a decent Christian burial. My parents died never knowing what happened to their child."

Hart said she was convinced that Gartshore, who now stays in Leeds, knew where the 12year-old's body could be found. She also revealed the family had kept a space for Anderson in her parents' burial plot so they could be together again if she was ever recovered.

She added: "Probably, this is my last chance to find her.

"It's just been unbelievable anguish. There is only one person who knows where she is and he is in Leeds."

Moira vanished while on an errand for her grandmother during a blizzard on February 23, 1957. Wearing a pixie hat and thick coat, she was last seen getting on a bus driven by Gartshore, a convicted paedophile, who has always denied any involvement in her disappearance.

But seven years ago he was accused of being involved by his own daughter, Sandra Brown, in her best-selling book Where There Is Evil. He was jailed two months after Anderson's disappearance for raping a 13-year-old babysitter.

In 1999, a confession by convicted paedophile James Gallogley, written while he was dying of stomach cancer, identified where Anderson's body was dumped and implicated Gartshore in the killing.

Both Gartshore and Gallogley worked for the same bus company in the town.

In his 15-page confession, Gallogley, a former church elder, claimed the girl was taken back to Baxters' bus depot in Coatbridge, where she was abused by Gartshore and another, unnamed man.

He wrote: "People are going to ask why I now want to come clean and I believe this is the time to clear my chest and also clear the air.

"It is not meant to be a dossier for forgiveness but to try to make amends for what other people and I did to these children."

The chilling confession also claimed they sedated the girl before abusing her and then put her in the seatbox of a bus.

It added: "Somebody looked at her later and she was dead, but we believe it was the cold that killed her as it was very bitter that night."

Les Brown, co-founder of voluntary organisation A Search For Justice, said he was prepared to do "whatever it takes" to bring an end to the mystery that has now spanned almost half a century.

He revealed he had already contacted police in Leeds for their assistance in making contact with Gartshore and had applied for the police files on the Anderson case through new freedom of information laws.

Brown said he too was convinced that Gartshore was the key to ending the mystery.

"It would be an impossible task without the assistance of Gartshore, " he said.

"But I'm quite hopeful we'll get a result here. She is in there somewhere [the Tarry Burn area], I am not in any doubt about that. Whatever it takes to finish this, I'll do it."

Asked what his motivation was for re-investigating the case, Brown said: "Take a look at her photograph - that's my motivation."

Gartshore could not be reached last night but, in a previous newspaper interview, he said: "I was only driving the bus and I had nothing to do with her disappearance."

Sandra Brown, who founded the Moira Anderson Foundation to help children and families affected by child abuse, said: "There is no doubt in my mind that my father was involved in Moira Anderson's abduction and murder. He should follow his conscience in the same way as his pal James Gallogley and end this."