A WOMAN who has been fighting for decades to find out what happened after her baby died, has discovered his coffin was buried without a body in it.

Lydia Reid was granted a court order for her son's burial plot to be exhumed in Edinburgh last week, which was conducted by renowned anthropologist Professor Dame Sue Black.

Professor Black's report concluded that there were no human remains in it with Ms Reid saying the news was "devastating".

Within the disintegrated coffin were a shawl, a hat, a cross and a name tag in the burial plot at Saughton Cemetery.

However there were no skeletal remains and no sign of decomposition.

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

Ms Reid's son Gary died aged seven days old at Edinburgh's Sick Kids hospital in July 1975.

Ms Reid, now 68, said that when she asked to see him she was shown a child that was not hers, saying: "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.

Ms Reid has campaigned over 42 years since then to find out what happened after her son died.

She has also been a leading figure in exposing how hospitals had unlawfully retained dead children's body parts for research.

Ms Reid suspected her son's organs were taken without permission but she has never found proof and said a post-mortem examination was carried out after his death against her wishes.

Prof Black, the director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee, said: "Lydia believed the baby in the grave may not be hers.

"The aim was to find bone for DNA analysis."

She said they found the coffin about 6ft down and the nameplate allowed them to identify that they were in the right place, even though Gary's name was mispelled as Garry.

She said: "When we first went down into the grave site there was a lot of funeral clothing so our expectation was that we had found what we were looking for."

"There was a woollen shawl, a hat and a cotton shroud as well as fragments of the coffin.

"So we had wool, cotton and even a little cross, all preserved incredibly well - but there were no human remains," Prof Black said.

"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."

Ms Reid said: "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."

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."

She said: "There will have to be an investigation of some sort."

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."