Father grieved at wrong plot for 30 years

♦ A father has grieved for his baby girl at the wrong grave for 30 years following a council blunder.

George Salt buried his daughter Victoria, two days after she was born, at Southern Cemetery in Manchester in July 1988. He visited the grave twice yearly until one day he found the headstone had been moved.

Cemetery workers transferred it after records revealed it had been positioned by mistake at a vacant plot.

Mr Salt said he felt “let down” after talking to an empty space for years at the spot where he thought his daughter’s remains had been buried.

He said: “When you go to a grave, you sit and talk and you say what your troubles are and things like that. But the annoying thing is I’m talking to a piece of ground and she isn’t there.”

A Manchester council spokesman said: “We completely understand Mr Salt’s distress and would like to extend our sincere apologies for any upset caused.” He added the council was unable to explain how the headstone had come to be incorrectly placed.