New evidence could solve 40yr riddle of baby’s empty coffin
POLICE plan to test new evidence in the case of a dead baby whose remains were missing from his grave.
Lydia Reid discovered her son’s coffin was buried without his body after fighting for more than 40 years to find out what happened.
Baby Gary Paton died aged just one week after an experimental medical procedure, when it was commonplace for hospitals to retain organs without telling relatives.
But his entire body has simply vanished without a trace.
Mrs Reid, from Edinburgh, suspected his coffin was empty at his funeral. His grave was exhumed last year and there was no sign of a child.
Now police want to test new forensic evidence to try to solve the mystery.
Police Scotland has not been able to locate the body but analysis of the clothing in the coffin has found hair and surgical stitches.
They want to compare this with post-mortem samples from Gary on blocks and slides retained by NHS Lothian.
But Mrs Reid, 68, wants the testing done by an independent company and suspects her son’s body has been kept without her consent.
She said yesterday: ‘I want an independent company to do the testing and ensure that at the end of all this there is something left for me to bury so that Gary can finally have his burial.
‘I don’t know what has happened to Gary’s body, and you could go mad thinking about it, but I believe there is a possibility his body was retained by the NHS. That is my opinion.’
Mrs Reid’s solicitor, David Short, litigation partner at Balfour and Manson, told the BBC: ‘The Crown want to carry out destructive testing on the blocks and slides and that wouldn’t provide any answers to where Gary’s body is.’
Gary died aged seven days in 1975 following a procedure in pregnancy.
Doctors at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh inserted a tube into Mrs Reid’s womb to give her baby a blood transfusion when she was around 32 weeks pregnant, but the tube broke and remained in the baby’s abdomen.
Shortly afterwards she went into early labour but Gary died a week after he was born. A post-mortem examination revealed he died of swelling and infection in the abdomen.
However Mrs Reid asked to see him before his funeral and was shown a baby she did not recognise as him.
Following a long battle she was granted a court order for an exhumation to be carried out at the burial plot in Edinburgh, when no human remains were found.
Scotmid Funerals, whose predecessor firm St Cuthbert’s Co-operative carried out the burial, immediately reported the matter to police.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘Police Scotland have a dedicated inquiry team who have been investigating this matter since it was reported.’ A spokesman for NHS Lothian said: ‘We are unable to comment while a police investigation is ongoing.’
‘I don’t know what happened’