More cases are expected to emerge of babies whose ashes have been withheld from their grieving parents following the screening of a documentary on the scandal.
The case of a devastated mother who learned her four-month-old son’s remains had been scattered at Dunfermline Crematorium more than two decades after she was allegedly told there would be nothing left of him featured in the BBC Scotland expos.
Another family believe the ashes of their dead child may have been disposed of without their knowledge by Kirkcaldy Crematorium.
Solicitors involved in both Fife cases believe there may be a raft of bereaved parents seeking answers following the BBC Scotland Investigates: Scotland’s Lost Babies programme.
It emerged last December that for decades parents were told by Mortonhall Crematorium in Edinburgh that there were no remains of their babies, only to discover ashes had been secretly buried.
However, the documentary claims the practice is more widespread and there are similar cases around the country.
Glasgow legal firm Thompsons Solicitors is already acting on behalf of around 80 families across Scotland, three-quarters of them in Edinburgh.
Solicitor Sarah Smith said: “The majority of the families are in Edinburgh but I think that’s because most of the publicity so far has been around Mortonhall.
“It’s possible that once the BBC programme has been broadcast we will have a surge of inquiries. People will be starting to wonder, having been told there were no ashes of their child, whether that was in the fact the case.”
Some of the cases go back to the 1960s.
Carol Howden told in the programme how a funeral director told her there would be nothing left of her son John, who she lost to cot death in 1988, following his cremation in Dunfermline.
She said: “I said I don’t care, even if it’s the tiniest little pinch of salt, I don’t care. I need to have something.
“And he said there wouldn’t be, there wouldn’t be anything. There would be no ashes whatsoever.”
When told by BBC Scotland that John’s ashes had been dispersed in the crematorium grounds, she said: “What gave any stranger the right to decide what to do with my son’s ashes?”
The funeral director could not be traced and Fife Council said the scattering of ashes at the crematorium would normally be under the instruction of the undertaker.
The local authority no longer held the documentation to verify the undertaker’s instruction but confirmed John’s ashes had been scattered in the crematorium garden.
Bereavement services manager Liz Murphy said: “We can only apologise to Ms Howden if this has not been done in accordance with her wishes.”