WEST Fife families affected by the national baby ashes scandal are being asked to help Fife Council create a fitting memorial.

Bereaved parents had been told that no ashes from their infants existed – but council staff at crematoria in Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy had disposed of them by putting them in the waste.

Consultation on a lasting memorial started at the beginning of the year but was put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Senior manager at Fife Council, Alan Paul, explained: “We had held a couple of meetings before the country went into lockdown and a few families were able to share their thoughts and ideas.

"Some people, however, may not want or feel able to take part in a public meeting and we’d still like them to let us know what they think through our online consultation.

“We are very aware that everyone deals with grief differently and individual families will have different views on what kind of memorial they would want to see in Fife. It is important to us that we get the views of as many people as possible so we can make sure all the families feel it is for them.

“Finally, I’d like to apologise once again for the hurt and anguish caused by the way our crematoria used to operate.”

If you feel you have been affected and would like to contribute to the consultation you can complete the questionnaire by visiting https://www.fife.gov.uk/babymemorialconsultation.

For any queries, families can also email babies.memorial@fife.gov.uk

At the start of the year, Fife Council confirmed it had received compensation claims from 102 parents and payouts had been agreed and paid to 85 parents.

In 2013, Dunfermline mum Carol Howden discovered she had been affected by the scandal.

She was 17 when her four-month-old boy, John, died of cot death in 1988 and Dunfermline Crematorium told her there would be no remains.

However, after watching the news about the nationwide scandal at Mortonhall Crematorium, she discovered that John’s ashes had also been scattered without her knowledge.

Back then she told the Press: “To go more than half my life just to find out that somebody who didn’t care about him had dumped his ashes. Why would another human being do this? The grief that losing a child brings is one thing, this was a nightmare.”

Carol later made calls for a memorial to be created and dedicated to all the affected babies.