GLASGOW lawyer Lindsay Bruce has one of the most distressing jobs on the planet - dealing with hundreds of grieving parents who have lost their babies.

The 33-year-old, who represents 250 families at the centre of the baby ashes scandal, spoke for the first time about how she shares their agony as they pour their hearts out to her.

She doesn't have children of her own but she knows more than most how losing an infant can destroy lives and cause so much heartache.

Lindsay works for Thompsons Solicitors in Glasgow and is in charge of compiling complicated damages cases against private and council-owned crematoriums who have discarded babies ashes without consent. There are at least 40 cases in the Glasgow area and she is hoping the new National Investigation Team set up last month to look into all the allegations surrounding infant cremation in Scotland will give them closure.

Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini will head up the probe due to start next month in response to her report on the scandal at Mortonhall in Edinburgh.

Since September last year Lindsay has been working with parents to prepare a damages case for the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

Lindsay, from Glasgow's south side, said: "I speak to the parents on a regular basis to gather information from them, then intimate a claim to the other side, the private or council crematorium, and ask for documentation such as the application to cremate.

"We look at matters on a legal basis whereas Dame Elish is finding out what happened and how it happened.

"The team will also meet parents next month to find out the facts of each case.

"The baby ashes case is unique and complex because it involves the European Convention of Human Rights, the right to a proper family life, and common law which is the disposal of ashes without consent.

"Emotions are running high and each family and each baby are treated as individuals and with the utmost dignity and sensitivity.

"These mothers have lost their babies at varying stages in pregnancy and some lived for a period before they died.

"The reactions are the same whether they have lost a baby at 16 weeks, 23 weeks or four months. They are all grief stricken."

janice.burns@ eveningtimes.co.uk