A FAMILY grave was being dug up today in a bid to find schoolgirl Moira Anderson who disappeared more than 50 years ago.

Moira was 11 when she vanished without trace during a trip to the shops in Coatbridge, North Lanark-shire, in 1957.

Today a team of specially trained police personnel and forensic experts were opening the grave at the town's Old Monkland Cemetery after claims her remains are there.

The grave is known to contain eight bodies – but a radar examination suggests it may contain a ninth.

A forensic tent was erected at the cemetery yesterday and specialist teams could be seen preparing for today's investigation.

Moira, who lived in Coatbridge, is believed to have been abducted and killed.

Last month, a sheriff gave permission for the grave to be opened.

The application by Moira's sisters Janet Hart and Marjory Muir was given the go-ahead by Sheriff Frank Pieri at Airdrie Sheriff Court.

Speaking after that decision, from her home in Australia, Mrs Hart, 68, said: "I hope this brings the closure so far denied to us.

"It's not too much to ask that my little sister, Moira, have her final resting place not in an unmarked grave, or in someone else's grave, but with her loving parents who grieved for their lost daughter daily until they too were laid to rest."

Bus driver and convicted child rapist Alexander Gartshore, who died in 2006, has been linked to Moira's disappearance.

Years ago, Gartshore's daughter Sandra Brown, also from Coatbridge, said her father was responsible for Moira's death.

Sandra, a former Evening Times' Scotswoman of the Year, has investigated Moira's case for decades and has written a book stating her father almost certainly murdered the schoolgirl.

She also said she believes Moira's body was somehow hidden beneath the coffin of a man, Sinclair Upton, who died a few weeks after she went missing.

The grave being opened today contains the body of Mr Upton, an acquaintance of Gartshore.

Gartshore always denied involvement, but in 1999 his friend, James Gallogley, another convicted paedophile, made a death-bed confession that blamed him for Moira's death.

Strathclyde Police confirmed a search was taking place in relation to the inquiry into Moira's disappearance.

The exhumation process is expected to take several days.

rebecca.gray@heraldandtimes.co.uk