Missing ashes turn up after nine-year wait in lost property

A woman has been reunited with the remains of her father - nine years after they went missing on a train.

After William Maile died in 1998 his family, from Leyland, Lancashire, travelled to his native London to scatter his ashes on the Thames.

But the bag containing the funeral urn was stolen en route and then abandoned, before languishing in lost property.



A curious genealogist found the urn and decided to trace the family, finally tracking them down last week.

Mollie Schofield, Mr Maile's daughter, said: "We put the pushchair on the luggage rack, put the back containing the ashes under the pushchair and when we came to pick them up at Euston the pushchair was there but the bag was missing."

The thieves abandoned the urn on a tube train and it was taken to London Underground's lost property, where it remained until this week.