Moira Anderson

Police investigating the disappearance of an eleven-year-old girl in the 1950's have confirmed that they have not found her remains in a grave in Scotland.

Moira Anderson went missing after leaving her family home in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire in 1957.

Forensic experts have been investigating a site at the Old Monkland Cemetery after a radar scan suggested an extra body might be in the grave.

Chief Inspector Kenny MacLeod says the case remains open and they will continue to look for other lines of inquiry.

Police exhuming a family grave in the search for Moira Anderson say they have made good progress on Day 2 of the dig. A result could come tomorrow.

They have reached the level were they believe the missing 11-year-old Moira may be buried but there is still delicate work to be done.

Strathclyde Police started to exhume a family grave in Coatbridge, Scotland, today as part of a search for the remains of a schoolgirl who vanished almost 56 years ago.

Moira Anderson was 11 when she disappeared in 1957. It is thought she was abducted and murdered. Police believe her body may be in the grave of a friend of the man long suspected of killing her.

Scotland Correspondent Debi Edward reports from Coatbridge, in North Lanarkshire:

Strathclyde Police have called off the exhumation of a family grave in Coatbridge in Scotland and will continue their work tomorrow.

Police and forensic experts are hoping to find the body of missing schoolgirl Moira Anderson whose disappearance in 1957 has never been explained.

Police have begun exhuming a family grave in the search for the remains of a schoolgirl who vanished almost 56 years ago.

Investigators have begun to excavating the plot of Sinclair Upton, said to have been an acquaintance of Gartshore, to see if the schoolgirl's remains were hidden there.

The excavation at Old Monkland Cemetery in Coatbridge is being led by Professor Sue Black and a team from the forensic anthropology department at Dundee University.

An extract from an STV documentary on Moira Anderson's disappearance includes details of her disappearance from her grandmother's house in 1957, including a reconstruction of that day.

Moira was visiting family when she went to the local Co-op on an errand for her uncle, but she never returned.

A family grave will be reopened today in search of the body of missing schoolgirl Moira Anderson.

The exhumation is expected to take several days and will be conducted by Strathclyde Police and led by forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black.

Experts are investigating the possibility that Moira, who went missing more than a century ago, was dumped under a coffin in the grave, which could have been open at the time of her disappearance.

• Moira Anderson, 11, vanished in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, in February 1957
• Bus driver and convicted paedophile Alexander Gartshore, who died in 2006, has been linked to her disappearance

• Moira's family think she could have been killed and buried in Old Monkland Cemetery in the plot of Sinclair Upton, acquaintance to Gartshore

• Moira's body was never found, Scotland's Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, ordered cold case detectives to reopen the case as a murder investigation last year
• Last month Sheriff Frank Pieri granted a request to open the grave
• The process is expected to last several days