Three-year-old discovered with mother's body

A three-year-old boy is believed to have survived for two weeks off food stored in cupboards of a fifth-floor flat, after his mother died.

Police discovered Michael, 3, in his bedroom and the badly decomposed body of his mother, Anne Marie McGarrity, 33, in the living room, when they forced their way into a flat in Leith, Edinburgh on Saturday.

The boy's grandmother alerted police after nursery staff, worried that he had not attended the crèche, had contacted her.

Severely malnourished and dehydrated, the boy is recovering at the Sick Children's Hospital in Edinburgh. He is expected to make a full recovery despite his ordeal.

Neighbours described their horror at the woman's death and said that she had not been seen for at least two weeks.

While a post-mortem is to be carried out on the body, police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.

The single-mother, who is understood to have been an asthma sufferer, is thought to have died of natural causes.

(SP/KMcA)