A FATHER'S campaign to find out the cause of his baby's death means his son still hasn't been buried - despite dying 20 years ago.

Christopher Blum was four months old when he died. A pathologist told the parents, Steve and Mary, that it was cot death.

They didn't accept that, believing the cause to have been a triple vaccination Christopher had been given hours earlier.

That was in June 1987. Since then, his body has been lying in a London mortuary, kept at -8C, wrapped in a package at the back of an adult-sized drawer that is marked "Baby Blum: Deceased."

His parents refuse to register the death which would allow the funeral to take place.

They do not wish their son's death certificate to carry the words "sudden infant death syndrome".

The child's story came to light as part of an inquiry by the Guardian into the coroner's service in England and Wales.

Tomorrow the government will publish plans for reforming a system that has changed little since Victorian times.

The £15-a-week cost of keeping Christopher's body frozen in the mortuary at Hornsey coroner's court is met by Haringey council - though it could demand that those costs of around £15,000 be paid by Mr Blum.

Sitting in his home in Edmonton, north London, that he shares with his eldest daughter, Jayne, 26, Mr Blum says he knows that by not registering his son's death he is breaking the law.

He cannot, he says, bring himself to sign a piece of paper that says his baby died from Sids.

"I know it sounds horrendous not to bury him, but whose fault is that?

"Why would they leave him there for another 20 years, rather than have an investigation?"

He believes there was a cover-up over the death and that crucial blood tests taken from the baby went missing.