SCOTLAND'S wealthiest family yesterday said a prayer for tragic Stagecoach heir Jonathan Gloag in the Perthshire church where he had married his childhood sweetheart six years before.

Mr Gloag, 28, was found dead in woods between his own home and the mansion of his mother, millionaire transport tycoon Ann Gloag, on Friday night.

It is thought the father of three young children, who was set to inherit part of the #1300m Stagecoach empire, had suffered from long-term depression and may have hanged himself.

Mrs Gloag, 56, was too upset to attend the service at Trinity Church of the Nazarene yesterday morning and stayed at her home in Balcraig, under sedation and being comforted by friends. With her was Jonathan's widow Sarah and their children Anthony, three, Alex, two, and Matthew, a few months old.

Stagecoach chairman Brian Souter, the dead man's uncle, was at the church service and afterwards confirmed that prayers had been said for his nephew.

The group made its way to see Mrs Gloag later in the day where a private home service was conducted by family pastor Geoff Austin.

Estate manager Jonathan was born during Mrs Gloag's first marriage to husband Robin. The couple divorced acrimoniously when the boy was 11.

Mrs Gloag is a devoted churchgoer and both her son and his bride-to-be were members of the same congregation.

He and Sarah had first met at school and became childhood sweethearts before introducing their parents to each other.

Sarah's father David McCleary was organist at the Trinity Church, where Mr Souter had also done lay preaching.

Mr McCleary was a widowed father-of-three and a successful businessman with a string of launderettes. Sarah and Jonathan introduced him to Mrs Gloag after a service.

The couple were married in 1990 and, three years later, Jonathan married Sarah, who was by now his step-sister.

Last night, those who knew Mr Gloag were still trying to come to terms with their loss. He had been discovered in Deuchney Woods, just yards from where he lived.

His father Robin spoke about his upset at hearing the news. At his Inchture farmhouse, he said: ''I only found out about it when the police came to my door and told me.

''No-one from the family had contacted me, but that's not a surprise to me. It's well known that we don't speak.''

Robin Gloag was once part of the burgeoning Stagecoach empire, but was voted off the board and then later divorced by his wife.

The split was acrimonious and Jonathan and his sister Pamela went to live with his mother.

As an adult, he and his wife had lived in a modest house in Scone, near Balcraig House, until last year when they moved.

Mrs Gloag purchased Lettertabor Lodge, overlooking Perth, for around #450,000.

She gifted the home to her son as part of his job as an estates administrator with a number of properties to look after.

He had originally trained as a chef but dropped out before joining Stagecoach as a driver and then setting up his estates business Glojo.

Throughout the past decade, Mrs Gloag had supported her son as he searched for the career which would leave him fulfilled.

A Tayside Police spokesman confirmed that the body had been found on Friday night and that a report would be passed to the procurator-fiscal's office. He added that there did not appear to be any suspicious circumstances.

The funeral arrangements will not be put in place until the body has been officially released by the fiscal's office.

Mrs Gloag, a former nurse, used her bus conductor father's #25,000 redundancy money to start Stagecoach in 1980.

Along with her brother, she built the company up into a global transport empire.

Deregulation of the buses across the UK made the company's fortune and they have more recently expanded into rail travel and bought Prestwick Airport.

Stagecoach now employs 37,000 people worldwide.