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Grave Robbing Numbers 'Rise' Again as Trade in Skulls/Bones & Skin Increases
Its Gruesome -Fears of Grave Robbing Amid Rise in Sale of Human Remains
Social media is helping drive trade in skulls, bones and skin products as UK legal void risks new era of body snatching The Guardian 25 AUG 2025 https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/94676...none&crop=none A human skull for sale at the satanic flea market in Camden, London https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2cf7c...none&crop=none When it comes to human stuff, I'll take anything, pretty much, says Henry Scragg. As long as it?s been ethically sourced, may I add Speaking from his macabre curiosities shop in Essex in a recent YouTube interview, Scragg wears a shabby bowler hat, has tribal style face tattoos and a ginger beard that descends into three pendulous dreadlocks. The shop, Curiosities from the 5th Corner, provides a backdrop that could be plucked straight from a Victorian penny dreadful, a foetus of conjoined twins floats in a large medical jar at Scraggs elbow, shelves of human skulls and a hybrid animal skeleton loom behind. The shops website markets a monthly human skull subscription buyers are sent a skull of the shops choice each month, mummified body parts, shrunken heads, and masks and wallets made from human leather. There is no suggestion the sale of these items is illegal, but experts, including Dame Sue Black, one of the UKs leading forensic scientists, are calling for a crackdown on the trade in human remains. They say the lack of regulation means much of the buying and selling of skulls and bones falls into a legal grey zone and that the growing online market risks fuelling a new era of body snatching, with reports of bones being removed from crypts and graveyards in the UK and abroad. You've got people who are breaking into mausolea and who are taking remains away to sell them for people who think this is gothic, quaint or supernatural, said Black, the president of St Johns College, Oxford. If you can make the sale of a birds nest illegal, surely to goodness you can make the sale of a human body illegal. Having a necklace made out of somebodys teeth isnt acceptable to people. One problem, experts say, lies in how laws are applied. In the UK, desecrating a grave is an offence, but the remains are not technically property so they cannot legally be owned or stolen. This means it would not automatically be a crime to possess or sell historical human remains, even if they had been unlawfully exhumed. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9f99b...none&crop=none Its gruesome, said Black. Its why we say Rest in peace. You dont expect your body to be dug up and sold. She said there had been a substantial increase in sales in the UK in recent years. In the past five years, the BABAO had blocked more than 200 sales, including from auction houses, shops and online sellers. :woohoo::woohoo::woohoo::woohoo: |
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