Britain faces the era of "body snatching": human remains become a hit of sales

Gaps in UK law threaten a new era of "body snatching", as social networks stimulate the trade in human skulls, bones and leather goods. This is reported by The Guardian.

An example is the store "Curiosities from the 5th corner" in Essex. In particular, it presents the fetus of conjoined twins in a large medical jar, human skulls and the skeleton of a hybrid animal. The store's website sells a monthly subscription to a human skull (a skull of the choice of the outlet is sent to customers), mummified body parts, shrunken heads, as well as masks and purses made of human skin.

"When it comes to human things, I'm willing to accept anything. As long as it was obtained from ethical sources, let me add," says the owner of this creepy store, Henry Scragg, on the YouTube channel.

The sale of these items, on the one hand, is not illegal, but experts, in particular Dame Sue Black, one of the leading British forensic experts, president of St. John's College in Oxford, are calling for a fight against trafficking in human remains. According to them, the lack of legislative regulation means that most of the buying and selling of skulls and bones falls into a legal gray area and that the growing online market could trigger a new era of "body snatching" - "the removal of bones from crypts and cemeteries in In the UK and abroad," writes the British newspaper.

"There are people who break into crypts and take the remains to sell them to people who think it's Gothic, bizarre or supernatural. If you can make it illegal to sell a bird's nest, then fortunately you can make it illegal to sell a human body. Having a necklace made from someone's teeth is unacceptable to people," Black said.

According to him, one of the problems is that in Britain desecration of a grave is a crime, but the remains are not property, so they cannot legally "belong" or be "stolen." This means that the possession or sale of historical human remains will not automatically be considered a crime, even if they were illegally exhumed.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in sales of human remains in the UK, says Trish Beers from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, who coordinates a working group at the British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO). This association investigates the sale and trade of human remains. Over the past five years, according to Beers, BABAO has blocked more than 200 sales, including at auctions, in stores and from online sellers.

"You can't photograph remains under the age of 100 for medical research... but it's okay to turn a child's spine into a handbag handle," Trish Beers noted.

If earlier former medical skulls and former museum exhibits were in use on the market for a long time, now there is an increase in sales of skulls described as "archaeological", the appearance of which indicates that they were dug out of the ground or exhumed from coffins, the expert claims.

"Social media has completely changed the market. It's not illegal, and that's the problem," she stressed.

The Guardian showed images of 10 skulls found on sale on Instagram* and other British online forums to three forensic experts. Some of them were recognized as former anatomical training skulls, however, others, according to the publication, were apparently covered with dirt or traces of human tissue, "which may indicate more recent excavations."

According to the newspaper, most of the private trade in human remains goes beyond the scope of the Human Tissue Act of 2004, which was adopted after the scandal at Alder Hey, when children's organs were seized and stored in a hospital without consent. This law, which establishes legal requirements for the consent, storage and use of organs, applies only to remains that are less than 100 years old. It is also used in a number of other specific cases. This means that, while medical research is strictly regulated, collectors and sellers can buy, sell and modify human remains, provided that they were not acquired illegally and do not use them for transplantation.

*Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation