Social media is helping drive trade in skulls, bones and skin products as UK legal void risks new era of ‘body snatching’
“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 Scragg’s elbow, shelves of human skulls and a hybrid animal skeleton loom behind. The shop’s website markets a monthly human skull subscription (buyers are sent a skull of the shop’s 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 UK’s leading forensic scientists, are calling for a crackdown on the trade in human remains.
