See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy JAMIE BOYS, REPORTER Published: 10:53 BST, 7 July 2026 | Updated: 10:57 BST, 7 July 2026
Parents have been left horrified after their children were given paper hedgehogs made from the pages of an erotic novel. The innocuous-looking gifts were handed to children in Tesco and Morrisons stores by a man who said he had made the hedgehogs from old books as a hobby. But parents soon discovered that the paper hedgehogs were made from the folded pages of an erotic novel that depicted graphic sexual acts. One had been made from pages of The Fermata - Nicholson Baker’s controversial 1994 erotic novel containing explicit sexual material - the pages of which are too graphic to reproduce here. Grandmother Linda Fortune said her daughter Ellise and her four-year-old granddaughter were approached while shopping in the Wirral near Liverpool by a man and woman believed to be in their late 60s. The couple allegedly asked the little girl if she 'could have something' before handing over the paper hedgehog. Ellise initially thought little of it but later inspected the folded pages and found what Linda described as 'pure sexual stuff'. Linda insisted that there was 'absolutely no way' that it was an innocent mistake. The innocuous looking gifts were handed to kids in Tesco and Morrisons stores by a man who said he had made the hedgehogs from old books as a hobby One had been made from pages of The Fermata - Nicholson Baker’s controversial 1994 erotic novel containing explicit sexual mateShe said: 'Everyone is reporting the same thing.' After Linda warned parents online about the encounter, she said seven other families contacted her claiming their children had also been handed the unusual gifts. Another mother, Jemma, said she had also accepted one of the paper hedgehogs after an elderly man approached her family while they were shopping. He asked if her 10-year-old daughter would like 'a hedgehog made out of a book' with googly eyes, explaining that he 'sits at home and makes them'. Jemma, who has worked in care, said she assumed it was simply a 'lovely gesture' from someone who might be 'lonely or bored'. Her daughter accepted the gift and began thinking of names for it. But after spotting Linda's Facebook warning later that day she rushed upstairs to check the paper animal. She said: 'I grabbed a middle page and it said something about being a legal age and then another page saying about someone's sister being murdered. 'I took it out of her room straight away and hid it.'I can’t imagine what I would have done if Ella had read any of the pages.'People need to be made aware of this. How many more children have had these handed to them?'One of the hedgehogs was reported to the police, who collected it from the family's home. A Merseyside Police spokesperson said: 'We have spoken to the individual concerned and we are happy there was no malice involved and no offences have been committed.'The hedgehogs were created in good faith by the individual and have been used to raise money for a local charity.' Nicola, another mother, said an older man approached her and her two-year-old son at a supermarket self-checkout and asked if he could give the toddler one of the paper hedgehogs. She accepted it 'just to be polite' but later threw it away because the encounter had felt 'odd'. Tesco and Morrisons were contacted for comment.
