David Fuller: New call for witnesses in mortuary abuse inquiry

The man leading the inquiry into a double killer's mortuary abuse has called for people who may have worked with him in the 1990s to come forward.

Staff who worked at two hospitals during that period have been asked to help the inquiry following new "allegations of inappropriate behaviour."

David Fuller abused the corpses of at least 100 women and girls in two Kent morgues over a 12-year period.

He was jailed in 2021.

Sir Jonathan Michael, the independent inquiry's chair, issued the "call to action" to identify staff who worked at the Kent and Sussex Hospital or the old Pembury Hospital from the mid-1990s onwards who may have relevant information.

In a statement released on Thursday, Sir Jonathan said: "We would particularly like to speak to people whose job brought them into contact with the mortuary and body stores at the hospitals, to better understand about workplace conditions and practices at the hospitals during the mid to late 1990s."

Fuller worked in electrical maintenance at hospitals since 1989, and was at the Kent and Sussex Hospital until it closed in September 2011.

He was transferred to the Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury, where the offences continued until his arrest in 2020.

The inquiry issued an update in May about their investigation, following what Sir Jonathan described as "new information about allegations of inappropriate behaviour in the mortuary at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in the late 1990s."

Sir Jonathan said allegations were not revealed until earlier this year, however they would not be looked at criminally by Kent Police.

He added that there was no evidence Fuller was offending from the beginning of his career in the NHS.

Sir Jonathan also told the BBC that the investigation as a result of this new information would "inevitably delay things" and that the "phase one report" expected to be published in the summer was now unlikely to be done "before the autumn".

Fuller is already serving two whole-life terms for beating and strangling Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce before sexually assaulting them in two separate murders in Tunbridge Wells in 1987.

He was also previously sentenced for sexual offences against 78 dead women and girls between 2008 and 2020.

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