David Fuller: Law is inadequate over dead body abuse, MP says

The law against sexually abusing dead bodies is "shockingly inadequate" and needs strengthening, ministers have been told.

Conservative former cabinet minister Greg Clark was speaking to the Commons after David Fuller was convicted last year of abusing more than 100 bodies.

Mr Clark said current legislation only covered penetrative sexual assault.

The Ministry of Justice said it was reviewing the maximum penalty and the scope of the law.

Fuller, who was jailed in 2021, abused the female bodies while working in hospital mortuaries between 2005 and 2020.

He worked in maintenance at Kent and Sussex Hospital and the Tunbridge Wells Hospital, in Pembury, from 1989.

The electrician from Heathfield, East Sussex, was also convicted in 2021 for the murder of two women in separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells in 1987.

Mr Clark told the Commons: "For these crimes, he will rightly die in prison. However, the current legislation is shockingly inadequate when it comes to the abuse of dead bodies.

"It covers only penetrative sexual assault, and other acts of sexual assault on dead bodies are not covered by the legislation."

He requested a meeting to discuss how this could be rectified in the Criminal Justice Bill.

Justice minister Laura Farris said the Fuller case was "appalling" and sent her "deepest sympathies" to the families of his victims.

She said: "It is unbelievably dispiriting that we're even having to talk about these acts and extending the definition to meet the […] depravity of his crimes."

She added: "As a result of the David Fuller case, the Ministry of Justice is now reviewing both the maximum penalty and indeed the scope of the law to ensure that what [Mr Clark] describes is adequately captured."

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