‘Missed opportunity’ after Jimmy Savile to deal with NHS necrophilia

There was a “missed opportunity” to tighten security in NHS mortuaries after Jimmy Savile’s crimes were unearthed, the chair of a major inquiry into serial necrophiliac David Fuller has told The Independent.

Fuller spent 15 years sexually abusing the corpses of more than 100 women and girls at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, after police found a trove of images at his home in 2020 during an investigation into a long-unsolved double murder he committed in 1987.

An independent inquiry concluded on Tuesday that “serious failings” in management and procedures – and a persistent “lack of curiosity” – at the hospitals Fuller worked at enabled the 68-year-old electrician to carry out his crimes for so long without ever being suspected.

The probe identified a host of missed chances to catch Fuller, who is alleged to have accessed the mortuary 444 times in a year, checked logbooks to scan for potential disease in the corpses he abused, and frequently locked himself in the post-mortem examination room to commit his crimes.

Inquiry chair Sir Jonathan Michael made 17 recommendations for tightening security at the mortuary, but he also lamented that similar steps had not been across the NHS back in 2015 after inquiries into Savile detailed suspicions about the notorious paedophile’s abuse of dead bodies at Leeds general infirmary.

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A 2014 inquiry focused on Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust detailed “incredibly harrowing” but uncofirmed allegations that Savile – who had unrestricted access to the mortuary – committed sex acts on corpses there, and claimed to have jewellery made from glass eyes taken from the dead.