'Gruesome' Rise in sales of human remains sparks fear of new era of grave-robbing

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."

- Roland Hughes Hannah Devlin

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, 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.

They say the lack of regulation means much of the buying and selling of skulls and bones falls into a legal grey zone and that the growing online market risks fuelling a new era of "body snatching", with reports of bones being removed from crypts and graveyards in the UK and abroad.

"You've got people who are breaking into mausolea and who are taking remains away to sell them for people who think this is gothic, quaint [or] supernatural," said Black, the president of St John's College, Oxford. "If you can make the sale of a bird's nest illegal, surely... you can make the sale of a human body illegal. Having a necklace made out of somebody's teeth isn't acceptable to people."