Robbers who stole and sold preserved specimens from the Royal College of Surgeons’ collection were held rightly convicted of theft. The court considered the issue of ownership of a corpse: ‘We accept that however questionable the historical origins of the principle, it has now been common law for 150 years at least that neither a corpse nor parts of corpse are in themselves and without more capable of being property protected by rights.’ However parts of a corpse are capable of being property: ‘To address the point as it was addressed before the trial judge and to which his certificate relates, in our judgment, parts of a corpse are capable of being property within section 4 of the Theft Act 1968 if they have acquired different attributes by virtue of the application of skill, such as dissection or preservation techniques for exhibition or teaching purposes, see Doodeward v Spence 6CLR 406, 413, 414 in the judgment of Griffith C.J. to which we have already referred and Dobson v North Tyneside Health Authority [1997] 1WLR 596, 601 where this proposition is not dissented from and appears in the judgment of this court to have been accepted by Peter Gibson LJ; otherwise, his analysis of the facts of Dobson’s case, which appears at that page in the judgment, would have been, as it seems to us, otiose.’
Judges:
Rose LJ
Citations:
[1999] 2 QB 621
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Sharpe CCCR 1857
The defendant was charged not with theft of a corpse, but of its removal from a grave: ‘Our law recognises no property in a corpse, and the protection of the grave at common law as contradistinguished from ecclesiastic protection to consecrated . .
Cited by:
Cited – AB and others v Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust QBD 26-Mar-2004
Representative claims were made against the respondents, hospitals, pathologists etc with regard to the removal of organs from deceased children without the informed consent of the parents. They claimed under the tort of wrongful interference.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Wills and Probate
Updated: 26 July 2022; Ref: scu.195005