Clause 40 - Criminal justice purposes
Human Tissue Bill
9:30 am
Mr Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head—I think that the removal of brains is done automatically, as a matter of routine. That should not be the case. Whether for criminals or members of the public, brains should be removed only if there is proof or suspicion that a brain illness or defect has caused death.
I received an interesting e-mail from Caroline Wheeler of the Sunday Mercury, a Birmingham newspaper. She says:
''I am a journalist from the Sunday Mercury . . . I recently read an article in the Sunday Mirror, where the report claimed that bids were coming in from scientists across both sides of the Atlantic to buy Robert Maudsley's brain after he died.''
Robert Maudsley has not died—he was very ill, but did not die. He was an axe killer who—ironically—threatened to eat someone's brain. Ms Wheeler told me that bids of about £25,000 were submitted for his brain. There is therefore a bit of a market building up in criminal brains.
In an earlier debate, I referred to the notion—it is still very prevalent—of a criminal gene. I understand that that notion has been discredited because there is no evidence for it, but it is still prevalent among some people in criminology and anatomy. We do not want that sort of market to build up.
In Britain, we used to hang, draw and quarter criminals. The criminals whom I have named—as well as many others—were vicious, horrible people, but we do not want to go back to those days. We do not want their brains to be taken out automatically either—perhaps as a sort of punishment. We should have respect for bodies, even those of criminals.
I share the suspicion of the hon. Member for Westbury that the post-mortem process is carried out according to a tick-box system. I ask the Under-Secretary to examine that to see whether we can improve the system so that brains will not be removed automatically if there is no reason to do so. I seek those improvements not just for criminals—their treatment was my main reason for raising the matter—but for members of the public.