A traumatised police officer who helped bring morgue monster David Fuller to justice is calling for a change in the law to honour the dead.
Former DS David Shipley spent more than a year going through footage recorded by necrophiliac Fuller as he sexually abused 101 dead women and girls over 15 years.
The tough detective was so disturbed by the case he came out of retirement to finish analysing evidence – even though it left him suffering nightmarish hallucinations.
Warped Fuller was jailed in December 2021 for two murders and his sickening mortuary abuse.
But under current laws covering necrophilia, only certain sex acts are classed as crimes and carry a maximum jail sentence of two years.
As a result, for almost a third of Fuller’s victims, police could only prosecute him for the indecent images he kept of himself abusing them – not for the acts themselves.
Sickened Mr Shipley has launched a petition calling for the law to treat sexual crimes against the dead and the living in the same way.
The 56-year-old said: “You can do awful things to a dead body which, as it stands, are actually not against the law.
“The law needs strengthening to make it absolutely clear – you cannot disrespect the dead in any way, shape
or form.”
Fuller was arrested in 2020 after DNA linked him to the 1987 sex killings of Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
When police looked into the hospital maintenance worker, they found 818,051 images and 504 videos chronicling more than a decade of mortuary sex offending.
Mr Shipley, who spent 14 years in Kent Police’s paedophile unit, was assigned to study the evidence due to his expertise in victim identification and he had to view the vile footage Fuller took of himself abusing corpses.
The detective, who developed coping tactics during his years in the grim role, said: “I’ve seen awful things in my work but Fuller took me completely by surprise.
“To begin with, I thought, ‘I can do this’. I was dealing with dead bodies but I knew I was never going to have to speak to their relatives.”
But after finding folders showing Fuller had researched his victims, he started to be plagued by nightmares and hallucinations. Mr Shipley, who sought help from an in-house police counsellor, said: “They went from being a dead body to a person with a social media presence, a story about how they died.
“It brought them back to life in front of me and made it even more difficult to process the material. I was seeing dead people at random times.”
Fuller, 68, of Heathfield, East Sussex, pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Knell and Ms Pierce and got two whole-life sentences. He also admitted abusing female bodies – aged nine to 100 – at Tunbridge Wells Hospital and the now-closed Kent and Sussex Hospital from 2005 to 2020.
For those crimes, and admitting making and possessing indecent images of children and other extreme porn, he got further sentences of 12 and 16 years.
A public inquiry has called for witnesses who might have worked with Fuller in the 1990s to come forward.
And the Government vowed to look at harsher sentences for serious sex offences against the dead.
Mr Shipley, who has now retired from the force but still teaches police recruits, said: “For the sake of victims and their relatives, [change] needs to happen. I’m angry about the lack of action. With the law as it stands, there’s nothing stopping horrible things happening to our dearly departed.”
The son of one of Fuller's victims is also backing Mr Shipley's call for a new law to honour the dead.
Tom Mackelden's mum Tania was abused by Fuller at Tunbridge Wells hospital after she died of cancer in 2017, aged 48.
Tom, 25, said he wanted to "bury his head in a pillow and scream until his lungs gave out" after police told him the extent of the sexual abuse.
And he is outraged that Fuller could not be charged with crimes relating to his abuse of many victims due to current necrophilia laws.
Tom, from Maidstone, Kent, said: "I am very grateful to David Shipley for all he has done. All sexual acts against dead people should be illegal.
"Fuller preyed on people who could not defend themselves. It's no different to someone taking advantage of a drunk man or woman who can't say no. [My mum] couldn't scream or cry for help. She was taken advantage of at her most vulnerable moment.
"You have to be an extremely sick and evil person to do what he did."
The 12 years Fuller got for mortuary offences included his abuse of Tania's body.
But Tom - who launched the Tania Mackelden Foundation, which sends families affected by cancer on holidays abroad, to ensure his mum has a positive legacy - feels the sentence was too lenient.
He added: "If he hadn't murdered those two girls he would be out in six to seven years as he'd only serve half his sentence.
"Someone capable of doing that should never be able to walk the streets."
The Ministry of Justice said: “David Fuller’s crimes were sickening. We are reviewing the maximum penalties for these horrific offences.”
- Sign Mr Shipley’s petition at chng.it/gkTKypG2Gd
