peripathetic

Violation of sepulchre
That's what two teenagers in Edinburgh, Scotland are charged with. They allegedly broke into a 1600s mausoleum and played with a corpse.

When the police arrived at Greyfriars graveyard, they found four coffins, one of which had been smashed, and the head of the corpse removed. A 14-year-old girl told the court that Sonny Devlin said "they had taken a head from someone that was dead at the graveyard". At Greyfriars, he pulled out a head from behind a gravestone and at one point, was "chucking it around" with another youth or youths. Another witness, a 15-year-old girl, said Sonny Devlin and his co-accused had been "mucking about" with the head "... making it talk to him". [BBC]

The charge hasn't been brought before the courts since 1899.

Christopher Gane, professor in Scots law at Aberdeen University, said: "It is fascinating that this charge has been indicted in the High Court. "The last case recorded in our law reports was in 1899 when a gentleman called William Coutts had six charges of violation of sepulchre laid against him. He was the superintendent of Nellfield Cemetery, a private graveyard on the Great Western Road in Aberdeen, and the background to the case was that he was accused of digging up coffins and reselling the lairs for other burials." Prof Gane added: "The law of theft does not apply to a human body that has been interred, as in the eyes of the law a body that has been buried for some time does not count as ?property? for the purpose of stealing." [The Scotsman]