MailOnline writes story about 'human flesh' served in Nigerian restaurant, gets called out for using picture of Hawksmoor steak to illustrate it

Hawksmoor founder Will Beckett questioned the legality of the MailOnline using the image

The steak pictured is beef, not human flesh (Facebook)

It may be difficult to source an image of cooked human flesh for the purpose of illustrating a story, but using a professional picture of a reputable restaurant’s distinctive steak dish is possibly not the best way to do it without complaint.

That’s what the MailOnline discovered when its story focusing on a Nigerian restaurant that was “shut down for serving human flesh” used a picture of a sliced chateaubriand served by Hawksmoor in the article.

Hawksmoor founder Will Beckett saw the story and asked: “Dear @MailOnline, why are you using a photo of our steak to illustrate ‘Nigerian restaurant sells human meat’? Legal?”

The picture has since been removed from the story, though an image of pork chops remains, with the caption: “Disgusting: Nigerian restaurant has reportedly been shut down for cooking human flesh and serving it to customers (file photo of pork chops)”.

Beckett confirmed to the i100 that the image is of one of the restaurant’s steaks: “It's a sliced chateaubriand from Yorkshire Longhorn cattle that we serve at all our restaurants, which have won numerous 'best steak in the UK' awards.

“For clarity's sake we don't serve human flesh, there are no severed heads in our kitchen, and we've never even been nominated for 'Nigeria's Best Restaurant' or 'Cannibal Menu of the Year'.

“Whereas the Mail's main complaint appears to be that the human flesh was expensive I can also assure you that while our steak isn't cheap it is excellent value.“

The truth of the story, which claims human heads were found dripping with blood into plastic bags in the restaurant and that human flesh had been served and cooked to customers, has also been questioned.

The first story from this week appears to have been first published on the BBC’s Swahili service, but the link used by the MailOnline, the Telegraph and the Metro as the source for the story does not work. It instead displays a page stating: “404: Ukurasa haupatikani kwa sasa” or “Page not found,” suggesting the story has been removed.

A spokesperson for the BBC said: "This was a mistake and we apologise. The story was incorrect and was published without the proper BBC checks. Once we became aware of the error we removed the story and issued an apology in its place. We have launched an urgent investigation into how this happened and we are taking appropriate action."

The MailOnline has yet to respond to a request for comment.