Artist 'carried remains on bike'

AN ARTIST "trying to understand death" rode a motorcycle through London carrying stolen bits of dead bodies wrapped in bin-liners inside a rucksack, a court was told yesterday.

Anthony-Noel Kelly, 42, a former butcher, who made silver and gold-coloured sculptures from the parts, told police the largest and heaviest was the head and torso of an old man.

Fortunately, preserving fluid they had floated in for at least 18 years at the Royal College of Surgeons' headquarters had kept them "limp", and he had no trouble folding the arms across the chest for easier transportation, Southwark Crown Court in south London was told.

Mr Kelly, of Clapham, south London, and Niel Lindsay, 25, a former trainee lab technician from Stoke Newington, north London, both deny stealing parts of dead bodies from the college between June 1991 and November 1994. Mr Kelly also denies dishonestly handling them.

The case continues.