A government-commissioned inquiry into necrophiliac murderer David Fuller has concluded that the systemic failures that allowed him to sexually abuse at least 100 corpses over 15 years remain largely unaddressed, meaning similar offences could recur. In its Phase 2 final report, released on 15 July, inquiry chair Sir Jonathan Michael said the current regulatory framework governing mortuaries, hospital pathology units and the 4,500 funeral directors in England is “partial, ineffective and in significant areas completely absent”. The investigation found that Fuller, a hospital maintenance worker, accessed mortuaries at Kent and Sussex Hospital and Tunbridge Wells Hospital between 2005 and 2020—entering one facility 444 times in a single year without challenge—before his arrest and whole-life sentence in 2021. The report urges rapid legislation to standardise licensing, inspection and staff vetting across all settings where bodies are kept, warning that without such measures it is “entirely possible” for comparable abuse to take place again. Ministers previously pledged to protect the “security and dignity of the deceased” after the inquiry’s interim findings; the government is now expected to respond to the final recommendations.