A photograph allegedly of Britain’s worst serial killer in the nude is up for grabs on internet auction site eBay, where it had attracted bids of up to £850 (about R10 000) by Tuesday.
The picture, which is not displayed on the website, shows family doctor Harold Shipman — also known as “Doctor Death” — lying down naked, claims the seller, a company called Rebelpics.
“Own the photograph, see the murdering bastard naked! And make thousands from the image,” says a description of the photograph on the website.
“Once-in-a-lifetime chance — the world’s press will pay big money for this picture,” it adds.
The general practitioner, who hanged himself in prison in January 2004 while serving a life sentence without parole, is thought to have killed 250 patients over three decades.
Despite not showing the Shipman photo, it generated an initial bid of £250 (R2 900) only 40 minutes after the advert appeared on eBay.
It has since attracted 32 bids, with the highest to date coming in at £850. Interested parties have until April 22 week to raise the stakes.
The advert claims money raised from the sale, minus the initial fee paid for the photograph, will be donated to the families of Shipman’s victims.
But the chairperson of a victims’ group, Peter Wagstaff, whose 81-year-old mother, Kathleen, was murdered by the killer, said nobody has been in touch with him about raising cash from the picture.
“It sounds rather sick, that’s all. What sort of person does that?” Wagstaff said.
Shipman is thought to have killed about 250 patients over a 27-year period while running a one-man medical practice in Manchester, north-west England.
In January 2004, however, he hanged himself in Wakefield prison, in England’s northern Yorkshire region, where he was serving a life sentence without parole for a sample selection of 15 murders committed in the 1970s.
An inquest into his death is expected to conclude on Thursday. — AFP