Dr Dick Coughin, a thirty-two-year-old father of four from Guildford, was dismissed from his post as a mortuary supervisor when relatives recognised their dearly departed on his website—their photographs that is, not the actual stiffs. What has shocked the nation is the content of these sepulchral snaps—which depict graphic acts of a compromising nature taking place between the concupiscent corpses. Doctor 'Necro', as the press have dubbed him, stoutly defended his macabre merrymaking when Utterpants interviewed him over a latte at the Purley Hilton hotel last week.

"I've done nothing wrong," said the dashing doctor, defiantly. "The chicks were dead when I snapped them. All I did was re-unite them with their boyfriends and hubbies. They were at it like rabbits when they were alive, so why should they be deprived of each other's company after they've popped their clogs? I've had no end of emails telling me what a comfort it has been to relatives to see their dearly departed re-united in each other's loving arms."

"But what about the charges of necrophilia that have been levelled against you?" we asked.
"The Oxford English dictionary defines 'necrophilia' as 'the impulse to have sexual contact with a dead body, usually of males with female corpses," retorted the entrepreneurial champion of the recently extinct. "Nowhere does it mention the attraction of the dead for the dead, or physical intimacy between consenting corpses. I didn't shag them. All I did was bring them together and allow nature to take its course."

"The press have called you a 'sick, depraved stiff-fiddler'. What do you say to them?" we asked Dr Coughin.
"They're living in the dark ages," he retorted derisively. "The dead have as much right to happiness as the rest of us. Sex is not just for the living."
"But surely the dead are incapable of having sex?" we objected.
"Without assistance, perhaps. But then so are paraplegics and the terminally bewildered, but we don't withhold this basic human need from them, do we?"
"But surely, doctor," we persisted, "The dead are dead aren't they?"

"That's necrosist propaganda. How do we know what the dead feel or think? Have we ever asked them? No! We arrogantly assume that just because they're not breathing or moving around much, that they're indifferent to each other. It's an established medical fact that hair and nails continue to grow after death. That proves there's life left in the old stiffs. In fact I'm sure of it, or the red hot totty—er, I mean—the auto-fatality with a broken neck I re-united with her boyfriend last week wouldn't have moaned quite so loudly when he went down on her. Who are we to deny the late lamented a little innocent fun just because they've kicked the bucket?"

"But don't the corpses decompose?"
"Doesn't a smoked kipper?" asked the irrepressible inhumationist. "That doesn't stop half the country eating them for breakfast! This is the 21st Century; we have refrigerators, preservatives, cosmetics and Chanel No.5."
"You mean to tell me that you can keep these—these couples alive indefinitely?"
"Hardly alive," laughed the laid-back locum. "But we can keep them dead for as long as we like."
"Is that ethical?" we asked.
"A lot more ethical than letting them rot in the municipal cemetery," enthused the ebullient embalmer. "If you could only see their happy little faces you would never consign another stiff to the sepulchre ever again. Don't the deceased have every right to enjoy a full and happy sex life with the partner of their choice?"

A good question. Utterpants consulted Professor A R Soul, of the London School of Post-mortem Consciousness Studies, who told us that: 'we simply do not know what happens to consciousness after the death of the physical body. The pleasurable awareness of sexual relations between consenting corpses cannot be ruled out at this point in our investigation of the complex neurology of the human mind.'

If this is true, it could revolutionise our understanding of post-mortem relationships, and may well mean that millions of couples, who have been cruelly separated by callous morticians hell-bent on maintaining their lucrative stake in the 'death business', have been unfairly deprived of the most basic of human rights.

We put this to Dr Coughin's superiors at Purley Memorial Hospital.
"Poppycock!" snorted Mr Davy Jones, a spokesperson for the Purley Hospital Trust. "Once you've passed away, there's about as much chance of you getting your leg over as President Bush porking Britney Spears. Dick Coughin is a sick degenerate who gets his jollies canoodling with corpses. He's dug his own grave by attempting to shroud his filthy fetish under the mantle of pseudo-scientific claptrap. A full investigation is under way. Make no bones about it; we will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to expose his perverted practices."

The Chief Constable for North Purley gave us the following statement: "Dr Coughin was paid to sit on cadavers, not to raise them. This is a grave abuse of the right of the dead to enjoy eternal peace. I shall not rest until this evil man is behind bars."
When we tried to contact Dr Coughin this morning we were told that he has left the country for a short holiday in Khyrghistan, or some other unpronounceable place with no vowels in it. His website—www.stiffsex.co.uk, was still online when we checked, but carries a message that the site 'has been taken down for the foreseeable future'.

Much the same could be said for the macabre mortician, should he ever return to the UK to face the charges the Police have brought against him.

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