Mega-mortuary creaks open its doors in Westminster

The Home Secretary has cut the tape on a futuristic forensic mortuary, costing £783,800 and accommodating over 100 deceased citizens in Westminster. The first of its kind in London, the Beeb reports, it will deal solely with the suspiciously-dead. The Iain West Forensic Suite is named in honour of the flamboyant forensic …

[CharleyBoy]

just what they deserve

"– and give victims the justice they deserve"

Hmm, Slice and Dice by the Government - just what people deserve. They shouldn't have been so negligent as to be involved in a crime in the first place.

[Craig Edwards]

death house

i, for one, welcome our new death house overlords... :-)

[David Rollinson]

Good value

I wouldn't have though £780,000 would get you a one-bedroom flat in Westminster.

[4.1.3_U1]

Price?

Does seem a bit of a bargain in terms of govt. spending - 102 slots for under a mill. Or is it missing a couple of zeroes?

Mine's the blood spattered one with the scalpel in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The still-breathing Jacqui Smith"...

Ah-hahahaha. That is all I have to say.

[dervheid]

Why 102?

Peculiar number!

Sure there's a very good (plausible) reason for this?

Isn't there?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...and gunned-down TV celeb Jill Dando"

So that's who did it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great writing!

"we shan't just be stacked like floppy firewood " - that made me laugh this morning

[Ben Bradley]

Only £783,000?

That actually seems pretty cheap for something gov.uk has initiated?

Whether it's any use? I don't know - I can only assume so.

I still have the feeling our cops are still WAY behind the yanks in all this CSI stuff.

[milan]

780k?

Either this was one of the very few value for money projects the government have come up with or there are a couple of 0's missing.

[Eponymous Cowherd]

A mortuary in Westminster?

That'd be the House of Lords, wouldn't it?

[spiny norman]

Mr Dead

I bet they got this second-hand from CSI.

[Anonymous Coward]

Murder Central

Good Lord! How many murders-per-day do you people have over there?

You didn't mention how many pathologists will be lurking there. 50? 20? 10? Or is this really just a big freezer unit to hold victims until one of the 2 employees can get around to them?

The skull and crossbones because... well, bones, obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Other purpose

It could be used to store a large number of New Labour's backbench zombie army within easy lurching distance of Parliament for when they're needed to vote through a particularly gruesome piece of lorranorder legislation.

[Senor Beavis]

Free autopsy

I recall a story of an eminent forensic who used to say to rookie cops during their first attendance at a post-mortem examination that anyone found horizontal would be treated to a free autopsy...

[Mike Smith]

Freudian slip?

"by maximising forensic technological advances to find and punish criminals – and give victims the justice they deserve," Smith proclaimed"

What's missing from that sentence?

Yep. One tiresome obstruction.

We have to try them and convict them before we can punish them. Mind you, with Benito Blair's legacy still in power, I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see the independent judiciary's days numbered...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why 102?

On the TV show CSI, they stack the bodies 3-high in the fridges.

Some bureaucrat probably specified 100 as a nice round number. But that doesn't divide by 3. 102 (or 99) does. So I guess the designer rounded it up.

Disclaimer: All my knowledge of mortuaries was gained from watching CSI, NCIS, and Tru Calling.

[George]

Thats because Ben...

CSI isn't actually real. I don't what we're like in real life.

Anyway who cares about justice in the US...all the cops have guns, you don't need forensics!

The skull? Need I say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jacakass-in-office

We have a Home Secretary who plainly doesn't know what "forensic" means: pertaining to a court or the courts. Why's that not a surprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

People!

Soylent Green is PEOPLE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Just a load of dead bodies.

If this is the Mortuary in Lisson Grove, I remember it being written up when it was built and what impressed me was the Septic Shower suite for cleaning infested Gentlemen of The Road - all that stainless steel - so Hi-Tech !!

[Gavin Jamie]

102 capacity

The fridges probably stack 3 high. Probably a toss up between 102 and 99.

102 probably isn't that huge depending on how much of London they are planning to cover.

Still they can always use a refrigerated container in the car park as hospitals occasionally do at time of crisis. Apparently Sun have a few air conditioned crates going a begging with nice metal racks already installed.

Mine's the lab coat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Special "Musta been Excited Delirium" room for taser-deaths?

Instructions: List all possible contributing factors EXCEPT the taser shot. Don't mention the taser shot. For god's sake, don't mention the taser shot. In-grown toe nails are a possible contributing factor, but not the taser shot.

[ben]

Mega?

Hardly - it only holds 102, although hecta-mortuary sounds just weird and kilo-mortuary, although only 1 order of magnitude out, sounds almost right if pronounced Killer...

However if you just mean large mortuary, why not say so?

Mine is the one with PEDANT written across the back

[Ted Treen]

Multiples

If we get another 5 built - then that would accommodate virtually ALL the inhabitants of the Palace of Westminster...........

Just a thought.........

(but rather a nice one)

Mine's the one with arrows on - or probably soon will be...

[Malcolm]

Re: Why 102?

Presumably Shelf 101 is reserved for those unfortunate individuals that Big Brother merely wishes to forget about. (with shelf 102 providing overflow capacity - bureaucrats are ever-pragmatic)

[Darkside]

NOT in Trafalgar Square?

I want you all to know that if I'm machine-gunned by panicky Yank invaders while manning any barricades, I want to be stacked in Trafalgar Square, not hidden from the eyes of the world.

Helicopter, because we'll never see tanks in Trafalgar Square (though only because they'd fall through the streets into the Underground).

[Colonel Panic]

@MIke Smith

>We have to try them and convict them before we can punish them

Presumtion of innocence ? That is sooooo 90s...

No, you see under the watchful eye Citizen Gordon, you will be issued with an ASBO at birth, together with your identity card. That way, when you breach it, you know where you live. Oh, and just so we know where you are when you're not at home - bend over, we need to fit you with this rectally implanted GPS tracker. Don't worry, if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.

[Tim Blair]

Unemployed

I was going to be a pathologist...

But they say it's a dieing trade...

[Tonto Popaduopolos]

@ Tim Blair

I always wanted to be a lexicographer but my thesaurus got in the way. That is a DYING trade.