CALLOUS thieves raiding graves in the desperate hope of lining their pockets with burial jewellery is a despicable crime that was still happening as late as the 1970s.

It’s just one of a host of stories that David Cross, the keeper of Birmingham Police Museum, can recall from his police career as though it was yesterday.

By 1970 Pc Cross was one of the permanent beat officers working the Sparkbrook district of Birmingham.

His brother, the Rev Neville Charles Cross, was the vicar of St Agatha’s Church in Stratford Road, Sparkbrook.

But with the vicar of Christchurch, he also had responsibility for Holy Trinity Church in Camp Hill, which had long since fallen into disuse.

Police would quite regularly patrol the back of Holy Trinity Church as the door to the crypt had been broken into and sealed up on many occasions following numerous break-ins.

Eventually senior police officers liaised with Rev Cross to address the problem and a Home Office order was obtained authorising the removal of the bodies from the crypt to be reinterred at Witton Cemetery.

It was decided that since one coffin had been broken into by thieves looking for jewellery that had been buried with the deceased (an urban myth) that all bodies and coffins should be removed.