A UK citizen made a gruesome discovery in a London playground on Tuesday, a severed ear – or at least that’s what they thought, until further investigation by local police.
The ear was found in a children’s playground in the London borough of Enfield. The concerned passerby no doubt feared the worst for owner of the muddied lug, which looked to have been slashed from the side of a person’s head.
Believing that a serious crime had been committed, the person appears to have placed a 999 call to the Metropolitan Police Service. However, on closer inspection by police officers it was determined that the lifelike ear was actually a “child’s toy”.
Quite why a child would be caught playing with a dummy ear is anyone’s guess. Hopefully it wasn’t bought by a new parent eager to see their youngster recreate boxer Mike Tyson’s infamous Evander Holyfield bite.
Bizarrely, this is not the first case of fake human body parts resulting in wasted police time.
A similar instance occurred at Discovery Bay in Hong Kong last year. This time a plastic foot floating in the ocean was the culprit and led to Lantau police divers sweeping the area for human remains.
In 2013, a make-up artist from Nottingham also got into hot water with authorities after he tried to prank his niece with a false severed hand. Patrick Plummer’s rubber prop was placed on a doorstep as a joke.
However, the horror hand was mistaken for a real one and police ended up cordoning off a street because of it before the misunderstanding was finally straightened out.