UK's most tattooed man on jailed 'Dr Evil' tattooist: He's not a danger

Body Art said Brendan McCarthy's sentence will not deter people from going elsewhere for body modification.
King of Ink Land King Body Art The Extreme Ink-Ite
Bonnie Christian31 March 2019

The UK's most tattooed man has hit out after a tattooist known as Dr Evil was jailed for carrying out illegal body modifications on customers.

Body Art, whose full name is King of Ink Land King Body Art The Extreme Ink-Ite, has campaigned for regulation of body modification procedures for years and said his community is appalled at the sentence handed to Brendan McCarthy.

McCarthy, based in Wolverhampton, was jailed for more than three years for carrying out ear and nipple removals and splitting a customer's tongue.

He pleaded guilty in February to three counts of causing grievous bodily harm and weeks later was handed a 40 month prison sentence.

"It's been very mixed emotions," Body Art, 39, who was one of McCarthy's clients, said.

"I'd say on the borderline of literally unstable emotions of everything you can possibly imagine from extreme sadness to extreme anger.”

Brendan McCarthy was sentenced to 40 months prison. (Aaron Chown/PA )
Aaron Chown/PA

"Brendon was not a danger to public and acting in the interest of the public. We are people who want these things done."

Body Art said he was placed in an unusual position in 2017 when West Midlands Police registered him as a victim of McCarthy despite him not wanting to press charges.

When asked to submit a summary to be supplied to the Crown Prosecution Service he said he decided instead to write in defence of Brendan.

"I didn't give a statement complaining against Brendan, I complained against the police, saying that I did not see myself as a victim," Body Art said.

The charges police had brought against McCarthy on his behalf related to a transdermal implant, a disc used to hang jewellery off, being placed under the skin on his forehead.

They were later dropped.

Brendan McCarthy performed a transdermal implant procedure on Body Art. ( King of Ink Land King Body Art The Extreme Ink-Ite)
King of Ink Land King Body Art The Extreme Ink-Ite

McCarthy, described as “widely respected” also removed one of Body Art's ears, shaped the other ear, and removed both of his nipples, but refused his other requests, such as removing one of his toes.

Body Art said McCarthy was also "totally against" eyeball staining, a procedure he has had done, in which the whites of the eyeball are tattooed.

He added that the sentence would not deter people from getting body modifications "underground or abroad" and had instead reinforced issues that they are seen as "freaks" within society.

"I personally see us as a 'trans' community, " Body Art added, "not trans by gender or trans by sexuality, but we're transforming our bodies and we're in a body that doesn't fit to society's lifestyle regulations.

"Brendan was forced to plead guilty to GBH when we've given consent because the law states that we can't give consent.

"Under law he's a criminal, under law we're victims of crime - that surely can't be right."

Body Art said people in the medical and judicial industry were too quick to assume body modifiers were suffering from mental illness.

King of Ink Land King Body Art The Extreme Ink-Ite at Ripley's Believe It Or Not in 2014.
Getty Images

"You can have five nose jobs or tummy tuck after tummy tuck after liposuction and still not be happy with yourself," he said.

"We're the opposite - we are happy amending our bodies but they're very quick to say we are the ones suffering from some form of rare body dysmorphia.

Body Art has been been campaigning for years to get the laws around body modification regulated.

"I could just go have a procedure done today, tomorrow, next week and the people performing the procedure are breaking the law but I'm not," he said.

One of the key issues he wants amended is to allow people to give to give consent to modify their bodies, drawing a distinction between cases such as male or female genital mutilation.

“It's going to take a massive campaign to get the law changed,” he said.

“I'm advising people amongst our community to contact their ministers of parliament to write to the ministry of justice about their future body mod procedures.

“Hopefully we can log a judicial review of these out of date laws that have been a nightmare to Brendan and his family and the rest of my community.

“The problem is that society that we live in discriminate against us.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in