Human bone found in pair of Primark socks

A customer has found a human bone in a pair of socks from Primark.

Police revealed they are investigating the discovery that “turned up in the garments that were bought from the Colchester store on 10 December and was subsequently reported to police on 2 January”, reports The Guardian.

“The bone does not appear to be a result of recent trauma and had no skin or other particles surrounding it,” a police spokesman said. “We are liaising with the store who, in turn, are speaking to their suppliers for more information on this incident.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Police said that without further testing, officers cannot be certain of the origin or age of the bone.

Primark apologised to the unnamed customer who found the bone fragment, and suggested the incident could have been placed inside the socks as a hoax.

A company spokesman said: “Primark clearly takes this matter very seriously and has already carried out an investigation at our supplier’s factory where the socks were made. The factory has been used by other retailers and subject of many audits over many years. Primark sincerely apologises to the customer who found the item for any distress caused.”

“No evidence of any kind exists to suggest that any incident has occurred in the factory, so it is highly probable that this object was placed in the socks by an individual for unknown reasons. Primark has been the subject of isolated incidents in the past which have subsequently been found to have been hoaxes,” the spokesman added.

CNN notes that in 2014, a customer in Northern Ireland reportedly discovered a chilling note stuffed in a pair of pants she bought from the clothing chain.

Written on a yellow piece of paper and wrapped around what appeared to be a prison identification card was a message claiming to be from an inmate at a Chinese prison making clothes under conditions of slave labour.

“We work 15 hours every day and eat food that wouldn't even be fed to pigs and dogs. We're (forced to) work like oxen,” the handwritten note said in Chinese.