{"id":676692,"date":"2026-07-06T13:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T13:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/676692\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T13:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T13:01:09","slug":"parents-shocked-after-childrens-paper-hedgehogs-found-to-contain-pages-from-explicit-novel-merseyside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/676692\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents shocked after children\u2019s paper hedgehogs found to contain pages from explicit novel | Merseyside"},"content":{"rendered":"

At first, the cute paper hedgehogs seemed like a kind gesture. An older man had crafted the little creations from donated books to raise money for charity, handing them to children in local shops.<\/p>\n

But on closer inspection, some parents were horrified to discover the hedgehogs had been made from the pages of an erotic novel.<\/p>\n

It was \u201cadult content. Pure sexual stuff,\u201d said Linda Fortune, whose four-year-old granddaughter received a hedgehog.<\/p>\n

After posting about the unsettling encounter on social media, Fortune said at least seven other families contacted her to say they had also taken home a hedgehog made from explicit pages.<\/p>\n

Jemma Ashby told the Wirral Globe<\/a> she was shopping at a Tesco in Merseyside with her 10-year-old daughter when a man approached and offered her one of his handmade hedgehogs, complete with googly eyes and a furry nose.<\/p>\n

He had a carrier bag full of them and said he made them at home as a hobby.<\/p>\n

Ashby said she thought it was a \u201clovely gesture\u201d and placed the hedgehog on her daughter\u2019s windowsill.<\/p>\n

She later came across a Facebook post about the source material and was \u201cdisgusted\u201d.<\/p>\n

At least one hedgehog contained sexually explicit passages. Photograph: Wirral Globe and Linda Fortune<\/p>\n

\u201cI ran upstairs and grabbed [the hedgehog]. I grabbed a middle page and it said something about being a legal age, and then another page saying about someone\u2019s sister being murdered. I took it out of her room straight away and hid it,\u201d Ashby told the newspaper.<\/p>\n

Some parents were so concerned they reported the matter to Merseyside<\/a> police.<\/p>\n

Officers spoke to the man, who said he normally checked the pages before using them and was mortified by the mistake.<\/p>\n

Merseyside police said on Monday the force was \u201chappy there was no malice involved and no offences have been committed\u201d.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson added: \u201cThe hedgehogs were created in good faith by the individual and have been used to raise money for a local charity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some appear to have been made from Nicholson Baker\u2019s 1994 erotic novel The Fermata, with at least one containing sexually explicit passages.<\/p>\n

Some of those who received the hedgehogs defended the man who made them, saying only some contained explicit content and it was just a mistake.<\/p>\n

One woman said her four-year-old was \u201cabsolutely obsessed\u201d with her paper creation, which was made using pages of Rosemary Enright\u2019s The Walled Garden. \u201cOversight? Yes,\u201d she added. \u201cI don\u2019t believe [there was] any malicious intent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others were eager to get their hands on a hedgehog. \u201cWho\u2019s the old guy making them? I want one,\u201d said one man, commenting on the Wirral Globe story. \u201cIt would be especially fun if it was made from an erotic novel. If anyone knows him, tell him I\u2019ll pay postage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At first, the cute paper hedgehogs seemed like a kind gesture. An older man had crafted the little…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-676692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}