The clipping of the late princess’ hair was offered for sale by Mataura man Bruce Gotobed, a former Jesuit priest and collector of Catholic art and relics.

Gotobed, 45, bought the clipping two years ago from an American collector, and had been unsuccessfully trying to sell it on TradeMe in New Zealand for more than a year, until traders started criticising the auction on online discussion boards yesterday, prompting two complaints to the site’s management for breaching the auction website’s ban on selling body parts.

Gotobed was disappointed but not surprised that the auction had been pulled.

Mr Gotobed, who is selling his collection as he fights terminal brain cancer, had received only a couple of offers for the Diana lock over the past year, but they were for considerably less than the $600 he was hoping to achive.

TradeMe business manager Mike O’Donnell said the decision to cancel the auction was “really simple we don’t do body parts”.

O’Donnell said it was not the first time body part auctions had been cancelled; in 2006, a Nelson man had put his amputated right leg up for auction, and fingernails were also periodically put up for sale.

O’Donnell also rejected Gotobed’s argument that the auction should be allowed as sales of human hair wigs and hair extensions were permitted, saying wigs were processed to meet health standards.

Posted: 01|6|08 at 10:08 am. Filed under: UK News.