British most tatooed man was denied passport

Britain's most tattooed man has been denied a new passport because of his unusual name.

Mathew Whelan changed his twice, in 2007 and 2009, and now calls himself 'King of Ink Land King Body Art The Extreme Ink-Ite'.

The bizarre moniker features on his driving licence but when he applied to get his passport renewed – and sent the £72.50 fee – it was rejected.


The 34-year-old, known as 'Body Art' for short, has spent more than £25,000 covering 90 per cent of his skin in tattoos, including the whites of his eyeballs.

And he was planning to travel overseas as he had been offered work doing body modification through his work with MOD World international.

He said: “I applied for an update on my passport because it had expired. I got a phone call from an administrator at the passport office and they said there was a problem.

“They said my application was being reviewed by the policy department, they said they needed further government documents with my name.”

Body Art said that he promptly sent off his driving licence, a letter from his MP and mortgage letter, all by recorded delivery.

Birmingham MailKing of Ink
Denied: Body Art can't get a passport because of his name

But on January 15, he received a letter from the Passport Office saying that they were sticking to policy and were refusing to issue a passport because of his unusual name.

Body Art said: “This is a breach of my human rights. They want to put my birth name on my passport. But that is not my name any more.”

He has now sent a letter of complaint to the Passport Office.

And his local MP John Hemming (Lib Dem Yardley) is backing him, and has asked the Passport Office to clarify their policy on names.

He said: “Obviously there do need to be limits on what names are acceptable for public documents but these limits should be consistent and the policy as to what is acceptable should be clear.

“I have written to the passport agency to see why they take a different view to the DVLA.”

A spokeswoman from Passport Office said they did not comment on individual cases and referred us to the ‘strings of words or phrases’ of their policy.

It read: “Where an applicant changes his or her name to a string of words or phrases that would not normally be recognised as a name, this should not be entered onto the personal details page of the passport. For example, the names ‘New Year’ ‘Happy Easter’ or ‘Good Bye’ are unacceptable as, when put together, they become a recognised phrase or saying.”