A pair of would-be thieves had to be decontaminated by British authorities after they stumbled into a cache of rotting body parts and hazardous medical waste.

Barry Watson, 36, and Jamie Pollard, 30, were nabbed by a security guard in September as they searched for discarded drugs at a building once owned by a waste-disposal company that went bankrupt after losing its contract with the National Health Service.

The mess left behind by Healthcare Environmental Services included a hallway-blocking heap of bulging plastic bags and bins full of used medical equipment.

Watson and Pollard, who were decontaminated by local firefighters before being taken into custody, were given six-month sentences for burglary this week, Chronicle Live reported.