1 January 2013  THE Turin Shroud has intrigued historians for centuries — but born again Christian Terry O’Neill has his own version, dubbed the Adlington shroud.
He had an intricate design depicting Jesus tattooed on his back at Psycho Monkey, in Adlington, near Bolton, Greater Manchester.
Afterwards, staff at the shop gave him a spare T-shirt to wear until he got home so he that did not ruin his clothes.
When he took the T shirt off, he discovered it had created an imprint of Jesus’s face on it.
Shop manager Alan Calderbank said: “We gave him a T shirt so he wouldn’t spoil his bedsheets and he gave it back with an imprint of Jesus or, as we call it, The Adlington Shroud.”
Mr O’Neill, 43, a dad-of-two, said: “It was amazing. It’s a shroud.
“They are going to frame it and put it up in the shop.”
The body art cost £900 and took tattoo artist Jay Abbott more than 14 hours to create. Mr O’Neill, who got his first tattoo at the age of 18, said: “It’s not finished yet — it will be even better once it is.”
He had the idea for the tattoo when he saw a similar image on someone’s arm in a magazine — but Mr Abbott said it would look better if it was big.
Mr O’Neill said: “I was looking for somewhere to put it — I was running out of space. I thought, what about my back?”
He said his family and friends’ jaws dropped when they saw it.
“His eyes are glazed and piercing. It just looks so real,” he added.
Mr O’Neill said the second sitting was particularly sore, but he refused pain-relieving gel in honour of Jesus.
He said: “I thought that would be cheating a bit with me being a Christian. Jesus went through a lot more.”
Mr O’Neill, a drummer in The Taser Puppets, a band that has recently signed to an independent record label, turned to religion about 15 years ago.
He said: “I’m a born-again Christian. I don’t think I was a nice person before I became a Christian.
“I’ve had a lot of lucky escapes and have been in some bad situations.”