BRITAIN'S
LAST WITCH TRIAL
In 1944,
medium Helen Duncan became the last woman in Britain to be convicted of witchcraft
when one of her seances exposed a government attempt to cover up the deaths of
861 sailors. Now, campaigners aim to clear her name
By
David Edwards
IT
started much the same as her other seances. With a chilling moan and strange white
substance leaking from her mouth, Helen Duncan began communicating with the dead...
But
suddenly, the eerie calm was pierced by a police whistle and officers piled into
the house, in Portsmouth, Hants, to arrest Britain's top medium.
The
following morning Helen, known as Hellish Nell, was charged under section four
of the 1735 Witchcraft Act.
It
was 1944, and, astonishingly, officials had ordered her arrest because they were
afraid she would reveal top-secret plans for the D-Day landings.
They
had been monitoring her since she had revealed the sinking of a British battleship
earlier in the war - even though the government had suppressed the news to maintain
morale at home.
It
took a jury just 30 minutes to find her guilty and she became the last person
to be convicted of witchcraft in Britain.
As
she was led away to start her nine-month sentence in London's Holloway Prison,
the housewife cried out in her broad Scottish accent: "I never heard so many
lies in all my life!"
Helen's
"gift" had long put her on a collision course with the authorities and
led to one of the most bizarre chapters in British judicial history.
Today,
exactly 50 years after her death, campaigners hope to persuade Home Secretary
John Reid to overturn the verdict. "Helen Duncan was one of the world's top
mediums, a woman who gave hope and comfort to many," says Ray Taylor, editor
of Psychic World.
"It
was her gift that caused the government to hound her under an archaic law which
eventually led to her death.
"It's
a scandal and it is time that her name was cleared."
Helen
Macfarlane was born into a poor family in Perthshire, central Scotland, in 1897.
Growing up in Callander, Stirlingshire, she earned her nickname due to her tomboyish
behaviour. Even as a teenager, she appeared to have a sixth sense, predicting
the length of the First World War and invention of the tank.
When
the unmarried Helen became pregnant in 1918, she fled the village and settled
in Dundee. There, she married an invalid soldier, Henry Duncan, and had five more
children.
During
that period, Britain was still reeling from the devastating losses sustained in
the First World War and many grieving families sought spiritual comfort.
Seances
quickly sprang up, conducted by people claiming to be in touch with the dead.
Helen
was among them and, by the 1930s, she was travelling the country, summoning up
spirits before incredulous audiences.
But
while the seances were making her a celebrity, scientists were already questioning
her abilities and, in 1931, she was invited with Henry to London to have her skills
tested by psychic researcher Harry Price.
He
recalls: "She was placed in the curtained recess. In a few seconds, the medium
was in a trance. The curtains parted and we beheld her covered from head to foot
with cheese-cloth!
"Some
of it was trailing on the floor, one end was poked up her nostril, a piece was
issuing from her mouth. I must say that I was deeply impressed - with the brazen
effrontery that prompted the Duncans to come to my lab, with the amazing credulity
of the spiritualists who had sat with the Duncans and with the fact that they
had advertised her 'phenomena' as genuine."
In
a bid to reveal the contents of Helen's stomach, Price asked if she would undergo
an X-ray.
"She
refused. Her husband advised her to submit. But that seemed to infuriate her and
she became hysterical. She jumped up and dealt him a blow on the face.
"Suddenly,
she jumped up, unfastened the door and dashed into the street - where she had
another attack of alleged hysterics and commenced tearing her sŽance garment
to pieces.
"Her
husband dashed after her and she was found clutching the railings, screaming."
Yet the researchers did not bring about Helen's downfall. Instead, the seeds were
sown in the Mediterranean, on November 25, 1941.
HMS
Barham, a 29,000-tonne battleship, was attacking Italian convoys when it was hit
by three German torpedoes.
The
ship went down within minutes, with the loss of 861 lives. Already reeling from
the Blitz, the British government decided to keep the news quiet, even forging
Christmas cards from the dead to their families.
But
they never reckoned on Helen's psychic powers...
Days
after the attack, she held another seance and claimed that a sailor with the words
HMS Barham on his hatband appeared and said: "My ship is sunk."
News
of the apparition swiftly reached the Admiralty, which finally chose to act two
years later, in January 1944, amid fears that Helen would somehow reveal plans
for the D-Day landings five months later.
When
Helen was arrested, everyone expected a swift release. But such was the paranoia
of the authorities, she was refused bail and told that she would stand trial at
the Old Bailey.
It
was alleged she had pretended "to exercise or use human conjuration that
through the agency of Helen Duncan spirits of deceased dead persons should appear
to be present".
News
of the case infuriated PM Winston Churchill. In a note to his Home Secretary,
Herbert Morrison, he wrote: "Give me a report. What was the cost of a trial
in which the Recorder was kept busy with all this obsolete tomfoolery, to the
detriment of the necessary work in the courts?"
The
trial lasted seven days. Mediums had rallied to her cause and their defence fund
allowed her barrister to call 44 witnesses to testify she wasn't a fraud.
Yet
it was to no avail. Helen served her sentence and emerged from prison that September
a changed woman.
AT
first, she vowed never to hold another meeting but eventually relented â€"
a fateful decision.
The
end came in 1956, when she agreed to give a seance in Nottingham. Though the Witchcraft
Act had been repealed five years earlier and spiritualism was recognised as a
bonafide religion, Helen was arrested and subjected to a strip search.
She
never got over the shock and, after being rushed to hospital, remained there for
the next five weeks and died on December 6.
Whether
a gifted psychic or a charlatan who exploited people's griefs, the strange tale
of Helen Duncan - the unfortunate victim of Britain's last witchhunt - continues
to attract controversy.
CASTING
A SPELL THROUGH THE AGES
PENDLE
WITCHES
IN
1612, at Lancaster prison, 10 men and women were hanged for witchcraft. They were
believed to have been responsible for the murder by witchcraft of 17 people in
and around the Forest of Pendle.
NORTH
BERWICK WITCHES
A
GROUP of men and women were tortured, condemned and burnt in Scotland in the late
16th century, for "crimes" including creating a storm to drown King
James I.
MOTHER
SHIPTON
A
15TH century Yorkshire witch, said to have powers of healing and spellcasting.
"England's Nostradamus" predicted the invention of planes and cars,
and had accurate visions of wars.
MARY
BUTTERS
KNOWN
as the Carnmoney Witch, Butters narrowly escaped trial in the 19th century for
the killing of a cow and three people. At the inquest, she claimed that she had
been knocked unconscious, causing her witch's spell to become toxic.
SALEM
WITCHES
IN
1692, six men and 14 women were hanged or crushed to death in Salem, Massachusetts.
The witch hysteria began when four girls in the town dabbled in fortune-telling
games.
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