Evil spirit exorcised from town flat.
A Hinckley family’s months of fear and uncertainty ended one day last week after the Rev. John Tonkin, Vicar of Holy Trinity, and Canon Lindsay Godfrey, former Canon Missioner for the Diocese of Leicester, visited their home to perform an hour-long exorcism to dispel an evil spirit. Immediately that ritual was completed the atmosphere changed to what would be considered normal.
It happened at Flat No. 3 at No. 1 Factory Road. Living there are Mr Jim Young, aged 29, his wife Susan, aged [26], and their 7 1/2 month old son Ian Michael. They moved into the flat when they were married 18 months ago. Mrs Young explained to The Hinckley Times what happened only two months afterwards. “I was standing in the front room peeling potatoes when I felt something in the room behind me. There was a great shadow of a man, at least it gave me the impression of being a man because it was heavy and wide. I just stood there, and I have never been so glad to see my husband who came in half an hour later from work. I was not feeling very well at all by then. I thought I was imagining it, but a few weeks later he felt and saw something on the landing.”
Previously no such presence had ever been noticed, but after then it appeared at intervals of three to four months, and was witnessed by other people too. Its appearances lasted for only a matter of seconds each time and only a vague outline could ever be identified.
Below the Youngs lived another couple, Mr and Mrs Terry Fisher, who moved six weeks ago to a council house at 47 Bradgate Road, Barwell. On another occasion Mrs Fisher felt this thing. She compared it to someone bending over her and said it felt so heavy that if it h ad fallen she was sure it would have crushed her. On one occasion, in the middle of the night, Mr Fisher heard noises in his flat and saw the same figure.
Staying at the flat at weekends is a friend of the Youngs’ Mrs Judy Barnes, aged 32, and her daughter Roxanna, aged two. Three weeks ago Mrs Barnes was in the Youngs’ flat when she woke up in the night and saw a figure, but this was white, not grey as before, and female, like a nun. In the bedroom Mrs Young woke her husband and asked if he could smell lavender perfume. He could not, but at the same time be felt aware of something being in the house.
The thick, heavy atsmosphere which was always associated with the spirit was always worse when it was raining, and the bathroom seemed more prone than anything else. “It was worse than ever there, the stifling atmosphere was always present. No-one would go in on their own. One Sunday night after going banger racing my husband sat in the bath and felt water being splashed on his back,” said Mrs Young. “That same night I turned off every light in the flat but when my husband woke up next morning they were all on, including the landing lights”, she added.
Mr Young also said there seemed something more peculiar about the bathroom than anywhere else, and added that there often seemed to be what he called a ‘cold spot’ extending down as if like a beam from a skylight in the ceiling which leads to the loft.
The missing items are another mystery. Babies’ clothes have disappeared, a marriage licence, two toothbrushes, and even two meat pies and a loaf of bread. Despite thorough searches they were never found. A tin of baby food once disappeared and then reappeared some time later, without any of the contents missing, and once a pair of bedroom slippers had been “moved” from the place they were put. Last Tuesday a transistor radio had been left on the table and when it was next seen it was lying on the floor with its front panel off.
That very day Mr Young spoke to the Rev. John Tonkin and the same evening the exorcism was carried out. Canon Godfrey blessed all the occupied rooms in the house, spending more time than anywhere else in the bathroom, and then blessed everyone in the flat. “When he placed his hands on all our head we felt little vibrations coming out. It was a most relieving sensation,” said Mrs Young. “As soon as it was completed the heavy air disappeared and something went lighter. It was lovely.”
Since then the Youngs’ flat has been as pleasant to live in as anyone else’s. They hope that the end has now been reached of the bad luck and poor health that they have suffered since they moved in. Why it has all happened they do not know but all they are wishing is that frightening and strange experiences of the past 16 months are over.
Photographed at their spirit-free flat (left to right) Mrs Barnet, Mrs Young and Mr Young.
Hinckley Times, 29th June 1973.