Mum tells of ‘rape’ by evil ghost in icy house of horrors.
By Bill Daniels and Adrian Shaw.
A weeping wife told a judge yesterday that she and her husband refused to pay money owing on their cottage after discovering it was haunted by evil spirits. Mother-of-three Josie Smith, 36, said she felt she had been raped and strangled by ghosts in the centuries-old house. She sobbed: “On one night I felt the quilt being lifted up and my nightdress moving up over my legs. It only stopped when I shouted: ‘No!'”
And vicar Peter Mockford, who tried to exorcise the spirits, told how he experienced a strange smell and witnessed the walls all wet at the cottage. He said: “In my view there is paranormal activity which cannot be explained.”
Mrs Smith and husband Andrew, 35, are being sued for £3,500 owing on the £44,000 price of the stone-built house they bought in 1993. The couple are counterclaiming against the previous owners, sisters Sandra Podmore and Susan Melbourne. The Smiths claim the sisters knew the house was haunted before selling it. Judge Peter Stretton must decide whether there really is such a thing as a ghost – and if he finds for the Smiths it will be the first official recognition of the paranormal since the Middle Ages.
Mrs Smith told Derby County Court that the terrifying events began six weeks after they bought Lowes Cottage in Hollow Lane at Upper Mayfield, Staffs. She had to give up her job as a theatre nurse because of stress. She spoke of – Four ghostly assaults which left her in fear of her life; Foul smells, weird noises and hurtling objects; Failed attempts to exorcise the violent spirits. Mrs Smith said that at one point they took the children – Lindsey, 12, Stephen, five, and 12-month-old Daniel – to stay with relatives to escape the nightmare.
She said of one chilling invasion: “I woke up in the middle of the night and something was touching me beneath my nightdress. I felt very cold, very dirty, as if I had been raped. Twice I felt as if I was being strangled and I woke up choking and shaking. Both times we had to leave the house. It was gripping me round the throat and throttling me. My whole body was shaking. I thought I was going to die. I went to my mother’s, determined never to go back. But then I spoke to a medium on the phone. She said a girl had been murdered in the house and the ghost was just showing me how she had died. That gave us the strength to go back and that’s when neighbours began telling us that the previous occupants had experienced the same thing.”
The house is said to have a dark history, with local folklore of a dairymaid who died imprisioned in the cellar and a boy who hanged himself from the rafters.
Mrs Smith claimed she saw visions of a woman naked, bound and gagged to a bed and of a 19th century figure in flowing dress gliding across the room. She told of waking to the first night of terror. She said: “I felt a heavy weight pressing down on me and it took every ounce of strength in me just to lift my little finger. Then suddenly it just flew across my face. There was a strong pungent smell around the house and we could find no explanation for it. We thought perhaps it was damp because the house hadn’t been lived in for so long. A friend of mine who is a member of the Spiritualist Church advised us to place a wooden cross in a bowl of salted water in the bedroom and say a prayer to get rid of the ghost. But when we did this the atmosphere turned very thick and the smell was so vile that I wanted to vomit. I rang my friend and she said we had upset it.”
Mrs Smith said Reverent Mockford, vicar of Blurton, Stoke on Trent, blessed the house four times in a bid to drive out the restless spirits. He first visited the cottage in October 1995. She said: “The first time he blessed it it was quiet for a night but then the paranormal phenomena returned even stronger. Electrical equipment failed, the immersion heater blew up and my daughter’s tape player couldn’t be turned off unless we unplugged it. On the third occasion the reverend tried to dispel the spirits we played tapes of religious music and prayers. As soon as we did, the floorboard upstairs started creaking. When we closed our eyes there was a rushing at the sides of our heads. It felt like smoke was spiralling up our noses and we had pins and needles until the next day.”
The family went to a surveyor and were told the paranormal activity had knocked £20,000 off the value of the house. They withheld the last payment of their instalments from the vendors on the grounds of “misrepresentational fraud.”
The cottage was left to the two sisters by their father. They told the hearing they never saw a ghost in more than 40 years of living there. Mrs Melbourne, 40, who still lives in Upper Mayfield, said: “I have never experienced a ghost and never come across a haunted house – and definitely not in Mayfield. If I was told there was such a house in the village I wouldn’t believe it, as I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Mrs Podmore, 38, from nearby Waterhouses, Staffs, said she was born in Lowes Cottage and lived there until the age of 25. She told the court: “I never had any strange experiences, and even after I moved out I would take my two children to visit their grandad.”
Both women were questioned by joiner Mr Smith, who is representing himself and his wife at the hearing. Later the sisters’ barrister, Thomas Dillon, suggested Mrs Smith’s story had been made up out of “horror films and novels.” Mr Dillon spoke of several similarities to sections of the book The Amityville Horror. He said: “You refer to being able to look through floorboards from upstairs, seeing the face of a pig, a force so strong you could lean against it, and hearing upstairs beds moving back and forth. Isn’t it amazing how all these things which you say happened to you can be found in just a few pages of this novel?”
Mrs Smith said she had read the book but insisted she was telling the truth. She said: “Myself and my husband also watched the film The Haunting recently. Many things what happened there also happened to us. The Haunting was a true story and so is ours.”
Mr Dillon said the couple “made a habit” of running away from financial problems and had five county court judgements against them.
Mrs Smith said they had arisen from her husband being declared bankrupt after a failed business partnership.
The case continues.
The Smith family outside the cottage. They say they fled in terror after an invasion by violent spirits.
Daily Mirror, 16th January 1999.
Glow in the night
By Bill Daniels.
A cold green light flickered over me as I lay stiff with fear in the gloom of the Smiths’ dining room. In a foolhardy moment I’d agreed to spend the night in the house they say is haunted. I’d had no worries about the assignment. I didn’t believe in ghosts. But now I wished I was asleep – anywhere else but there. All the chilling stories Andy had told me about things going bump in the night, walls running with water and doors mysteriously opening and closing came flooding back. Cautiously I crept towards the mysterious glow. I peered nervously into the kitchen – and was confronted by my “ghost.” A green light was flickering on and off, filling the room with its glow. But it was just a timer on the stove which hadn’t been set properly. Despite the lurid tales I’d heard that was the only terror I faced. Stairs creaked, windows rattled and radiators banged – but spooks stayed away.
Daily Mirror, 16th January 1999.
Video film sheds light.
A pair of amateur ghostbusters revealed alleged video evidence of paranormal activity at the Smiths’ cottage. Tony Dawson and Clive Topcliffe spent a night collating their own X Files. Tony, 30, of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, said at the time: “We set up the camera in a downstairs room and went to sleep. In the early hours, we heard banging coming from the room so we went to investigate. We had left a candle burning on the stairs in front of the camera and suddenly it flew into the air like a rocket.”
They studied the recording with the Smiths and confirmed they had got the candle on film. Josie Smith said: “On the video you can also hear a latch-door closing. We’ve got a modern door now, but when we moved in there was an original latch-door from years ago.”
Daily Mirror, 16th January 1999.
Judge rules no ghosts in house.
A house at the centre of Britain’s first supernatural court case since the Middle Ages is not haunted, a judge ruled yesterday. Lowes Cottage in Upper Mayfield, Staffordshire, was said by its current owners to be possessed by spirits which caused walls to weep, objects to be moved around and which, on occasion, even attacked the occupants.
Andrew and Josie Smith had refused to pay the final £3,000 instalment on the £44,000 house, claiming the sisters who sold them the property had known of the ghostly presence and failed to declare it. But Judge Peter Stretton yesterday ruled at Derby County Court in favour of Susan Melbourne and her sister, Sandra Podmore. He said: “I do not accept that it is haunted now, or has been at any other time.”
Mr and Mrs Smith had told the court that ghostly goings on at the 250-year-old cottage had caused its value to plummet from £70,000, once it had been renovated, to just £20,000. They told the court the spirits in the house had moved furniture, caused swirling mists and left a foul stench.
The judge said yesterday: “I do not accept the house was haunted then, or at any other time. There is no acceptable evidence that the house is haunted. Both Mrs Podmore and Mrs Melbourne lived in the house as children, playing there for a number of years, and they were untroubled.”
Last week the court heard evidence from a ghost-busting vicar, the Rev. Peter Mockford, who said he believed the house was haunted. But Judge Stretton said: “He gave his opinion the house was visited by the paranormal but I am unable to accept that.”
Judge Stretton found in the sisters’ favour and ordered that £4,075 be paid – the £3000 outstanding plus interest – by the Smiths.
Aberdeen Press and Journal, 19th January 1999.
‘Haunted’ house due to pay up.
By Bill Daniels.
A couple who refused to settle a bill because they claimed their house was haunted were told to pay up yesterday. A judge told Josie and Andrew Smith that there were no ghosts and described them as “hysterical and devious.”
The couple refused to pay a £3,500 debt to the sellers claiming that they were not told the £44,000 home was haunted when they bought it. They had sued after news of the ghostly goings on at Lowes Cottage in Upper Mayfield, Staffs. slashed its value.
Judge Peter Stretton took just 10 minutes to throw out their case in Derby County Court. Mum-of-three Josie, had earlier claimed she felt like she had been ‘raped’ by the ghouls. But Judge Stretton said “It is more likely these are hysterical reactions from Mrs Smith.”
He ordered the couple pay sellers – sisters Sandra Podmore and Susan Melbourne – £4,075.40 – the debt plus interest.
Daily Mirror, 19th January 1999.
Spooky Sale.
A house at the centre of a haunting row was sold yesterday to a member of a Christian organisation specialising in the supernatural. In January, a judge ruled that Lowes Cottage, in Upper Mayfield near Ashbourne, Derbyshire, was not haunted and that the owners must pay the final instalment. It was later repossessed. Yesterday, it was sold for £56, 000 to Tim Chitern, a member of the Churches Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, based in London.
Aberdeen Press and Journal, 21st April 1999.