The Police Station was formerly on Southfield Road.
Police station ‘haunted’.
By Stephen Lynas.
Woman police officer Jane Goodington has no fears of patrolling the streets alone at night, but when it comes to sleeping in her quarters at Paignton police station, she, and other women officers, become more than a little nervous. They claim the police station is haunted by the ghost of a dead woman who is chasing the men, terrifying the women, and hurling papers across rooms.
The hauntings of the Woman In Black have become so bad that the single women in the station living quarters are locking themselves in at nights and men officers have refused to use the haunted corridor in which most of the visitations have taken place. So far, it seems that the ghost is appearing only in front of men in the station, and she is waging a long-term battle of disruption against the women.
Papers have been hurled across corridors, rooms turned upside down as though burglars have been at work, lights switched on and off, windows mysteriously opened, and somebody has been entering the women’s rooms at night – through locked doors! The ghost, believed to be that of an old woman who committed suicide in her home, which once stood on the site of the police station, always dresses in black when she makes her appearances, and has long white hair.She does not discriminate over rank. Her trips have taken her into the paths of young constables, and even a chief inspector. One man, a civilian worker, has been ‘touched’ by the ghost – and he had not even heard of her before the incident.
Most of the hauntings take place on the second floor of the building in the single men’s quarters. In one incident a young officer raced out of his room claiming he had seen the phantom, and an inspector who had seen her moving across a catwalk raced upstairs to find out who was hiding a woman in their room. “I don’t mind walking down dark alleys alone when I am on duty, but I always lock my door after all the goings on,” said WPc Jane Goodington. “She has ransacked my room and another officer’s room and we often hear footsteps in the corridor, although the entry to our quarters is locked.”
Woman Inspector Lesley Skinner says that there had been a history of the woman in black long before the police station was built. At the time of the demolition of the house that originally stood on the grounds a woman was seen fleeing from the ruins. It was thought she had gone forever, but now she is back with a vengeance. “Several officers have seen her in the single quarters, and one or two of them have been very shaken by what they have seen,” she said. “I have tried to find out all about her, and she does seem to have a history.”
Torbay Express and south Devon Echo, 14th March 1978.
Lady in grey haunting the boys in blue.
A mysterious lady in grey is haunting the corridors of Paignton police station. It seems the spirit has been inherited from an old house which was razed to the ground and replaced by the station in the late 1960s. Two women and a housekeeper used to live there and local experts say the house was haunted then.
There were recent reports of all sorts of weird goings on at the station, including lights flashing on and off and kettles boiling by themselves. Insp. Lesley Skinner, who spent 12 years at the Paignton nick before moving to Torquay two years ago, can remember several sightings of the old lady. Most of them happened in what was the former single men’s living quarters on the second floor – now the station collator’s office and communications suite. She said: “The first incident I can remember was when one young policeman, who was on late duty, went back to his room at 1am one morning to fetch his helmet which he had forgotten. He saw this woman sitting in the lounge staring at him. She was weird, had long hair and staring eyes.”He was absolutely petrified. He ran down to the old control room and an officer there can vouch he was shocked.”
Then there was the case of the inspector who thought he saw a woman in grey or black walking in the men’s living quarters. Was it the ghost? Also the time another inspector was photocopying – again upstairs – when his papers suddenly took off all over the corridor for no reason. Or the time the barman from the police social club thought a ghost had brushed past him on the stairs. “His arm was ice-cold and he had goose pimples,” recalls Insp. Skinner. The lady in grey was also spotted sitting watching television in the men’s lounge.
Does Insp. Skinner believe in ghosts? “Not really,” she says. “But when I was at Paignton, I would never go on the second floor after dark!”
Torbay Express and South Devon Echo, 14th February 1984.