HELEN’S STORY 1897 - 1956
The prosecution were determined to prove Helen Duncan was a fraud. Her trial took
place barely a few months before the famous D-
The true story of a Scottish housewife who found herself in the centre of a WWII legal battle which ended with her being convicted under the Witchcraft Act.
During the second world war Helen was in great demand from anxious relatives, especially those who had lost close family on active war service.
Two second degree burns were found across Helen's stomach. She was immediately taken back to her Scottish home and later rushed to hospital.
Helen was sent back to London's Holloway prison, that Victorian monstrosity for female prisoners still being used today.
The Prime Minister had been ordained into the Grand Ancient Order of Druids and was a client and also a keen supporter of Helen Duncan.
HELEN DUNCAN
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THE WITCHCRAFT TRIAL
Under this ancient rune Helen Duncan and her innocent sitters were accused of pretending 'to exercise or use human conjuration', that through the agency of Helen Duncan, spirits of deceased dead persons should appear to be present'.
But, lest this single charge may falter, the authorities scoured their dusty law precedents for further charges and they found them. One such was the Larceny Act which accused her of taking money 'by falsely pretending she was in a position to bring about the appearances of these spirits of deceased persons'.
The prosecution were determined to prove Helen Duncan was a fraud. Her trial took
place barely a few months before the famous D-
One telling development that this was no ordinary case was that in a rare example
of cross border co-
As a debunking exercise the case failed miserably. Skeptics must have winced at the daily reporting of case after case where 'dead' relatives had materialised and given absolute proof of their continued existence.
One Kathleen McNeill, wife of a Glaswegian forgemaster, told how she has attended such a séance at which her sister appeared. Her sister had died some a few hours previously, after an operation, and news of her death could not have been known. Yet Albert, Helen Duncan's guide, announced that she had just passed over. And, at a subsequent séance, some years later Mrs. McNeill's father strode out of the cabinet and came within six feet of her to better display his single eye, a hallmark of his earthly life.
Hurried conferences with the best legal minds were held throughout the night. Their
solution was to reject this offer and suggest instead that Mrs. Duncan be called
as a witness -
The jury only took half an hour to reach their verdict; Helen and her co-
Portsmouth's chief of police then described this new 'criminal's' background. Mrs.
Duncan was married to a cabinet maker and had a family of six children ranging from
18-
The presiding judge announced a weekend's delay whilst he considered sentence. Helen herself left the dock weeping in her broad Scottish dialect; "I never hee'd so mony lies in a' my life".
The following monday morning the judge declared that the verdict had not been concerned with whether 'genuine manifestations of the kind are possible . . .this court has nothing whatever to do with such abstract questions'. However he interpreted the jury's findings to mean that Helen Duncan had been involved in plain dishonesty and for this reason he therefore sentenced her to nine months imprisonment.
By the penultimate day of this ridiculous trial, the defence was ready to call their star witness Alfred Dodd, an academic and much respected author of works on Shakespeare's sonnets. Alfred told the court that during 1932 and 1940 he had been a regular guest at Helen Duncan's home seance's.
At one of these sittings his grandfather had materialised, a tall, corpulent man
with a bronzed face and smoking cap, hair dressed in his customary donkey-
Two equally respected journalists, James Herries and Hannen Swaffer then took their
places in the Old Bailey witness box -
James Herries, himself a Justice of the Peace, a much respected psychic investigator of some 20 years standing and the chief reporter of the prestigious and influential "Scotsman" broadsheet affirmed that he had seen Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famed author of the Sherlock Holmes books, himself materialise at one of Helen Duncan's seance's. He had especially noted the distinctive Doyle rounded features, moustache and equally unmistakable gravelly voice.
But, wisely or otherwise, the defence had decided that the best test of Helen Duncan's
genuine gifts were for her to give a demonstration of physical phenomena whilst in
trance from the very witness box of England's Central Criminal Courts. This suggestion
really did cause a frightened flurry in the ivory dovecots of the establishment.
If she pulled it off, they debated, then instead of the censure they sought, her
cause would be spread throughout the land and even beyond. This would mean that the
famed British legal system adopted by so many former colonies -
Helen with her husband, Henry.