HMS Barham
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Duncan travelled the country giving seances. During the war women sought reassurance about their men. During a siting in 1941 Duncan was apparently in contact with a dead sailor who greeted his mother.
His mother had not known he was dead because the Admiralty had concealed the news of the sinking of his warship, HMS Barham, for security reasons.
Duncan was arrested and accused of vagrancy but the charge was later changed to conspiracy, a hanging offence in wartime. However, when the case eventually went to court she was formally accused of “contravening the Witchcraſt Act of 1735”.
Because Duncan had taken an admission fee from people atending her seance she was also charged with taking money under false pretences.
Aſter a seven-day trial, involving scores of witnesses and mentions of some 1,733 manifestations of which just seven were challenged, she was found guilty under the Witchcraſt Act but innocent of all other charges. Her right
74 June 2015 to appeal to the House of Lords was withheld
As a ‘materialisation medium’, which involved her going into a trance and producing ‘ectoplasm’ through which spirits would take on earthly features to communicate with the living, Duncan built a reputation as one of spiritualism’s greatest heroines.
“We want to clear her name,” said Graham Hewit, Assistant General Secretary of the Spiritualists’ National Union, and the man now spearheading a campaign to clear Duncan’s name.
Mr Hewit, a former Solicitor Advocate, is convinced she was silenced as part of an operation to keep the D-Day invasion secret.
“We want to get this case re-examined. Tere is ample evidence that the defence counsel handled the court case very badly and that Helen Duncan had been set up by members of the security services acting as agent provocateurs.
:Graham Hewitt, Assistant General Secretary of the Spiritualists’
materialisation medium
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