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Basically myself and my wife were Most Haunted Fans....although we were sceptical of Derek we nevertheless were open minded.
My wife's father died of cancer about 18 months ago and things have been happening in the house ... doors opening , lights being turned on at night but the most startling thing was while my wife was painting some radiators, with aerosol spray in the bedroom she ran out of spray. So I dashed out and told her to wear a mask which unfortunately was up in the loft from where I'd done some loft boarding. She decided not too out of laziness ... about an hour later I returned and she was in a state.
Apparently there was a crash in the hallway and when she checked the loft hatch it had opened itself and the ladder had been pulled down ... but no one else was in the house and you have to twist the lock with a pole and then actually pull the ladder down with the pole...
We saw that as a sign from her deceased father...
Anyway we found out Derek was coming to Oxford and bought tickets ......and then I made the mistake of e-mailing Derek's website telling him exactly what had gone on in our house ....so he had my name , my wife name and some specific incidents to call upon.
However I did not tell him the name of wifes father or my wife's maiden name. We thought he might want to come round as he was in Oxford and check out if we were imagining things or indeed if there was genuinley any activity, but he never contacted us... Instead we got an automated response from his website saying he can't reply to individual requests due to workload, etc, etc.
The night of the show came and the second person he called out was me....so initially I was quite suprised.
Then he said he had a Mr Towers with him....( my father is still alive and I didn't know my gradfather so I was curious as to who it could be ) ..so I asked him and he couldn't get it ...but then he said is my wife with me.....told me her name was dee and then said he had her father with him.
Then he used word for word the exact same information I had sent his website weeks before ......by now we had rumbled him so we asked the name of this chap and his surname ...what he looked like etc and he couldn't ...then he went off on a tangent...
The next day I e-mailed him again and told him what we thought ..we were furious at being used to fill his pockets...instead we got an email from his wife Gwen denying that he uses e-mails and that he never actually gets to see them anyway because she deletes them.
She said I should send the e-mail in to her again and she would compare it to the tape of the show ( apparently they record every nights show ) .....also that if I thought Derek was a fake that she would arrange a private reading to convince us, so we did that but we never heard anything after that.
Im afraid Derek is a fraud in our eyes from personal experience and he should be exposed ...he's earning a lot of money from telling lies and ripping people off.
Derek Acorah - A Personal Experience Sent In By John Towers - 28/7/04
Location: I'm Famous and Frightened 2 - LivingTV Date: 16th July 2004 On the first day of this Live celebrity investigation of Aberdeen's Fyvie Castle, Celebrity Mockney Medium Tony Stockwell conducted a Table Tipping demonstration.
The usual rountine took place, all the celebs had their fingertips on the table, at first nothing happened so celebrity medium Tony Stockwell put his hands on the table.
As soon as he did the table started rocking, at this point celeb believer Daniella Westbrook left the table and stood back to watch. Everytime the table started rocking Tony Stockwell moved back, as soon as he did the rocking of the table diminished.
Later on, after the main show had gone off air, there was an extra live show, celeb believer Jeff Brazier stated that he believed that Tony Stockwell was pushing the table, Daniella Westbrook also admitted that something dodgy was happening although she did not accuse Tony Stockwell. A bit later on in the night Jeff Brazier made this comment.
"He was definately blaggin' it, and if he blags that, who's to say he doesnt blag it all" To sum up, two people who took part believed something dodgy was going on, one even stated he was sure that Tony Stockwell was rocking the table. Again keep in mind Jeff Brazier is a self confessed believer of the paranormal and a fan of Tony Stockwell.
So was this an instance of psychic fraud? I will as always let you make your own mind up.
At the 3-night live Most Haunted in Essex earlier this year, the crew were on the trail of Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, across the 'witch county' of Essex. First stop was Canewdon, a tiny ancient, rural village near the River Crouch. This village has a long history connected with witchcraft; thirteen witches were said to live in the village at one time.
Although pleased that Most Haunted were visiting Canewdon, as numerous hauntings are alleged to take place in the village, causing the police to put up road blocks every Hallowe'en to stop would-be ghosthunters and other such people from entering the village and disturbing the peace, Matthew Hopkins never actually visited Canewdon or had any connections with the village.
Regardless of this, miraculously, Derek picked up on Hopkins energy while in St Nicholas' churchyard.
Only 2 witches were executed from Canewdon; Rose Pye in 1580 who is buried at the nearby crossroads and Cicely Makyn in 1585 and re-arrested and executed in 1590.
Not only this, but on the third night of the programme, Derek became 'possessed' by a man claiming to be on of Hopkins evil gang named Francis Mills. He swaggered around and letched at Yvette Fielding, saying at one point 'I see your breasts, woman' before lunging at her and being dragged off by security.
Frances Mills was indeed one of Hopkins vile posse of witch hunters, but not a man - a woman! She was very feminine and had she not been so, she would have been accused of witchcraft herself, probably. Now unless Frances Mills was a seventeenth century cross dresser, we can assume this was a mistake, but as always I will let YOU make your own mind up on this one.
So there you have it. Hopkins was never at Canewdon, so why pick up on his energy and Frances Mills was a woman. How wrong could he have been.
Help for this article provided by forum member Irishbanshee
Written By Garry Ross (Gaztrix)
CLERKENWELL HOUSE OF DETENTION - SERIES 2
This episode has to be the one that is most talked about each time it's repeated, we have a few things to get people going in this one ... evil turnkeys murdering people, a little girl running from evil characters, a bomb plot and a bleeped out surname ... not forgetting human bones said to be underneath the place after bodies were disposed of. Oh where to start?
At the time I was joined by other people who had decided to do their own bit of research straight after the very first screening of this programme and we shared our results with anyone that was willing to listen, unfortunately in this business some people decide to ignore the true concrete facts for the ramblings of someone who just happens to be on tv and gets the hero worship that goes with it - sign of the times really I suppose?
What we did in researching was really what any paranormal researcher should do after any investigation, and that is to get into any archives possible and research all the findings until everything is covered. I was joined in the research by another member of my paranormal research team, Sue, who had been doing her own bit of research and we ended up swapping info that we'd found. After a while things didn't add up with what was shown on MH so I decided to get in touch with two experts in historical crime. The first person I contacted was my friend Ivor Edwards who has written a book on Jack The Ripper and is also very knowledgable on the prison system at the time. I also contacted respected historian Martin Fido who is now teaching in the US. Some of the things Martin told me made me question even more what was said during the programme.
OK, a quick run down on the earlier 'events' during the programme. We get an evil man from the 1600s who a little girl runs from ... this is said to be Jack Sheppard, who was a small time highwayman and robber who was also a bit of a ladies man ... Derek Acorah said he was one of the few active spirits there.
In 'S' wing it's said that a man was brought into there and after many years he was given trust to roam about and act like a jailer ... strange for a place that was just a holding prison until they were either moved elsewhere or released after a few days or weeks. Confusion with the Clerkenwell House of Correction towards the back of the place? Derek mentions the Fenian bombing after accounts of a sexually perverted man. A man comes through who tells them to go and then says he's going to do some weird perverted things to Yvette.
After a short break Derek says the mans name is Michael and he's been there since 1867 (the year of the Clerkenwell bombing), he has 2 'co-horts' ... ho ho, here we go!
The surname gets bleeped out as Derek starts marching about the place telling this 'spirit' that he can't harm the women or any of the others. Derek says he's found him standing with his arms folded and shouts abuse into thin air. "He's the evil one" says Derek, and also says the little girl and children run from him. (hang on..wasn't it Jack Sheppard she runs from? oops!)
Later we get the first co-hort who is said to be a friend of this Michael, Joseph. He manages to blank Dereks mind apparently ... so Derek takes a break and goes outside after Karl gets a scratch to the head.
Derek then says that Michael has 2 people with him helping him, Joseph and Richard. He also says that these two never did anything like what Michael had done in life but he had some sort of control over them - more on that later.
Then we hear about all these bodies that had been disposed of by this evil Michael and one day their bones will be found... I put this to Martin Fido who said "Utter nonsense, maybe he was getting confused with nearby Newgate which has many rumours of this sort of thing, certainly not Clerkenwell".
THE FACTS
The Michael Derek named was Michael Barrett who was tried for the bombing and hanged, he had no part in the bombing at all, he was sentenced to death on the testimony of a man who had previously given false testimony against three other men, and in spite of the evidence of eight citizens who made the journey from Glasgow to prove that Barrett had been there when the explosion had taken place. It was said just afterwards that "The English have no scruples when it is a question of hanging a man -- especially a Fenian."
There are no records of mistreatment 'out of the ordinary' at the House of Detention, a turnkey was dismissed from the House of Correction for assaulting a male prisoner. Despite what we're led to believe, prison wardens weren't left to their own devices and overlooked at all ... even back in the dark days. A renowned pornographer was imprisoned in the House of Correction where he died - this was a big case at the time and quite well known even today ... his name wasn't Michael either.
Other vigils that took place at the House of Detention haven't mentioned anything like Derek said was going on there although he did mention a few things that they'd come up with - the more well known 'hauntings'.
BUT when he mentions Michael Barrett as being the 'evil one' and then brings in the 2 Fenians that were in there awaiting trial then you have to look at it and ask yourself if he can be so wrong on that, then what else has he got wrong?
In that episode alone he got a lot wrong and in others before and since.
Let's look at the official facts of the bombing itself and see how that differs from how it was portrayed on that episode:
Ricard (note the name ... not Richard) Burke and Joseph Casey were arrested and sent to Clerkenwell to await trial (they were arrested separately). While in there 15 men from the 'Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood' plotted a way to get them out, on the 12th December 1867, 3 of them had got the gunpowder (bought from Curtis and Harvey in London, these people were Jeremiah O'Sullivan, Patrick Casey (brother to Joseph) and a woman whose name I've forgotten.
The plan was to blow a hole in the 25 foot high NW outer wall opposite Corporation Lane while Burke was in the exercise yard (the times they were allowed exercise was between 3 and 4.30pm) Burke himself smuggled out instructions on how to carry this out.
A kerosene barrel was wheeled to the wall on a barrow and placed where brickwork had replaced masonry on the outer wall, a little white ball was thrown over this wall into the exercise yard as a signal and Burke ducked down waiting for the blast by pretending to tie his shoelace. A prison warden picked up the little ball and pocketed it to give to his kids. The woman involved lit the fuse but it fizzled out, they panicked and decided to come back later.
An informer had relayed the plans to an inspector Ryan in Dublin who had passed on to the Home Office every little detail of the planned break-out...even down to the little white ball.
That night the guards were armed and ready.
The following morning the prisoners exercise was switched to the morning rather than the afternoon. Burke took his exercise in the 'female airing court' alone after breakfast.
That afternoon the barrel was rolled to the same spot and they tried again, a passing policeman walked past the barrel, which was covered by a white sheet, as he'd been told to look out for evidence of mining under the wall.
At around 3.40 another little white ball was thrown over the wall - into the empty exercise yard. The fuse was lit and around 30 seconds later 548 pounds of high-grade gunpowder exploded and 60 feet of the wall was demolished.
The blast wave sliced through the tenement buildings of Corporation Lane damaging quite a few as it did. 6 people in these buildings were killed outright, 6 more died from the effects - the prison itself was untouched (apart from the outside wall), hence the escape plan had failed.
O'Sullivan clubbed a drunken drayman, who later died and ran through London with armed policemen chasing him. He managed to escape to New York using an alias.
A month before Barrett was charged with the bombing (which he had no part in) Burke and Casey were in court, Burke was sentenced to 15 years penal servitude for treason-felony and Casey was released. Joseph Casey left for Paris with his younger brother Patrick.
In 1889 in secret Home Office papers it was disclosed that Patrick Casey was working for the British Govt as a spy along with a number of other people who were also named as top men in the 'Fenian Brotherhood' etc.
If you do a search on the net for Clerkenwell, you'll get a lot of links to the bombing which doesn't go into much detail and tells you that Michael Barrett was found guilty and hanged. If you were only to scratch the surface you could just accept that fact and weave a nice little story into it if you were that way inclined. Not many mention the fact that on the day of his hanging his childhood sweetheart was in the crowd, he was planning to marry her and she was hoping to hear that he'd get a reprieve and wouldn't be hanged - sadly this never happened and she saw him die that day.
Michael Barret NEVER set foot in Clerkenwell at all so why would he be waiting around in a place that is only linked to him by a bad association?
What of Colonel Burke and Casey? They were up to their eyeballs in plots etc but Derek claimed they were different to the evil Michael ... oh they were different alright, they were actively involved in the Fenian uprising whereas Michael Barrett never had anything to do with it at all.
My conclusion on it all? I have to say that to me it looks like very bad research and play acting with a nice confused story woven all around it.
My verdict: Complete and utter Bullshit.
Am I surprised that people still insist it was one of the scariest episodes of MH? Not really, they'll believe anything that's put in front of them until they look into things just a bit deeper...but they'll still insist that the facts are wrong and Derek was right. You can't win when people can't see what's in front of them.
I've been asked many times about this episode since it was first aired and this is the final time I will be commenting on it, but for any questions on anything else I can be contacted at lincs.prt@ntlworld.com I'd be especially interested in any reputedly haunted places we'd be able to get into of course, that's one of my jobs after all.
I'll leave you with a link to a letter from a convict who was sent to Australia after spending a bit of time in Clerkenwell House of Detention and you can judge for yourselves whether this place was the evil den that was portrayed on MH or not (It wasn't btw).
ALDWYCH UNDERGROUND STATION - MOST HAUNTED UNSEEN 16 July 2002
(Some of this extra info was NOT included in the original broadcast, only in the recent Unseen extra version. - Nik)
At the beginning of the programme Yvette tells us that the station was opened in 1907. This info is confirmed by Barry Wilkinson from the London Underground who is interviewed on the programme. Barry also states that work began on the station in 1898.
In Derek's walkaround in gets information through Sam about a Polish man called Tom.
Derek goes into a fair amount of detail about Tom's appearance but we get no surname so none of this can be confirmed. Derek explains that Tom worked on the lines at the station; work which Derek describes as taking care of the rails.
Jason then presses Derek for more specific information asking him when Tom worked on the lines. Derek explains that he gets a clear feeling of Tom working there along time before WWII. He then goes on to state that Tom worked 50 or 60 years before that. Jason clarifies that this means the 1880's and Derek agrees.
Well you do the maths. Derek gave the impression that Tom worked on the lines whilst the station was open but even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say that Tom could have worked there during construction that still places Tom on the lines some 10 years or more before the station was built.
This mistake was missed on the original broadcast because Most Haunted crew conveniently left out some important information.
Its only now a good 4 or so years later, in the special Most Haunted Unseen version of the episode that we can see this glaring error made by Derek.
