ASSAP's Tryst with Trickster Trystan

"Of particular interest to Highgate Vampire aficionados of course will be the synopses given for Messrs David Farrant and Trystan Lewis Swale." - Redmond McWilliams (12 August 2016)

The ASSAP (founded 1981) have returned to the topic of the Highgate Vampire case on numerous occasions in the past, but never once have they ventured to extend an invitation to the author of The Highgate Vampire who led the investigation into the case from start to finish. The ASSAP does have an inclination toward people like Farrant and Swale for some extraordinary, albeit bizarre, reason, and both have connections to others invited to speak, as well as each other. It is all rather incestuous.

Seán Manchester had a tumultuous, albeit undesired, association with Farrant in the 1970s which is covered in his books on vampirism and, moreover, Satanism, but he owes no connection to Swale who has been stalking him for several years due to a sociopathic obsession Swale has with both the author and exorcist Seán Manchester and the investigation that took place before Swale was born. 

The only time Swale had direct contact with the man he trolls and stalks was approximately three years ago when Seán Manchester received an unrecognised telephone call out of the blue.

"I received an un­so­licited telephone call from Swale in 2013 [Swale erroneously gives the year as 2012, but is prone to getting most things wrong.] My number is ex-di­rec­tory and he would have made its discovery via dubious methods. I treated Swale as cour­te­ously as I would treat anyone else, but I did not desire to have any conversa­tion with him and only spoke longer than I would have normally because he was about to bury his grand­fa­ther later that day. We spoke about that fact. We did not discuss Highgate, the su­per­nat­ural or my ministry," stated Seán Manchester closer to the time.

Yet how could Swale not remember the year of his grandfather's funeral unless it was a ploy to garner Seán Manchester's sympathy who would not have continued any sort of conversation on the telephone if he had not been told by the caller that he was about to attend his grandfather's funeral?

Now the ASSAP have provided a synopsis of Trystan Lewis Swale's intended Highgate Vampire talk:

"'The Trickster in Highgate Cemetery' looks at the relationship between anomalous phenomena and the trickster archetype that occurs in anthropology, Jungian psychology and literature. It explores this theme using the tale of the Highgate Vampire as an illustrative case study. As well as simple introductions to the case and trickster studies it features (a) previously unpublished witness reports to the Highgate apparition/entity, (b) previously unpublished testimony from an individual who was central to Sean Manchester's version of events, (c) an analysis of how the Highgate case has been revised by its protagonists through the years based upon their own written accounts; and (d) the arguments offered as to why tricksters may choose to behave as they do."

What do we know about Trystan Lewis Swale, apart from the fact that he stalks Seán Manchester and anyone he believes has a connection to the exorcist, including those who wish to be left alone?

1. Swale is an atheist, sceptic and believer in nothing spiritual, mystical, paranormal or supernatural.

2. If there is an agenda, particularly where Seán Manchester is concerned, it is Swale's extreme left-wing bias. He openly supports violent groups who physically attack anyone and any organisation deemed vaguely patriotic or pro-British. Needless to say, Swale is unpatriotic, globalist and Marxist.

3. Swale often seems troubled and evinces sudden bouts of paranoid rage, having turned on most of his past friends, including Righteous Indignation podcast co-host Hayley Stevens. In the past the pair of them interviewed Farrant sympathetically, which does not square with Swale's scepticism until it is viewed, as more people have come to accept, that Farrant is an atheistic disingenuous fraud.

4. Swale now deceitfully claims to have "previously unpublished testimony from an individual who was central to Seán Manchester's case." Elsewhere he has stated: "I’m not going to name people who have a reasonable right to anonymity." Why not if they're bona fide? This stratagem suggests that Swale's "witness" either (a) does not exist, or (b) is a stooge. Farrant's so-called "secretary," Patsy Langley (aka Patsy Sorenti), colluded in a similar deceit, but, of course, could not produce a scrap of evidence, much the less her "witness," because it had all been fabricated to support a falsehood originating with Farrant. As Seán Manchester revealed after being notified of Swale's synopsis on the ASSAP's website: "Those involved in this controversial saga remained by their own request anonymous, or were given pseudonyms [in The Highgate Vampire] by me. Those who allowed use of their real names I am still in contact with, and they have not had contact with Swale."

5. Such is Swale's obsession that he purchased a website domain with the same title as one of Seán Manchester's bestselling books. Employing images infringed from Seán Manchester's published works and online presence, Swale uses the site to malign, attack and defame Seán Manchester.

6. Swale lies, cajoles and intimidates to achieve his ends. When not pretending to be an accredited journalist, he takes his deception to the extreme by claiming to have links to "the security services." 

"I still have no idea why Trystan has turned against me the way he has. Did I do him wrong and then forget about it? I suspect that Trystan has simply become what is known as an 'SJW- Social Justice Warrior.' The SJW is a brand of fool who is very unique to the early 21st century. For example, it would be very difficult to explain to somebody just twenty years ago how what should have been a momentous occasion, the landing of a spacecraft on a comet, was trashed by a gaggle of whining malodorous little Twitter-pugilists because of the shirt the scientist involved was wearing. Trystan says I believe in 'casual racism.' I think this means that I am a white heterosexual male who does not open every sentence with an apology for existing. I refuse to condemn myself and my fellow WHM people as 'EEEEEEEEEEEvil!' In fact I consider that kind of thing cultural Marxism."

— Ben Emlyn-Jones (HPANWO Voice, 11 August 2016)

The ASSAP include this disclaimer at the foot of their list of invited speakers to the non-event next month: "Speakers are invited to ASSAP conferences to provide a range of views on subjects requested by delegates. Appearance does not imply endorsement of speakers' views or background."

Like many obsessed sociopaths before him, the Cheltenham clown is skating on paper thin ice.

Most Shocking Misrepresentation

"The Most Shocking Paranormal Hoaxes In History"?

"Some might argue that everything that passes for 'paranormal' is a hoax. " - Cheryl Eddy (26 Dec 2014)

Someone by the name of Anna Olvera wrote the briefest of articles on a website called The Ghost Diaries under its "shocking hoaxes" category, and had the temerity to include a nocturnal image of Highgate Cemetery taken by Seán Manchester almost half a century ago and used in his book The Highgate Vampire (BOS, 1985; Gothic Press, 1991). Albeit no more than a paragraph in length, Olvera's article managed to get everything wrong, adding insult to injury by claiming the following: 

"One of the nearby residents claimed to be a 'vampire slayer' and supposedly had defeated the creature. He said the creature told him he was a man from Romania who used to practice magic and was immortal, but he was nonetheless able to slay him. Sometime later that man confessed to having lied about the situation and that it was all a hoax to gain publicity."

Needless to say,  Seán Manchester has never used the term "vampire slayer" to describe himself; did exorcise the demonic entity known as the Highgate Vampire (which is a matter of public record); has never claimed the "creature" spoke to him, much less told him that "he was a man from Romania who used to practice magic and was immortal"; and has never "confessed to having lied about the situation and that it was all a hoax to gain publicity." So why did The Ghost Diaries publish this woman's rubbish? Perhaps we'll never know, but despite Seán Manchester receiving an apology from the site owner and his stolen photograph being removed with the explanation that Anna Olvera's article had probably not been properly vetted, the replacement article remains full of error and guilty of claiming the case is a hoax. The only "hoax" we can detect is this article and its predecessor.

Here is the replacement article, unedited and in its entirety:

"England seems to be a mecca for paranormal hoaxes, and here’s yet another. Back in the 1970’s [sic]when cemeteries were a major target of vandalism, a group of misfits decided to break into Highgate cemetery in London. It was a cold December night right before Christmas when one of them decided to sleep the night away. The following day, he went to newspaper outlets claiming he had seen a grayish tall dark figure of a man who was stalking him around the cemetery and even put him in a trance.

"This is how the controversy started and millions of people were drawn by the phenomenon. Soon thereafter, witnesses claimed to have seen the same figure roam near the gates of the cemetery at night, along with a woman with super white skin and long gray hair. Some people still believe there’s a vampire roaming Highgate, so if you’re ever in England, don’t forget to visit the spot and let us know if you get stalked by a vampirish creature."

1. England is not a mecca for paranormal hoaxes. On what evidence is such an absurd claim made?

2. Cemeteries in England were no more a target for vandalism in the 1970s than they were in previous and subsequent decades. Following the mass vampire hunt of March 1970, acts of vandalism at Highgate Cemetery reduced significantly. Other graveyards suffered far worse attacks.

3. Who were the alleged "group of misfits" who broke into Highgate Cemetery? This might be a reference to the public vampire hunt involving hundreds of people on the night of 13 March 1970, but they were not a group of misfits. They comprised curiosity-seekers, paranormal students, vampirologists, concerned members of the general public, a team of vampire hunters, exorcists and, of course, the print media. Plus a very large police presence. Nobody was arrested on that night.

4. The cold December night "witness" to seeing a figure is quite obviously David Farrant who wrote to his local newspaper in February 1970 about his claim of seeing a "ghost" on Christmas Eve 1969. However, Farrant did not participate in the event of 13 March 1970; so he was not "one of them."

5. The controversy started not due to Farrant's letter to the editor of the Hampstead & Highgate Express, but because of what had happened throughout the previous decade, culminating in a number of horrific incidents around the turn of the 1970s. These included mysterious animal deaths and a man being discovered covered in blood in Highgate Cemetery who later died of throat wounds.

6. Though many people had been witnessing a terrifying spectral entity in the vicinity of the cemetery's north gate in Swain's Lane for many years (long before 1970), nobody is reported as having seen "a woman with super white skin and long gray hair." This is unadulterated fabrication.

7. No serious students of the occult, paranormal, vampirology or unexplained phenomena believe there is a vampire "roaming Highgate" today. From time to time, people who are transparently publicity-seekers - and the local press - exploit the history for their own purposes. Yet no experts seriously any longer believe that the malign supernatural holds sway in or around Highgate Cemetery.

This new article insults the readers' intelligence and offensively brands the case as a "hoax," but at least it does not refer to Seán Manchester, or repeat the libellous allegations of the original article.

To view The Ghost Diaries' continuing misrepresentation of the facts, click on any of the images.

Assortment of Sceptics Speaking About Pointlessness (ASSAP)

ASSAP 35th Anniversary Conference - Seriously Strange

Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 9:30am - Sunday, 11 September 2016 at 17:30pm (GMT)

The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP) is a United Kingdom based education and research charity whose stated mission it is to apparently investigate, scientifically, paranormal and anomalous phenomena. Investigating the paranormal scientifically is an oxymoron because once phenomena becomes scientifically verifiable it discounts the paranormal, as genuine paranormal phenomena defies all known science and cannot be measured or quantified. If it can be, it is preternatural; in other words, not supernatural. It is natural, but not yet understood.

The recorded purpose of the ASSAP is "to obtain, store, process, and disseminate information concerning areas of human experience and observed phenomena for which no generally acceptable explanation is as yet forthcoming; to encourage and aid investigation and research into these phenomena by investigative groups; and to provide a multidisciplinary forum for the exchange of views and information concerning these phenomena." However, despite its clear interest in the Highgate Vampire case, the ASSAP in all its years (it was founded in 1981) has never once approached the author of The Highgate Vampire who personally investigated the case from start to finish. Instead, it has, both in the past and now, approached David Farrant to talk about the case.

SPEAKERS (during the forthcoming annual conference in September 2016) include the following:

Rev Peter Law [sic], Dr Hannah Gilbert, Dr Terry Palmer, Steve Parsons, Ann Winsper, David Saunder [sic], Anthony Peake, Jayne Harris, Malcolm Robinson, David Farrent [sic], John Fraser, Alan Murdie, Dr Leo Ruickbie, Lara Wells, Deborah Hyde, Trystan [Lewis] Swale, Richard Freeman.

Peter Laws is described on the internet as a "Baptist minister currently on Leave of Absence and working as a freelance writer and speaker." This is what he says about himself: "I am an ordained Reverend in the UK, but I’ve been a horror fan way longer than I’ve been a Christian. I write a horror column in Fortean Times magazine and run my own site called The Flicks The Church Forgot. My love of horror gene kicked in pretty young." An ordained minister in the Baptist Church? Unlike the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox churches, Baptists believe ordination does not endow a person with any special powers or authority. Baptists use the word ordinance, rather than sacrament because of certain sacerdotal ideas connected, in their view, with the word sacrament. Their only real sacrament is baptism whereas Catholicism and other mainstream episcopal churches have seven. When asked if he believes, as all Christians must, in the phenomenon of demonic possession, Laws fudges it with responses such as this: "We should always be aware of the socio-cognitive element of possession. Social Cognitive Theory says that we learn how to think and behave by observing the actions and patterns of others ... I mean I know people who think I’m possessed because I’m a Christian who loves Halloween and horror! So I’m very cautious about pointing the demonic finger." He balances this with the following equivocation: "Now God might not exist of course and this world might be purely rational, natural. But I suspect that God may well exist and therefore that opens the door to his counterpoint, the devil." He, finally, ends his interview on the Love Horror website with these words: "Whether or not there’s any supernatural power at work is up to you to decide. I like to keep an open mind…which I find makes life quite interesting. And horror movies, a little more thrilling."

Dr Hannah Gilbert researches people's experiences and runs workshops. She says about herself: "My doctoral thesis took a sociological approach to the study of British spirit mediumship. Using observational studies of mediumship demonstrations, semi-structured one-on-one interviews with practising mediums, and a selection of medium autobiographies, I examined some of the ways in which mediums represent their spirit contacts for audiences, how they reflect upon their experiences of spirit, and how they represent and reflect upon their identity as practising spirit mediums." 

Dr Terry Palmer teaches self-hypnosis and writes of himself: "I studied psychology at Canterbury Christ Church University, and with a certificate in hypnotherapy from the Proudfoot School of Hypnosis and Psychotherapy I embarked upon a career as a hypnotherapist and clinical researcher."

Steve Parsons has "hunted for ghosts since childhood and has been a full time investigator for more than twenty years." He is described as having been "involved in many areas of psychical research and has developed and pioneered many new methods of investigating ghosts and haunting phenomena and he remains at the forefront of true scientific ghost hunting."  "Scientific" again.

Ann Winsper (above) co-founded "Para-Science" who stress they do not conduct exorcisms, wears a "Ghost Buster" T-shirt, but said in an interview in the Liverpool Echo: "I firmly believe people believe they see and hear things. But do I think ghosts are dead people coming back to try to talk to us? No. Why would they?" Indeed, why would anyone investigate something they do not believe exists?

David Saunders specialises in Neuropsychology and Parapsychology, and has received research grants form the Society for Psychical Research's Survival Research Committee for his research into dreams of the deceased. His talk will probably consider what "potential evidence can be provided from dreams to support the notion of the survival of human personality beyond bodily death."

Anthony Peake, having lived in many parts of the United Kingdom, has returned to his roots on The Wirral where he continues to explore "borderline areas of human consciousness," and in his spare time worries about the decline of his beloved football team, Tranmere Rovers. Some of his writings borrow from Gnostic terminology, ie that all human beings consist of two centres of consciousness.

Jayne Harris is apparently going to discuss "talking dolls"; so on and so forth, until we come to the case of the Highgate Vampire with the bizarre inclusion of David Farrant and Trystan Lewis Swale. 

"We've been reliably informed that both David Farrant (psychic investigator) and Trystan Lewis Swale (folklorist and sceptic) will be covering the Highgate Vampire saga in their respective talks. Messrs Farrant and Swale (not surprisingly perhaps given their particular professions), take opposing positions as to the precise origin(s) of the alleged supernatural phenomena that occurred at Highgate Cemetery (West) during the late sixties/early seventies." - Redmond McWilliams (28 July 2016)

Neither were involved in the case (Swale was not born at the time) and neither believe in the existence of vampires in any shape or form. Swale has sympathetically interviewed Farrant for his podcasts in the past when fellow sceptic Hayley Stevens was still involved. Swale has since fallen out with Stevens and just about everyone else outside of his unholy trinity of Anthony Hogg, Erin Chapman and, of course, himself. He has attacked many he was previously very amicable towards, eg Angie Mary Watkins, Barbara Green, Redmond McWilliams and David Farrant etc. He has that much in common with Farrant (who banned Swale from attending his farcical symposium last year). Farrant has also fallen out with innumerable people he once regarded as his friends and supporters.

The only opposing position that these two could possibly hold is Swale debunking anything and everything vaguely supernatural with Farrant sticking to his fraudulent "ghost story," which, if truth be told, David Farrant does not remotely believe in, as confirmed by all who knew him at the time.

Addendum:

The Truth Staked

Click on image to listen to podcast.

The material regarding Highgate Cemetery does not commence until forty minutes into the HPANWO Radio podcast where David Farrant trots out familiar contradictory nonsense about himself, eg that he "was involved in a mystical order many years ago" etc. What absolute poppycock!

The purpose of the wooden stake was apparently to drive into the ground to make a circle for magical purposes, Farrant alleges somewhat unconvincingly to Ben Emlyn Jones interviewing him. Yet documentated material from the time reveals him to be "vampire hunting" with a cross and stake.

He claims early on in the interview that he denied the entity was a vampire back in 1970. Completely untrue. Farrant, more than anyone else, jumped on what he perceived to be a publicity bandwagon and stated in an interview given to the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 6 March 1970, that his intention was to do everything in his power to rid the place of its vampire. Moreover, on 17 August 1970, he was arrested at midnight in Highgate Cemetery by police who found him to be in possession of a sharp wooden stake, a Roman Catholic crucifix and similar religious items, eg rosaries etc. 

Interviewed by BBC television's "24 Hours" programme two months later on 15 October 1970, David Farrant confirmed that he was vampire hunting when arrested, and indeed reconstructed the events of that night which involved him creeping about in the same graveyard with a cross in one hand, a wooden stake in the other, plus a rosary around his neck - all for the benefit of the television camera.

"He actually pulled a wooden stake out of his trousers," says Farrant, referring to Seán Manchester. The images show Farrant a few moments after pulling a wooden stake out of his trousers on the BBC transmission. He lied to Ben Emlyn Jones about the reason he was shown with a cross and stake. When the original programme is watched it is clear he was reconstructing his behaviour on the night of his arrest at Highgate Cemetery two months earlier. He was an unaccompanied amateur "vampire hunter" seeking publicity and not the undead. Click on either colour image for confirmation of this.

David Farrant can be seen above demonstrating his "vampire hunting" prowess. What nobody realised at the time is that he had orchestrated his own arrest on 17 August 1970 by having the police anonymously alerted just before he entered the graveyard. This was to ensure maximum publicity in the media. It worked, and he was acquitted of being in an enclosed area for an unlawful purpose because Highgate Cemetery is not an enclosed area. Next time he wasn't so lucky. Farrant was found guilty of indecency in a churchyard in November 1972 at Barnet Magistrates' Court.

When the layers of pretence are slowly peeled away, the man underneath is revealed to be charlatan.

The David Farrant Fictionalised Story

"The David Farrant Story" is a short video made by Max and Bart Sycamore who, while using BBC archive footage from 1970 of Seán Manchester in some parts, do not actually identify, ie name, him.

Unlike the Sycamore brothers, Seán Manchester was acquainted with Farrant in the 1970s and early 1980s, which is why this biography can be dismissed as a fantasy originating with Farrant himself.

David Farrant provided all the "facts." However, this is still no excuse for the Sycamore brothers employing misleading and incorrect newspaper articles throughout the video. For example, when examining Farrant's first imprisonment on remand at Brixton in 1970 for supposedly vampire hunting in Highgate Cemetery they chose to show completely unrelated and irrelevant press cuttings from November 1972 which reveal him in Barnet's Monken Hadley churchyard where he was arrested and later found guilty of indecency. His "assistant" Victoria Jervis was similarly found guilty of indecency. She would reveal two years later under oath that what was claimed about her by Farrant, eg that she was a witch, was totally false, and that she had been duped into becoming "involved."

This 1972 case was about necromancy, not vampires. Yet one might be forgiven for thinking it related to the vampire arrest at Highgate Cemetery two years earlier. Why didn't the Sycamore brothers use cuttings from the massive coverage available about the other case two years earlier?

Probably because the photographs showed Farrant brandishing a large cross and a wooden stake!

Early on in the video, Farrant disingenuously claims that in 1966 he was engaged in some sort of "psychic investigation" with the "British Psychic and Occult Society." What makes that claim both fraudulent and absurd is that David Farrant was not a resident in the UK at that time, and, of course, the "British Psychic and Occult Society" did not exist. In fact, it has never existed, save in name. The "BPOS" was not used as his title and nomenclature for a non-existent "society" until 1983.

David Farrant was living in France and Spain throughout 1966. He met his first wife, an Irish girl called Mary Olden, while still on the Continent where he made her pregnant. They returned to England in the summer of 1967 and married in August. Their son was born in November of that year.

Mary attested under oath at the Old Bailey when subpœnaed by her husband in 1974 during his notorious criminal trials for tomb desecration and threatening police witnesses etc that his self-proclaimed association with witchcraft, the occult and psychic investigation was bogus, and that his nocturnal jaunts with friends in Highgate Cemetery were "giggles in the graveyard after the pubs had closed." When asked if her husband and his friends were involved in witchcraft and the occult, she said: "No, I am as sure as I can be about that." She she should know because she was there and was present in the graveyard when they "mucked about." These friends also used her flat as a hotel.

This is the David Farrant that Seán Manchester eventually revealed when the layers of pretence had been peeled away; this is the man he unearthed after years of knowing him; someone who believed in nothing spiritual or supernatural; someone who was a complete charlatan. Farrant's primary motivation was gratuitous attention seeking, as many others have found, sometimes to their cost. The press have their own agenda, and seldom allow the truth to get in the way of a sensational story.

The people to shoulder blame are those who provide David Farrant with the publicity he craves. They are his "dealers." He is the hopeless addict, and his fatal addiction is for manufactured self-publicity.

Directly above is a Daily Mirror newspaper report the Sycamore brothers could have used instead of the misleading articles about an indecency case in November 1972. Click on it to view Farrant reconstructing for BBC television in October 1970 what he was doing when he was arrested in Highgate Cemetery. To view "The David Farrant Story" by the Sycamore brothers, click on the image showing David Farrant as a teenager with his mother (from the video) at the top of the page.

Who Hijacked Whom?

"The bishop rubbishes a book about Farrant." - Angie Mary Watkins (Facebook, Coventry, England, 28 May 2016)

The authoress has not written a book about Farrant. He is credited as one of five "narrators" whom she contacted for the purpose of making her work appear more plausible. In fact, it does the opposite. Sharon Clarke lives in Northern Ireland and quite obviously has scant factual information about him. FoBSM comprises friends of Bishop Manchester whom we consult and also invite input from to clarify and verify in certain instances. Her book per se is not "rubbished" by us, but her glowing appraisal of Farrant is seriously brought into question and naturally dismissed as erroneous.

"While I agree with the bishop to an extent, it was actually him who hijacked David's ghost story in the first place and they've been feeding off each other ever since." - Anthony Hogg (Facebook, Melbourne, Australia, 29 May 2016)

Hogg's absurd claim that Seán Manchester "hijacked" Farrant's ghost story does not stand scrutiny.

Seán Manchester has never subscribed to Farrant's "ghost story" and with good reason. It was a cynical ploy to fool the press and public into believing what has subsequently been exposed as a hoax on the part of Farrant. He was assisted by a small handful of people who allowed their names and addresses to be used in fraudulent correspondence to the editor of a local newspaper. He was also assisted briefly by his "landlord" who rented the flat above the coal cellar occupied by Farrant.

Farrant's "ghost" emerged in February 1970 when his hoax was first vented by him in the Hampstead & Highgate Express newspaper, previous to which time nobody had ever heard of David Farrant.

Seán Manchester and his colleague, Peter Underwood, had been separately investigating reports of vampiric incidents and an associated unearthly spectral manifestation at Highgate Cemetery since the mid-1960s. This led both to make their own independent discoveries. In Seán Manchester's case it was a schoolgirl who, together with a friend, experienced an unearthly vision at Highgate Cemetery.

This occurred in early 1967 at a time when Farrant was not even residing in the United Kingdom. He was living rough in France and Spain at the time. This is where Farrant met his future wife, Mary.

Due to all the speculation caused by the "ghost" hoax in a local newspaper, Seán Manchester felt obliged to acquaint the wider public with his own theory which did not involve a "ghost." One of the schoolgirls had been attacked in the previous year by the supernatural presence in the graveyard, and now he was being contacted by others who had similarly been attacked, eg Jacqueline Beckwith.

Seán Manchester acted expediently to forewarn and prevent further attacks. His vampire theory was published by the Hampstead & Highgate Express as a front page feature article on 27 February 1970 under the headline Does A Wampyr Walk In Highgate? There was no reference or mention of Farrant.

Within days, Farrant ditched his unsubstantiated "ghost" account and started to appear in the press as a "vampire hunter" determined to track down and destroy what was being dubbed the Highgate Vampire. Seán Manchester examined claims made by Farrant and found them unconvincing.

On 6 March 1970, an article appeared on the front page of the same newspaper, the Hampstead & Highgate Express, where, in an interview given to its editor, David Farrant states: "... what I have recently learnt all points to the vampire theory as being the most likely answer. Should this be so, I for one am prepared to pursue it, taking whatever means might be necessary so that we can all rest."

And pursue it he did. Consequently, on 17 August 1970 he was arrested at midnight in Highgate Cemetery and charged with being in an enclosed area for an unlawful purpose, ie vampire hunting.

Seán Manchester had been investigating and indeed pursuing the vampire since the mid-1960s. It would eventually be tracked down and exorcised by him, but there is little doubt, contrary to Anthony Hogg's allegation on Facebook, who hijacked what and who has been feeding off whom ever since.

 

Addendum:

"[FoBSM] needs to pay closer attention to the material [they're] citing. Indeed, the article from Feb. 27 clearly connects the vampire to the ghost -- and that continued to happen. As I said, they feed off each other. ... The fact remains: David came out with the ghost before Seán came out with the vampire. I never said David didn't hop on the vampire bandwagon." - Anthony Hogg (31 May 2016)

To be clear, Anthony Hogg is based in Australia and has never visited the United Kingdom, much less Highgate Cemetery, and has spoken to nobody directly connected with the case; not that they would want to speak to him. He was not born when these events took place, and seeks out the worst imaginable sources - eg people who, like him, now attempt to exploit the case even though they had no part in it whatsoever - to feed the obsession that has preoccupied his cyber-life for over a decade.

Despite the February 27th article attributing quotes to Seán Manchester and the Reverend "John" Neil-Smith (they even got his Christian name wrong, it's Christopher) that were simply not uttered, there is no reference to any "ghost" in the context of what Seán Manchester revealed. According to folklore, vampires manifest in both corporeal and apparition form, metamorphosis being one of the traits which distinguishes them. That is quite different to the "ghost" being touted by David Farrant.

Seán Manchester is explicit in the article: "... not merely the apparition of an earth-bound spirit, but much worse." He then identifies the spectre as being a vampire, as distinct from a ghost. He makes the distinction to avoid any confusion. And that is the only reference and/or quote to an apparition.

Plenty of people were aware of Seán Manchester's investigation into the Highgate Vampire prior to the turn of the 1970s, but not the press. He was careful to keep what was going on in the general vicinity out of the media, and would have continued to do so, but Farrant's publicity-seeking antics made that impossible. He turned the situation to his advantage by providing a means for people to contact him whose experiences he would otherwise not know about. This strategy proved fortuitous.

Hence the local press published a letter from Farrant a couple of weeks prior to the front-page article featuring Seán Manchester. Farrant did not dream up his "ghost" hoax until 1970. Seán Manchester had already before that time been dealing with the nightly visitations of the vampire upon a young lady whose boyfriend assisted him in offering efficacious protection to her from the predatory demon.

Hogg persists with his "they feed off each other" chant without offering a single piece of evidence. 

Seán Manchester no longer provides interviews about the case to the media, and has not done so for some considerable time, despite lucrative offers and persistent requests. He eschews all media publicity, but will talk about the case privately as a guest speaker at closed meetings for those with either academic and/or practical reasons to listen and debate the matter. Farrant from the onset has been an inveterate attention-seeker who will talk to anyone about anything provided there is publicity, even though he knows absolutely nothing. When he talks he is exceptionally tedious and boring.

Hogg is also extremely tedious and, like that other person, will do almost anything for publicity. The trouble is that when push comes to shove he has absolutely nothing of any interest to offer, and holds no experience or expertise in supernatural matters. Furthermore, like Farrant, he is not truthful. He claims to be a liberal Christian, but associates mostly on the internet with Satanists, wannabe "vampires" and like-minded individuals. His behaviour is about as unChristian as you could hope to find, and he appears to have made it his mission in life to harass and denigrate Seán Manchester who is a devout traditional Christian, exorcist and leading authority on demonology/vampirology etc. 

This is the context in which Hogg must be seen. He is a friend of Farrant's son, Jamie, and befriended a person who still proclaims himself to be a "master of the black arts"; someone who stood alongside Farrant in the dock at the Old Bailey in 1974 accused of arson following several attempts to summon a demon in a derelict house with an evil reputation. He was acquitted of arson, but shortly afterwards was found guilty of sexually molesting a young boy. His excuse was that he was following the teachings of the Edwardian Satanist Aleister Crowley of whom he claimed to be the successor. These are the sort of people Hogg seeks out to learn about the Highgate Vampire case, and provide ammunition against Seán Manchester. They can do neither, of course, because none of these people were present (Jamie Farrant was born in 1967) when the case was under investigation. 

Vacuous Voice in the Dark

Sharon Clarke's Voice in the Dark was published a handful of days ago by something called "CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platforms," and is described as "an in-depth look into the world of paranormal investigating centred on Northern Ireland with a mix of photographs and interviews with leading paranormal experts such as Jeff Belanger and David Farrant." 

Page 27 of Ms Clarke's book describes Farrant as playing "a prominent role in the history of 20th century occultism and parapsychology and continues to do so." Such unsupported claims suggest that her interview with him was conducted impersonally, ie via the internet, and that, apart from knowing only what Farrant has told her about himself, this young authoress knows precious little about him. For example, she places the word "vampire" inside inverted commas to suggest the Highgate Vampire case should be disregarded when the only thing which deserves being disregarded is Farrant's cynical attempt to hijack it for his own publicity-seeking purposes. Furthermore, she seems oblivious to the fact that throughout most of 1970 Farrant described himself in the media as a "vampire hunter," and was arrested as same by police in Highgate Cemetery in August of that year.

He appeared on BBC television two months later, pulled a wooden stake out of the back of his trousers, brandished a large cross, and explained how he had been pursuing the legendary vampire in the graveyard. Yet in September 2007, the same David Farrant wrote: "To keep talking about ‘vampires’ when I don’t even accept their existence, is really a bit boring!" Two years earlier he stated on the James Randi forum: "I do NOT believe in vampires. I cannot say it more clearly than that." That same year on the same forum he protested: "As I have said many times before, I do not really 'believe' in anything." Farrant has nevertheless lived off his fraudulent association with the case all his adult life, ignoring the television footage, newspaper articles and images which contradict his protestations. He makes these anomalies and contradictions his means to gain interest in the media who these days never seem willing to actually pin him down and expose him as a hoaxer who keeps crying something then denies he ever believed in it. Examples include vampires, black magic curses, cat sacrifices, naked witchcraft ceremonies, summoning demons, satanic worship etc. This has been his raison d'être throughout his life, ie implicating himself in something sensational and, having achieved the publicity he hungers, explain it all away and whitewash the incident in question.  

If she had only done some proper, in-depth research and, moreover, met him, would she really describe 70-year-old Farrant as a "leading paranormal expert" who "played a prominent role" etc?

Nobody at the time took Farrant remotely seriously, and this book must run the risk of attracting some considerable criticism from the more discerning among paranormal researchers, due entirely to her reckless inclusion and promotion of this man who has caused such upset and grief to so many.

Sharon Clarke's glowing testimony and promotion of the charlatan who was charged and found guilty of many offences in the 1970s, including indecency in a churchyard, tomb desecration, cemetery vandalism, threatening witnesses with black magic, attempting to pervert the course of justice, theft from a hospital, and possession of an illegal firearm with ammunition, will win her few Brownie points.