Sorenti's Allegation:
"My friend told me that he had seen the film back in the late 1960's, when said friend was a student in London and became one of Mr Manchester's 'set.' Quite independently from [David] Farrant, this was. Friend told me that he (Mr Manchester) had invited a small gathering of people to watch this film, which was in colour but had no sound. It was called 'The Vampire Exhumed' and Mr Manchester was playing the vampire and the vampire hunter. His girlfriend played the victim of said vampire and it was shot in Highgate Cemetery. At the end, there was footage of Mr Manchester and girlfriend having sex, but that was quickly turned off. Friend was impressed with the special effects, and asked how it was done. Mr Manchester then told friend how he did it, with flour paste, a fan and time lapse photography." — Patsy Sorenti (née Langley)
Farrant's Allegation:
"I’m sorry everyone, but I really can’t stand by in silence and watch Patsy’s name shamelessly blackened by this fraudulent ‘cleric’. Patsy is the Secretary of the British Psychic and Occult Society and as its President I have a duty to protect her name against such untrue slurs. So here are the facts: It IS true that Mr Sean Manchester made a home-made ‘vampire film’ in 1968/9 whose location was supposedly Highgate Cemetery. He made this film with his long term friend Mr Tony Hill and it had no sound but was in colour The film was made on 8mm film and starred Mr Manchester himself as a ‘vampire hunter’, and he also played the role of a ‘decomposing vampire’. I myself was present at the showing of this film as was Mr Hill and his late wife Zibby. Another person who ‘starred’ in this film was Jacqueline [SURNAME DELETED] who was, at the time, the live-in girlfriend of Mr Manchester’s. It has just been stated on here that this film was an ‘in-house’ production, but this particular film was made some ten years later in Paris. This film was of Gothic genre and was made by the French actress Sylvaine Charlet who was assisted by her partner Guy. Both of these people live (or lived) in Paris. Whether or not this film was ever released, I do not know. But I DO know this was NOT the same home-made vampire film that Patsy is referring to which was made some ten years earlier. The title of this later film and was 'Beren.' This is just a blatant attempt to ‘disguise’ the making of this original film. If anybody does not believe me, it is open to them to contact Sylvaine herself (last time I spoke to her in 1980 she was still living in Paris). You really should stop telling fibs, Sean, it just doesn’t go with your acquired ‘religious status’!" — David Farrant
Seán Manchester's Rebuttal:
David Farrant's libellous tirade requires addressing given its illegal content which has been allowed to be published on this [ASSAP Facebook] group.
He refers to me as a "fraudulent ‘cleric’" which, of course, I am not, and is almost certainly in breach of the extant religious discrimination laws of the UK, as well as being patently libellous.
Farrant then pursues his unsubstantiated falsehood that a "home-made ‘vampire film’ in 1968/9" was shown to him at my Islington home when I did not become acquainted with Farrant until late February, early March 1970, as recorded in the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 6 March 1970. Farrant has never been to my home, whether almost half a century ago or since. I would certainly have not given consideration to him entering my home back then.
I have covered the asininity of Farrant's allegation regarding the non-existent 8mm film and its papier mâché vampire (this later developed and transformed into a flour and water paste vampire), but now Farrant is unwisely identifying third parties by their full name which compromises the privacy of such individuals and draws them into his machinations. I need to address this accordingly.
Tony Hill worked part-time at my studio up until 1968, at which time he took up with a barmaid [Mary who was married to David Farrant, and had been his wife for almost a year] in a pub on the Archway Road, a couple of hundred yards or so from where Hill lived, and ran off with her to Devon, leaving me without a part-time darkroom assistant. I opposed his "elopement" (both he and the barmaid were married, and Hill's wife was an acquaintance of mine). Thus a schism occurred and I wanted nothing to do with Hill. He felt the same way. This lasted well into the 1970s. In the interim, Farrant was made bankrupt (he had inherited a small amount of money in the previous year), was evicted from his flat and became destitute. By now Hill had returned to his wife, and, in a move that beggared belief, invited Farrant to sleep in his coal bunker (it was still functioning as a coal bunker). Each flat had their own coal hole, and these were set alongside each another in a communal cellar where junk and old, broken furniture had been dumped. Hill's wife arranged for me to visit Farrant in his coal bunker in order to talk to him following a letter written by Farrant that had been published in the Hampstead & Highgate Express in February 1970. I visited when her husband was at out and unlikely to return for a few hours. What met my gaze in the candle-lit coal bunker was a stammering tramp who tried to convince me he had seen a ghost. In fact, I had just seen one!
At this stage I had no idea about the hoax Farrant had executed with the full co-operation and help of Hill, and it would be some considerable time before I had clear evidence of this skullduggery. Hill has since owned up to the hoax, and he and I have reconciled our differences. Hill, of course, will attest that he did not contribute to the making of an 8mm film in 1968/9. It would have been difficult in the circumstances because Hill was living with a married woman in Devon at the time. It is unfortunate that Hill's wife is no longer alive because she was personally present when Farrant and her husband were cooking up and executing the ghost hoax. Needless to say, there are others who were privy to what was happening.
Farrant mentions another female innocent third party by name who was not involved in something that did not exist in the first place, but Patsy Sorenti (née Langley) recklessly alleges that the film shows my girlfriend having sex. This, of course, is untrue and libellous.
We move into an area of erroneous conjecture and false attribution, courtesy of Farrant, when Sylvaine Charlet's name is evoked.
Sylvaine and I were in a relationship, and I am not going to deny that. Nor, incidentally, will she. During that period we participated in poetry readings, personal appearances, historic projects and occasionally featured together in films. She was a gifted actress, artist, horsewoman and fencer. The film "Beren" starring Sylvaine and myself is not the same film as "The Vampire Exhumed." Both were made in the French language, in France, and both are art house films. Sylvaine made a number of Gothic films, including "Carmilla." A photograph of us together appears in her biography "Sylvaine SuperStar." We also featured in a number of French film magazines. I still regard Sylvaine as one of my dearest friends.
Farrant falsely and somewhat absurdly claims that Guy Godefroy, a film director who worked both in the USA and France, was Sylvaine's "partner." Guy, greatly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, was a good friend to both Sylvaine and myself; he was also a homosexual.
I am naturally obliged to rebut and rectify Farrant's rabid rant, and set the record straight on matters that he has raised and published on an open ASSAP Facebook group. I am nonetheless dismayed to find innocent females' names being once again dragged through the mud by this man who feeds parasitically off the lives of others in a perpetual quest to garner attention for himself, and always on the coat-tails of others.
David Farrant has been making these fraudulent claims for years, and has in recent years been joined in this libellous endeavour by his so-called "secretary" and partner in crime, Patsy, who, since marrying Ricky Sorenti on 25 July 2015, is now known as Patsy Sorenti. This has been festering for far too long. Their problem is that they cannot produce any evidence because there is none to produce. The people they shamelessly name deserve to have this disgraceful matter challenged.
And here is proof of that message having been sent, and evidence that Sorenti is not blocked:
Patsy Sorenti has ignored the message she requested. There are just too many lies and deceits for her to untangle herself from to make Farrant's fabrication fly. The only individuals identified by Farrant as having attended are Farrant, of course, whom the law courts and print media repeatedly exposed as a compulsive liar, and Tony Hill, who at the time was living two hundred miles away in another county with Mary Farrant. After quitting his part-time job in the employ of Seán Manchester to live in Devon with Farrant's wife, he ceased being on speaking terms with his former employer. He also quit his job as a milkman. Hill will nonetheless confirm that he attended no such gathering to watch an 8mm film at the home of Seán Manchester, as claimed by Farrant and Sorenti (who would have been barely eight-years-old when the alleged screening occurred before an anonymous group).
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