A few days after the Barham's sinking, Scottish psychic Helen Duncan was holding a seance in which she claimed to have contacted the ghost of a dead sailor from the Barham's crew and revealed to her audience that the Barham had been sunk.
The Royal Navy did not publicly announce the Barham's sinking until January 27, 1942, so it began to monitor her seances. She was later arrested in 1944 during a seance and charged with conspiracy to contravene the Witchcraft Act 1735, obtaining money under false pretenses and public mischief. Duncan spent nine months in prison and was one of the last people convicted under the Witchcraft Act. She became known as "Britain's Last Witch".
In the 1930s, investigations of Duncan found she had faked parts of her seances including dolls with paper mache masks and ghost "ectoplasm" which was made out of heads cut out of magazine covers, cheesecloth, toilet paper and eggs which she drank and then regurgitated during her seance.
Investigators speculate that Duncan found out about the Barham's sinking because the Royal Navy privately notified the families of the 862 dead crewmen and this led to some of them leaking the information and found its way to Duncan. It was also speculated that Duncan was arrested in 1944 because she might reveal top secret information about the upcoming D-Day invasion.
Family members and supporters have petitioned to have Duncan posthumously pardoned, but the Scottish Parliament rejected the petitions in 2001, 2008 and 2012.
Helen Duncan with her fake ghosts.
