14 February 2008: Things that go bump in the loft

A local council in northern England has paid a psychic to exorcise a ghost from one of its properties, after the frightened occupants threatened to leave and make themselves homeless.

The Fallon family told reporters they heard banging in the loft, saw items fly across rooms and had doors slammed in their faces. They called police, who found no evidence of anything. Then they called in a local psychic, who says she used her Russian spirit guide and some angels to help rid the property of evil.

Easington Council in County Durham said the family could not be persuaded to stay in the house, and that by paying the psychic ghost hunter they were actually saving money. Otherwise, they said, they would have had to pay for the family to be put into emergency housing.