Queries Regarding Farrant's Account, Pt. 2

To read the previous installment, click here.

The detective in charge said if I was willing to plead guilty to the charge next morning, the case would be over without any fuss, and I would only get a technical warning for trespass.

Does that mean you were aware of committing a felony, by virtue of trespassing?

I took him at his word, and pleaded guilty. But as soon as I had entered my plea, this detective made a statement to the court involving statements that I was alleged to have given. He said the ‘accused’ had told him that I had intended to search through coffins in vaults in Highgate Cemetery, to look for the ‘King Vampire of the Undead’. When I found it, he added, I intended to drive a wooden stake through its heart and then ‘run away’. He went on to say that there had been unlimited serious vandalism at HC since these vampire stories had started, and he believed I was one of those people responsible for it.

That's interesting, considering the "King Vampire of the Undead" was a quote attributed to Manchester (or, more specifically, "a King Vampire from Wallachia").

Now, as to being one of the people responsible for the "vampire stories" being perpetuated, do you think there might be some merit in this? Again, consider the March 6, 1970 article.

Of course, in the succeeding months, the vampire connection to yourself would become even more explicit.

Now, ironically, as I had pleaded guilty to the offence, it is little wonder that all of this was being believed by the stipendiary magistrate, Mr. D. J. Purcell. It is also perhaps of little wonder that he remanded me in custody for medical reports, and remarked that I really ought to see a doctor.

I agree, that's not surprising. But that certainly doesn't explain your actions after said court case. I'll get onto those shortly.

As soon as I realized (in fact within half an hour) that the police had attempted to ‘frame me’ by entering a plea of guilty, I immediately changed my plea and decided to fight the case. Unfortunately, this was too late to prevent newspapers from picking up the story, whose reporters had been present in court, and apparently been granted free licence to ‘quote the police evidence’. (Please remember, my own evidence had not even been heard at this stage.) Subsequently, I became known as a ‘vampire hunter’ by the press, and this label has somehow always ‘stuck’.

It would be fine to blame the media for your association to the vampire hunter tag...were it not for your own collaboration to this label.

As proof, I cite your television interview with Laurence Picethly for 24 Hours (October 15, 1970). Picethly asks you, "Have you seen this vampire?" And your response? "I have seen it, yes. I saw it last February, and saw it on two occasions."

Footage from the same interview shows you removing a cross and stake from your belt and stalking about the cemetery. Indeed, the voiceover says, "On August the seventeenth, Allan Farrant decided to pay a midnight visit to the cemetery to combat the vampire once and for all." (note: this is one of the false names you were known by)

So here we have you claiming to witness a vampire. And reconstructing a vampire hunt for television. Couple that with your arrest, in possession of a stake, and then we have your "vigil" with Barrie Simmons for "Midnight Date with Highgate's Vampire" (Evening News, October 16, 1970), in which you...yep...stalked about Highgate Cemetery with a stake and a makeshift cross.

And even as late as 2003, you collaborated with Rob Milne for a book called, wait for it, Return of the Vampire Hunter: An Exclusive Interview with Reclusive Vampire Hunter, David Farrant.

So, I ask you David, could this label have stuck due to your own co-operation?

In reality, after entering a plea of not guilty, I was given bail and went back to court determined to fight the case. It was adjourned twice more (on the second occasion it was heard by Magistrate Christopher Lea!) but finally heard on September 30th 1970. I informed the court that the police evidence had been untrue, that the stake had not been intended to ‘force open’ any coffins, and that in any event it was just as akin to ‘hunt vampires’ (which was the essence of the charge) as it was for some to spend small fortunes hunting out the Loch Ness Monster.

Strange that you would defend the notion of hunting for vampires as akin to people spending money looking for the Loch Ness Monster. Indeed, this connection is attributed to your legal representative, Mr Jeffrey Bays.

The point is, why would you want to defend the connection, if you weren't actually hunting vampires in the first place? Especially as you continued to give demos of vampire-hunting only a couple of weeks after this trial?

When he had heard all the evidence, the magistrate (D. J. Purcell again), stated that he was quite satisfied that my intention had not been to damage or open coffins. Had he though otherwise, he added, he would have treated the matter much more seriously by issuing a custodial sentence. He also added at the end, that in any event, the cemetery was not even an ‘enclosed area’ in the strict legal sense.

I see that not only was he satisfied with your testimony, but he also let you off on a technicality.

So, again, why did you go ahead and conduct vampire hunting vigils after your case was dismissed?

I was formally acquitted, the court having not believed the original police evidence.

End of story really, everyone, it is only some people with seemingly desperate intentions who try to make the facts seem otherwise.

The police evidence, from what you have cited thus far, was declaring your intent to hunt vampires...nothing about graveyard desecration. Not much damage you could do with a cross and wooden stake after all. Unless, of course, you encountered a vampire...

Lastly, with that case dismissed, how exactly did you get put in the clink for graveyard desecration a scant two years later?

Queries Regarding Farrant's Account, Pt. 1

It's been some time since I mentioned that David's say on the Highgate Vampire Case "certainly raises some questions, which I'll raise in a future post." ("Nicked at Highgate Cemetery")

Time to raise them here. I address you, David, and certain portions of your previous response:

This is not just for you personally, Overseer, but to set the record straight over all the confusion that might have occurred about this original Court case; the one which mainly contributed to the story that a ‘blood-sucking vampire’ really lurked in London’s Highgate Cemetery, and which saw myself at the centre of the whole affair.

Wasn't Sean Manchester also central to the case, considering that he seems to have coined the vampire hypothesis, in the first place? Indeed, the one you agreed with in "Why do the foxes die?" (Hampstead and Highgate Express, March 6, 1970):

"Several other foxes have also been found dead in the cemetery," he said at his home in Priestwood Mansions, Archway Road, Highgate. "The odd thing is there was no outward sign of how they died. Much remains unexplained, but what I have recently learnt all points to the vampire theory 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."

Would these "means" include wandering the cemetery grounds with a cross and a stake, by chance?

In the late 60s there were voluminous reports about a ‘tall, dark figure’ that had been seen in and around London’s Highgate Cemetery. With the British Psychic and Occult Society (BPOS), I decided to launch an investigation into all these accounts to see if there might be any foundation for them.

According to your "The British Psychic & Occult Society" page, the group was formed in the "mid-1960's".

Firstly, if that is indeed the case, why are there are no contemporary references to the BPOS? There certainly is for the British Occult Society (which is alleged to have been founded in 1860), but seemingly nothing for the BPOS, despite your interviews with the media of the time.

Not only that, but in a letter that appeared in the February 6, 1970 edition of the Hamstead and Highgate Express, you wrote:

Some nights I walk home past the gates of Highgate Cemetery. On three occasions I have seen what appeared to be a ghost-like figure inside the gates at the top of Swains Lane. The first occasion was on Christmas Eve. I saw a grey figure for a few seconds before it disappeared into the darkness. The second sighting, a week later, was also brief. Last week, the figure appeared long enough for me to see it much more clearly, and now I can think of no other explanation than this apparition being supernatural. I have no knowledge in this field and I would be interested to hear if any other readers have seen anything of this nature. [my emphasis]

Am I to believe that you founded a group in the "mid-1960's" called the British Psychic & Occult Society, with "no knowledge in the field" approximately 5 years after its formation?

Indeed, the "Highgate Vampire" Wikipedia article states that, "On 21 December 1969 one of their members, David Farrant, spent the night there, according to his account written in 1991." [my emphasis]

Why did it take 21 years for a mention of the BPOS to appear in correlation with the Highgate Vampire Case?

Also, how do you explain its similarity of name to the extant British Occult Society?

December, 1969, I visited the cemetery alone in an attempt to see if there might be any logical explanation behind these reports. That same evening, I actually witnessed a tall dark shape just inside the top gate of Highgate Cemetery. After this, the Society had members stationed in the cemetery by night to see if we might be able to obtain some photographic evidence of the entity’s appearances.

After your first sighting you had members of the BPOS stationed at the Cemetery?

Well, according to your previously-cited letter, there's no mention of this or any other members at the Cemetery. This is even after you claimed to see it twice. Why did you not give any mention to this investigation at the time?

Oh, and by the way, did you end up getting any photographic evidence of the "entity" you sighted?

Then, in August 1970, a group of five of us eventually visited Highgate Cemetery (with a psychic medium) with the intention of holding a séance. For this purpose, we had with us several ‘magical implements’, including small Celtic crosses, cameras, candles, incense, and a tape recorder. The area chosen to perform the séance was a flat area of ground above the ‘Circle of Lebanon’, a Victorian circle of tombs not far from the back gate of the cemetery.

Yet, according to the Daily Express, August 19, 1970, your intention was to: "search out the supernatural being and destroy it by plunging the stake in its heart."

Let's buy that you had "magical implements" on your person for use in your investigation. This is despite mentions of only a stake and a cross. What became of them, and, again, why are there no contemporary references to these items - by yourself, or anyone else?

Also, why was someone with "no knowledge in the field" (yourself, as you claimed) equipped with such occultic items in the first place?

Unfortunately this was interrupted by the police, who had been keeping a watch on HC because of serious vandalism in months prior to this.

As the police approached, the four other people headed back towards the front of the cemetery, where they had two cars parked. I decided to leave via the back garden of a house which backed on to the cemetery, situated in South Grove. I knew the people who lived there, and therefore felt quite confident should I have been spotted in their garden. I discarded some of the paraphernalia I was carrying, but was shortly afterwards apprehended by the police.

If you were aware of the police keeping a watch on Highgate Cemetery, which is also implied by your pre-conceived escape route, then why'd you do it? Why'd you take the risk? And why did you feel the need to discard the paraphernalia in the first place?

I was taken to Hornsey Road police station, and the police had obviously found the discarded items, as they were lined up on a desk. These included a wooden cross, a wooden stake with a piece of string attached to it, some candles, my portable tape recorder, and a small camera.

In your previous list of implements you carried on your person at Highgate, you didn't mention a "wooden stake with a piece of string attached to it". Where did this stake come from?

What was it for?

And, in light of your mentioning of pursuing a vampire by "whatever means might be necessary" in March, 1970, don't you think carrying a stake in an allegedly vampire-haunted cemetery might have come across as a tad suspicious?

I was questioned extensively by the police, who had already heard stories of a ‘vampire’ that lurked within the cemetery. I told them virtually nothing, except to say our presence was due to a serious psychic investigation into this phenomenon. To protect other members of the society from unwanted publicity, I refused to disclose their names. I also gave them a false name, and refused to give them my address in Highgate (which in fact is why some newspapers quoted me as being of ‘no fixed address’).

Could they have heard the stories by your (unintentional or otherwise) co-operation with the media? Again, take note of the March 6, 1970 article.

I suppose I can understand the desire to protect the other members of the Society from "unwanted publicity" - obviously, something that wasn't a concern to yourself - but giving the police a fake name? Refusing to give your address? What was the deal with that?

To be continued...

Ecker's Second Take

Well, it looks like he's down, but not out.

In "Ecker's Take", I mentioned that Don Ecker's board had been shut down.

Well, according to "Hello world!" (Dark Matters Radio), it wasn't just the site's forum that went offline:

Hello internet! After a number of months the Dark Matters Radio website is back. The old DMR website went down after the producer of Dark Matters Radio had some health issues. The show went “dark” and finally he pulled down the website. A bit of time passed while I debated whether I wished to re-start the site but this being the 21st Century I decided to put it back up.

Fortuitously enough, his latest blog entry, "Vampires & Nasties PLUS! British "NANCY-Boys"", discusses his involvement with the Highgate Vampire Case.

Ask a Bish

Did you want direct contact with Bishop Manchester? Got any burning questions to ask him?

Well, stew no further!

Pop on over to Bishop Seán Manchester.

You, too, can ask questions like:

Is it true that vampires have hypnotic powers and, therefore, one should aviod looking into a vampire's eyes?

The forum's URL (lordbishopmanchester) would also seem to indicate a rise through the ranks!

Stay Tuned...

Rob Brautigam's "The "Vampire" of Highgate Cemetery" page over at Shroudeater, discusses the mass of material he's collected on the Case:

And for way too many years I have just been sitting here staring at those bookshelves and folders and boxes, not knowing where to start. Alright then, just like all the people who were involved in this case, I am not getting any younger. I think that the time has come for action !

However, you'll have to stay tuned for his report. He has this to say on its readiness:

Probably not before the end of this year [2008]. Well, if it is going to take a little longer, then it's simply going to be later than that. Like everything else in this world it is all in the hands of the Gods. We are only human. All that we can do is do our worst and see what happens...

If you'd like to read some of Rob's other thoughts on the Case, click here.