In England, Helen Duncan was charged for witchcraft in 1944, one of the most bizarre if not famous misuses of legislation, even inviting harsh comments from Prime Minister Winston Churchill. But it seems that there was a good reason for this miscarriage of justice.

The distinction between spies and esotericism is thin. William "Wild Bill" Donovan, was the wartime head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). His inner circle was known as "the Knights Templar", a group of warrior monks best known for their incorporation in several historical enigmas. Officially nicknamed because they apparently could keep secrets, others argue that it was more because of joint, and esoteric, interests of the group.
At the end of the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I counted John Dee amongst her closest friends, using him as a spy, as well as a magician-astrologer. Esoteric figures could be found close to Ronald Reagan, who relied on astrologers, but equally Hitler and Mussolini had their special advisors. No doubt, the role between Uri Geller and George Bush remains something to be decided upon in the years to come.

The second oldest profession (as spying is often described) and witchcraft seem to be interlinked in a myriad of ways. Recently, the story of Helen Duncan has attained some notoriety for this bizarre connection. In 1944, medium Helen Duncan became the last woman in Britain to be convicted of witchcraft, under the outdated 1735 Witchcraft Act. Some see it as a plain miscarriage of justice, but it appears there is more to it. One of the motivations for her arrest was apparently the fear that she would reveal top-secret plans for the D-Day landings that were underway at the time. Duncan had been monitored since she had revealed the sinking of the British battleship HMS Barham. HMS Barham, a 29,000-tonne battleship, was attacking Italian convoys when it was hit by three German torpedoes. The ship went down within minutes, with the loss of 861 lives. Already reeling from the Blitz, the British government decided to keep the news quiet, even forging Christmas cards from the dead to their families. Days after the attack, Duncan held a séance and claimed that a sailor with the words HMS Barham on his hatband appeared and said: "My ship is sunk." News of the apparition swiftly reached the Admiralty, which finally chose to act two years later, in January 1944, amid fears that Helen would somehow reveal plans for the D-Day landings five months later. Better safe than sorry, even if innocent people need to go to jail.
It took a jury just 30 minutes to find her guilty. As she was led away to start her nine-month sentence in London's Holloway Prison, the housewife cried out: "I never heard so many lies in all my life!" Indeed, rather than perhaps trying to reason with the woman (after all, her loyalty to Britain and the Allied cause was not in doubt), or better still, use her in the government's efforts to win the war, with which she would have more than likely co-operated, the British government decided to create trumped-up charges and send her to jail, long enough for her not being able to interfere with their plans.
The paranoia of the British government was underlined by them having to revert to an outdated Act to charge her with. When Helen was arrested, everyone expected a swift release. But such was the paranoia of the authorities, that she was refused bail and told that she would stand trial at the Old Bailey, where it is clear that the authorities had a stronger influence than in a courtroom somewhere in her native Scotland.

The official charge? It was alleged that she had pretended "to exercise or use human conjuration that through the agency of Helen Duncan spirits of deceased dead persons should appear to be present". In private, the government seemed to believe she was more than able to do just that.
It seems that Prime Minister Winston Churchill had not been informed as to the fact and real reason why Duncan was arrested, no doubt for reasons of plausible deniability. In a note to his Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, he wrote: "Give me a report. What was the cost of a trial in which the Recorder was kept busy with all this obsolete tomfoolery, to the detriment of the necessary work in the courts?" Indeed, the trial lasted seven days and several mediums had rallied to her cause and their defence fund allowed her barrister to call 44 witnesses to testify she wasn't a fraud. To no avail.

Duncan served her nine month sentence and emerged from prison that September - "coincidentally" a month after "V Day" - a changed woman. At first, she vowed never to hold another séance, but over time changed her opinion. In 1956, she agreed to give a séance in Nottingham. Though the Witchcraft Act had been repealed five years earlier (and substituted with the 1949 Fraudulent Mediums Act) and in 1954 spiritualism was recognised as a bonafide religion, Duncan was nevertheless once again arrested and subjected to a strip search, apparently in the belief that she indeed hoaxed the phenomena. Of course, we can only wonder whether in 1956, the government was once again brooding on something and feared that once again, Duncan might come too close to a truth that they tried to desperately hide. Duncan was known for her hysterical behaviour that seemed to be a side-product of her trances and the strip search resulted in her suffering from shock. She was rushed to hospital, remained there for the next five weeks and died on December 6. And thus, another martyr was created. And it is yet another example of what happens to a person whom stumbles, by accident, in the path of officialdom.