But for one Lancashire family, the nightmare became a reality when they were plagued by the spirit world – and had to call in an exorcist.

The five-year catalogue of events came to a head in August when a Walton-le-Dale woman, who does not wish to be identified, claimed she found herself being strangled in the middle of the night whilst her partner lay sleeping beside her.

The 32-year-old said: "It was bad, it was horrible. As soon as I tried to kick my boyfriend, because my hands were pinned down, something started pushing me into the bed and strangled me more."

Once she managed to get free, the woman rang her mother in hysterics at 3am to say she was coming to stay.

It was at this point that the woman's mother contacted the Evening Post in a desperate attempt to get some help.

Her mother said: "I didn't really know who to contact as when you tell most people about things like this, they think you're going mad. We needed someone to go to the house to tell us who was or what was there and why."

Other unexplained events in the house included the cooker igniting even when the fuse box was off, unexplained loud bangs and family members waking up with soaked pyjamas and hair despite the covers being bone dry.

And one night, the woman awoke to see what looked like a skull on her pillow reeling off obscenities to her.

The family were put in touch with local hypnotherapist, vibrational healer and exorcist David Taylor who visited the house and found the spirits of two people – one believed to be the woman's boyfriend's dad.

David said: "I asked him (the boyfriend) to say his thank yous and goodbyes to his dad. I opened the doorway to the spirit world and I think he felt him go.

"Then I felt there was another spirit in there and that was a little boy."

Weeks later, the house remains calm and the family believe that the dad's presence could be felt because he felt guilty for family issues that had happened in his lifetime.

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