Enfield Poltergeist victim saw cousin 'move across the room' in scary ordeal

27 October 2023 , 10:15

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Enfield Poltergeist victim saw cousin 'move across the room' in scary ordeal

This Morning recently focused on the 40th anniversary of the scary Enfield Poltergeist.

The ITV programme fronted by Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary welcomed Paul Burcombe onto the show to discuss the terrifying incident which took the world by storm. Paul is the cousin of two of the sisters who were at the centre of the horrific story. In the summer of 1977, two sisters were pictured flying through the air of their home as well as furniture, drawers and water even flying.

Margaret Hodgson, 13, and Janet, 11 were said to have become the centre of the alleged activity with poltergeists taking over their bodies on numerous occasions. Discussing one horrific night, Paul said: "It was one evening that my aunt Peggy came down to ours quite hysterical and very upset and she said there was a noise going on in the upstairs of the house.

Paul Burcombe was at the centre of the Enfield Poltergeist story (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

"And she asked if we could go down there. And I don't know why but I went down there with my dad - I was 13 - and we only lived a few doors down from there. So I went down to the house and we went upstairs. In the back bedroom, there's a very large oak wardrobe and it had been moved into the centre of the room and that was the start of it really.

"The whole house was just really - the atmosphere was terrible. It was very scary. We didn't know what was going on and we were sceptical of what was going on. But really we needed to know 'what's going on here' because obviously the girls are really scared, and so was Peggy, She was very upset. It was just a really cold atmosphere in the house."

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Peggy Hodgson, her children and other eyewitnesses saw and heard moving furniture, flying objects, unexplained knocking noises and even levitation. The activity was centred on two of the four children in the house: Janet, 11, and Margaret, 13. (Graham Morris)

"You actually witnessed a sofa flip, didn't you? When you say flipped did it flip upside down or flip all the way around?" Alison asked. Paul went on to say that the leather two-seater sofa "literally flipped and turned itself upside down" in front of him before he added: "What we were trying to do was support the family and we were trying to get answers to what was going on and that was really the important thing."

He added that he and his dad were trying to help Margaret Hodgson and her sister Janet who lived at 284 Green Street in Enfield, as they didn't have a dad. Paul revealed he saw Janet, 11, "moving across the room" before flipping off a chair despite initially being sat on a chair with both of her feet on the floor.

The story is being told in a new Apple TV+ series, The Enfield Poltergeist (Apple TV)

He said: "She literally moved across the room and then she flipped off the chair but her feet weren't on the ground at all and she was fairly relaxed but she went across the room and then flipped over." But when quizzed by Dermot over what he did next, he revealed he "stayed there" in order to help out his terrified relatives.

Paul was unable to pinpoint an exact number of how many times this happened but was adamant that the scary incidents continued to happen afterwards. In recent years, the haunting has captivated audiences in the 2016 film, The Conjuring 2 starring Vera Farmiga as notorious light trance medium Lorraine Warren and Patrick Wilson as demonologist Ed Warren. Single mum Peggy had initially called the Metropolitan Police and said that she had seen furniture move around her home.

This Morning airs on ITV and ITVX weekdays from 9am.

Daniel Bird