Source of all the Antipathy

The source without whom antipathy evinced by all others would have no grist is David Farrant (born 23 January 1946) who has been a permanent resident of Muswell Hill, London N10, since mid 1976.

Seán Manchester, who has had no contact with Farrant since the 1980s, became acquainted with him in 1970, and was able to build a profile based on what both Farrant and those around him provided.

This is Seán Manchester's evaluation (from a discussion last year prompted by a talk on Highgate):

"I have always found him a pusillanimous and insipid individual. As for his belief in the supernatural? That is surely risible. By his own admission, he believes in nothing, as stated by him on the James Randi forum, 12 April 2007. [Click on the image of Farrant to link directly to the forum quote.] 

"The shop was a wedding present given by his father along with a sum of money of a little over £6,000. Within a year Farrant had squandered the lot, and lost the shop. In 1969 he was officially declared bankrupt and, should anyone researches these matters properly it would be found he was residing in an Archway Road coal cellar from August 1969. His initial letter to the Hampstead & Highgate Express appeared in February 1970 when he was no longer a tobacconist; indeed he was far from being anything beyond a prankster, something he was known to be by those who knew him.

"As for him being a 'witch,' is it not strange that he never mentioned anything about this when interviewed in the media throughout 1970? Is it not equally strange that the items he was caught with in Highgate Cemetery when arrested in August of that year were all Catholic symbols for protection?

"When he reconstructed what he was doing when he was arrested (for BBC TV in 1970) he wore a Catholic rosary around his neck and brandished a cross (produced from the rear of his trousers). Photographs appeared in the local and national press showing him wearing a Catholic crucifix, rosary and even holding a bottle marked 'Holy Water.' Are these accoutrements those of a witch, something he did not claim to be until well after his supposed 'ghost sighting' and 'vampire hunting' days?

"Alcohol, needless to say, has not helped his situation and has in more recent years led to him becoming semi-crippled due to falling down flights of stairs while under its influence. The second of two children attributed to him was born just prior to his bankruptcy and eviction. Farrant was not the biological father, however, as his wife was with somebody else, living in Devon nine months prior. The first child, born in November 1967, is Farrant's and, despite an estrangement of some four decades, has many of his father's traits, eg alcohol abuse, vulgarity, stalking and harassing behaviour.

"The problem has always stemmed from something within Farrant himself. He seems incapable of telling the truth, does not believe in his own rectitude, and has never once expressed remorse for anything he has done to the detriment of others. The reason for the feud between us has nothing to do with the rather silly excuses he has trotted out from time to time, certainly nothing to do with the supposed 'rivalry' expressed by those who haven't a clue about the facts, and everything to do with him going out of his way to bear false witness against me. I speak of the Bradish case which I technically won, but Farrant manufactured by initially making anonymous 'black magic threats' on the telephone to Gillian Bradish, wife of the man in whose house he was temporarily living after being given bail whilst on remand at Brixton Prison in September 1970. I had no idea, of course, that these calls had been made. They initiated the assault by Bradish upon me that brought about the case.

"I have always known it was Farrant behind those calls. He boasted to his drinking acquaintances in the Prince of Wales pub immediately after the case that he had made the calls, and then framed me. This much was confirmed by three people who drank in the Prince of Wales, one of whom was Yossel Baker. This malicious prank led to the assault. Only once has Farrant admitted to me that he was responsible for making the call or calls to the Bradish household. This was soon after his release from prison circa 1977 when I accidentally bumped into him in Muswell Hill and we walked along a dirt path which is a short cut from Muswell Hill Road to further down Muswell Hill itself.

"With no witnesses present, he was willing to let me know it was him. Apart from the eve after the case itself in the Prince of Wales, he has always publicly denied it was him who made black magic threats on the telephone to Gillian Bradish. Needless to say, he always blames me.

"I have offered many times to have us both take a polygraph test on the matter. He invariably always refuses. I saw Bradish some years after the case, and he knew that I had not made any calls to his house. It transpired the telephone number was ex-directory. His wife had never met me, and wouldn't have known been able to identify my voice. It was Farrant who persuaded them both that the caller had been me, and the reason he did so is because neither I nor the British Occult Society would entertain his publicity-seeking shenanigans, as evinced in his correspondence sent in August 1970 from Brixton Prison to me. This matter from my perspective is what began the feud between us."

Farrant in the Barnet home of James and Gillian Bradish in 1971.