Prison ghost leaves guide with cigarette burn

A prison tour guide claims he was burned by the ghost of a condemned man - and is now so scared he refuses to lock up the prison alone.

Paul Toole, 42, was left with a cigarette burn on his hand after feeling a searing pain while showing a group of visitors the execution chambers at Shepton Mallet Prison.

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Paul, from Wells, Somerset, was telling the story of a Private Lee Davis, a former chain-smoking inmate who was executed for rape and murder, and refused to accept his fate before he was hanged.

"I had done a little research about the prison in the days leading up to the tour and it had been the very first time I had ever told this story to the visitors,” explained Paul.

"As I was talking I felt this very sharp pain but I tried to ignore it while I was stood in front of the visitors.

"When I looked down at it later, it looked like a cigarette burn."

Paul said the experience has definitely caused him a few sleepless nights and he now always locks up the prison at night with a colleague.

"People probably think I'm a bit crackers but there is so much that goes on in the prison,” said Paul.

"Lights go on and off, you can hear doors banging and areas of prison will get really cold all of a sudden.”

The prison is renowned for ghostly goings on, and it is believed a woman in white, who died of a broken heart in 1680 after murdering her fiancé, wanders the empty corridors between wings A and B.

When the building still operated as a prison, there were tales of officers refusing to work night shifts for fear of seeing a deathly figure wandering the corridors.

"It has made me a little nervous, I've never had this happen to me before,” said Paul.

"The only thing I did differently that day was to talk about Private Lee Davis."

Shepton Mallet was one of the oldest working prison in the UK, with many of the executed inmates are buried in unmarked graves in the grounds.

"The prison has a fascinating history but it will soon be turned in to apartments,” said Paul.

"It has a special place in my heart because it's such an amazing historical site and it's such a shame it can't be protected."

- Reporting by Caters News

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