When an East Sussex jury was faced with the murder of a car salesman and his wife back in 1994 there was strong evidence against the accused. A voice-mail placed him at their cottage on the day of the shooting and the spent bullets were of the same make, type and size as his ammunition stock. Then there was the missing money - a substantial sum was taken from the scene and the broke defendant had deposited a large amount of cash into his own account the next day. However four members of jury, who were all sequestered in a hotel overnight, needed a little more convincing. So they turned to the spirit world for answers. Booze has since been blamed for the farcical turn of events. A makeshift Ouija board was used to try to contact the murdered couple and, rather fittingly, a wine glass served as the planchette. Miraculously, the spirit of the murdered husband managed to guide the jurors into spelling out the defendant's name, details of the crime and the instruction 'vote guilty tomorrow'. This message was then shared with the rest of the jury over breakfast the next morning. It was only after the guilty verdict was delivered that one of the jurors confessed their deliberations had included drunken dabbling in the occult. A retrial was ordered and despite a lack of testimony from the deceased a second conviction was secured.
