Tour guide got burned by a ghost in a haunted prison in England

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.

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.

Paul was left traumatised by the eerie incident.

"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.

Paul believes he was burnt by a chain-smoking ghost haunting the prison. 

"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.

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