Ghostly goings-on in a Bradford pub have forced a landlord and landlady to seek divine intervention.

At first, Louis and Angela Walton thought it was just their imagination when they heard eerie voices and doors slamming at night in the Hare and Hounds in Wibsey.

The couple, who moved in three months ago, even tried to ignore cracks that mysteriously appeared in glass picture frames on their walls.

But when their teenage son Jason found a solid porcelain angel figurine in flames on a mantlepiece in an upstairs room, the couple knew it was time to act. Even the fire brigade admit they are baffled.

Leading firefighter Dave Jones said: "I've never come across anything like this before.

"We've spoken to the lad and he seems very genuine. What I can't understand is that if it had been, say, a discarded cigarette, there would be deeper burns in the wooden mantlepiece and the figure's legs would have been burned - but they're not." Now Louis, 35, and Roman Catholic Angela, 32, want a priest to exorcise the building where they live with Jason and daughters Kirsty, 13, and Kayleigh ten.

Louis said: "We'd laughed off the other incidents but the fire could have been life threatening.

"Jason had gone into the room at about 1.30am to get some cushions for a friend who was staying the night. He just screamed when he saw the flames and ran into our room.

"Our friend grabbed a wet tea-towel and picked up the angel and put it out. Now the whole family are on edge.

"A lot of strange things have happened here since we took over. I've been down in the cellars and heard what I thought was Kayleigh calling 'Daddy, Daddy'. But when I got upstairs she was playing pool with her sister and had said nothing.

"Pens which I use for stock-taking keep disappearing and reappearing in the cellar. Bar stools which Angie has put away have been moved out of place and I am even scared to go into the cellar on my own because of the eerie feeling. I'm not one to scare easily, but I think the pub must be haunted."

Angela said customers sitting in a certain part of the bar had felt chills "like ice cubes going down their backs", even though the heating was on full.

"The dogs wouldn't walk around that side of the bar at first - it was as if they sensed something was wrong," she said.

Previous landlord Martin Devanney, 44, who was at the pub for four years, said his brother Patrick once saw an old woman walking through the bar late a night.

"At first he thought it was my wife, Janet - but this figure disappeared through the jukebox and into the tap-room.

"Janet also saw a shape in the corner of the pub when she was cleaning late a night, which scared the living daylights out of her.

"There were times when going into the cellar just spooked me. You felt you were being watched."

Officers from Odsal fire station who inspected the figurine remain baffled why porcelain should burn.

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