Sandra Chisolm was only 12 years old when her father, John, was lost in the Arctic Ocean along with 35 other crew members of the Hull based trawler Gaul.
When approached by a production company making an episode of “Psychic Detective” for the Living Television Channel, she agreed to take part to try and find some closure over the loss which has affected her life, and health, since 1974. The “Psychic Detective” is Tony Stockwell who now claims his “powers” have seen what really happened to Sandra’s father and the crew of the GAUL. Five years ago, four sets of human remains were recovered during a Government backed survey and search of the trawler’s wreck, which led to a Public Inquiry which judged that the ship and all its crew were lost naturally, in the heavy seas at the time of the loss.
But Stockwell told Sandra that her father and 17 others of the crew were taken off the ship, and the other crewmen were shot prior to the ship’s sinking. He claims psychically overhearing two crew of the GAUL discussing what was to be the trawler’s fatal voyage prior to its departure from Hull, and “hearing” them discussing that a spy would be put on board the GAUL and landed secretly in Russia, during what was to be its last voyage.
“The whole thing is a cheap con,”
said Sandra, remembering waiting by the dockside in Aberdeen as the four sets of human remains found on the wreck were brought back in 2000, hoping that one of the bodies might be her father, so ending her years of anguish.
“The programme makes out that it was me who approached Tony Stockwell asking him to investigate my father’s death. This is rubbish, they first approached me, telephoning me and then arranging for me to come down to London to meet him, a meeting that they actually filmed. I remember at the time the film production people asking me over and over again, to state in several different ways that it was that me who wanted to meet Tony. At the end of the final day of three separate interviews they wanted me to say on film that I was happy with his findings about what had happened to my father and the GAUL’s crew, but I would not. Tony Stockwell is about as psychic as my dog.”
“They have cheapened a very serious story, which has affected many people’s lives as well as mine, for a piece of cheap television. The great majority of the “psychic sessions” that were filmed with me were not used in the finished programme. It was an elaborate con to gain my confidence before they shamelessly manipulated my story to fit in with Stockwell’s Psychic “discoveries”. I spent hours filming, often in great discomfort due to my medical condition, and much of what was filmed has not been used, only the edited parts which make Tony Stockwell appear to be something he most definitely is not.”
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