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Family flee £3.6m 

haunted house

NEWS OF THE WORLD

Sept 21, 2008

Anwar Rashid and his wife Nabila spent £3.6 million on Clifton Hall in Nottinghamshire but a year later were so desperate to get rid of it that they handed the 17-bedroom property back to their bank.

The couple moved in with their three daughters aged seven, five and three, and baby son in January 2007, and it was not long before they were spooked by the sound of screams from the mansion’s corridors.

During their eight months in the 52-room hall the couple also saw mysterious figures which often took the form of their children.

But it was when unexplained blood spots appeared on their 18-month-old son’s bed clothes that Mr Rashid and his 25-year-old wife decided to flee the house.

Mr Rashid, 32, who is worth £25 million and made his money through a chain of nursing homes, a hotel in Dubai and has 26 properties, compared his experience to the 2001 film The Others.

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In the film, which stars Nicole Kidman, a family is forced out of their home by ghosts.

Mr Rashid said: 

“Clifton Hall is a beautiful property. 

I fell for its beauty but behind the facade it is haunted.

“We were like the family in The Others. 

The ghosts didn’t want us to be there and we could not fight them because we couldn’t see them.

“The day we moved in we had our first experience. 

We sat down in the evening to relax and there was a knock on the wall. 

We heard this, 

“Hello, is anyone there”?

“We ignored it the first time but two minutes later we heard the man’s voice again. 

I got up to have a look but the doors were locked and the windows were closed.

“On another occasion my wife went downstairs to make milk for the baby at 5am and she saw our eldest daughter watching television.

“She said her name but she wouldn’t respond. 

My wife realised something was up, so she went back upstairs to check on her and found her fast asleep in her bed.

“When we found red blood spots on the baby’s quilt, that was the day my wife said she’d had enough. 

We didn’t even stay that night. 

It was the last straw, we felt that they had come to attack us. It was really emotional.”

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As well as having 17 bedrooms, Clifton Hall, which dates back to the Norman conquest, also has ten reception rooms, ten bathrooms, a gym and a cinema.

Mr Rashid, who also shared the house with his parents and brother, said his decision to stop paying the mortgage was the last resort.

In an effort to drive the spirits from the mansion, he had previously called in the Ashfield Paranormal Investigation Network.

Lee Roberts, team leader of the network, told the Nottingham Evening Post: 

“Clifton Hall is the only place where I’ve ever really been scared, even in the light. It’s just got a really eerie feeling about it.”

But they were unable to rid the mansion of its ghosts and Mr Rashid moved his family out in August last year before he stopped paying the mortgage on the property to the Yorkshire Bank in January. 

The bank finally reclaimed the hall.

Mr Rashid now lives in the Wollaton area of Nottingham. 

He said: 

“When people used to tell me about ghosts, I would never believe them and would say ‘whatever’.

“But I would have to tell any new owner that it was haunted having experienced it. 

I couldn’t sleep knowing that I have kept something so serious from them.

“Every time I went back there I felt this feeling. It got to the stage when my nieces and nephews wouldn’t like to come round and if we invited friends over for dinner they would suggest going to a restaurant or us going over to theirs.

“It’s not a life when your friends and family stop coming round. I got priests in and they were saying that they could see things so my only option was to give it back to the bank. 

I just had to let it go because it was becoming such a burden.

“I am now looking at a new property in Nottingham. 

I don’t think I will ever buy an old building again because of what has happened.”

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