"I caught a killer on the tube" - psychic Robert Broadhurst-Browne talks about his gift

Robert Broadhurst-Browne, of Mind, Body and Spirit in Westbourne. Robert Broadhurst-Browne, of Mind, Body and Spirit in Westbourne.

From fires to road smashes to giant tax rebates, psychic Robert Broadhurst-Browne has predicted it all. Now he wants to come round your home and cook your dinner. Faith Eckersall finds out more

After just 10 minutes in Robert’s cosy Winton sitting room I am beginning to feel that if he is anything to go by, being psychic must be exhausting.

If it isn’t the continual voices in his head, messages to pass on, phone calls from anxious clients, moral dilemmas over whether to shop train passengers with ‘evil presences’, professional readings or the occasional spirit turning up, then it’s his new business offering ‘Psychic suppers’.

It must be doubly difficult when, like Robert, you are a very honest psychic and are in the habit of turning away anyone you can’t ‘read’ or, if the reading is going badly, telling them: “This is rubbish, isn’t it, do you want to stop?”

But then, as Robert explains in his broad Nottingham accent, the gift, which he inherited from his grandmother, Agnes, must be used to help people and not for direct gain.

“People always want to know if I can predict the lottery or the horses but I say if I could, would I really be sitting here in Winton?” he laughs.

Indeed. But what he claims he has predicted, some of which is contained in his book I Must Be Psychic is uncanny to say the least.

Robert says he has helped on several police investigations, both locally, he says he gave aid during the investigation of the death of Celine Figard who was murdered by a Poole trucker, and last year felt compelled to call the police after seeing ‘prostitutes and a dagger’ when he looked at a creepy passenger opposite him on the tube.

“Previously I’d been watching a film with these kind of things so I did question myself, was I just being silly? But the feelings were so strong,” he says.

Unsure what to do he moved, called the police, described the man and he says that officers boarded the carriage and arrested him.

“It turned out he’d been someone they’d been looking for ages and he had killed prostitutes.”

How does he do all this?

“With clients I literally read them,” he says.

“It’s just like two people chatting and I pick up on what they’re feeling.”

But what about all this, I ask him, gesturing to his table decorated with various coloured stones, a pack of tarot cards and a crystal ball.

“People expect to see the cards and sometimes I let them pick one,” he says.

“While they’re doing that I get the chance to read them but to be honest all that is for show, it’s a load of nonsense as far as I’m concerned.”

So crystal balls are just that, then? “Well, my granny could see into one but all I ever see is my upside-down face.”

He tells me about one client who was disgruntled when he predicted a house move and a significant sum of money coming into her life.

“She said I’d told her things which she thought were rubbish” he says but the woman later contacted him to reveal that she had received a substantial tax rebate and was then able to buy a flat.

Another client for whom he’d predicted a windfall sent him a letter with a picture of her.

“That’s me with Noel Edmonds after winning £75,000,” she wrote.

The main reason people come to see him is love, he says. “After that it’s their job or health.”

And he doesn’t spare them.

“I am very blunt,” he says.

“I tell it like it is.” That includes bad news, but he always checks with them to ensure they really want to hear it.

Surprisingly, many do.

At this juncture I decide to test his powers, as he says he can do graphology, I write and sign my name.

What he tells me is too personal to share, spookily accurate and strangely comforting.

How he can tell me all this from just four words written in less than 15 seconds I am still not sure.

But here’s the thing. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can test him yourself, either in his home or yours, because Robert, who is also a trained chef, has just launched Special Event Cuisine, serving fine fare such as layered salmon terrine and venison sausages braised in red wine for dinner-parties.

“I cook the food, we have a waitress to serve and clear up and then after they’ve eaten, everyone gets a 20-minute reading if they want one,” he says.

I may be wrong, of course, but I confidently predict that this idea will run and run.

  • specialeventcuisine.com

This story features in this weekend's Seven Days magazine. See more like it at bournemouthecho.co.uk/sevendays

Comments(39)

Villz says...
8:19am Sun 17 Mar 13

A nutter I'm afraid!

FNS-man says...
8:47am Sun 17 Mar 13

Chortle.

spooki says...
9:07am Sun 17 Mar 13

Villz wrote:
A nutter I'm afraid!
Why exactly?
Someone has an ability that cannot be explained and that makes him a nutter?
How did he find the prostitute killer? How is he "spookily accurate"?
And more importantly, why did you even read the article?

awsokend says...
9:44am Sun 17 Mar 13

Special Event Cuisine, serving fine fare such as layered salmon terrine and venison sausages braised in red wine for dinner-parties
OMG Im having some of these free.dinners
don't want any readings though
just the free grub put me down for second helpings.

jeebuscripes says...
9:59am Sun 17 Mar 13

This bloke's a bullshitter. The Echo should at least balance his claims with the opinions of scientists.

Terrible article.

awsokend says...
10:08am Sun 17 Mar 13

Only one small thing though,
I want all of my sausage's fried in lard
cant stand wine of any colour.

GAHmusic says...
10:47am Sun 17 Mar 13

awsokend wrote:
Special Event Cuisine, serving fine fare such as layered salmon terrine and venison sausages braised in red wine for dinner-parties
OMG Im having some of these free.dinners
don't want any readings though
just the free grub put me down for second helpings.
Just turn up he will be expecting you :-)

uvox44 says...
10:51am Sun 17 Mar 13

yes jeebuscripes because scientists are always right and can explain everything! how do you manage to see where you are going with those massive blinkers on?

BIGTONE says...
11:03am Sun 17 Mar 13

£1 fish

The Liberal says...
11:10am Sun 17 Mar 13

uvox44 wrote:
yes jeebuscripes because scientists are always right and can explain everything! how do you manage to see where you are going with those massive blinkers on?
No, scientists are not always right, but at least they follow the scientific method. That's the point: none of these paranormal claims stands up to scientific scrutiny.
 
Make enough predictions and anyone will get some of them right, conveniently forgetting all the ones they got wrong.

Pablo23 says...
11:11am Sun 17 Mar 13

Seriously?!? Do you really expect people to believe this nonsense?

So if I ring the police, say theres a lady on the bus that I have a bad feeling about, but no, I don't know her and haven't seen her do anything wrong. They will come and arrest her based on me detecting an evil spirit?
I would expect them to arrest me in that situation!
Does anyone seriously fall for this!?

The usual absurd stories that are never backed up with any facts or checkable evidence. e.g. what was the name of this prolific 'prostitute killer'? Can't tell us? Oh what a surprise.
But who needs facts or evidence when you've got so many vulterable people ready to be parted with their money.

This is not an article, its an advert for a 'service' that I believe should instantly get the practitioner onto Rogue Traders.

The Liberal says...
11:18am Sun 17 Mar 13

Also, did the Echo check with the police whether this man helped them out (and if he was any use) with the Celine Figard case?

Pablo23 says...
11:22am Sun 17 Mar 13

The Liberal wrote:
uvox44 wrote:
yes jeebuscripes because scientists are always right and can explain everything! how do you manage to see where you are going with those massive blinkers on?
No, scientists are not always right, but at least they follow the scientific method. That's the point: none of these paranormal claims stands up to scientific scrutiny.
 
Make enough predictions and anyone will get some of them right, conveniently forgetting all the ones they got wrong.
Surely if someone has a gift for prediction or supernatural power they could demonstrate it in an environment where it was being recorded independently.

Any attempts at prediction under scientific conditions has never succeeded. The gifted have the same success rate at predition as normal people.

Despite the still unclaimed $1 million reward that James Randi put up, no one has ever produced any evidence of supernatural power.

Never. Not one time! Not even a little bit.

CrocutaCrocuta says...
11:32am Sun 17 Mar 13

No, science doesn`t have all the answers, but every day provides a few more. By contrast never has any "psychic" ability been demonstrated when properly scrutinised or subjected to scientific investigation. In short, these supernatural claims are nonsense, whether or not outright fraud or whether the "psychic" is well-meaning but self-deluding. One cannot rely on the word of a psychic, but one can rely to a large extent on the accuracy and integrity of a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Let`s get real - we need to more than ever.

awsokend says...
12:15pm Sun 17 Mar 13

I am so sorry
just re read the article the dinners aint free you know
i did not see that coming.

BournemouthMum says...
1:02pm Sun 17 Mar 13

Just another chancer preying on the vulnerable. No "psychic" has ever been able to prove their powers in controlled conditions - ever.

A load of ****.

Ech310n says...
1:50pm Sun 17 Mar 13

awsokend wrote:
I am so sorry
just re read the article the dinners aint free you know
i did not see that coming.
Well, you know what they say "There's no such thing as a free lunch" ;)

poolepaul says...
2:11pm Sun 17 Mar 13

Ech310n wrote:
awsokend wrote:
I am so sorry
just re read the article the dinners aint free you know
i did not see that coming.
Well, you know what they say "There's no such thing as a free lunch" ;)
But there is such a thing as free advertising , which is exactly what the ohec are giving this guy.....Nice

PokesdownMark says...
7:20pm Sun 17 Mar 13

Oh how funny, the main advert displayed on this page for me was for the Anti-Fraud hotline!

So here we have another person with the stunning ability to guess the first letter of a dead persons name. I'm getting Henry. No Harold. Mean anything to anyone? Oh it's Harry! ... Harriet?

Of course the serious side is that these types prey on people who are often at a very vulnerable point in their lives. I think they are either dangerously self-delude. Or cold hearted parasites.

High Treason says...
8:24pm Sun 17 Mar 13

I wonder if the Broadhurst in his name is a psychic connection.

Turtlebay says...
8:57pm Sun 17 Mar 13

If he's genuine he should be able to give the registration number of the car that killed Jade Clark and drove off.

Also he could tell us where Maddy McCann is now and many other missing people.

The spirits he's in contact with though are not of God so they will lie because Satan always double crosses people!

LordLilliput says...
9:12pm Sun 17 Mar 13

Yet another advertisement being paraded as an article. That's three in as many weeks I believe - what desperate 'reporting'.

Pablo23 says...
10:23pm Sun 17 Mar 13

Crystal balls aside, never trust a man that looks like Pete Beale

s-pb2 says...
11:55pm Sun 17 Mar 13

I have an open logical mind and have seen psychic mediums come up with some astonishing claims that have taken a couple of weeks of research to verify and confirm, but I do not believe for a moment that the police would arrest someone just because someone else has a feeling about them. But then I saw the writers name, Faith Eckersall, and realised that there was never going to be anything objective!

Pablo23 says...
9:00am Mon 18 Mar 13

s-pb2 wrote:
I have an open logical mind and have seen psychic mediums come up with some astonishing claims that have taken a couple of weeks of research to verify and confirm, but I do not believe for a moment that the police would arrest someone just because someone else has a feeling about them. But then I saw the writers name, Faith Eckersall, and realised that there was never going to be anything objective!
If you have seen psychic mediums that have impressed you then I suggest you go and see a Derren Brown show.

He's the best at it that I've ever seen (and doesn't pretend its real)

s-pb2 says...
11:49am Mon 18 Mar 13

Pablo23 wrote:
s-pb2 wrote:
I have an open logical mind and have seen psychic mediums come up with some astonishing claims that have taken a couple of weeks of research to verify and confirm, but I do not believe for a moment that the police would arrest someone just because someone else has a feeling about them. But then I saw the writers name, Faith Eckersall, and realised that there was never going to be anything objective!
If you have seen psychic mediums that have impressed you then I suggest you go and see a Derren Brown show.

He's the best at it that I've ever seen (and doesn't pretend its real)
I have seen Derren Brown's show and he does rightly debunk most, but not all. There are still 1 or 2 cases that I have seen which have been under satisfactory scientific conditions and have come up with compelling results which have been verified by experts. These are the cases im most interested and not the likes of Derek Acorah or Sally Morgan.

calamityfee@hotmail.com says...
11:56am Mon 18 Mar 13

ISceptics can believe what they like. Robert is a wonderful man with a genuine talent. He often hides his light under a bushel. This is a fantastic idea Robert, and i too hope that it continues to gain momentum for you. After all the happiness you have brought to others lves, it´s time you too received more positive karma. Good luck dear friend.

Rally says...
12:12pm Mon 18 Mar 13

Perhaps psychic phenomenon such as mental telepathy (which, IMO, is what Robert is 'using' with markedly varying results) simply will not function to order, thus making it difficult to pin down in laboratory conditions.
That Science cannot prove the existence of psychic phenomenon does not necessarily mean that the phenomenon does not exist.

PokesdownMark says...
12:34pm Mon 18 Mar 13

Rally wrote:
Perhaps psychic phenomenon such as mental telepathy (which, IMO, is what Robert is 'using' with markedly varying results) simply will not function to order, thus making it difficult to pin down in laboratory conditions.
That Science cannot prove the existence of psychic phenomenon does not necessarily mean that the phenomenon does not exist.
It is not up to science to disprove extraordinary claims. It is up to the person making the claims to prove them.

Anyway your thinking about science is a little wrong. Science isn't a body of people. It is a method that anyone can use. Saying "science cannot prove..." is like saying "cooking cannot prove..."

There has NEVER been any proven case of psychic ability. Despite a long standing $1 million prize for proof. It is a cop out to believe that its is 'difficult to pin down'. If it were real it would not be.

Anyway ask yourself this, why are the non-psychics who best use the same techniques as the claimed psychics equally as good, or sometimes better than the psychics? Do you believe that some magicians really do make playing cards appear from mid air and some just pretend to? Surely if there were a real underlying psychic ability there would be a very clear difference between psychics and people like Derren Brown. But there simply isn't.

Pablo23 says...
1:19pm Mon 18 Mar 13

s-pb2 wrote:
Pablo23 wrote:
s-pb2 wrote:
I have an open logical mind and have seen psychic mediums come up with some astonishing claims that have taken a couple of weeks of research to verify and confirm, but I do not believe for a moment that the police would arrest someone just because someone else has a feeling about them. But then I saw the writers name, Faith Eckersall, and realised that there was never going to be anything objective!
If you have seen psychic mediums that have impressed you then I suggest you go and see a Derren Brown show.

He's the best at it that I've ever seen (and doesn't pretend its real)
I have seen Derren Brown's show and he does rightly debunk most, but not all. There are still 1 or 2 cases that I have seen which have been under satisfactory scientific conditions and have come up with compelling results which have been verified by experts. These are the cases im most interested and not the likes of Derek Acorah or Sally Morgan.
"There are still 1 or 2 cases that I have seen which have been under satisfactory scientific conditions and have come up with compelling results which have been verified by experts"

Facinating.
I've been eager to see some for a long time.
Where are they published?

Pablo23 says...
1:23pm Mon 18 Mar 13

Rally wrote:
Perhaps psychic phenomenon such as mental telepathy (which, IMO, is what Robert is 'using' with markedly varying results) simply will not function to order, thus making it difficult to pin down in laboratory conditions.
That Science cannot prove the existence of psychic phenomenon does not necessarily mean that the phenomenon does not exist.
As Mark says, it is not the job of science to disprove these bizarre claims, it is for those making the claims to prove them.

Otherwise unicorns exist. As do fairies.

They absolutely do without question, until you produce proof that they don't.

scrumpyjack says...
11:30pm Mon 18 Mar 13

PokesdownMark wrote:
Oh how funny, the main advert displayed on this page for me was for the Anti-Fraud hotline!

So here we have another person with the stunning ability to guess the first letter of a dead persons name. I'm getting Henry. No Harold. Mean anything to anyone? Oh it's Harry! ... Harriet?

Of course the serious side is that these types prey on people who are often at a very vulnerable point in their lives. I think they are either dangerously self-delude. Or cold hearted parasites.
Spot on. And nicely put.

scrumpyjack says...
11:41pm Mon 18 Mar 13

calamityfee@hotmail.
com
wrote:
ISceptics can believe what they like. Robert is a wonderful man with a genuine talent. He often hides his light under a bushel. This is a fantastic idea Robert, and i too hope that it continues to gain momentum for you. After all the happiness you have brought to others lves, it´s time you too received more positive karma. Good luck dear friend.
Well that's the most convincing arguement I have ever read.

scrumpyjack says...
11:45pm Mon 18 Mar 13

s-pb2 wrote:
Pablo23 wrote:
s-pb2 wrote:
I have an open logical mind and have seen psychic mediums come up with some astonishing claims that have taken a couple of weeks of research to verify and confirm, but I do not believe for a moment that the police would arrest someone just because someone else has a feeling about them. But then I saw the writers name, Faith Eckersall, and realised that there was never going to be anything objective!
If you have seen psychic mediums that have impressed you then I suggest you go and see a Derren Brown show.

He's the best at it that I've ever seen (and doesn't pretend its real)
I have seen Derren Brown's show and he does rightly debunk most, but not all. There are still 1 or 2 cases that I have seen which have been under satisfactory scientific conditions and have come up with compelling results which have been verified by experts. These are the cases im most interested and not the likes of Derek Acorah or Sally Morgan.
'which have been under satisfactory scientific conditions'

£50 to charity via the Echo if you can share these genuine 'scientific' studies.

Skyrah says...
12:18am Tue 19 Mar 13

“While they’re doing that I get the chance to read them but to be honest all that is for show, it’s a load of nonsense as far as I’m concerned.”
Says Robert Broadhurst-Browne in regard to Tarot cards. In that case Robert, why sell them on your (heavily advertised here) website? Not just the one small pack to play party games with, but over 30 different types!

A lot of money they are too for, in Roberts words, a load of nonsense! Now as for the voices in your head - schizophrenia often has a genetic link, perhaps this is what you and your grandma suffered with? Who knows, but did you hear about the medium/psychic who got run over by a fire engine? He didn't see it coming!

Rally says...
12:01am Wed 20 Mar 13

It's a shame some folk don't understand the word 'perhaps' and don't know that Science spelt with a capital 'S' is a reference to the method and not a group of people.
Personal experience tells me that mental telepathy is a reality.
Radio waves did not 'exist' until they were first predicted by mathematical work done in 1867 by James Clerk Maxwell.
Who knows, perhaps one day Science and Technology will have the means to measure telepathy and thus bring it into 'existence'.

PokesdownMark says...
3:04pm Wed 20 Mar 13

Rally wrote:
It's a shame some folk don't understand the word 'perhaps' and don't know that Science spelt with a capital 'S' is a reference to the method and not a group of people.
Personal experience tells me that mental telepathy is a reality.
Radio waves did not 'exist' until they were first predicted by mathematical work done in 1867 by James Clerk Maxwell.
Who knows, perhaps one day Science and Technology will have the means to measure telepathy and thus bring it into 'existence'.
Whilst on a simple level what you say makes sense, it does pave the way for genuine loss to be incurred by people.
Although you believe in telepathy (usually cause by a failure to evaluate mere co-incidence in a probability sense) you perhaps do not believe in other 'woo'. But what you often find with 'woo' practitioners is they offer a wide range of services. Not just the ability to talk to the dead but tarot cards, crystal healing and other 'woo'. One chap promoted by the Echo last year charged a not insubstantial amount of money, around £150 if I recall, to remotely cleanse the aura around your home. I think the Echo does a genuine disservice to its reader from promoting these types of people.

awsokend says...
3:39pm Wed 20 Mar 13

PokesdownMark wrote:
Rally wrote:
It's a shame some folk don't understand the word 'perhaps' and don't know that Science spelt with a capital 'S' is a reference to the method and not a group of people.
Personal experience tells me that mental telepathy is a reality.
Radio waves did not 'exist' until they were first predicted by mathematical work done in 1867 by James Clerk Maxwell.
Who knows, perhaps one day Science and Technology will have the means to measure telepathy and thus bring it into 'existence'.
Whilst on a simple level what you say makes sense, it does pave the way for genuine loss to be incurred by people.
Although you believe in telepathy (usually cause by a failure to evaluate mere co-incidence in a probability sense) you perhaps do not believe in other 'woo'. But what you often find with 'woo' practitioners is they offer a wide range of services. Not just the ability to talk to the dead but tarot cards, crystal healing and other 'woo'. One chap promoted by the Echo last year charged a not insubstantial amount of money, around £150 if I recall, to remotely cleanse the aura around your home. I think the Echo does a genuine disservice to its reader from promoting these types of people.
£150 thats cheap may be he should come and clean the idiots off of this site
if you get ma drift .

Rally says...
10:45pm Thu 21 Mar 13

quote:
(usually cause by a failure to evaluate mere co-incidence in a probability sense)...
unquote.
Again drawing on my personal experience, I'd say that this is very true.

quote:
...you perhaps do not believe in other 'woo'
unquote.
True, I see most so-called psychics, clairvoyants, etc as, well, charlatans; whereas I see Spiritualists as followers of a Faith that I do not share.
However, when it comes to mental telepathy (particularly and intriguingly through the medium of psychometry, I firmly believe that there is the occasional person who possesses this, to me, enigmatic 'gift'.

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