The Strange Case of Hellish Nell: The Story of Helen Duncan and the Witch Trial of World War IIOn March 23, 1944, as the allied forces prepared for D Day, Britain's most famous psychic, Helen Duncan Nell to her family stood in the dock of Britain's highest criminal court accused of witchcraft. It was a trial so bizarre Winston Churchill grumbled, Why all this tomfoolery? But the Prime Minister was not privy to the Military Intelligence agenda fueling the prosecution: Duncan's sances were accurately revealing top secret British ship movements.