It was – on paper – a tedious neighbour dispute that had got out of hand and ended up in court: until someone mentioned witchcraft.

Even more remarkably, the case in question wasn’t being tried in the 17th century, it was in 1941, a little more than 80 years ago, and it was in a Norfolk court.

One neighbour had been assaulted by the other – the accused’s defence was that the man who had lashed out had been subject to witchcraft for five years: a bold claim. 

Newspapers were still reporting as fact, farmers fighting witches and witchcraft across the country from South Lanarkshire to Cumbria, Kent to Suffolk, Perth to Norfolk and Monmouthshire to Devon throughout the 19th century.

By the mid-19th century, however, the tone had changed and belief in “heathenish superstition” was being shrugged off by the upper and middle classes and a belief in witches, ghosts and curses was seen to be worthy of the poor and uneducated.

But far from dying out, the “heathenish superstition” so sneered upon by those who considered themselves above such nonsense, was alive and thriving.

Our case today involves neighbours in East Dereham in 1941.

Britain went to war on September 3 1939 and the country was plunged into a new world of blackouts and rationing, bomb shelters and gas masks.

But in Norfolk, so it seems, another enemy was being fought: Satan and his army of willing accomplices practicing the dark arts in his name.

In January 1941, Mrs Melvena Spinks and her neighbour appeared at court in Dereham in regard to an assault which had taken place on Christmas Eve 1940.

The accused was war pensioner Gordon Sutton, who was said to have “rushed at” Mrs Spinks in her garden, before striking her twice.

In his defence, Sutton pleaded not guilty and claimed that he was the victim of a prolonged campaign of witchcraft which had lasted for years.

He said: “A witch has been in the witness box. Many a time she has tied a bunch of flowers on my front gate, and I have thrown them away.

“You know that is going back to the witchcraft of the Dark Ages. I dare not tell you half the terrible things she has done to me. I have been tortured for five years.”

Flowers have been associated with witchcraft for centuries, used as ingredients in magic spells and subject to flower lore, which attaches meanings to plants – mostly positive: indeed, it is far more likely flowers will be used to protect people AGAINST witchcraft.

Flowers aside, Mrs Spinks emphatically denied that she had been practicing witchcraft.

Somewhat strangely, both Mr Sutton and Mrs Spinks were bound over to keep the peace, a court order intended to keep a person out of trouble, failing which they would be required to pay a specified amount of money.

So perhaps the court did take the witchcraft claim with more than a pinch of salt (and a bunch of bewitched flowers).

Belief in the supernatural had a resurgence in the 1940s: as war claimed more and more British lives, distressed relatives turned to spiritualism to ease their pain.

The last person to be imprisoned under the 1735 Witchcraft Act was Helen Duncan, who was arrested in 1944 and taken to Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court.

When the case was transferred to the central criminal courts, ‘Hellish Nell’ was accused of ‘purporting to have the powers of a witch’ and was sent to prison for nine months.

The conviction contributed to the repeal of the 1735 act, which was replaced by the Fraudulent Medium’s Act in 1951, which itself was repealed by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations of 2008.