Detective Keith Charles has an extra skill in his quest to catch criminals - he tunes into the supernatural.

As well as fingerprints and witnesses, the man dubbed the 'psychic cop' uses his gift of clairvoyance to track down villains. Now Keith has retired after more than 30 years in the police and plans to use his special ability to act as a psychic consultant for Scotland Yard.

Many people could be forgiven for thinking they were talking to a crank when Keith reveals he knows where Lord Lucan is and that he is in regular contact with his dead son, Matthew. Until December, Keith was a respected detective constable with the Metropolitan Police whose duties had included guarding 10 Downing Street and walking the Queen Mother around her garden.

Keith, from Woodingdean, said his first memory of his powers occurred when he was around seven-years-old and was at Black Rock swimming pool with his aunt and baby cousin. The toddler went missing and Keith was 'told' where to look. The child was pulled out of the water and made a full recovery.

Keith said: "I saw ghosts and had premonitions. I knew things were going to happen. My grandfather died in 1968 and a few years later I was sitting in my flat in the afternoon when he appeared, standing there. It frightened the life out of me and I was meant to be a big, brave policeman! It was so profound and because it hadn't happened in the dark I knew I hadn't imagined it. I realised I was different to other people. I believe by showing himself to me he was proving a point that there is life after death.

"On another occasion, I was staying in a house when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Three women walked in, wearing puritan-style dresses, looked at me and walked out of the wall. I'd find myself talking to people and knowing things about them, like where they lived and how many brothers and sisters they had.

"Then when I was about 30, I went to see a medium and the face of another older woman appeared on her face and a voice started talking to me. I told her and she said it was her mother. She also said that I had the gift and I should do something about it."

Keith, a former pupil at Brighton's Queens Park School, developed his abilities at classes run by a spiritualist church. "This is a calling I have that I wasn't aware of before. When I help someone who's lost somebody it makes it all worthwhile.

"I want to get the best evidence I can, like in my detective work. It's not scary at all, I've never had any bad spirits. After my son Mathew died in a motorbike accident I wanted to pack it all in. I thought it was really unfair that God had done this to me, but then I remembered how much it helps people."

Keith's gift has also helped in his detective work and he said the missing Lord Lucan is buried under a housing estate in Uckfield. He even managed to help police in Ontario, Canada, find a murder victim without leaving Britain. A former colleague of Keith's, who now works in Canada, contacted him for help. Keith was able to locate where the body was hidden.

Now Keith hopes to carry on fighting crime in his retirement by using his gift. He said: "Psychological profiling used to be dismissed as a waste of time but is now commonplace. I see no reason why psychic statements from murder victims cannot become tools in finding their killers."

Keith is appearing at Hove Town Hall on March 9 at 7.30pm.

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