Vanessa Mitchell says paranormal encounters have been part of her life for as long as she can remember.
But living in one of the county's most infamous haunted houses was unlike anything she had experienced before.
Vanessa, the former owner of The Cage in St Osyth, has spent years describing the terrifying events she says happened inside the property she bought in 2004 and sold in 2020.
But Vanessa’s fascination with the unexplained began decades before she entered The Cage.
Vanessa says her first encounter came when she was four or five, when she saw a dark male presence in her grandparents’ East Acton bathroom.
She said: "I saw what I could only describe as a really dark male presence that was absolutely terrifying.
"I screamed, 'There's the devil! There's a devil in the bathroom!'"
A year later, Vanessa says she saw a little girl sitting on the edge of her sister’s bed.
The girl wore tartan and lace and was sewing a round tapestry, Vanessa recalled.
She said: "The little girl suddenly, very slowly, looked up at me, stopped her sewing, and then she kind of evaporated.
"I screamed again, and screamed and screamed."
At another family home, she regularly saw a woman at the bottom of the stairs and became too frightened to go downstairs at night.
Vanessa repeatedly told her family what she had seen, but said they rarely believed her.
In the decades since, she says she has seen apparitions, unexplained movements and objects flying across rooms throughout her life.
Vanessa claims objects still move in front of visitors at her current home.
Her nine-year-old son, Jude, has also started having similar experiences, and Vanessa urges him not to be afraid.
She said: "A lot of kids grow out of it, but I just never grew out of it.
"I'm not a medium, I don't do anything with it, I'm just somebody who sees ghosts."
But Vanessa insists those experiences were nothing like what happened at The Cage.
The building was formerly a medieval prison, part of which was used to hold prisoners accused of witchcraft in the 16th century.
A plaque records that Ursula Kemp was imprisoned there before being hanged in Chelmsford in 1582, while the lock-up remained in use until 1908.
Vanessa says the atmosphere inside the St Osyth property was far darker than anything she had experienced before.
Within 24 hours of moving in, Vanessa says she experienced extreme paranormal activity.
She said: "When I've seen ghosts before, and still do now, it wasn't anything like The Cage.
"The Cage was something very, very dark and terrifying. Something bad in there, something really bad in there.
"When you get that raw, visceral, terrifying, extreme fear, then that's because it's something bad."
Vanessa eventually fled The Cage with her young son and moved across Colchester into a friend’s spare bedroom.
She said: "Nobody leaves their house with a small baby, being absolutely scared, and goes to move the other side of Colchester in a friend's spare bedroom when you've got a house sitting there, unless you absolutely have to.
"The Cage was terrifying."
Vanessa also recalled the strange chain of events that led her to buy The Cage.
Vanessa had no plans to return to St Osyth, but felt compelled to buy the house after spotting it for sale on Colchester Road.
Within 24 hours, Vanessa had put her Newcastle property on the market, despite expecting the sale and move to take time.
But her tenants found new accommodation within days and a cash buyer soon bought the property, allowing Vanessa to move into The Cage within six weeks.
Looking back, Vanessa believes there may have been a reason everything fell into place so quickly.
She said: "I've always known I was meant to own The Cage.
"Maybe from childhood, seeing ghosts prepared me in lots of ways for The Cage, but not the dark and the evil there. I don't think you can get prepared for that."
Her experiences have also changed her relationship with faith.
Vanessa says she has always believed in God and Jesus, but her faith is now much stronger.
She sometimes wonders whether prayer or divine protection could have changed what happened at The Cage.
"I wonder if I'd have had faith on my side and the power of prayer, I wonder if it would have protected me, and I didn't do it, and I kind of regret that," she said.
She says she has carried that lesson with her and wants others to understand what she experienced.
A film inspired by her time at The Cage, titled The Caged, is also in development, with a screenplay written by Hollywood director Paul Davis and scriptwriter Kim McCaskill.
The film draws on extensive interviews with Vanessa and others who stayed at The Cage, but follows a fictional family rather than portraying her directly.
For Vanessa, the hope is that the film will do more than bring her story to the big screen.
She wants people to understand that frightening paranormal encounters do not require deliberate attempts to contact spirits.
She said: "I never did Ouija boards. I didn't do any of that stuff.
"I just bought a house with an extreme, sad and depressive and violent, terrible history.
"I just want people to learn a lesson from this."
Vanessa says years of media attention have left her unconcerned about sceptics.
She believes many people have their own unexplained experiences but keep quiet for fear of being ridiculed.
She regularly asks people whether they have seen anything paranormal and is often surprised by how many have stories of their own.
She said: "It's amazing, the amount of people that say, 'Actually, now you say that, I did, but I haven't told anyone because it's embarrassing, or because I'm not believed.'
"Most people have, or know somebody that has."
The Cage now has new owners and has undergone extensive renovations.
But Vanessa’s fascination with the paranormal - and her determination to speak openly about it - remain unchanged.
She added: "I don't care what people think about me, but I do care about making people understand and know that this is real."
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