IN centuries gone by, it was the darkest and most sinister way of pulling in the crowds - and now the gruesome spectacle of the witch trial is back.

There was a time when suffering from warts or owning a black cat brought charges of conspiring with the Devil and sparked a witch hunt that would get you tortured and, ultimately, burned at the stake.

Yesterday, the victims of these grisly past persecutions were remembered at a ceremony just days before the 50th anniversary of the repeal of the Witchcraft Act.

Modern-day witch Steve Jones led a minute's silence at York Dungeon, remembering the thousands of people executed in the name of witchcraft.

The 44-year-old magistrate, founder of the Wakefield Pagan Moot - a monthly gathering attracting up to 50 witches - also performed a ritual blessing at the dungeon's new witch trials exhibition.

The £100,000 feature opens with a storybook woodland scene, but quickly takes on a more frightening aspect, with witch-tests such as touching a corpse to see whether it glows and the drowning test being recreated.

Dungeon boss Helen Douglas said: "Drowning was considered proof of innocence, whereas staying afloat was regarded as clear evidence of guilt and was generally followed by death at the stake."

The Witchcraft Act was quashed on June 16, 1951, only a couple of years after it had been used to imprison Portsmouth medium Helen Duncan. Duncan's crime was to have held seances in which she claimed to receive messages from the spirits of seamen whose ships had not yet been officially declared lost.

More than 100 men and women were tried for witchcraft in York between 1567 and 1640 - but Mr Jones said modern-day practices had nothing to do with black magic.

"Although we have several rituals, mainly connected to the cycle of the seasons, being a witch means having the capacity to channel a hidden energy," he said.