Adrian Pengelly claims he can cure cancer using an energy that he transmits through his hands - an incredible claim we decided to put to the test. But not before we'd sampled his skills as an animal healer and as a man who can get a ghost to leave your house - either the nice way, or the nasty way.
His website proclaims him as the "greatest healer of his generation" and says that "many people know of him through his work with horses". He treats horses in exactly the same way as he does humans. He simply lays both hands on the patient.
Wanting to witness this phenomenon ourselves we decided to set a test for Adrian Pengelly and found a horse. Patrick is a hunter who can no longer be ridden because of a damaged tendon inside his hoof. We know the problem is in his hoof because we had an MRI scan that revealed a little tear.
The damaged tendon isn't something that's ever going to get better. When you consider that a horse like Patrick can cost £35,000 you can start to see that a desperate owner faced with news like this could consider giving even the outlandish claims of Adrian Pengelly a try.
Which is exactly what we decided to do. With Patrick safely in a horse box our team set off for Pengelly's Herefordshire clinic. His website says "for many conditions he has a 100 per cent success rate even in conditions usually considered incurable".
However, our plan wasn't to find out if Adrian Pengelly would be able to cure the animal. We just wanted to find out if he could successfully diagnose the poor creature's problem. Our reasoning being; if he cannot diagnose something how is he ever going to be able to cure it.
We had to tell him which leg Patrick has trouble with but gave him no more information. After a few short minutes of running his "magic" hands up and down the animal's leg from the hoof to the shoulder Adrian Pengelly settled on the knee and declared the problem found.
There is nothing wrong with Patrick's knee, Michael Gibson, our expert vet assured us. Mr Gibson is a past president of the British Equine Vetinary Association, there is nothing he doesn't know about horses and after watching our secretly filmed footage of the session, he declared Adrian Pengelly's method and diagnosis to be "claptrap".
Not that that would worry Adrian Pengelly who has a very low opinion of vets. He told us that vets get things wrong more often than not and that: "Most vets don't have the ability to look at the horse and understand how it works," he said.
He also told us, "When I find the problem 99 times out of 100 times I'll be right." What are the odds of that happening? The one time we go and see him is the one time out of a hundred he gets his diagnosis wrong. First test failed.
Next we decided to put his skills as a psychic to the test. Not only does Adrian Pengelly claim to have magic hands he also says he can talk to the dead.
Another extraordinary claim - we needed an extraordinary test. So we got one. First we hired an isolated country house, then we set up three very simple special effects. Gravel that falls down a chimney, taps that come on by themselves and finally, an airing cupboard that mysteriously opens itself before disgorging towels onto the floor.
All operated by presenter Matt Allwright pressing buttons in our hastily set-up loft hide and secret-filming HQ. It's worth noting that Adrian Pengelly didn't charge us for his services as a psychic, it's his hobby.
Matt set off the special effects one by one, drawing Adrian Pengelly through the house and watching on two small monitors as Adrian Pengelly got more and excited at the supernatural phenomenon he appeared to be convinced he was witnessing.
So was this just a joke we'd played on Adrian Pengelly? No, if he really was a psychic why didn't he see through our special effects rather than accepting them as evidence of messages from a spirit?
What happened next was extraordinary; Adrian Pengelly spent a considerable amount of time talking to a "ghost" that wasn't there. Throughout, giving every appearance of being utterly convinced the spirit was responsible for the phenomena created by our special effects.
He claimed to have spoken to his spirit guides and declared the "ghost" in our house was an elderly chap who probably had ulcers on his legs and was called John. If John was going to be such a pest about the place - he had to go.
Adrian told the spirit he'd be doing this the nice way. Only if John refused to move on would he employ the "nasty way". He wouldn't tell us what that was. He claimed that as the spirit was listening to the conversation he was having with our actress (playing the person living in the house) and didn't want the spirit discovering his secret before it had to be deployed.
At no point did his spirit guides let him in on our little wheeze. Pengelly claimed later there had been a spirit present - you can make up your own mind. Test two - failed.
Test three. You might be thinking that there isn't much actual harm in rubbing animals or playing haunted house but there is a dark heart to this story. Adrian Pengelly claims he can cure sixty five per cent of terminal cancer. It's his real claim to fame.
We'd seen on his website some references to chemotherapy, the traditional treatment for cancer and they rang alarm bells at the Rogue Traders offices.
To find out more about Adrian Pengelly's method of treating cancer we wanted to work with someone who had had cancer. In Helen Parker we found the perfect person. Courageous in the face of the four cancers she's had in her own life, quick thinking and fiercely intelligent she was perfect to go undercover and seek treatment with Adrian Pengelly.
The appointment was made and accompanied by a researcher, taken along to film proceedings; Helen arrived at Adrian Pengelly's Herefordshire clinic.
He soon repeated his claim to be able to cure up to 65 per cent of cancers. But then, shockingly, tried to dissuade Helen from having chemotherapy.
"My success rate is higher with people who don't have chemo, and lower with people who do," he told her. It's something that still makes Helen very angry.
"I feel very strongly that when people have cancer they clutch at straws and unfortunately when they get to the stage where they are looking for these alternative therapies they've tried everything else. I don't think that people should be going around promising to cure people if they can't prove that they can do something." She told us.
Adrian Pengelly's response
We put our evidence to Adrian Pengelly. He told us that Patrick the horse would have been cured if he'd continued the treatment and he told us that he's "never promised to be able to cure people".
He brought along a group of 21 supporters. One of who claimed to have been cured of cancer by Adrian Pengelly. She had received chemotherapy treatment and had taken the anti-cancer drug Herceptin while being treated by Adrian.
Adrian Pengelly also told us he had never stopped anyone from having chemotherapy. He said he was suspicious that all was not as it seemed in our 'haunted house' but that there was a spirit present and he was called John.
He claims to have helped thousands of people, and we have received a petition in support of Adrian, signed by dozens of people all saying that he is a talented and genuine healer.
If you would like more information on cancer care and support, there are organisations who can help:
Macmillan Cancer Support
Marie Curie Cancer Care
Cancer Research UK
Adrian Pengelly's healing hands
His website proclaims him as the "greatest healer of his generation" and says that "many people know of him through his work with horses". He treats horses in exactly the same way as he does humans. He simply lays both hands on the patient.
Wanting to witness this phenomenon ourselves we decided to set a test for Adrian Pengelly and found a horse. Patrick is a hunter who can no longer be ridden because of a damaged tendon inside his hoof. We know the problem is in his hoof because we had an MRI scan that revealed a little tear.
The damaged tendon isn't something that's ever going to get better. When you consider that a horse like Patrick can cost £35,000 you can start to see that a desperate owner faced with news like this could consider giving even the outlandish claims of Adrian Pengelly a try.
Which is exactly what we decided to do. With Patrick safely in a horse box our team set off for Pengelly's Herefordshire clinic. His website says "for many conditions he has a 100 per cent success rate even in conditions usually considered incurable".
However, our plan wasn't to find out if Adrian Pengelly would be able to cure the animal. We just wanted to find out if he could successfully diagnose the poor creature's problem. Our reasoning being; if he cannot diagnose something how is he ever going to be able to cure it.
We had to tell him which leg Patrick has trouble with but gave him no more information. After a few short minutes of running his "magic" hands up and down the animal's leg from the hoof to the shoulder Adrian Pengelly settled on the knee and declared the problem found.
There is nothing wrong with Patrick's knee, Michael Gibson, our expert vet assured us. Mr Gibson is a past president of the British Equine Vetinary Association, there is nothing he doesn't know about horses and after watching our secretly filmed footage of the session, he declared Adrian Pengelly's method and diagnosis to be "claptrap".
Not that that would worry Adrian Pengelly who has a very low opinion of vets. He told us that vets get things wrong more often than not and that: "Most vets don't have the ability to look at the horse and understand how it works," he said.
He also told us, "When I find the problem 99 times out of 100 times I'll be right." What are the odds of that happening? The one time we go and see him is the one time out of a hundred he gets his diagnosis wrong. First test failed.
Next we decided to put his skills as a psychic to the test. Not only does Adrian Pengelly claim to have magic hands he also says he can talk to the dead.
Another extraordinary claim - we needed an extraordinary test. So we got one. First we hired an isolated country house, then we set up three very simple special effects. Gravel that falls down a chimney, taps that come on by themselves and finally, an airing cupboard that mysteriously opens itself before disgorging towels onto the floor.
All operated by presenter Matt Allwright pressing buttons in our hastily set-up loft hide and secret-filming HQ. It's worth noting that Adrian Pengelly didn't charge us for his services as a psychic, it's his hobby.
Matt set off the special effects one by one, drawing Adrian Pengelly through the house and watching on two small monitors as Adrian Pengelly got more and excited at the supernatural phenomenon he appeared to be convinced he was witnessing.
So was this just a joke we'd played on Adrian Pengelly? No, if he really was a psychic why didn't he see through our special effects rather than accepting them as evidence of messages from a spirit?
What happened next was extraordinary; Adrian Pengelly spent a considerable amount of time talking to a "ghost" that wasn't there. Throughout, giving every appearance of being utterly convinced the spirit was responsible for the phenomena created by our special effects.
He claimed to have spoken to his spirit guides and declared the "ghost" in our house was an elderly chap who probably had ulcers on his legs and was called John. If John was going to be such a pest about the place - he had to go.
Adrian told the spirit he'd be doing this the nice way. Only if John refused to move on would he employ the "nasty way". He wouldn't tell us what that was. He claimed that as the spirit was listening to the conversation he was having with our actress (playing the person living in the house) and didn't want the spirit discovering his secret before it had to be deployed.
At no point did his spirit guides let him in on our little wheeze. Pengelly claimed later there had been a spirit present - you can make up your own mind. Test two - failed.
Test three. You might be thinking that there isn't much actual harm in rubbing animals or playing haunted house but there is a dark heart to this story. Adrian Pengelly claims he can cure sixty five per cent of terminal cancer. It's his real claim to fame.
We'd seen on his website some references to chemotherapy, the traditional treatment for cancer and they rang alarm bells at the Rogue Traders offices.
To find out more about Adrian Pengelly's method of treating cancer we wanted to work with someone who had had cancer. In Helen Parker we found the perfect person. Courageous in the face of the four cancers she's had in her own life, quick thinking and fiercely intelligent she was perfect to go undercover and seek treatment with Adrian Pengelly.
The appointment was made and accompanied by a researcher, taken along to film proceedings; Helen arrived at Adrian Pengelly's Herefordshire clinic.
He soon repeated his claim to be able to cure up to 65 per cent of cancers. But then, shockingly, tried to dissuade Helen from having chemotherapy.
"My success rate is higher with people who don't have chemo, and lower with people who do," he told her. It's something that still makes Helen very angry.
"I feel very strongly that when people have cancer they clutch at straws and unfortunately when they get to the stage where they are looking for these alternative therapies they've tried everything else. I don't think that people should be going around promising to cure people if they can't prove that they can do something." She told us.
Adrian Pengelly's response
We put our evidence to Adrian Pengelly. He told us that Patrick the horse would have been cured if he'd continued the treatment and he told us that he's "never promised to be able to cure people".
He brought along a group of 21 supporters. One of who claimed to have been cured of cancer by Adrian Pengelly. She had received chemotherapy treatment and had taken the anti-cancer drug Herceptin while being treated by Adrian.
Adrian Pengelly also told us he had never stopped anyone from having chemotherapy. He said he was suspicious that all was not as it seemed in our 'haunted house' but that there was a spirit present and he was called John.
He claims to have helped thousands of people, and we have received a petition in support of Adrian, signed by dozens of people all saying that he is a talented and genuine healer.
If you would like more information on cancer care and support, there are organisations who can help:
Macmillan Cancer Support
Marie Curie Cancer Care
Cancer Research UK
Adrian Pengelly's healing hands