My encounter with the ‘ghostly’ portrait of the girl with a creepy look: a painting that proved too scary to own now hangs on the wall in the London attraction – DO YOU dare to go and see it?

A month later she terrified the sleepy seaside town of Hastings and made headlines worldwide for her creepy look; the ‘ghostly’ portrait of the girl in the red dress has found a new home, in a dungeon under London Bridge.

The previous owners, who had returned the painting to the HARC charity shop after being ‘unnerved’ by the child’s petulant look, made the decision to use her fame for a good cause and so sold her for the princely sum of £1,600 to the London Bridge Experience (LBE).

Now she sits in pride of place in the entrance hall of the amusement park, looking down on the hundreds of children who flock to the exhibition every day, waiting quietly and carefully choosing her next victim – if you believe in the curse, of course…

The LBE’s manager, James Kislingbury, admitted to MailOnline that they initially raised the money for the ghostie because they thought it would be good PR.

“We wanted to give it away in a competition,” he says, “but that’s all different now.”

After winning the bidding war and driving all the way to Hastings to collect his prize, James claims the painting’s eerie, otherworldly qualities were self-evident.

The aforementioned owner Zoe Elliott-Brown had spoken out about her love and distrust of the painting, noting that she had noticed her mother becoming increasingly possessive of the painting, standing in front of it for hours and stroking her hair through the canvas.

James continued, “The family who owned it were charming enough, but I get the feeling they wanted it gone. They had a little dog, a sweet boy, very well trained.

‘As soon as they took the painting out of the box he started barking uncontrollably, he really hated it.

‘It’s a long drive back to London from Hastings and the electricity in the car stopped working, which I thought was a strange coincidence.

‘When we got her into the office and opened her up, things got even stranger.

‘There was a single drop of water on her forehead. The box was closed, tightly sealed and wrapped in paper. There was no way water could get in.”

A month has now passed at the attraction while the painting was in the house and James tells us that the examples of ghostly occurrences and paranormal occurrences have increased dramatically.

“This place has always been a center for strange occurrences,” James claims, “but since she got here they have escalated.

‘Several employees have said they saw things moving. Another said she was chased up the stairs by a shadowy figure. Other staff just don’t feel comfortable around her.’

When I suggested to James that maybe, just maybe, buying a painting that was described by its first unfortunate owner as damned evil, and hanging it in a lobby in full view of hundreds of children, might have been a bad thing. idea, he is reluctant.

“We did consider that,” he says, “but she’s here now, and sometimes you just have to take your chances.”

Well then, it’s about time I met her.

Like most journalists in the country, I had spent an obscene amount of time in August trying to find out as much as I could about the portrait.

I had spoken to the owner of the charity shop, tracked down the owners and even bid on the item myself when it was advertised on eBay. I was obsessed.

I don’t necessarily believe in ghosts. It seems like installing someone would cause a lot of trouble and God would go there to hunt down mortals he didn’t like.

Especially since the entrance to hell is basically a revolving door these days.

That said, I do believe in the supernatural and I think certain objects and places can hold energies that linger.

Just like people get chills when they walk past a closed Blockbusters or Frankie and Bennies: objects have memories.

The ghost girl, with her sad, sullen and unruly look, clearly possesses something.

As I stood before her blotchy face, I was surprised by the enchanting qualities of her eyes that seemed to follow me around the room.

From certain angles they made her look young or old, to the point that by the end I wasn’t even sure if she was a little girl at all.

The artwork itself is much sloppier than what appeared online, suggesting that the artist had little to no real talent beyond rough lines and caricatures.

As fringe as the artwork was, it had an undeniably sinister effect.

One of the most repeated untruths in the world is that every mother loves her children unconditionally – a saying that most of us know is complete nonsense.

Some children grow up to be murderers, terrorists and rapists.

And some children, like the little girl in the painting, are clearly just evil, evil brats.

Before I turned away, I decided to put my hand on her frame to see if I could feel any connection.

As soon as I touched the cheap wood, an electric shock went through my body and my mind was flooded with disturbing visions.

There was an apple tree in a field and suddenly it was on fire. Children started dancing around it and throwing flaming fruit at each other. Their faces melted and they stared back at me like skeletons.

Then I was in the woods, running from a shadow with Liz Truss’s face on it.

She was lurking.

I stumbled and fell and her shadowy mouth swallowed me whole, enveloping me in darkness.*

“Are you okay buddy?”

I got out and looked at the photographer who was clearly bored and hungry for lunch.

“Yes, let’s go to lunch.”

The cursed portrait can be seen in the London Bridge Experience at XYZ

*NB: None of this actually happened.