Moments later another stuffed dog hit her on the head. Soon the air was thick with flying toys. All seemed to appear in mid-flight, apparently from nowhere, and were hurled with great force at the petrified couple.

Marc and Marianne hugged the duvet closer to try to protect themselves from the flying toys. An invisible hand grabbed the far corner of the duvet and pulled in the opposite direction. Soon they were involved in a tug-of-war with some supernatural force.

Just as quickly as it had started, the tugging stopped. But it was replaced by something even more sinister. 'Marianne, my body feels like it's burning,' said Marc, panic-stricken. 'What's happening to me?' All across his back, scratches had started to appear. In the space of a few minutes, 13 separate scratches appeared across Marc's back.

Burning intensely, they felt as though a powerful beast was slowly drawing its claws across his body. But just as quickly as the scratches appeared, they vanished. Over the following few months, Marc and Marianne's family suffered numerous assaults by a violent ghost that came to be known as the 'South Shields Poltergeist'. Cuddly toys came alive and toilets flushed with blood. In the mark of what was a very 21st-century haunting, ghostly text messages inexplicably appeared on mobile phones.

It seems the 'ghost' was completely au fait with modern technology. 'I was too scared to go to sleep and too frightened to stay awake,' says Marianne. 'I felt that we just couldn't escape from it. No matter what we did, we couldn't get away.' The full story of the South Shields Poltergeist is told in a new book by two paranormal researchers who spent the summer of 2006 studying the haunting. So disturbing are the events that the couple want to move away from the area, and don't want their full identities revealed. Such encounters may sound truly absurd. But, according to the Society For Psychical Research, there are 260 cases of poltergeists reported every year in the UK alone.

It's almost impossible accurately to gauge how many hauntings there are, as far more go unreported. Hauntings by extremely violent poltergeists - such as that suffered by Marc and Marianne - are, thankfully, extremely rare and probably happen once a decade at most. Hard-bitten sceptics, of course, scoff at any claims of haunting and say that poltergeist stories are simply the result of hoaxing and trickery. But the South Shields Poltergeist seems by no means to be unique. Earlier this year, it was revealed that Easington District Council in County Durham had paid an exorcist to drive away a poltergeist from a family home which was owned by the local housing association.

Sabrina and Martin Fallon and their two young daughters were apparently haunted for several months late last year. Objects flew through the air and furniture moved of its own accord. On one occasion, the ghostly figure of a young girl walked across their landing.

'It felt like ice, even with the heating on,' said Sabrina. 'It was always dull, no matter how bright the lights were, and there was a horrid smell. It was like living in a mortuary.' The council initially played down the goings-on until one of its employees 'felt' the poltergeist's presence. Another council employee confided with the couple that there had been a grisly murder in the house 50 years previously.

'He said a man had killed his wife on the landing using a fire poker,' said Sabrina. 'It seems he then hanged himself.' The council eventually drafted in a local exorcist, Suzanne Hadwin, to cleanse the house. And so far at least, it appears to have worked. Many will be quick to scoff at the idea of poltergeists - and some will be annoyed that taxpayers' money is being used to exorcise them - but a growing number of researchers believe ghosts really do exist. Professor David Fontana, Fellow of the British Psychological Society, has investigated similar hauntings.

He says: 'From my experience, and from the scientific literature, there's no doubt these are real phenomena. There are various possible causes. The traditional explanation would be that they are a form of haunting - that they are earthbound spirits out to cause trouble. 'Or it could be the repressed emotions of people in the room causing psychokinetic effects [people in the room using the power of their mind to move objects].'

Whatever scientists regard as the most likely cause of a haunting, Marc and Marianne were left in no doubt that an evil spirit had taken possession of their home. One of the first signs of the poltergeist infestation was a series of disturbing messages left on their son's doodle board. 'Die bitch', 'RIP' and 'Go bitch now to your mam' had been scrawled on the message board. They were followed by the appearance of Satanic-looking symbols.

The family is adamant that the messages were not hoaxes left by them. Their origin remains a mystery. Messages from the poltergeist soon became even more sinister. Chilling text messages began appearing on Marianne's phone. One warned her: 'Going to die today, going to get you.' Another read: 'I can get you when you awake and I'll come for you when you asleep, bitch.'

All appeared to be from the poltergeist, and arrived seemingly from nowhere. None could be traced to a mobile phone, computer or landline. Once again, there appeared to be no rational explanation. 'When I was outside the house, it would continuously call my mobile from our home phone even though I knew for certain that no one was in the house,' says Marianne.

'It sent me death threats by text. No matter what I did, I couldn't get away from it.' The family was forced to turn to professional help. Mike Hallowell and Darren Ritson are seasoned paranormal researchers who have investigated a range of seemingly inexplicable phenomena such as poltergeists and psychic mediums. 'We were initially very sceptical,' admits Darren. But they were soon convinced the haunting was genuine. The house was quickly kitted out with motion-activated video cameras and sophisticated sensors.

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