A WARRANT has been issued for the arrest of a 51-year-old woman who claims to be a 'spiritual healer,' after she failed to appear before Blackburn magistrates charged in connection with a £95,000 deception.

The woman, who has given her name as Sylvia Stevenson but who had been charged under what she described as her business name, Rinda Williams, is charged with obtaining £95,000 in cash from Blackburn woman Manwinder Atwal by deception between March and May of this year.

She faces a second charge of attempting to obtain a further £85,000 from the same woman after May 7 this year.

Stevenson is alleged to have taken the money in return for removing evil spirits which Mrs Atwal and her family felt had troubled them since the death of her husband four years earlier.

She is alleged to have demanded a further £85,000 after claiming the spirits had transferred to her home in Carter Knowle Road, Sheffield.

Mother-of-two Williams, described in court as a "Romanian gypsy from America" had been granted bail subject to a surety of £10,000.