"What happened to me is something that never goes away," she said, from the home she shares with her husband, Zaroof Fazal, and their three school-age children in Yorkshire.

"It was a dreadful ordeal, and all this doesn’t help. I don’t know what’s happening over there now, and I don’t want to. I have a happy life now. I try not to think about the past."

Italian officials remained at a loss yesterday to explain the cause of the recent events in Canneto di Caronia. Pedro Spinnato, the mayor of the village near Messina, ordered residents to evacuate their homes on Tuesday, to allow investigations to be carried out.

The move follows a series of fires in recent weeks, which have seen fridges, cookers, televisions, washing machines and mobile telephones burst into flames spontaneously in 12 different homes.

Enel, the Italian utility company, cut the power to the town after the first reports but the fires have continued.

Officials are now trying to discover if an electromagnetic disturbance, caused by a natural phenomenon, or a problem in the electrical supply network, is to blame.

However, yesterday, fears were escalating that supernatural powers are at play.

Father Gabriel Amorth, the Vatican’s chief expert on exorcisms, indicated that the Roman Catholic Church has not ruled out the possibility of demonic intervention.

According to the Italian daily newspaper, Il Messagero, he said: "I’ve seen things like this before. Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods. Let’s not forget that Satan and his followers have immense powers."

The Italian government was yesterday braced for the fact that one of Europe’s richest and most industrialised nations is once again hitting headlines around the world as a country where superstition and fear of the paranormal remain part of modern culture.

The authorities were deeply embarrassed in 1982 when Ms Compton was arrested amid claims that she was a witch with powers of pyrokinesis - the supernatural ability to start fires by thought alone.

The young Scotswoman’s ordeal began in 1982, when she went to Italy with an Italian man she had fallen in love with in her home town of Ayr.

She found a job caring for the children of the Ricci family in an exclusive area of Rome. But within weeks she was linked to objects and religious paintings flying or falling around her, and a number of fires which broke out in holiday homes used by the Riccis.

Another fire also broke out in the bedroom of the Riccis’ two-year-old son, Emanuele.

When told she was no longer needed, the nanny moved to another family, but again, objects were said to have inexplicably fallen off walls in her presence.

When the cot of her three-year-old charge, Agnese, caught fire, she was arrested.

The grandmother of one of the children accused her of being a sorceress, and although she was not charged with witchcraft, this formed the basis of the accusations against her. Italian officials were hugely embarrassed at the panic surrounding her trial, where Italians used crucifixes and amulets to ward off evil.

She was found guilty of arson and attempted arson, although a charge of attempted murder was dismissed.

She was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but having spent 16 months in jail on remand, she was freed immediately.

After her release she published Superstition: The True Story of The Nanny They Called A Witch, a book which included evidence from experts who suggested she was the unwitting victim of a poltergeist.

Today, she has created a new life with her husband and children in West Yorkshire. However, it seems the superstition which led to her imprisonment is still rampant in the land she once called home.

The trouble started in San Gottardo, a mountain village of 500 people above Vicenza in northern Italy, on 14 February 1990. Aldo Calgaretto saw the fuse box outside his house start to burn. Electricians found no faults, but even before they left, the new fuse box was in flames. Within two days, other bizarre events struck nearby houses on the narrow winding lane called Via Calora. Televisions switched themselves on and off, indicator lights flashed on a locked car, and armchair caught fire, as did a pair of ski boots and a plastic canopy. The electricity men returned with a sophisticated machine but the plastic switches melted.

When the fires started, Lucio Donatello, one of the joint mayors of San Gottardo, thought the village was affected by mass hysteria, but he soon changed his mind. 'One day I discovered my car engine running with all the doors locked. Then the right front door burst into flames in front of my eyes. Another time, I was given a jolt when the electric razor I was using caught fire in my hands!'

Mr Donatello and the other mayor, Giancario Zuin, visited Via Calora to restore confidence. As they stood talking, the parked car they had arrived in caught fire. 'We watched the rear plastic light slowly melt in front of our eyes,' said Mr. Zuin. 'There was more and more smoke and then it burst into flames. I couldn't believe it.'

The next event was Bertilla Moran's house filling with acrid smoke. The wheelchair used by his disabled father and kept under the stairs had caught fire and was destroyed. Dozens of people began to complain of headaches, sickness, stomach pains, and skin inflammations that seemed to be resistant to medication. Pets went off their food, while sheep, goats and chickens became restless.

Police, firemen and electricity men were unable to explain the events. Reaction in the village ranged from bafflement to terror. There was talk of the devil, UFOs, Martians, the supernatural. Some experts suspected 'excess electricity produced by high-power generators at a nearby US communications base.' The only reason many refused to leave was the fear that their homes would burn down in their absence and they would lose everything. Many families took turns to sleep so there was always someone to watch for fires. Sunday Express 11 March; Guardian 22 March; national Enquirer 9 April 1990. [The World's Most Incredible Stories: The Best of Fortean Times, New York 1992, p. 54]