Born on 27 January 1950, Derek Acorah is a UK psychic medium, most commonly known for his work on the Living TV series Most Haunted. During his long career, he has worked on television, radio and in theatre shows throughout the UK, and the rest of the world. He also offers private psychic readings to his clients.



When Derek was a child, the spirit of his late grandfather visited him and, when he told his grandmother about this psychic experience, she revealed that she was a medium too. Despite Derek’s early psychic experiences, he chose to spend his early career as a professional footballer.

Derek enjoyed stints playing for Bill Shankly's Liverpool Football Club, alongside Emlyn Hughes, as well as Wrexham AFC, Glentoran and the Australian team, USC Lion. During this time, Derek married and had one son, Karl, although, despite his success as a footballer, he never lost sight of his psychic abilities.

After the end of his football career in the early 1980s, Derek moved back to his native Liverpool and began to pursue mediumship full-time. Initially, Derek didn’t charge for his readings and he soon attracted a substantial local following. However, he soon began charging the small sum of £1 after running into some financial difficulties.

Derek’s reputation continued to grow and he became a very popular medium in Merseyside. He built on this success by writing his first book, The Psychic World of Derek Acorah, alongside his then manager John G. Sutton. After the publication of this, John decided to take Derek to the USA where his psychic abilities were deemed powerful enough for him to join the prestigious International Society for Paranormal Research (ISPR).

In 1999, Derek’s affiliation with the ISPR led to his first TV appearances, which were in the award-winning documentaries ISPR Investigates Ghosts of England and ISPR Investigates Ghosts Of Belgrave Hall. After this, he appeared on a show called Psychic Livetime on Granada Breeze, before going on to host his own show on the same channel, Predictions with Derek Acorah. Derek’s stint on this channel led him to be headhunted by Living TV to star on their Most Haunted programme, which made him a household name.

Since appearing on TV’s Most Wanted, Derek has also been featured on a string of other programmes such as The Antiques Ghost Show, Derek Acorah’s Ghost Towns, Derek Acorah’s Search for Guy Fawkes and Paranormal Egypt. He no longer appears on Most Haunted, but has said that he would like to return as a guest medium in the future.

Derek is renowned for his dramatic and theatrical style of mediumship, which has been parodied a number of times on comedy shows. The most famous example of this is in Marc Wooton’s comedy series High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman, although impressionist John Culshaw has also featured a similar parody on his show Dead Ringers.

Now happily married to second wife Gwen, Derek lives near Southport with his two dogs, Jack and Penny, and two cats, Mindy and Toby.