New Reform chairman David Bull left Good Morning Britain hosts Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid speechless when he said he believed in ghosts and was once strangled by psychic Derek Acorah because ‘my dead grandmother was with me’.

Dr Bull was appearing on the ITV show today and is a former TV show host who presented ‘Most Haunted’ on Living TV. He has taken over as chairman of Nigel Farage party Reform UK after Zia Yusuf quit the role following a row over banning burkhas.

On the show today host Richard Madeley asked: “Do you believe in ghosts?” And Dr Bull replied: “I do you know, Richard, I do, and I’ll tell you why because I’ve hadsome very odd experiences in the paranormal.

When I was doing Most Haunted Live, which was an extraordinary, it was the world’s largest live ghost hunt, by the way, and we had all of these people watching, but when we came off air, some things happened that I cannot explain” Susanna interjected with: “Like?”

“For example, I was driving through a wood and it was pouring with rain, and I knew someone was in my car. So I stopped the car in the middle of the wood, got into the boot, opened the boot, couldn’t find anyone, got back into the car, drove really fast to the hotel.

“Derek Acorah, who was the paranormal medium at that time, came up to me in the bar and said, ‘you didn’t come here on your own, did you?’ And I said, ‘what do you mean?’. And he said, ‘your grandmother is with you’. So I was like, OK, and then he changed facially, he started to channel her, that’s what he said, and then he jumped on me and tried to strangle me.” Susanna and Richard couldn’t conceal their surprise.

Dr Bull said: “I’m not kidding, I had bouncers in those days, and they pulled him off me, and then I went to bed. The next day I said, ‘would you like to explain why you tried to kill me overnight?’ And he said, ‘well, when I was talking to your grandmother, it was then hijacked by another evil spirit’. Citing Dr Bull’s support for capital punishment, Richard interjected: “Well, if he’d been successful, he would have been hanged by now, wouldn’t he under your regime’.

The appointment of Dr Bull, who previously presented Watchdog, Tomorrow’s World and Most Haunted Live!, comes after businessman Zia Yusuf resigned from the position last week following an internal row over the party’s position on the burka.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Yusuf said he was “hugely excited” that former MEP Dr Bull was taking the role. “This party is no longer a start-up,” Mr Yusuf told reporters.

“I think it’s gone to a scale-up phase … the reality is what we need now in a chairman is someone who is an incredible communicator, someone who’s loved universally across the party … someone who’s going to I think do a better job than me at energising volunteers on the front line.”

“I wholeheartedly congratulate him and I know he’s going to do an incredible job for us,” he added. Mr Farage said Dr Bull would come to the chairman’s role with “terrific verve, energy, enthusiasm”.

He described Dr Bull as a “terrific communicator” and that his “job is not to get involved with the admin, is not to get involved in the tech” but rather is to “give leadership to that volunteer army out there of people”.

Mr Farage also said it is “very good” that the new chairman has television experience, telling reporters that “message delivery and simplicity of message in politics is very important”.

Mr Yusuf returned to Reform over the weekend, just 48 hours after he quit, saying he had made an “error”.