A city-centre ghost hunter claims to have snapped a smiling phantom above a coffee shop in Canterbury.

John Hippisley, creator of The Canterbury Ghost Tour, believes he spied a happy young sailor boy in a third-storey window above Pret-a-Manger.

He claims to have only realised the ghostly presence when viewing the picture in photo-editing software Photoshop.

“I took the picture and then put it on a computer a couple of days later,” he said.

“It was only then that I zoomed in and noticed a face of a little boy in what looks to be a sailor suit.

“He is looking at me very intently through the window.”

Mr Hippisley, who took the photo on Monday night, says he just wanted a picture of the street scene.

“All I was doing was taking a photo looking down Mercery Lane but then there is this sailor boy.

“I think it must have been his favourite place to stand as his face was very happy.

“It just goes to show that you never know who’s watching you in Canterbury and you can never expect what you are going to see. Spirits like to be seen and then unseen.”

“Hopefully people enjoy seeing the picture and it can give them some cheer.”

Mr Hippisley, who kick-started his ghost-tour business in 1995, had another recent supernatural experience in the car park at Whitstable Tesco.

“A little girl came up to me and told me that her mum and dad were over near the front door of the store,” he said.

“So I took her hand and walked her over to the parents who were with a little boy who was crying. As soon as we reached them, the child suddenly stopped crying - it was because of her presence.

“I then said to the mum ‘here is your daughter’ but she told me her daughter had been dead for five years.

“My hand was empty, but to me, it was clear I was holding a girl’s hand.”