A couple who lost their teenage son in a car crash are to feature in a documentary on contacting the dead.

Greta and Andrew Rhodes began visiting mediums after their son Nigel was killed just days before his 19th birthday.

And now the couple, from Billams Hill, Otley, are to share their experiences with TV audiences in a BBC Two Everyone documentary Talking to the Dead.

The couple were left grief-stricken after the tragedy which claimed the life of their son and his best friend Adrian Davison, also 18.

The teenagers, who were described as inseparable, were killed when their car went out of control and hit a concrete barrier on the A660 at Bramhope in November 2002.

Nigel's devastated parents made a number of attempts to contact their son through mediums and the spiritualist church. And they agreed to a request from the BBC to be filmed visiting the "psychic barber" Gordon Smith - considered by many to be the best medium in Britain.

The extraordinary Glaswegian psychic is renowned for his accuracy, which has silenced even the most hardened sceptics.

The programme follows Gordon, who still works as a barber and who doesn't charge for his readings, as he tries to help Mr and Mrs Rhodes and their daughter Anne Marie find solace.

Mrs Rhodes, 57, first visited a medium three weeks after Nigel's death and she is convinced that she has made contact with her son.

Despite her husband's initial scepticism and the concerns not only of friends and family but also her vicar she says she has no doubts that the messages she has received from beyond the grave have been genuine.

And she says the family have gained immense comfort from their session with psychics.

She stressed: "That feeling never goes as a mother, wanting to know if your child is all right, this is our way of hearing that he is okay, he's sending us a message to reassure us that he is all right."

The three-part BBC series aims to lift the veil on mediumship - asking whether mediums spread false hope, exploit the vulnerable or simply tell people what they want to hear.

But the bereaved couple have no doubts about the authenticity of the people they have visited. And they say even their highly sceptical friends and family have been won over after listening to the tapes of their sitting with Gordon Smith.

Mrs Rhodes said: "He was fantastic. He told us things only we knew about. There were so many things that Gordon confirmed to us that we knew it was Nigel. We had no doubts at all in our minds that it was him."

She said the medium identified her son by name - despite the fact that he knew nothing about them at all. He also pinpointed the area they came from, and described how Nigel was with a friend.

Mrs Rhodes stressed that they had agreed to appear on the programme in order to help other people and she said she would advise anyone who was bereaved to visit a medium.

She added: "You still grieve - it doesn't take the pain away. But it does give you comfort knowing they are with us."