LONDON - (REUTERS)- The last woman to be jailed in Britain for witchcraft may be offered a posthumous pardon more than 40 years after her death, officials said. Helen Duncan was jailed for nine months in 1944 under the 1735 witchcraft act for claiming to have conjured up the spirit of a sailor killed on a battleship. The sinking of the ship was at the time a state secret and not publicly known. British authorities believed she could be a wartime security risk. They feared she might "see" and reveal the sites for the forthcoming D--Day landings in France. Officials said British Interior Minister Jack Straw was now prepared to consider a pardon for the psychic convicted at London's Old Bailey court. She was jailed under an act that abolished the practice of drowning, hanging or burning women convicted of consorting with the devil, but retained the offence with lesser penalties. Campaigners are using the 100th anniversary of Duncan's birth to campaign for a pardon. Duncan, a diabetic with a heart condition, died in 1956 five weeks after police raided a seance she was conducting.