All language subtitles for fkfuf

Why did you stain to take in the trundle?

Over 21 years, 28 young
people went through our hands.

Why did you do that?

I love children.

Once she became
the leader of the cult

and could get whatever she wanted,

one thing that she wanted
was lots of little children.

When a child is born,

delivered by sect doctors,

given to a sect nurse

and within a period
of 15, 20 minutes from birth,

child born, child taken.

She was preparing us
for when the time happens,

to re-educate the world,
what's left of it.

There was a glamour
about Anne

that meant all the men
were besotted.

Bill was totally beglamoured.

When they'd come out of
the LSD experience,

they actually believed
that she was Jesus Christ.

There was such secrecy
around her.

Devotees would do anything
to protect Anne.

When they hit the news in Australia,

they pick up sticks
and move to England.

When Anne and Bill were there,

we'd be disciplined heavily
by her and by Bill.

The drug was given to me
by my father.

Anne was there, and it was done
under her instruction.

What was going on was wrong.

Someone had to
do something about it.

# Waiting for redemption

# Like a dog expecting their reward

# Is this
the endless void of nothing

# Or the coming of the Lord?

# Come on, give me a sign

# Show me my love is real

# Oh, Saint Valentine

# Is this part of the deal? #

All of a sudden,
the door bursts open.

People broke into our house
and came loudly down the stairs.

You're Anouree.

We're going away
to the Children's Court.

Anouree.
We are!

- You can trust us.
- Are we gonna go away?

Great, big, deep breaths.

Good girl.

OK, everybody. I'll explain
to you what's going to happen.

They're taking us somewhere!

We realise
it's very, very stressful for you.

Where are they going?!

You'll break Mum and Dad's heart!

Well, investigations
are still under way

into a religious sect in Victoria
known as The Family.

At the weekend,
six children were seized

from a property owned by the sect
at Lake Eildon,

about two hours from Melbourne.

Five of the children have appeared
in a Melbourne Children's Court

under care
and protection applications.

Children stolen at birth.

Brainwashed, beaten, even given
mind-altering drugs like LSD.

The list of abuses

at the Family's isolated retreat
near Melbourne goes on.

It was early December,

and it looked as though Melbourne
was heading into a very hot summer.

I was in the Arson Squad -
Victoria Police Arson Squad.

We got a call to attend a fire
at a school near Ferny Creek.

There was a student in the school,

a young fella by the name
of Roland Whitaker.

The local senior constable,
he said to me,

"Roland's parents are tied up
with this religious sect".

And that was the first I'd heard
of this cult called The Family.

His first words were,

"Don't get involved.

"If you get involved,
it'll be with you for a lifetime."

He told me that

the leader of The Family was this
woman called Anne Hamilton-Byrne.

The sect commenced in the 1960s

and was based in Ferny Creek
on the outskirts of Melbourne.

The sect was made up of
professional people

who worshipped Anne Hamilton-Byrne

as Jesus Christ
reincarnated in the female form.

I'm looking
right at each one of you.

You are the initiate.

You are the cosmic being.

You're stirring into the awakening.

Under the influence of LSD,

Aunty Anne had this vision

that she's got to collect
all these children from birth...

..because one day, there's
going to be either World War III,

or natural disasters galore...

..where most of the population
of the world is gonna perish.

She was preparing us

for when the time happens,

to re-educate the world.

What's left of it.

This is the
moment of rebirth upon a new planet.

We've received the call...

..and great things will be done.

Anne thought that UFOs
would come down.

That was one of the reasons
for the perfect discipline.

We wouldn't question.

We would just walk straight
into the UFOs in a file.

When it was all over, we'd come down

and we would tend to
what was left of the world.

It was such a bizarre story.

There were allegations
of the theft of children at birth,

and of the administration

of illicit drugs - LSD -

to these children.

As a bit of an inquisitive copper,

of course,
you want to see for yourself.

The paranoia amongst
The Family was just rife.

Everyone thought that everyone
was listening in to everything.

I mean, I was petrified of people
standing out the front,

just looking at the property.

Being stalked,
our phones being tapped...

We knew that Anne
and her husband, Bill,

had fled overseas.

But Anne was still directing
her followers by telephone.

Lots of phone calls,
to-ing and fro-ing

with Aunty Anne and Uncle Bill.

Oh, she knew
she had a lot of enemies.

Aunty Anne was always afraid
that somebody was going to kill her.

She rang and told us
to get rid of all the records.

It was chaotic.

It was extremely chaotic.

Uncle Bill's stuff,
Aunty Anne's paperwork.

Everything that could be destroyed
was destroyed.

At that time, Vic Pol
was treating this as a...

.."Oh, this is a welfare issue.

"You know, we've got these kids.

"Yeah, might have been
a bit mistreated and so forth,

"but it's really...

"..it's for the Department of,
you know, Community Services.

"It's not really a policing issue."

And I differed in my view because of
the information that I'd gathered.

Late October,
early November of 1989,

I got a phone call
from the detective chief inspector

in charge
of the Victoria Police Drug Squad.

He said, "We're gonna set up
a task force. Want you to be on it."

And I said,
"Yep, more than happy to be on it."

"We're going to give you
a senior sergeant..." -

I was a sergeant -

"..a senior sergeant,
and we'll give you four detectives.

"You've got three months -
12 weeks - to clean it up."

Morning, all.

- Morning.
- Hey, Lex.

We had folders.

We had my report.
We had a phone book.

I think we had one car allocated.

That was the total resourcing
for Operation Forest.

I was desperate to meet
Anne Hamilton-Byrne from day one.

But we didn't know where Anne was.

We were told
that Anne was in the UK.

We were told that Anne
was in the United States.

We were told that Anne was here
and there, but never in Australia.

The closest I could get for now
was a TV interview.

No Aryan race?

What's this Aryan race business?

You're talking about Germany,
aren't you?

No, we didn't want
the children to look alike,

like the so-called Nazi children

they're being labelled
as in certain..

No, I wanted them to look like
brothers and sisters, though -

I must admit this.

I love them. I love them
in their little smocks and jeans

and the long hair and ribbons.

It was beautiful.
It was lovely to see.

Why did you start to
take in the children?

Over 21 years, 28 young people
went through our hands.

Why did you do that?

I love children.

Something just did not
ring true to me.

There was something
driving this woman.

I didn't know what it was,
but it was absolutely bizarre.

We needed to dig and dig and dig

to find out
who we were dealing with,

why did they want these children,

what was behind it all?

In the '50s and '60s
in Australia,

there was a huge interest amongst
upper and middle class people

in alternative spirituality.

A lot of people in the '60s
were trying to find a truth.

Somewhere to fit in in the world.

And there was more to life
than the '50s

and the staid, plaid go to work,

go to the six o'clock swill,

earn your money, retire, die.

Yoga is a philosophy of life.

It began in India centuries ago,
spread through the east,

and is now becoming
increasingly popular in Australia.

Most of the new devotees are women.

I had been teaching yoga quietly.

I had already started
meditation classes,

but I came to the conclusion

that I was very, very definitely
going to have my school,

for the physical, the mental and
the spiritual control of the body.

And from there,
I met Raynor Johnson.

# Gaudeamus igitur

# Juvenes dum sumus. #

Today, Prime Minister Robert Menzies

led the procession to open
a new wing at Queen's College,

named after Dr Raynor Johnson,

master of the college for 25 years.

Raynor was a typical
Edwardian English gentleman.

He grew up in the city of Leeds,
and was a very clever young boy.

He was a First Class Honours
graduate from Oxford.

He had worked at
the Cavendish Laboratory,

at the very front edge
of nuclear physics.

The University of Melbourne

thought they were getting
a very distinguished physicist,

but he'd really lost interest
in physics by the time he arrived.

Raynor was interested in the world
of spirits and spiritualism.

He believed that he had been chosen
by a College of Spirits

in the beyond somewhere,

because he was a scientist,

and would be able to
speak to his generation.

Nothing is impossible.

Edwardian Liberals were, as a group,
very interested in spiritualism.

In many homes,
if you had a dinner party,

after you'd had
your coffee and port,

you would go into a living room
and you'd have a ouija board

and you'd try and connect
with spirits beyond.

This was
really surprisingly widespread

in the sort of upper middle classes.

I was working very hard on an essay
in the east wing of the College,

when the Master came
into the quadrangle,

accompanied by
a youngish blonde woman.

She was doing something strange
around the entrances and exits

from the quadrangle.

That was Anne Hamilton-Byrne.

It's very clear

that Raynor would have been
flattered by Anne Hamilton-Byrne,

but Raynor was naive.

I think that she was cultivating,
or grooming, the Master.

I can't imagine, really,

why he fell into her trap
so quickly.

I remember very clearly
the first time that Raynor met Anne.

It was Sunday.

Everybody was in the kitchen,
except Raynor -

he was in his study -

and Mary was making the gravy
for the dinner.

The doorbell went, and I opened
the door and Anne was there.

Raynor was expecting her,
so I brought her in.

In the time it took
for Mary to make the gravy,

Raynor came flying out of the study,
almost in a flap,

very excited,

saying "Mary, Mary, come quickly!
She wants to speak to you."

Maybe she batted her eyelashes
at him, with her dyed blonde hair.

It was if she had waved
a magic wand over him.

I had to start it.

That was divine orders.

That was my mission.

That was the divine vision.

"From this date onwards,

"there was but little doubt
in my mind

"that I had met my master.

"During the closing months of 1963,

"Anne was gathering around her

"a nucleus of a dozen people,

"and showing us the foundations
of the spiritual path.

"From time to time,

"as the teacher saw they were ready,
she initiated them.

"So far, the master's plan
involves her remaining hidden -

"her work is being done unseen,
unheard and unknown."

In the early '60s,

my mother was working
in the tuckshop

at Box Hill Technical College.

One of the ladies there
was doing yoga

and she suggested to Mum
that she do the same,

because she was
a little bit overweight.

When Mum first started the yoga,

it was wonderful because
she lost weight, she was motivated,

she was getting out of the house.

She told me that what she was doing
was very special,

because Anne Hamilton-Byrne, um...
was this Jesus Christ.

There was a lot of talk
about ruling the world, um...

..and having a perfect world,

and how everybody that didn't fit in
to that little group

weren't going to survive.

We didn't think of ourselves
as a cult.

I mean,
that would have been ridiculous.

This was a very, very gradual
immersion in new values.

It wasn't just random happy hippies.

It was Australian people
who were...hand-picked.

Genuinely professional,
successful people

that you might live next door to.

And it was all secret.

You've got to remember -
this woman had phenomenal presence.

In ancient times,
we hear about enchantresses

who could enslave people
just by a glance.

There was a glamour about Anne

that meant
that all the men were besotted.

And Bill was totally beglamoured.

Just beglamoured.

She's strong, she's powerful.

Entrancing.
Beautiful. Loving.

I was looking for a mother figure,

because I didn't have much of a one
growing up.

Anne personified this sort of
idealised mother figure -

the perfect mother,
or the great mother.

I had this yearning to belong
to Anne's group of people.

If I could get close to her,

I would have a place
where I belonged.

They would meet regularly

at a hall in Ferny Creek,

on a five-acre property.

And in its heyday,
in the late '60s, early '70s,

there were hundreds of people
that would turn up there,

including people of high standing
in the community.

We waited and we meditated
and we waited and we meditated,

and then, eventually, Anne would
come in from the back of the hall.

To thy Last Supper,

let me be allowed this day...

When she spoke,
you listened.

And what came out of her mouth

was very much worth listening to,
believe me.

But neither
have I betrayed any secrets

to thine enemies.

Nor have I given thee
the kiss of Judas.

But like a thief,
I pray unto thee...

Right the way through
my entire 32 years with The Lodge,

I was in the sound room,

recording every single...
lecture, speech...

Every word that Anne uttered
went on tape.

She taught
this mishmash of Eastern religions

involving an endless wheel
of life and death and reincarnation,

and the bad karma
builds up and up and up,

and it's a bit
like a toxic debt of a nation.

It's actually so big,
you can never pay it off,

so you have to have somebody
to cancel it out for you,

and she cancels all of your karma

at the initiation ceremony.

So, the only karma
you've got left to work out

is what you were born
to work out in this life.

We were brought up

that we've had
many millions of lives.

And Aunty Anne promised us that this
was our last life if we stood by her.

Only one rule - do
absolutely everything she tells you.

And that might range from
what to eat, what to wear,

what to think, who to marry,
who to not marry.

Everything. Total obedience.

Mm-hm.

Oh, right.

I remember
sitting down with the children

in the early days

and I said,
"I can't promise you that we will...

"..arrest someone or charge someone
or get a conviction,"

but I said that
"We will do our absolute best."

My first memory
is Mum was taking me up to Eildon...

..and I knew I was going
to live up there.

I would have been only about
maybe two, two and a half.

And I remember saying, "Oh, Mum,
look at all the wattle trees."

It was beautiful.

That's my first memory
of the actual sect.

Being up with all the other kids.

As far as we knew, we were all
Anne Hamilton-Byrne's children.

Well, 14 of us were.

Growing up, it was Anne and it
was Bill, they were Mum and Dad.

And then there was foster kids.

They were kids of other sect members

that would either come up
on weekends

or would stay there for stints
of a couple of years.

At its heyday, the greatest amount
of kids at any given stage was 28.

We all had
blonded bleached hair.

Not all of us. Some had red hair.

Because Auntie Anne was actually
naturally redheaded.

Very, very royal,
Von Trapp sort of clothes.

Your velvets, your smart shoes,

and everything had to be polished
and looking the same.

And that was really to implant in us
that we're all brothers and sisters.

The Aunties were the people
who looked after us.

When the Aunties knew
that we were going for walks,

we were always accompanied by them.

There must have been that fear
that we would run away.

We'd walk around
and we'd peer into people's houses.

Wondered if they had
the same food as we did.

And if not, what was that food
that they were eating?

You weren't encouraged to socialise
or interact with other people.

In fact, it...it was us and them,

so we were separate
from the rest of the world.

We received information
that Bill Hamilton-Byrne

had been seen in Langton Green,

a small village in Kent,

With the sect, every so often
they'd hit the news.

And when they hit the news
in Australia,

they'd pick up sticks
and move to England.

Langton Green is a big farm in
the stockbrokers' belt in England.

10 acres, a 16th-century house.

It's got tunnels going under,
through Brighton, down to...

Kings escaped through there,
whatever...

All sorts of history in that place.

Show them the side
of the house, Anne.

Just along here,
the little window up...

600-year...
Queen Elizabeth, they say.

Before Queen Elizabeth.

There's our dining room window open.

I believe it goes back
to 15th century.

Yes.

Big house but it had been added on,
and one section was for Anne.

Look!

Turn around, Daddy. Say something.

Love you, darling.
"Love you" to the children.

To the children.

You love them, don't you, Daddy?
I do love them, darling. I do.

And I love you, darling.
Love you, Annie.

When we were children,
they would travel a lot overseas

between Australia,
America and England,

so they weren't always at home
with us at Eildon.

We'd be told
they would be overseas,

so we sort of thought they were
over the other side of the lake,

and we'd rock ourselves to sleep
at night,

calling out "Mummy, Daddy," thinking
that they were just over the lake.

When Mum and Dad came back
from England or overseas

was generally the time
that they used to do filming.

'Cause, of course,
we were all very excited

and all very happy to see them.

I think we put on
quite a good performance.

It's a very neat piece of
propaganda, the movie business.

I'm sure it was designed
to show people

who Anne wanted
to get into the cult,

"Why wouldn't you want to be
part of this? It looks idyllic."

You starve the kids,
but you want them all for a film,

so you just tell them they're gonna
have some chocolate or something,

and then, you know, you've got
a nice happy-looking family.

Very few adult members of the sect

really knew what was happening
to those children.

They were kept in isolation
even from the sect.

There were special Aunties and Uncles

who Anne entrusted
to raise her children.

But the others only saw them
occasionally,

when they'd go to the hall
and perform for the sect.

And then they'd be shunted off again
in buses back to Eildon.

# Waters by. #

The main Aunties
were Trish and Elizabeth,

and they used to come up
every fortnight and look after us

for two week on, two weeks off.

They starved us, they beat us.

Uh, they did all sorts of
horrible things to us.

Around 5:30 in the morning,
we would be woken up.

There would be
a Hatha yoga meditation.

And then set up
the boys' room for school.

Beds would be rolled away,
out would come the school books,

the trestle tables, all the chairs,
with a blackboard at the end.

Seven days a week.

A plate of vegetable
for lunch,

a plate of vegetables for dinner...

With all of the vitamins
laid out.

School finished four o'clock.

Then it was showers,
yoga, meditation, dinner.

And then there was homework,
reading, bed.

And that pretty much repeated
52 weeks in the year.

From about 1980,
Anne increased the dosage

and types of drugs we were taking.

I was given Valium, half a tablet
three times a day...

Anatensol, Tegretol,
Mogadon and Valium every single day.

Uh, morning and night.

I do remember of one occasion
where I had LSD

when I was about eight or nine.

I do not remember
actually being administered it,

but I certainly remember
the effects of it.

You were punished
most days in some way,

whether it was lines
or missing food or...

Three days was really bad -

if you went without food
for three days.

The longest I ever went
without food was for a week.

The denial of food was a very large
component of control for Anne.

It's better to
keep your victims weak

so that they have less ability
to fight back.

The police doctor
told me,

the youngest one suffered
from psycho-social dwarfism.

Because she lived in
a harsh, uncaring environment,

her growth hormones as a young child
were never released.

And when they took the children out
in the raid in August '87...

..and they removed them
from the sect,

I think it was within a week or two
she grew two centimetres.

To me, that was clear evidence that
the children had been maltreated.

One of our tasks was
to visit Lake Eildon,

where the children had been held
in captivity,

to gather evidence.

It was eerie.

This was where some of
the worst crimes were committed,

allegedly, against the children.

I saw where the children
were secreted under the house

when those
evil police officers came,

who the children were told
would kill you if they saw you.

Anne had said at one stage
that there had been 28 children.

We knew of 14 or 15,

which, in my calculations, meant

there was around 13, 14 children
that...who were they?

Bizarre as it sounds...

..we needed to exclude
any possibility

that there was anything other
than dogs buried in those graves.

Thank goodness
we were able to do that.

It was a real interesting raid,

because it actually gave us
the intelligence

and confirmed what we had been told
by the children.

Eildon itself was very regimented

but, at the same time,
very unpredictable.

The rules could change

and you didn't know they'd changed
until you'd broken them.

It made it a lot more dangerous.

You can't save yourself

if you don't know what you're
going to get into trouble for.

One of the rules
was don't wet your bed.

Of course, that night, I wet my bed.

In the morning, I got a belting.

The Auntie would come in
and she'd rip the sheets back

and if it was wet, then that was you
in the bathroom, having a belting.

And when it wasn't you,
it was the others,

so, you know, there were three
or four beltings in the morning,

and it's quite a distressing way
to wake up.

We used to call the place
a concentration camp.

And you'd just decide
how you're going to play the system

to get what you need to survive.

If Anne could team us up
and get us against each other,

that was going to work very well
for her.

If relationships
were built among us,

she would purposely split that up.

A lot of us kids believed
that she could read our thoughts.

If someone did
something wrong and didn't own up,

everybody got punished.

And, so, if I found out
who did it, I would tell on them.

You become very unpopular with that.

No-one likes the class snitch.

I kept to myself.

Sometimes, I'd hide under my bed.

And that was my place to be.

I would just sit on my bed,
frozen like a statue,

just staring out the window.

I just shut down.

Which is why I uselessly dreamed
of going to Mars and living there.

There were no humans,

just little creatures that would be
getting about in an industrial way,

making their civilisation work.

Not all the time,
but just occasionally,

I'd trap my cat in my room

and I used to throw her around...

..and then that anger would subside

and...and I'd hold her and I'd rock

and I was sobbing and, "I'm sorry,"
and, "I'm sorry," and...

No-one ever heard,
no-one ever came and said,

"Are you OK? What's going on?
Why are you doing this?"

And it wasn't that I wanted
to hurt the cat,

I wasn't sitting there, going,
"Oh, I'm going to hurt the cat."

It just exploded.

I was actually
one of the naughtier ones.

I think that's probably
one of the reasons why

Uncle Bill told me to leave.

And I was just devastated.

They were my family.

I never felt like I was
a part of any of the groups,

except for Eildon.

I was getting a little bit
rebellious, I think.

For example,
cutting people's car brakes.

Then I started
trying to burn down Dad's house

and trying to burn down
the Sherbrooke Forest and...

..still, today, I really cannot
answer the question why I did that.

The only thing I can think of
is that I was crying for help.

Mum was spending an
awful lot of time up in Ferny Creek.

She said she was going to meetings
and yoga and all this sort of thing.

And we really didn't know
what was happening.

I don't know whether...

..because Dad worked long hours
and he was away a lot,

whether Mum just got sick and tired
of being home with the children.

Dad went up to Ferny Creek
quite a few times.

He used to go up there
and sit and watch

and see if he could sort of
see anything going on.

He said the husbands that were up
there were really, really angry.

Some of them had placards, things
about Anne breaking up families.

Dad was angry,

but he was just a bit frightened
that it might come to blows.

It wasn't long after that
that Mum shifted out completely.

Dad had to sell the house

and Mum took her money
and gave it to the cult

and then Dad had to shift back in
with his mother,

because he didn't have enough money
to buy another house.

He was just a broken man.

I was delving
back into historical matters

and I came across information
that there had been

a television program put together

by a journalist by the name
of Phil de Montignie.

Very few people would talk.

All the information that I got

came from people who had left the -

we called it a cult -
had left the cult.

The survivors told me
their endeavours to leave

were met with being forcibly taken
to Newhaven hospital

and given shock treatment
which was not necessary.

The only thing
that was wrong with them

was that they were beginning
not to believe in The Family,

and wanting to leave it.

They referred to things
like brainwashing,

children who didn't know
who their parents were.

They seemed to all be locked away.
You just never got to the kids.

There's also been some concern
about the children.

"Baby farmers" was the expression.

Well, that's just ridiculous.

I think that kind of
nasty allegation,

if somebody will come out with it,

we'll take action against them.

Mm. It's been suggested that drugs
are used within your group.

Can you see any basis for this?

Well, this of course,
I deny absolutely.

We're respectable citizens,
as I've tried to indicate to you.

After it went to air,

The Family approached Reg Ansett
with a complaint.

Reg used to come in every day,

spend half an hour with the board
and then buzz off.

Well, on this particular day,
I got hauled in to talk to him.

I got told in no uncertain terms
that I had to do a follow-up

and it had to be a friendly one.

We felt
a strong enough case was there

for an investigation
to do with child abuse.

We took all of our material
to Dick Hamer,

who was the Premier at the time.

Because the judiciary
were involved in The Family,

I got the feeling
if I took it to the police,

it would just disappear,
nothing would happen.

So, we took it to the Premier,

and, in fact, that's what happened -
nothing.

It got swept under the carpet.

There's no doubt
that there were tentacles

reaching sort of right to the top.

In 1956, 0.05%
of the Australian population

were at, or had ever been to,
a university.

And you knew that the people
that were in college with you

were going to become judges
and specialist medical people.

Many very distinguished Australians

had spent their early 20s
in Queen's College,

and he was their Master.

Raynor was involved in a club
in downtown Melbourne -

a club that he was introduced to by
David Syme from The Age newspaper.

Robert Menzies was a member
of the same club.

Ansett was probably connected.

It was part of the group
that led to the formation

of the Liberal Party of Australia.

They definitely did have
friends in high places.

I mean, when you start with

the Queen's College Master, Raynor
Johnson, being the first devotee,

when you look at some of
the associations

with the highest offices
in the state...

Now, how influential
those people were

to making sure these investigations
never went too far,

I can't answer.

But you've always got to wonder.

Today, in the chapel
at Queen's College,

former University of Melbourne
medical student Dr Howard Whitaker

married Elizabeth Jean,

younger daughter of
Mr and Mrs D. Black.

My father,
Howard Whitaker,

wanted to find somebody
who was a medium,

who would help him use LSD
and other hallucinogenic drugs

to treat, uh, mentally ill people.

He went to his old friend,
Raynor Johnson,

who knew Anne Hamilton-Byrne

and put the three of them in touch.

Most of the sect members

were taken away to a psychiatric
hospital in Newhaven, in Kew,

where they were administered LSD

and psilocybin,
another hallucinogenic drug.

The owner of Newhaven
became a member of The Family cult

and that's how Anne
then started to use Newhaven

as a recruiting base.

These professional people who had
gone through a traumatic experience

went to this private hospital
so that it was discreet,

so it wasn't generally known,

and when they were there,
being administered with LSD.

And then seeing the figurine
of Anne appearing at the doorway...

..in a white gown...

..with a bucket of
bloody dry ice behind her...

..and then, when they've come out of
the LSD experience,

they actually believe
that she is Jesus Christ.

LSD was a legal drug for Newhaven,

because it had been authorised
by the Victorian Health Department.

And, of course, those who
administered LSD were sect members.

Dr Mackay, did you ever prescribe

or administer LSD or psilocybin

to people in The Family

for so-called 'clearing sessions'?

Yes, I think that's fair enough,
to say yes to that question -

depends on what you define
as a 'clearing'.

How would you define it?

That was a way of describing,
looking into your own psyche,

uh, to untie some knots
with, like, um...

But these people weren't, strictly
speaking, patients, were they?

Well, it was all patients,
all patients.

The drug was given to
me by my father, Howard Whitaker.

Anne was there and it was done
under her instruction.

A few minutes, maybe half an hour,
after it started,

the world just went crazy.

She whispered to me, "Who is Jesus?"

And that thought bounced
around my head

and then bounced around the room
for a while.

So, I said to her, "You're Jesus."

And she goes,
"That's right David, that's right.

"You always knew I was Jesus."

That was confirmed later
by my father, Howard.

He said, "Yeah, that's right,
she's the prophet."

Um, and I was told in no uncertain
terms that if I told anybody,

I'd end up in Newhaven and crazy.

There was always
the threat of the mental hospital.

She said to one woman,

"It only takes two psychiatrists
to commit you

"and you'll be there for years,
if that's what I say should happen."

Bill Byrne
had an earthmoving business

somewhere in the La Trobe Valley.

He was quite a wealthy man.

And Anne decided that this is
the man that she would marry.

He had four children and a wife.

May Byrne was a bit of a fighter

and she didn't just give up easily.

She didn't take to this woman taking
over her husband and children too,

and she stood up to it.

Pretty quickly,
she was in Newhaven Hospital...

..and put heavily under drugs,

with no knowledge
whether she'd ever get out.

And at one stage, Anne went into
the room, and she said...

.."May, you might as well face it.

"He's mine now, not yours."

How was that, kids?
How was that kids?

That's enough, Tim!

Anne would tell you
to move to a different school,

move to a different country,
marry a different person.

Every time the person did that,

then that reinforced
her power over them.

And I think she got her kicks
directing people.

There was this man who had returned
from India, called Peter Kibby.

And Anne told him that he should
marry me and I should marry him.

I did like him,
and I fell in love with him,

but I had no idea how difficult
it would be to live with a man

who had a very bad case
of obsessive compulsive disorder.

She looked at me once
and she said,

"Why don't you admit
your marriage is over?"

Why don't you just go home and leave
a little note and say, 'It's over'?"

And the next thing I knew,
Anne rang up

and she said, "Frances" -
always called me Frances -

"your little baby has arrived.

"Now, jump in a taxi and go off
to the Children's Hospital

"and ask for Nurse Such-and-Such
and there he will be."

I went into the ward,
I looked round at the incubators,

then I saw him.

And I just fell in love with
that baby at first sight.

I took him home
and I was just so happy.

He was gorgeous,
and he started growing up.

I had no reason, then,
to think it wasn't legal.

Later on, I got worried.

When a child is born,
delivered by sect doctors,

given to a sect nurse,
handed to a sect social worker,

and then taken
straight out of the hospital

and given to Anne Hamilton-Byrne,

you then start to understand
the power

that this person had
over so many people.

It didn't take me
long to realise

that there was something
really, really wrong going on,

and that's when I disassociated
myself from my mother.

I told her that I could no longer
have anything to do with her,

and not to come back to the house,

because I was really frightened
for my children.

I was terrified that she would come

and just take the children
and disappear

and I wouldn't ever know
where they were.

Les and I were
married at Queen's College in 1960

and our first daughter was born
four years later.

When she started school,

I was worried that the cult
might try to get hold of her.

I went to the headmaster of the
primary school and said to him,

"Nobody is to take her out of school
without you ask me first."

He said, "Well, who would?"

I says, "Well, people might come

"and say they're grandparents,
aunties or something.

"Nobody - nobody -
is to take her out of school,

"except me or her own dad.

"Only us."

Because I was scared of them.

I just was.

They were so involved
with these people

that they'd be a party to anything.

There was a growing unease

things were not as they should be
at Queen's College

and probably the Master
was to blame,

'cause he was into
all this weird stuff

and had written these weird books.

It was a strongly Methodist place,

and institutional religion
began to be worried about him.

There were mumblings
about dismissing him

or maybe even having a heresy trial.

Raynor saw Anne was a medium.

The sense that through this person,

the spirit world was addressing HIM,
had called HIM,

led to a view that, uh...
meant that he couldn't be wrong.

And that's really
a dangerous situation to arrive at.

I met the children

a few years after I stared
investigating the sect.

It took a long time

to convince people

that there was a problem.

You keep a lot of children in the
commune here, is that right?

No, that's not right at all.

There's no children here?
No, no.

Right. Why do the locals say
there's children here?

There's such secrecy around her.

Devotees would do anything
to protect Anne.

So, you're up against
a lot of brick walls.

We just don't want to speak to you,
there's nothing to talk about.

Does it concern you, the allegations

former sect members
have been making?

No, it doesn't concern me one bit.

Are you a follower
of Mrs Hamilton-Byrne?

I'm a friend of Mrs Hamilton-Byrne.

Do you believe she's a teacher?

I believe she is just
a great friend of mine, alright?

Now, can you leave the property?
Is she a teacher? Is she a guru?

I don't think I have
anything to say. Alright?

Anne would ring up and want to
hear us being disciplined.

This was something
that she wanted to happen

and the Aunts
were obeying her rules.

I always hated my mum.

I was petrified of her.

She was rough and nasty.

Mum was a...I hate to say it,
but she was a bitch.

No comment.

Sorry?

We had metre-long rulers.

This was Elizabeth Whitaker.

And I remember her,
one night, it was hot

and she had the fan on for us.

She forgot to turn it off,
thought we'd turned it back on,

and when she woke up, it's on,

and demanded to know who'd done it,

and then flew into a rage,
and just swung that ruler around.

It collected people on the ribs,
across the head -

I mean, it was just...
she'd lost the plot.

She pulled a cane out

and started beating me
around the head and the shoulders.

So, then, I got up and I was trying
to cover, protect myself,

and as I moved around the table,
I tripped

and there was a large pipe
going from floor to ceiling

and I just curled round that
and the beating just kept coming.

She just kept hitting me,
and kept hitting me.

Unfortunately, the relationship
between the Aunties and ourselves

was so catastrophic

that I viewed the Aunties,
and all adults,

as extremely dangerous people
to stay away from.

When Anne and Bill were there,

we'd be disciplined heavily
by her and by Bill,

and you remember absolute terror.

I was always a Daddy's girl,

you know, he was my knight
in shining armour.

But he did awful things.

I mean, when he lost his temper
and he beat people,

he was savage and he was horrible.

Sarah was thrashed...

Excuse me.

Yeah, it was watching her
being belted with a buckle,

um, being beaten to the point

where she was wriggling
out of her clothes.

Hearing her body
smash against the, um...

..across the balustrades,

yeah, it was...

..horrendous,

to know they had the power
to do that and would do it.

What was going on
was wrong.

Someone had to do
something about it.

So, I jumped out the window,
onto the tank,

slid down the tank and ran down
to the lake and kept running.

I was petrified.

The adrenaline kept me going
until I saw a light.

All I could say to them was just,
"Please get me the police."

So, they did.

A very nice constable turned up

and he said to me,
"What are you gonna do?"

And I said, "I don't care,
but I will sleep in the gutter

"if you don't do something,

"because I am not going back there."

You're Anouree.

We're going away
to Children's Court.

Anouree.
We are!

- Are we gonna go away?
- Great, big, deep breaths.

You'll break
Mum and Dad's heart!

So, I'm lying in bed
at the end of that night,

thinking through
what had happened through the day.

It's probably when I realised...

..the prison doors had opened,
for good.

How many
did you actually adopt?

How many are your natural children?

There were eight or nine.

You got eight this morning when we
were counting them out, weren't we?

We never told them
they weren't ours.

At the birth, we've got
a doctor who's a sect member,

a midwife that's a sect member.

I'm sure my mum
was coerced to give me up.

I'm wondering if
you've got any comment to make now

about what happened to the children?

Shots are being fired
through windows.

Car tyres are being slashed.

There are death threats.

She would say
all we had to do

is just follow what she said,

except that it was never
quite right or never enough.

Millions of dollars went through,

into Auntie Anne's pockets.

I know that Muktananda

practised black magic.

That's why Anne was there -
to learn more about it.

There were so many
bizarre stories about who she was.

I didn't even know
that Auntie Anne had another name.

Captions by Red Bee Media

Copyright Australian
Broadcasting Corporation