All language subtitles for 03_tcof

I love children.

At the weekend,
six children

were seized from a property
owned by the sect

under care and protection
applications.

You stole them
from sect members?

Got doctors to organise
the adoptions?

I was just handed over.

The legal system goes,
"Where is this baby?"

Yesterday, seven members
of Anne Hamilton-Byrne's sect

pleaded guilty of
defrauding the Commonwealth.

Auntie Anne sucked

as much money out of people

as she possibly could.

I believe that
that's why Anne was there -

to be around him,
to learn black magic.

Anne cursed me
because I betrayed the cult motto

of "Unseen, unheard, unknown."

She told us that
she came from some royal family.

They definitely did have friends
in high places.

There was a lot of
talk about ruling the world

and having a perfect world.

We used to call the place
a concentration camp.

What was going on was wrong.

Someone had to do
something about it.

I was in the zone.
I needed to finish this case.

Then came the breakthrough.

# 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? #

We heard that
the sect solicitor, Peter Kibby,

I felt the key
to the activities of the cult

probably laid in the brain
of Peter Kibby,

because he had done all
the documentation on the transactions

for all the houses
the cult had bought for Anne,

on some of the births and so forth.

The golden rule
is a document doesn't lie -

people lie on the documents.

And we found a crime where he'd
falsified a statutory declaration.

For a solicitor,
that's a pretty serious offence,

because they can
lose their practising certificate.

Myself and Lex De Man travelled
to a country town

and spoke to this gentlemen who was
a practicing solicitor at the time

and charged him with perjury.

And we said, "If you wish to talk
to us about the cult and about Anne,

"it may well assist in the court
proceedings in the future."

A week or two later,
the phone went in the office.

This really animated
and, I have to say, delightful voice

was on the end of the phone

saying, "Lex, Peter Kibby!"

"Yes, Peter."

"I'd like to have
a cup of coffee with you!"

There you go, Peter.

Thank you very much.

There's your glass of water.

He was so angry at what his life
had become that he didn't hold back.

I've been shown a legal document...

We arranged for Peter to be picked up
every morning at 8:30,

and we'd take him down to
the St Kilda Rd police headquarters

and took his handwritten statement.

And it took
around about three months.

Peter was a victim, like many
of the people who were in the cult.

Peter suffered from a disease
of compulsive obsessive disorder.

It would take him, to have a shower,
sometimes two to three hours

and three or four bars of soap.

And, so, he never got to the office.

He was desperate
to get rid of this affliction

and Anne told him all he had to do

was just obey everything
Anne told him to do

and he would be cured.

And at one stage,

Anne actually arranged,
and had him have, a leucotomy -

surgery on the brain
through the eye socket.

And I think he had frontal lobe
damage, actually, after that,

which made his behaviour even more
bizarre than what it was before.

Peter was not
a bad person,

but he'd been deceived, through his
illness, to commit crimes for Anne.

By then, we were building
a dossier and a profile

and a whole range of documents.

With Peter, it was
going through each of the documents

to affirm his knowledge
of how a document was created.

That's alright.

Even though we had a lot of pressure
on us to wrap up the investigation,

it's not a thing to rush.

Peter was the key to the door.

He broke the code of silence
within that sect.

I look at Peter as...

..as someone who had the guts
to actually stand up and say,

"No. What we did was wrong."

OK. Righto.
Thank you.

Once we were in possession of that
substantial statement,

I put in a request to return
to my original position

at the Major Crime Squad
as officer in charge of operations.

I was confident in Lex De Man
and the other members

to finish what needed to be done.

I first met Lex De Man
and the others

with a view to going through
the enormous amount of material

to ascertain if they could charge
any of the sect members

with any offence.

And it was relation to abuse
of the young people in their care.

And I found it very difficult,
as did the police,

that it was going to be
almost impossible

to have sufficient evidence
to prove the physical abuse

that these young people complained
of, which I've no doubt was true.

But there was a lot of dishonesty
in obtaining children,

so we focused on that.

Anne had, years earlier,

provided advice to
the New Zealand authorities

that she'd actually given birth
in New Zealand.

But at the time...

"Sorry - I actually
gave birth to triplets

"but I only told you
I gave birth to twins.

"I forgot to put
the other one there."

And they just accepted it.

And Peter, of course,
did all the documentation.

She made me a twin
with Simon for a while

and then we got birth certificates
and passports from New Zealand

and it was said that
we were born there.

So, two boys and me were made
into triplets from New Zealand.

All of a sudden, we changed
nationalities as well.

I thought that was quite neat,
being a triplet.

I wasn't so sure about
being a New Zealander

because by that stage,
one of the Aunties

had started letting us
watch some cricket,

so, um, I had to change sides
from Australia to New Zealand.

The police
had birth certificates

to prove that each of those of
children were born in Victoria,

to people other than
Anne and Bill Hamilton-Byrne.

You don't need a witness. Those
documents spoke for themselves.

I loved the thrill
of the chase.

We knew we were that close,

and we just had to get Anne
and get Bill back to Australia.

We knew Anne was moving
between England and America.

We established liaison with Interpol,
New Scotland Yard and the FBI

so that we could track her down.

I received a teletype.

Lex called me and filled in
a lot of the blanks.

This was a mission for him

and he was determined to right
a very horrible wrong.

Hurleyville and Sullivan County
would be optimum locations

if someone wanted to be
under the radar, for sure.

A lot of the property
in Sullivan County

is owned by religious movements.

You don't have people living
next door to you for the most part,

so that gives you
a lot more opportunity

to do whatever you want to do
without being observed.

I got up there early enough

so that I could go out with the
postal worker who had that route.

In those types of communities,

the postal service usually knows
exactly what's going on.

My concern was the two people
we were interested in arresting

actually lived in the house.

The home run would have been
for one of them

to come out and pick up the mail
while I was sitting in the van.

But that didn't happen.

Nobody picked up the mail
as I was there.

The Kent Constabulary
started to do

some surveillance around Broom Farm.

They put you
in the paper, they say you're false.

We wanted them to know

that we were looking at them,
we were watching them.

Whatever it is
I've gone through,

whatever it is you'll go through,

don't be frightened.

This...is your mission.

I remember one night,

Anne made a fundamental mistake
and rang Sarah.

And Sarah came to us and said,
"I think she's in the United States."

Our goal was to take
these two people into custody

with the least possible problem.

We were up there
on an early, cold morning -

early enough to put them at
a disadvantage almost immediately.

William opened the door,

Anne appeared very quickly.

I kept telling her,
"We have to move, we have to leave,

"let's hurry up.

But she was very, very concerned
about how she looked.

Hilda Kogut rang
and said, "We've got the bitch."

Bang! And I exploded.

And I remember picking up chairs
in the kitchen

and throwing them against the walls,

an emotional outburst of tears.

My whole life was wrapped up
in this investigation.

I got a phone call from

Special Agent Kogut

that the two of them had been
arrested up in the Catskills

and to prepare for
their arrival in court.

Anne Hamilton-Byrne
and her husband, William,

were arrested at their home
in upstate New York.

The Hamilton-Byrnes
are being held in a state prison.

Police hope to
have the pair extradited

to Melbourne state prison.

They plan to make a bail application
on Monday.

I've still got
a photo that I cut out of The Age

of her in chains,

looking very dishevelled,

which would have bothered her
big-time.

I was devastated
when she was put into jail.

I thought, "How the hell
could you do that?

"It's like putting
Queen Elizabeth into jail."

Their attorneys made
a full-throttle approach

that they should be released
on bail,

that they were not
a danger to the community,

that they had health problems.

When they said,
"She's got a bad heart,"

I said, "We'll bring a doctor."

There was no way known that she was
not gonna come back to Australia,

as far as I was concerned.

While he was
still being held in custody,

one of Bill's cellmates
was murdered.

You know,
it frightened Bill

and, finally, Bill put his hand up
and said, "I've had enough."

Four of us ended up
going to the United States

for the extradition.

I looked evil in the eye that day.

And even today, it affects me
when I...when I talk about it.

I'm deeply ashamed
of my grandmother.

The havoc and the cruelty.

She's hurt so many people.

How could I feel any other way?

The mind boggles at the damage done,

and I'm still trying to work out
whether she meant to do it

or whether it just kind of
took on a life of its own.

God clearly
speaks about there being

his power
and then powers from the Devil.

When I look at everything
that Anne touched,

you trace suicides,
marriages split up,

kids destroyed, drug addiction,
on and on it goes.

So, I look at the effect
of that power

and I have to say it is demonic.

"To thy last supper,

"let me be allowed to stay,
O son of God,

"for 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.

"Remember me, O Lord,

"as I enter into
thy glorious kingdom."

Just before
nine o'clock this morning,

Victorian Police had Anne
and William Hamilton-Byrne

back on Australian soil.

Detectives took the couple straight
to the Melbourne Magistrates' Court,

for what all thought would be
a brief, unopposed...

Bail wasn't opposed.

The Hamilton-Byrnes were each
released with a $25,000 surety.

Their solicitor says
they will be pleading not guilty.

There was
no two ways about it -

she and Bill were going to get bail.

But we wanted to make sure that they
had stringent reporting conditions,

which they did have.

At that point, that was a sense
of achievement - "We've got her."

When she was extradited back,

it was all, you know, mad chaos.

I mean, I loved her to bits but,
jeez, she was a bloody troublemaker.

What can you do? They're your family
and you stick by your family.

Lawyers for sect leaders
Anne and William Hamilton-Byrne

have challenged the jurisdiction
of the charges.

Defence counsel John Winneke QC

said New Zealand courts
must decide the case.

There was a decision made

that there had to be clarification
of the law.

And then we had to wait in the list

to proceed before
the Court of Appeal.

I think I was 25 or 26 when
Anne and Bill came back to Australia

and I guess I formed

a little bit of an adult-type
relationship with them.

I invited Anne and Bill
to my wedding.

I wanted Bill
to walk me down the aisle.

He had always dreamed about it

and I thought, "Well, you know,

"I can give that to him,
as an adult."

I'm sure that it confused
a lot of people, my decision,

but the man that brought me up
was Bill

and he was the one
that ultimately got the job.

I don't know what it was,
but I adored him.

We looked alike.

We both had black curly hair,

except mine was blonded,
had blue eyes.

You know, he was my father.

I had two mothers
and three fathers -

my stepfather, my father
and my father I grew up with,

so I differentiate them
when I talk to people.

My anger was never towards Bill.

It was always towards Anne,

because she was the one
that controlled everybody

and everybody was a puppet
on her string.

I felt sorry for him
because, you know,

he was an extremely successful man
in his own right.

He was captivated by her charm,
just like everybody else was.

The matter
was three or four months

before the Court of Appeal,

because it was really
quite technical.

I appeared for the Crown led by
Queen's counsel Robert Redlich

and Patrick Tehan appeared for them,

led by John Winneke QC.

Clearly, the Hamilton-Byrnes were
prepared to spend a lot of money.

It all ended up
like a bit of a farce,

because she had such good lawyers.

The law takes it much more seriously

if there's money
or documents involved,

than...than child abuse.

They were
very angry about the system.

They saw us dressed
in robes and wigs,

talking about
esoteric points of law.

It wasn't about
what really happened to them.

Many people
have asked me,

"Why wasn't she charged
with anything else?"

Once you extradite somebody
from...from another country,

part of the process
is that you give a commitment

that you won't slap them
with further charges.

You can't just say, "Right,
now I've got you back on that,

"I'm now gonna give you this charge
and this charge and this charge,"

because that goes against the whole
agreement of the extradition.

In the Hamilton-Byrne
sect case,

the full bench of the Supreme Court
has found

the charge of conspiring to
defraud authorities in New Zealand

cannot be heard in Victoria.

Mr Winneke said
the offence was trivial.

He said the Australian authorities

had made a mountain
out of a molehill.

After a long legal battle
in the Supreme Court,

one charge was dropped.

My friends, we are winning through

by the power of the Holy Spirit,

after years of trying to fight evil,

only to be put in jail
for no reason.

Oh, yes, it hurts,

but if we remain steadfast

and know and say,

"This is the Lord God's battle -
I will trust him wholly..."

Anne Hamilton-Byrne
had an enormous hold on people.

And it was admiration,
adulation and fear.

It's a little like
an organised crime syndicate.

They would never, ever
give evidence against her

or make a statement against her.

Today, sect leaders
Anne and William Hamilton-Byrne

will be sentenced
in the County Court.

They face up to five years in jail
and a $60,000 fine.

I remember
walking to the County Court,

the feeling that, "This is it.

"This is the Day of Judgement."

I went to court the last day

and she had all the cult members
all around her

and all, you know, sort of glaring

and saying nasty things
at us children.

Anne and Bill
Hamilton-Byrne appeared confident

when they arrived at court.

Their case attracted
a huge media contingent.

72-year-old Anne
and 71-year-old Bill Hamilton-Byrne

had pleaded guilty
to making false statements.

Whilst a large part of me
didn't want to see her suffer...

..I still wanted there to be justice

and for there to be
some sort of acknowledgement

that...that something bad
had happened to us children.

I recall
sitting in the court

and I well remember
before the judgement,

just a sick feeling in the stomach

that, "This is it.

"This will be the end of
the police case."

People were looking at us.

Were we going to get an outcome

that was going to be
the right outcome?

The founder of The Family
religious sect and her husband

have been spared jail terms
for faking documents

which claimed three children
were their own.

$5,000 fines
were imposed on the couple

and outside the court...

The Hamilton-Byrnes escaped

a maximum five-year jail term
and $60,000 fine.

They had nothing to say
about the decision...

In sentencing,
Justice Jones took into account

the couple's ages,
the fact neither is in good health

and the three months they've already
spent in an American prison.

I was angry
that after all that work,

the system had let us down.

She got a paltry monetary penalty.

I was wild. I couldn't show it.

They should've been going
through another door.

They should've been
going to the door to the cells,

not the door to freedom.

Well, I'm not going to
stand here and bewail

the inadequacies
of the legal system.

I think that goes without saying.

What I would say
is I'm very glad it's all over

and we can get on with
living our lives.

They didn't go to jail

for beating us nearly
every single day and starving us,

and she didn't get anything,
nothing.

And we all have mental scarring.

It doesn't matter whether we show it
and whether we survive normal life,

we all have suffered
and we all have something

that we take with us
from the childhood that we survived,

'cause that's all we did,
we just survived that.

There was no justice.

It hurt the kids
and they'd all given statements

and worked so closely
with the police

to try and get the community to
understand what had happened to them

and then we shut the door
and said, "Nothing we can do."

Was justice ultimately done?

Was she...?

Did she face court for all the crimes
that we alleged that we had,

that we knew of?

No.

It's gonna be with me
for the rest of my life.

- I need a break.
- I need a break.

The police investigation
into the Hamilton-Byrnes's group,

called Operation Forest,

lasted four years and cost
more than a half a million dollars.

11 officers
worked on the case full-time,

which included six overseas trips
seeking information.

When Operation Forest ended,

there was a lot of criticism
about what we'd achieved

or, more so, what we hadn't achieved.

We did our best.

We had recommended a Royal Commission
at the start of it,

but were knocked back.

Our hands were tied.

But we brought her back, we put her
up before the County Court

and she said the words -
we didn't say the words -

she said the words 'guilty'.

This is Lakshmi. Isn't it, Lakshmi?

Little Lakshmi.

Hey? Why don't you
talk to them, yeah?

Little Lakshi. You've gone all shy,
haven't you, sweetheart?

Here's Murdagh.
And there's Murdy.

Aw.

Pussy noise...

She needed
things to love, little things.

And the children were taken off her,

so she went for animals.

And we all know that animals
give unconditional love.

This idea that you can...

..bring a group of children together
from all sorts of backgrounds,

all sorts of different families,

and then ram a type of ideology
down their throat,

I don't think it would have
ever worked, OK?

You can't muck around with kids,

physically, emotionally
or any other way.

I couldn't believe that adults
didn't know what was going on.

When we were children, people around
the lake would hear us screaming.

A couple of times,
police did come up.

I remember at least once
that we were interviewed by them.

The Aunties were there
during the questioning

and I do remember one question
and that was,

"Are you being fed properly?"

I was surviving, I was alive.

"Yeah, sure, I'm being
fed properly," you know?

Well, how much are
you supposed to have?

You know, I had no idea.

I would never have dared
to say anything at that time,

to anybody, about what went on.

We were all very protective
of our parents.

They put on a show
for the Education Department

and actually got it registered
as a school.

The Education Minister came,

the school room was dressed up
to look like a real school room.

There were these wonderful equations
on the board

to make us look advanced
and sophisticated.

The people up there
had convinced themselves

that they were doing what was, in
the long run, good for the children.

Powerful people
didn't really want this known about,

and even people that left the cult
that knew about it,

they were so terrified of
Anne's retribution,

that they didn't say anything.

I blame myself

that maybe I could have stopped this
many, many years ago,

but I didn't.

Being your mother,
I didn't want to report it.

I didn't know where to go
or what to do.

Belting them and locking them
in cupboards when they're babies

for wetting the bed.

That's...

Like, it's just inexcusable.

It's just not something
that a normal human being does.

Had I gone to the police
in the early '70s,

how much sorrow
could I have stopped?

How much heartbreak for these poor,
little, defenceless children?

But it wasn't Anne doing it, right?

OK, she might have been up here

and, in that sense,
she has responsibility

as the ruler and the leader
of the sect, OK?

You gotta understand
and be in control of your disciples.

Unfortunately,
she had people running around,

doing shit I believe that
she didn't know about, you know?

You can't have your...

If you're not there in the room
with the person 100% of the time,

how do you know what they're doing?

They could tell you anything.

After my son,
David, was brought back,

I did say to Elizabeth Whitaker,

"He was not treated well,"
or something like that.

And she said, "He was the same
as everybody else.

"They were all treated the same."

I said, "That's the problem.

"They were not people,
they were numbers."

I said, "What number was David?
Was he number 7 or number 15?"

No individual mothering,
no hugging, no anything.

She said, "No, that was
what Anne wanted,"

and that it was good
for the children.

We had a very, very, normal
upbringing, as little children.

It was Mum and Dad and three kids
living in a house in Melbourne.

My mother was never violent,
never abusive.

I never saw any sign of, um...
of what was to come.

How my mother got sucked into
such a thing

and demonstrated
such monstrous behaviour later

is an absolute mystery to me.

I've pondered it long and hard

and I really don't understand how
professional, well-educated people

could be sucked in by...
such nonsense.

Intelligence really
has nothing to do with

people's emotional vulnerability,

and Anne somehow knew that,

and Anne was able to target people

who were very
emotionally vulnerable.

In my case, I didn't have
a lot of mothering,

so I came to adulthood
searching for a mother figure.

Lots of people are like that.

They have some sort of lack
in their personality, I suppose.

So, she presented herself
as this, um...

..a person who sort of could fulfil
this void in their life.

My father
saw through it relatively early.

He left in 1970.

He made a conscious decision
to leave the cult

and to sever all ties

with anybody that had
any connection with the cult.

That, unfortunately, included me,

so he never had
any more contact with me.

For a long, long time, I was
very bent out of shape about it.

Um...

I'd like to think I'm over it now.

There's probably not a lot
of psychiatrists

who have shifted a whole heap of
patients into a lunatic cult,

and then seen through it
and just up and left.

Personally, I think he had
a moral obligation to his patients

that he chose not to fulfil.

To be honest, I know he's my father,

but he really should have been
reported to the Medical Board.

You and Dr Whitaker

are both on record
as having been members

of the group called The Family.

Mm-hm.

How did that relate to your practice
as a psychiatrist?

Were you always able to keep
that barrier between the two?

Um...

Did one spill over into the other
and vice versa?

Well, at times you had, um...

..um, members of that group

who were patients.

And at times, you had patients,

uh, who went into yoga classes

and then meditation classes

and became members of that group.

Um...

And the fact that your practice

had a spiritual bias -

it wasn't used as a method

of recruiting or anything like that.

In fact, um...uh...

But you would have steered
the odd patient

into the direction of that group.

I would steer the odd patient

in the direction of yoga, yes.

Our society
needs to understand

where the instrument
of government failed.

It failed at the hospital end.

It failed at
the Department of Health end.

It was slow to react
at the Victoria Police end.

You have to remember,
this is the 1970s and early 1980s,

and there was still a sense of trust
in people of professional status

and there was still
a sense of trust in institutions.

Victoria was different

from most of the other States

in that it had a really strong
non-government welfare sector.

The first legislation
in Victoria is 1928.

It gives a lot of people the right
to arrange adoptions,

including doctors and lawyers.

So, you've got a whole lot of
approved agencies

as well as the major hospitals.

So, yes, that meant
if you wanted to go shopping,

you could move your way around,

and people did.

And then, when you get to
the Hamilton-Byrne scenario,

well, here's someone that's really
manipulating the system.

Even what she's doing
is not illegal.

What she's doing is using
a weakness in the system

to exploit it for her own purposes.

In the past year,
18,000 illegitimate babies

have been born in Australia.

1 birth in 12 is illegitimate.

So, you had
this big nursery of crying babies

that had to be fed.

For the hospital, a major crisis.

They've got so many to process.

They're just processing adoptions
over and over again.

That pressure on the hospital
to get it done, get it done quickly,

meant that nobody's
questioning the practice.

The other thing was that there was
no paper trail in terms of adoption

with regard to Anne and Bill,

because Anne and Bill
didn't adopt anybody.

They instigated adoptions

with the intention of
taking the children eventually.

The law wasn't up to it.

It wasn't enough.

And neither was
the investigative power

of, um...of the police.

I remember,
when Uncle Bill died,

that they embalmed the body
for a period of time

and the body was in Crowther
until the funeral.

I think we were all
a little bit dumbfounded

that Uncle Bill was gone.

I was there, at the funeral.

There was a lot of people there.

I think Auntie Anne
did hire bodyguards

because it was thought

that she might have been
assassinated, going there.

She was always afraid of
being in the public eye.

Uncle Bill had no gravestone

because of the motto,
"Unseen, unheard, unknown."

When you leave
your body at the time we call death,

the Master steps out
into other and higher worlds.

He proved that death
is only an appearance,

an illusion,

that everybody can overcome.

Everyone had suffered
the most enormous amount of loss.

After my son's suicide,

my method of coping
was just to shut down.

I couldn't feel anything

and I was just like that
for a long time.

And it's taken me years of therapy

to just be a sort of open,
or moderately open, person.

I didn't know how to stop
my anger for many, many years

and then I started learning about
the amygdala

and the primitive area of the brain.

If you're abused as a child,
there's a good chance that

that area of your brain is primed,

it's set to a higher level
than most people's,

and you are more easily triggered.

Now I know the rev-up signals,

so this part behind my ears
starts feeling, like, pain

and I might start stuttering.

There's different signals that make
me go, "OK, I need to get away."

I have to go for walks to release
cortisol - very fast walks.

Just whatever it takes to calm down.

Talking about experiences
doesn't heal anything, to be honest.

All you do is you open up
what happened and speak through it.

The heart's still wounded,
the lack of love's still there.

I had made a decision
to get to know God.

I was praying, and I remember
having a...a vision.

I'm standing on the edge of a cliff.

It's completely black.
I have to jump into the unknown.

I jump and I get caught
by a man in white robes,

long beard, long hair - Jesus.

He's holding my hand,
walking me out on a moonscape.

And immediately,
I'm...I'm back up top,

in this experience,
with all of the fear.

Jesus picked me up, put my head
against his chest and said,

"I never meant it to be."

And I guess many a question
would be,

"Why did God
let these things happen?"

But he's rescued me,
he's pulled me out.

And that was
a major turning point for me.

One of the ways I tried to obviate

the effects of my childhood

was to dedicate my life
to helping others.

I became a doctor and I spent
a lot of time overseas...

..going to remote places
and war zones

and helping, volunteering,
and doing all sorts of things.

Were the children
ever hit?

Of course they weren't.

Because...
They were not beaten.

Never?
Never.

You would have to be pretty good
to see through that bullshit.

It's absolute bullshit. It's lies.

All the children
made all of this up, did they?

Could be. And they were paid for it.

Well, I'm asking you that.
They were paid for it.

- I'm asking you that.
- No, we weren't.

You were paid a lot of money.
We weren't paid any money, Michael.

You were certainly paid.

Michael, you're living in a fantasy!

No, I'm not. You're living a lie.

I am not living a lie, Michael.

As far as I'm concerned,
you're living a lie.

Because your entire life
is a network of lies...

You're suffering for it.

What I've suffered in this life
is because of what happened up there.

There's...a lot of pain.

As long as you blame others,
you're nowhere. You're nowhere.

Anne Hamilton-Byrne's brain

has been slowly eaten away
by dementia.

She now spends her days
in this aged-care facility

and has completely lost touch
with reality.

That's the opportunity
her former followers needed

to start carving up and selling off
her once great real estate empire.

It was so hypocritical.

The disciples that attacked me

and anyone else
that they thought had betrayed her

and were so self-righteous
and angry and...

..they're just so hypocritical.

Really, it wasn't
to do with religion.

It was to do with
power, money and control.

Loyalty is huge in Auntie Anne
and Uncle Bill's minds.

Auntie Anne's never been able
to trust many people.

Anybody who left The Family,
"Don't ever come back."

Life for All Creatures
was set up over a decade ago.

Auntie Anne set up that organisation

to put all her assets
from Hamilton-Byrne

into Life for All Creatures,

so that when she does die,
none of the kids can get any money.

I think when she dies,
what will be interesting

is the fighting over the money
between the sect members.

Because this has always
been about money.

I mean, to me, that's been
the real driving motive,

has been money and power.

It still lives with me
till today.

I still get inquiries from mothers

who gave up their children
for adoption in the late '70s,

and they track me down and they ask,

you know, "Was one of the children
one of mine?"

Um, and you can't say no.

Even though I'm no longer
in the police force,

you do what you can to help.

To you, the mothers,
who were betrayed by a system

that gave you no choice

and subjected you to manipulation,
mistreatment and malpractice,

we apologise.

We say sorry to you, the mothers,

who were forced to endure
the coercion and brutality

of practices
that were unethical, dishonest

and, in many cases, illegal.

For the loss, the grief,
the disempowerment,

the stigmatisation and the guilt,

we say sorry.

To each of you
who were adopted or removed,

who were led to believe
your mother had rejected you,

we say sorry.

We acknowledge that many of you

still experience a constant struggle
with identity, uncertainty and loss,

and feel a persistent tension

between loyalty to one family
and yearning for another.

We recognise that the consequences

continue to resonate
through many, many lives.

When my kids were born...

..I just looked at them
and I couldn't understand

how a person could...

Yeah, I just couldn't understand how
a person could abandon their kids.

I guess we've all got
a choice in life

whether we replay the same tape
that our parents had.

My parents pretty much chose
to abandon their family.

I was determined not to do that.

I was unable to hold
my first baby by myself

and the midwives were getting
a little bit anxious.

"Come on, you need to be able
to hold your baby."

And I said, "Yes, I know,
I know that intellectually,

"but I'm trying to
get my head around it."

The first two or three weeks
were so arduous,

so incredibly difficult,

but I finally managed to
call my dad and say...

.."I've finally connected.

"WE have finally connected.

It was very difficult, trying to
work out how to be a parent.

I do remember one time, going,

"Well, I can't hit you
across the room,

"I can't deny you food for days.
How do I get you to do what I want?

"What do people do?"

I started explaining,
when Kaia was six,

that Mummy had been hurt
by some bad people.

I put it that simply.

We bumbled along.

I explained a lot,
I processed a lot with her.

I knew I'd never...
do what had been done to me.

I did stop that chain of abuse.

Here's my mum
with her grandkids.

Well, Ben, although it was all those
years ago, it's no different.

Yeah.

I can't believe it,
coming back here.

I have a relationship with my mother

that is to the level of honesty
that she wants,

and it's very painful for her.

She said, "Look, the decisions
I made at the time

"were the best ones I had
with the information.

"I would not make them again."

That's probably as close as I'm...
we're ever going to get

to her saying, "I stuffed up
and I'm sorry."

My kids at least should have
the option of having a grandmother.

Everyone deserves the chance
at redemption.

When you forgive someone, you set
yourself free and you set them free.

Mum retired nursing
at 80 years of age.

She was doing night duty
to pay this house off for me,

so I cared for her until she died.

When Mum died, things changed.

I have no, uh, loyalty now

to anyone in The Family.

I'm so nervous about it all,

uh, petrified as well,

but excited beyond belief.

I've got something to live for,
I've got family

and they all want to know me.

Hello.
Hello, Adam. How are ya?

Oh, I can see
the family resemblance.

I can.
Yeah?

Yes. Oh!

You do, you look
a lot like my brother.

Yeah?
Yeah.

Nervous?
Yeah.

I can hardly speak myself, today.

Hello.
Hello, I'm Wendy.

Hey, nice to meet you.

You are definitely family.
You look like us.

Hi.

G'day, mate. How are you?

Do you want to see some photos?
Yeah.

Alright.

Your mother.

So... And there she is,
pushing a pram.

Somebody's kid in the pram.

Every baby wants his mum,

and, um, I never had a proper mum.

The outpouring of love
is quite overwhelming.

I guess I've never had that level
of love before from strangers.

And, in reality, they are strangers

that are just loving me for who I am
and they don't know much about me.

And I don't know much about them,

But there's a bond, deeper than
I've ever really experienced before.

So much of
the Hamilton-Byrne saga

is shrouded in mystery,

so I thought we'd try and separate
rumour from fact, truth from fiction.

How many are your natural children?

Altogether,
it was eight, I think.

There were eight or nine.

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

It was almost
like Cheaper by the Dozen, you know?

We never
told them they weren't ours.

I don't know where you put
the blame for this, uh, but...

I'd do it all over again.

Well, the question really
was...it hasn't worked, has it?

Your family has dissipated,
hasn't it?

Yes, but why?

Well, that's what
I was going to ask you. Why?

And who do you blame?

I can't blame anybody.

I wouldn't blame anybody.

We don't understand,
I don't understand.

It was love.

Just love.

Captions by Red Bee Media

Copyright Australian
Broadcasting Corporation