[intense music]
- [Interviewer] Why did you start to take in the children?
- I love children.
- [Announcer] 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?
Doctors to organise the adoption?
- I was just handed over.
The legal system goes, "Where is this baby?"
- [Announcer] Yesterday, seven members
of Anne Hamilton-Byrne's sect
pleaded guilty of deploying the Common Wealth.
- [Adam] Auntie Anne sucked as much money outta people
as she possibly could.
- [Rebecca] I believe that that's why Anne was there,
to be around and to learn black magic.
- Anne cursed me because I betrayed the cult
motto of unseen, unheard, unknown.
[placid music]
- She told us that she came from some royal family.
They definitely did have friends in high places.
[placid music]
- There was a lot of talk about ruling the world
and having a perfect world.
- [Ben] We used to call the place a concentration camp.
- What was going on was wrong.
Someone had to do something about it.
[placid music]
- [Lex] I was in the zone,
I needed to finish this case.
[placid music]
- [Announcer] Then came the breakthrough.
[intense music]
♪ Waiting for redemption ♪
♪ Like a dog expecting a reward ♪
♪ Is this is the endless void of nothing ♪
♪ Or the coming of the Lord ♪
♪ Come on, give me outside ♪
♪ Show me my love is real ♪
♪ All safe outta town ♪
♪ Is this part of the deal ♪
[intense music]
- We heard that the sect solicitor, Peter Kibby,
had left the family after an argument with Anne.
[placid music]
The key to the activities of the cult
probably laid in the brain of Peter Kibby,
because he had done all the documentation
on 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 falsified a statutory declaration.
For a solicitor, that's a pretty serious offence,
because they can lose their practising certificate.
[placid music]
- Myself and Lex de Man travelled to a country town
and spoke to this gentleman who was a practising 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."
[placid music]
A week or two later
find when in the office
this really animated and I have to say delightful voice
is on the end of the phone saying
"Lex, Peter Kibby"
Yes Peter,
"I'd like to have a cup of coffee with you."
[mumbling]
He was so angry of what his life had become
that he didn't hold back.
I've been shown a legal document numbered 60610
which pertains to the appointment of Anne Hamilton-Byrne
as the legal guardian of Simon John Mackay.
My recollection is because it was the first one
I didn't know whether I had to file the
Appointment of Guardian.
She had physical custody or control of the child
and wished to changed name child of the child
to Hamilton-Byrne.
[cool music]
- We arrange for Peter to be picked up
every morning at 8:30
and we'd take him down to this
Police headquarters.
And took his handwritten statement
and it took right about about three months.
[intense music]
- I've been shown two certified documents
which pertain to the registration of a child
alleged to have been born to
Anne and William Hamilton-Byrne.
In January of that year I went to England
and called on Anne at Broom Farm.
Anne appeared to be pregnant
and told me that the baby was due in March that year.
Now this is where the dates conflict.
I said that I saw John Mackay in England in 1974.
It was [mumbles]
- 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 four bars of soap.
And so he never got to the office.
[splashing]
- 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.
[placid music]
- Peter was not a bad person.
But he'd been deceived through his illness
to commit crimes for Anne.
- I prepared the affidavit for Mrs Frances Demontfort,
Jacqueline Drew and Myrtle Johnstone.
These three people were in fact non-existent
and their names and addresses have been invented by Anne.
- By then we're building a dossier
and a profile on a whole range of documents.
- I've seen a Transfer of land numbered 6435925.
The signature of Fiona MacDonald was signed
by Anne Hamilton-Byrne herself in my presence
on around the 10th of November 1976.
I in fact was acting for both the owner and the purchaser.
- With Peter was going through each of the documents
to affirm his knowledge of how a document was created.
- I'm sorry if I'm being very pedantic
- It's all right.
- That's what bloody solicitors should be like.
- 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.
[intense music]
He broke the code of silence within that sect
The way I look at Peter is
as someone who had the guts
to actually stand up and say,
"no - what we did was wrong."
- And what is there is the truth?
- Yep, oh it is.
[chuckling] I'd be a bloody fool
to be saying anything else, wouldn't I?
- Thank you very much for your co-operation.
[mumbling]
- And once 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 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 in 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.
[intense music]
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
said she'd actually given birth
in New Zealand but at the time,
"Sorry, I actually gave birth to triplets
but I 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.
[Sarah]-She made me a twin with Simon for a while
and then when got birth certificates
and passports from New Zealand
it was said that were born there.
So two boys and me were made into triplets from New Zealand.
All of a sudden, 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, I had to change sides
from Australia to New Zealand. [laughs]
[Carolyn] The police had birth certificates to
prove that each of those 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.
[intense music]
[Lex]- 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.
[Intense music]
[siren blaring]
[plane engine roaring]
[intense music]
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.
[intense music]
[Hilda]- 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 write 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.
[intense music]
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.
[intense music]
My concern was
the two people we were interested in arresting,
actually live in the house.
[hooting]
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.
[suspenseful music]
[buzzing]
- [Lex] The Kent constabulary
started doing some surveillance around Broom Farm
- [Anne] They put you in the paper.
[barking]
They say you're false.
- [Lex] We wanted them to know
that we were looking at them,
we were watching them.
- [Anne] Whatever it is I've gone through,
Whatever it is you'll go through
don't be frightened. This is your mission.
[Lex]- 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."
[placid music]
[barking]
[Hilda]- Our goal was to take these two people into custody
with the least possible problem.
[barking]
We were up there early on a 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.
[phone ringing]
[Lex]- 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.
[buzzing]
[Kerry Lawrence]-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.
- [Announcer] Anne Hamilton-Byrne and her husband William,
were arrested at their home in upstate New York.
[camera shutters clicking]
- [Announcer] 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.
[intense music]
[David Whitaker]- I've still got a photo that
I cut out at The Age of her in chains
looking very dishevelled,
which would have bothered her big time.
[Roland Whitaker]- 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.
[Kerry]- 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.
[placid music]
[Lex] - 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
going to 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
and it frightened Bill and finally,
Bill put his hand up and said, "I've had enough."
[plane engine roaring]
[placid music]
- Four of us ended going to the
United States to the extradition.
I looked evil in the eye
that day ...and even today it affects when I talk about it.
[placid music]
- 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.
[mumbling]
- [Anne] To thy last supper, let me be allowed to stay,
oh 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.
Oh remember me oh Lord as I enter into thy glorious kingdom.
[placid music]
- [Announcer] 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...
- [Announcer] 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.
[hooting]
- When she was extradited back
it was all mad chaos.
I mean I loved her to bits but geez
she was a bloody troublemaker.
What can you do? They're your family?
and you stick by your family.
- [Announcer] 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.
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 a
adult-type relationship with them.
I invited Anne and Bill to my wedding.
I wanted Bill to walk me down the aisle.
[hymn tune]
He'd always dreamed about it
and I thought, well, you know,
I can give that to him as an adult.
I'm sure 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.
I had blue eyes, you know,
[chuckling] he was my father.
I have 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.
[upbeat music]
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.
[cool music]
[intense music]
- The matter was three or four months
before the Court of Appeal
because it was really quite technical.
I appeared on behalf of the Prosecution
and Patrick Tehan
appeared for them lead by John Winneke QC.
Clearly the Hamilton-Byrnes
were prepared to spend a lot of money.
[flacid music]
- 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 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.
[placid music]
- [Announcer] In the Hamilton-Byrne sect case,
the full bench of the Supreme Court has found
the charge of conspiring
to the fraud authorities in New Zealand
cannot be heard in Victoria.
- [Announcer] Mr. Winneke said the offence was trivial.
He said the Australian authorities
had made a mountain out of a molehill
- [Announcer] After long legal battle in the Supreme Court,
one charge was dropped.
- [Anne] 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.
[intense music]
- 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.
- [Announcer] 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 that us children.
- [Announcer] 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 acknowledgment
that something bad has happened to us children.
- I recall sitting in the court
and I will remember before the judgement ,
just a sick feeling in the stomach that
this is it. Thiis 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?
[intense music]
- [Announcer] 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...
- [Announcer] The Hamilton-Byrnes escaped
a maximum five year jail term and $60,000 fine.
They had nothing to say about the decision
- [Announcer] 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 have been going through another door,
they should have been going through 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,
because 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?
Did she face court
for all the crimes that we allege,
that we alleged we had that we knew of? No.
Its goingt be with me for the rest of my life.
....I need a break, I need a break.
[cool music]
- [Announcer] The police investigation
into the Hamilton-Byrne'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 we 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, we didn't say the words 'guilty'.
- [Anne] This is Lakshmi, isn't it Lakshmi?
- She needed things to love, little things.
The children were taken off her so
she went for animals.
And well 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,
okay. You can't muck around with kids
physically, emotionally or any other way.
[intense music]
- 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.
- [Sarah] A couple of times police did come up.
I remember at least once that we were interviewed by them.
- The Auntie's 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?
[laughing] I had no idea.
- I would never have dared 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.
[placid music]
- [Barbara] The people up there
had convinced themselves that
they were doing what was, in the long run,
good for the children.
- [Sarah] Powerful people didn't really
want this known about.
And even people that left cult,
that knew about it,
there were so terrified
of Anne's retribution, and they didn't say anything.
- [Tricia] 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 or.
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 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.
Okay she might have been up here and in that sense,
she has responsibility as the ruler
and the leader of the sect, okay.
You gotta understand and be in control of you disciples.
Unfortunately, she had people running round
doing shit I believe that she didn't know about.
Yeah, 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 to tell you anything?
- No comment.
- Do you intend to take that course
with any question I put to you?
That you don't wanna comment?
- No comment.
- Well, there are several allegations
that I'd like to put to you in a general way.
- 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're 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 seven 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.
Was mom and dad with three kids
living in a house in Melbourne.
My mother was never violent, never abusive.
I never saw any sign of what was to come.
[intense music]
How my mother got sucked into such a thing
and demonstrated such
monstrous behaviour later is
as 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.
[intense music]
- 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 person
who sort of could fulfil this void in their life.
[intense music]
- 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.
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 chose not to fulfil.
To be honest, I know he's my father,
but he really should have been reported
to the Medical Board.
- [Reporter] You and Dr Whitaker are
both on record as having members
of the group called "The Family."
- Um..
- [Reporter How did that relate
to your practise as psychiatrist?
Were you always able to keep that barrier between the two?
Did one spill over into the other and vice versa?
- Well, at times you had
members of that group who were patients.
And atare times you had patients
who went into yoga classes,
and then meditation classes
and became members of that group.
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.
- [Reporter] But you would have steered the odd patient
into the direction of that group.
- I would steer the odd patient direction of yoga, yes.
[siren blaring]
- [Lex] Our society needs to understand
where the instrument of government failed.
It failed at the hospital end
it failed at the 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 in 1928.
It gives a lot of people
a 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.
[baby crying]
- In the past year, 18,000
illegitimate babies have been born in Australia.
One birth in 12, is illegitimate.
- So you have 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 practise.
- The other thing was that there was no paper trail
in terms of adoption with regard
to Anne and Bill because 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 the police.
- I remember when Uncle Bill died,
that they embalmed his body for a period of time
and the body was in Crowther [Hall] until the funeral.
I think we're all a little bit dumbfounded
that Uncle Bill was gone.
[ominous music]
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."
- [Anne] 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 has 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 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.
[intense music]
I had made a decision to get to know God.
I was praying and I remember having 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 back at Uptop 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."
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.
[intense music]
- One of the ways I tried to obviate
the effects of my childhood was
to dedicate my life to helping others.
[applauding]
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.
[intense music]
- [Reporter] Were the children ever hit?
- Of course they weren't.
- Because... - They were not beaten.
- Never? - Never.
You just 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.
- They were paid for it.
- I'm asking you that.
- You were paid a lot of money.
- [Sarah] We weren't paid any money.
- You were paid a lot of money.
- Michael, you're living in a fantasy.
- No I'm not.
- You're living a lie.
- I'm not living a lie, Michael..
Your entire life is a network of lies
- As far as I'm concerned you are living a lie [mumbling]
- 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.
- [Anne] .. had a lot of pain.
- As long as you blame others you're nowhere.
- [Announcer] 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 and the disciples that attacked
me and anyone else that they thought betrayed her.
They 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 mind.
Auntie Anne's never been able to trust many people.
Anybody who left the family,
don't ever come back.
[barking]
'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.
[cool music]
- 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?"
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,
[intense music]
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 type 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 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 your 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 her mommy 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.
- [Ben] Here's my mom with her grandkids
- Well Ben although it was all those years ago,
It's no different, 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
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 of redemption.
When you forgive someone, you set yourself free,
and you set them free.
- Mom 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 mom died, things changed.
I have no loyalty now to anyone in The Family.
I'm so nervous about it all
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.
[cool music]
Hello Adam.. How are you?
Really..
- [laughing] Nervous?
- Yeah
- [laughing] I could hardly speak myself today
- Hello I'm Wendy your definitely family, you look like us
- Do you want to see some photos?
Your mother.
[cool music]
- And there she is pushing a pram.
Somebody's kid in the pram.
- Every baby wants his mom and
I never had a proper mom.
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.
- [Interviewer] So much of the Hamilton-Byrne saga
is shrouded in mystery.
So I thought we try and separate rumour from fact,
truth from fiction.
How many are your natural children?
- [Anne] Altogether was eight I think,
they were eight or nine
You got eight this morning when we were counting them out
weren't we?
- [Bill] It was almost like
cheaper by the dozen, you know,
- [Anne] We never told them they weren't ours.
- [Interviewer] I don't know where
you put the blame for this but
- [Anne] I'd do it all over again.
Well, question really was,
it hasn't worked has it?
Your family has dissipated, hasn't it?
- [Bill] Yes, but why?
Well, that's what I was gonna ask you, why?
And who do you blame?
- [Anne] I can't blame anybody.
I wouldn't blame anybody.
We don't understand.
I don't understand.
It was love.
Just love
[intense music]