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Friday, 29 January 2016
Cult Leader's Daughter: 'He Was A Psychopath'
Katy Morgan-Davies, who spent decades as Aravindan Balakrishnan's captive, has described him as a narcissist who loves violence.
The daughter of the cult leader who kept women captive for decades using violence, cruelty and sexual abuse has described him as a "narcissistic psychopath ... obsessed with controlling people".
Waiving her anonymity for the first time to speak to Sky News, Katy Morgan-Davies explained how Aravindan Balakrishnan cruelly deprived her of any contact with the outside world for three decades, and of even knowing which of the cult's members was her own mother.
Balakrishnan, who has now been sentenced to 23 years in prison for two counts of cruelty and false imprisonment for his treatment of Ms Morgan-Davies, and for the indecent assault, rape and assault of other women in the cult, kept her a virtual prisoner in the various homes the group occupied around south London.
Aravindan Balakrishnan kept his daughter captive for decades
"My earliest memories are of him being violent towards me and other people in the cult," Ms Morgan-Davies said of Balakrishnan, whom she knew only as "Bala".
"He loved violence, and those totalitarian dictatorships. He wanted to be like that - one of those dictators like Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot.
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This Brixton restaurant was once a bookshop and the home of his collective
Gallery: Cult Leader Found Guilty Of Raping Followers
Balakrishnan pictured with the collective
Balakrishnan pictured in 1970
One of the several houses Balakrishnan's collective lived in over the years
This Brixton restaurant was once a bookshop and the home of his collective
Gallery: Cult Leader Found Guilty Of Raping Followers
Balakrishnan pictured with the collective
"(He wanted) everyone to listen to him - if they don't, he can kill them with impunity."
Now aged 32, Ms Morgan-Davies finally escaped from the cult in 2013 after she and two other members were rescued by the police and charities they had contacted after memorising a helpline number they had seen on TV.
Others, who had joined the cult in the 1970s when it was known as "The Workers Institute", had escaped years before - including two who gave evidence against Balakrishnan at his trial.
Two of the women died while living there, including Ms Morgan-Davies' mother Sian Davies, who died after falling from an open window in 1997.
Ms Morgan-Davies, who only discovered her mother's true identity after her death, said one of the saddest parts of her life was the cruelty she experienced at her hands.
Her mother, like the other women in the commune, was encouraged to spy on Ms Morgan-Davies and report to Balakrishnan, often resulting in violent punishment.
"There was no concept of father and mother. (Everyone in the commune) were just all comrades," Ms Morgan-Davies explained.
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Video:Cult Leader's Daughter Talks To Sky
"Whilst my mother was alive, there was no affection between us. It was not like I missed her when she passed away. In a way when she fell through the window, things got better.
"Because she was one of the worst bullies, when she was not there things got better. There was less reporting, and so there was less violence."
Ms Morgan-Davies explained how her mother's family had described her as a "very nice person" - and she said Balakrishnan robbed them of any connection by turning Ms Davies into a "shadow of her former self".
One of the ways Balakrishnan controlled the members of the cult was through the invention of an omnipotent mind-control machine, which they knew as "Jackie".
She explained: "He said if I did something wrong, others and me, we would be killed by Jackie. If he intervened by slapping us and beating us, then Jackie would think that enough had been done and not kill us. So we should be thankful that he is hurting us... because we would be saved from Jackie."
Ms Morgan-Davies said that as she grew older and developed an interest in men, she was forced to report her thoughts and fantasies to Balakrishnan, prompting further threats of retaliation from Jackie.
Despite the threats, Ms Morgan-Davies attempted to escape almost a decade before her eventual rescue, running to a police station in 2005. However, the police sent her back to the commune.
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Gallery: Letters And Diaries Written By Cult Leader's Daughter
The daughter of cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan who was falsely imprisoned for 30 years wrote him a letter upon her release
In it she talks of being "Cursed - insulted - denigrated - excluded - beaten up - caged like a wild animal"
"You have degraded me, humiliated me, demoralised me and insulted me way beyond my endurance," she writes
She talks of being "threatened with torture and death" if she ever disagreed with him
Gallery: Letters And Diaries Written By Cult Leader's Daughter
The daughter of cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan who was falsely imprisoned for 30 years wrote him a letter upon her release
"The police persuaded me to call (Balakrishnan) and to go back," Ms Morgan-Davies said. "I had no choice."
Asked why her complaint was not taken more seriously, Ms Morgan-Davies shrugged. "Why did they send me back? It was a bank holiday."
She described how other opportunities to help those in the sect had been missed, adding: "The cult was very clever at hiding what they did not want other people to know."
Ms Morgan-Davies - wearing her hair in blonde curls and dressed in a bright blue jumper with a jewelled broach - said she is now learning the basics of ordinary life for the first time.
"Just being able to walk out the door on my own, walk down the street, make friends with people, talk to people without permission, say what I want without fear of being killed or cursed, wear what I want to wear, pierce my ears, dye my hair. Just small little things - it's so amazing. :: You can watch a special report, Katy: My Life In Captivity, on Sky News at 6.30pm.
Maoist Cult Leader Jailed For 23 Years
Aravindan Balakrishnan carried out a "brutal" campaign of violence and "sexual degradation" against women for more than 30 years.
17:37, UK, Friday 29January 2016
Balakrishnan brainwashed his followers to believe he had God-like powers
A Maoist cult leader who raped followers and held his daughter captive for three decades has been jailed for 23 years.
Judge Deborah Taylor told 75-year-old Aravindan Balakrishnan he had "shown no remorse whatsoever" for his "grave and serious crimes".
When the Maoist commune called the Workers Institute, based in Brixton, south London, was raided in 1978, Balakrishnan dominated and imposed his will on a small group of women for the next 35 years.
"You turned into a largely house-bound demi-god or dictator," the judge said.
Describing the full brutality of the abuse he inflicted on his victims, she said he "engendered a climate of fear, jealousy and competition for approval".
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Video:Cult Leader's Daughter Talks To Sky
The sentencing came as his daughter, waiving her anonymity for the first time, told Sky News how he cruelly deprived her of any contact with the outside world.
Katy Morgan-Davies described her father as a as a "narcissistic psychopath... obsessed with controlling people".
The court heard that at the age of 14, Balakrishnan told her she was responsible for her mother's death.
Judge Taylor said his treatment of her amounted to "a catalogue of mental and physical abuse", adding: "You deprived her of love."
Ms Morgan-Davies was terrified if she went out of the house that she would spontaneously combust or be killed by death squads.
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This Brixton restaurant was once a bookshop and the home of his collective
Gallery: Cult Leader Found Guilty Of Raping Followers
Balakrishnan pictured with the collective
Balakrishnan pictured in 1970
One of the several houses Balakrishnan's collective lived in over the years
This Brixton restaurant was once a bookshop and the home of his collective
Gallery: Cult Leader Found Guilty Of Raping Followers
Balakrishnan pictured with the collective
The court heard how he brainwashed his followers into thinking he had God-like powers.
A doctor's assessment concluded he has a "narcissistic personality disorder" and a "grandiose" sense of his own self-importance.
He invented a supernatural force called Jackie who he said could trigger natural disasters if he was disobeyed. Cult Leader's Daughter: 'He Was A Psychopath'
Known as Comrade Bala, Balakrishnan carried out a "brutal" campaign of violence and "sexual degradation" against women for many years, the court heard.
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Gallery: Letters And Diaries Written By Cult Leader's Daughter
The daughter of cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan who was falsely imprisoned for 30 years wrote him a letter upon her release
In it she talks of being "Cursed - insulted - denigrated - excluded - beaten up - caged like a wild animal"
"You have degraded me, humiliated me, demoralised me and insulted me way beyond my endurance," she writes
She talks of being "threatened with torture and death" if she ever disagreed with him
Gallery: Letters And Diaries Written By Cult Leader's Daughter
The daughter of cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan who was falsely imprisoned for 30 years wrote him a letter upon her release
He was convicted of a string of sex attacks, cruelty to a child under 16 and false imprisonment following a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court at the end of last year.
Balakrishnan was also found guilty of two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH).
His wife, Chandra Balakrishnan, speaking outside court, called his sentence a "cruel miscarriage of justice" and said Aravindan was "innocent of the lies". :: You can watch a special report, Katy: My Life In Captivity, on Sky News at 6.30pm.
Killer Of Daniel Pelka Found Dead In Prison
Mariusz Krezolek was serving a life sentence for his role in the death of the four-year-old, who was starved and beaten.
16:15, UK, Friday 29January 2016
The pair - who blamed each other - were jailed for 30 years each
The killer of schoolboy Daniel Pelka has been found dead in prison, months after his partner was found hanged in her cell.
Mariusz Krezolek and Daniel's mother Magdelena Luczak were convicted of the boy's murder in 2013, and jailed for 30 years.
A judge said the four-year-old was the victim of an "incomprehensible cycle of cruelty and violence" which left him looking like "a concentration camp victim" before he died of a head injury in 2012.
Krezolek was discovered unresponsive in his cell at HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire on Wednesday morning.
A Prisons Service spokeswoman said: "Staff immediately attempted resuscitation but he was pronounced dead shortly after."
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An investigation will be carried out by the independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
Luczak, 29, was found dead at HMP Foston Hall in Derbyshire in July last year - two years into her sentence.
The cause of death was recorded as hanging.
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During his final month, Daniel was denied food, forced to perform punishment exercises, confined in a locked box room, poisoned with salt, and subjected to water torture.
He weighed just 1st 9lb when he died.
The medical evidence, the judge said, showed that Daniel's emaciation was regarded by experts as "unprecedented" in Britain.
Sister: I Think Bellfield Killed Two Other Girls
Milly Dowler killer's sister urges police to investigate the disappearances of two women, one a student, near where he worked.
The sister of serial killer Levi Bellfield has said she believes he murdered at least two more women.
It comes after police said on Thursday they believed Bellfield could be linked to around another 20 attacks, including the killing of his school friend Patsy Morris on Hounslow Heath in 1980.
He would have been just 12 at the time.
Earlier this week, Bellfield finally confessed to the murder of Milly Dowler, 13, who was abducted on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames in March 2002. Her body was found in a wood 25 miles away.
Bellfield has also been linked to the 1996 hammer killings of mother and daughter Lin and Megan Russell in Kent.
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His other victims, Marsha McDonnell (2003) and Amelie Delagrange (2004), were murdered in a similar way - hit over the head with a blunt object.
Ann-Marie Bellfield, his paternal half-sister, wants police to look into the disappearances of student Elizabeth Chau, 19, in April 1999, and US-born computer graduate Lola Shenkoya, 27, in January 2000 - who were both last seen in Ealing, west London.
"At that time, Levi Bellfield had a clamping business in West Ealing, which was in the area that they disappeared from, and I do believe somehow he is linked to those cases," she told the Daily Mirror.
She said he rang her while on remand in prison for the murders of Ms Delagrange and Ms McDonnell and said the police were trying to pin the other two cases on him, but insisted he had nothing to do with them.
Describing him as a "monster" and "cruel and unfeeling", she continued: "I do believe he is capable of anything."
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In January 2016, Levi Bellfield - who was convicted of Milly's murder - admitted abducting, raping and killing the schoolgirl for the first time
Gallery: Levi Bellfield Has Admitted Abducting, Raping And Killing Milly Dowler
Milly Dowler was 13 years old when she was abducted on her way home from school in March 2002
Her body was found in Yateley Heath, Hampshire - 25 miles from where she went missing in Walton-on-Thames
Experts were unable to conclude how Milly died
Milly's disappearance prompted a nationwide search and repeated appeals for information
In January 2016, Levi Bellfield - who was convicted of Milly's murder - admitted abducting, raping and killing the schoolgirl for the first time
Gallery: Levi Bellfield Has Admitted Abducting, Raping And Killing Milly Dowler
Milly Dowler was 13 years old when she was abducted on her way home from school in March 2002
She said she also believed Bellfield converted to Islam about five years ago while in Belmarsh, where he changed his name to Yusuf Rahim, because he was scared of what might happen to him in prison as a convicted child killer.
"He was fearful of getting a smack in the gob or worse," she said.
Colin Sutton, a former Metropolitan Police detective who sat in on interviews with Bellfield, told Sky News he wanted him to take responsibility for the series of other offences he has committed.
"He travelled extensively and committed crimes wherever he was," said Mr Sutton.
"I think what's important to me is that there may be a chance for him to confess and for him to get to the bottom of what went on in lots of other cases."
