Original subtitles

Why did you start to take in the children?

- 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?

Doctors to organise the adoption?

- 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 deploying the Common Wealth.

Auntie Anne sucked as much money outta people

as she possibly could.

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.

- 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.

- We heard that the sect solicitor, Peter Kibby,

had left the family after an argument with Anne.

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.

- 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."

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."

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.

- 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.

- 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

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

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.

I'd be a bloody fool

to be saying anything else, wouldn't I?

- Thank you very much for your co-operation.

- 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 live 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 doing 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 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.

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 at 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

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."

- 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.

- 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,

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.

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 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.

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.

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,

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.

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 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.

- 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.

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.

Mr. Winneke said the offence was trivial.

He said the Australian authorities

had made a mountain out of a molehill

After 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 that 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 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?

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 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.

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'.

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.

- 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 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?

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.

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 cult,

that knew about it,

there were so terrified

of Anne's retribution, and 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 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.

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.

- 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.

- 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.

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.

But you would have steered the odd patient

into the direction of that group.

- I would steer the odd patient 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 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.

- 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 until the funeral.

I think we're 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 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.

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.

- 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 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.

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

- 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.

.. had a lot of pain.

- As long as you blame others 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 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.

'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?"

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 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.

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.

Hello Adam.. How are you?

Really..

Nervous?

- Yeah

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.

- 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.

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?

Altogether was eight I think,

they 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 but

I'd do it all over again.

Well, 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 gonna 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

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