Known by its members as simply "The Church", its leader Colin Batley psychologically terrorised and coerced vulnerable children into performing sexual acts, by using death threats and brainwashing.
[2] The cult sexually exploited vulnerable teenagers,[3] using occult practices and literature as a means of justifying its abuse, and of brainwashing its victims.
[8] The cult targeted troubled, impressionable minors, forcing them to undergo an initiation ceremony that ended with sex with an adult.
[4] A neighbour, John Wheatland, claimed that while working in his garden, he once saw a girl in her early teens "done up to look like a film star", who asked him whether he wanted sex.
A neighbour said Damian's father was "laughing and joking like he didn’t have a care in the world" on the day of the funeral, which "no normal person could comprehend".
Haworth added that cult leaders often break people down, sometimes within three or four days, with methods including depriving them of food and sleep.
[2] Annabelle Forest (a pseudonym),[15] a daughter of cult member Jacqueline Marling, gave testimony which helped convict five abusers.
Three months after giving birth to a child of Batley, aged 18, Forest was forced into prostitution, having sex with an estimated 1,800 men, with her entire earnings being taken by the cult.
Forest detailed her experiences in her book The Devil on the Doorstep: My Escape From a Satanic Sex Cult,[16] which she wrote to "get others to start really paying attention to the community they live in", because "there are abused children everywhere".
In 2010, two adult victims, one male and one female, reported the cult's abuse to the police prompting the group's arrest the same year.
[4] Chief Inspector Richard Lewis said the investigation by Dyfed–Powys Police "was a very protracted and complicated inquiry involving a very secretive group" that perpetrated "systematic and prolonged abuse of children" who "showed great courage" by reporting it.
They were found guilty on 47 charges including rape and other sexual crimes against children after a five-week trial[1] in February and March of 2011.