Death felt like only way out, says daughter of cult leader

POLICE say Katy Morgan-Davies was the victim of the “worst case of modern-day slavery ever uncovered in Britain”.

She was born and raised for 30 years inside a Maoist cult in Brixton, led by her father Aravindan Balakrishnan, inset left. He was jailed last year for 23 years for false imprisonment and the rape of another woman.

Balakrishnan, 76, called himself Comrade Bala and brainwashed his followers into thinking he had god-like powers. Southwark crown court heard that he convinced them he could read their minds.

During his trial, Ms MorganDavies, 34, pictured, said she was beaten and banned from singing nursery rhymes, going to school or making friends.

She had been brainwashed to believe her own behaviour was to blame for natural disasters such as earthquakes, calling the situation “horrible, so dehumanising and degrading”.

She said: “I used to think ‘God, if the whole world is going to be like this, what way out is there? How am I going to live? I cannot live in this.’

“So I used to think that the best way would be to die.”

When she finally managed to escape the cult in 2013 after memorising the number of an anti-slavery charity she saw on the news, she had the social skills of a six-year-old. She was unable to cross the road or use basic appliances.

The judge said Balakrishnan had treated his daughter like

“an experiment”, adding: “Your treatment of her from her birth to the age of 26 was a catalogue of mental and physical abuse.”