Daughter ‘forgives’ cult leader who took away her childhood
Woman enslaved since birth waives her right to anonymity as father, 75, is jailed for decades of abuse
THE woman enslaved since birth by her cult leader father last night said she forgave him as a judge condemned him to die in jail for his decades of abuse.
Katy Morgan-Davies waived her right to anonymity to describe how 75-year-old Aravindan Balakrishnan had robbed her of “family, childhood, friends and love”.
Describing life in her father’s sect, she said: “It was horrible, so dehumanising and degrading. I felt like a caged bird with clipped wings. My earliest memories was that he is God, he is immortal, he knows everything and anybody who goes against him will die.”
The 33-year-old spoke out as Balakrishnan was sentenced to 23 years in prison for a brutal campaign of violence and sexual degradation meted out to his female followers inside a Maoist cult in south London.
Miss Morgan-Davies said she now wanted “to retrieve the identity the cult tried to steal from me”.
But she said: “I forgive him for what happened. Life is a journey isn’t it? There is good and bad in everything and besides, Nelson Mandela said, ‘if you leave the prison with hatred and anger and bitterness then you are still in prison’.” She added: “I don’t wish for him to suffer, but yes I want him to recognise what he did was wrong. I would like to reconcile with him in the future, if that is possible. But I can’t make him do that if that’s not what he wants to do, but the door is always open.”
Miss Morgan-Davies, who changed her name to begin a new chapter, said: “I’ve been a non-person all my life and now is my chance to be myself.”
Balakrishnan was found guilty of four rapes, six indecent assaults, two further assaults against two female followers and false imprisonment and child cruelty against his daughter.
At Southwark Crown Court, Judge Deborah Taylor said: “You were ruthless in your exploitation of them. You engendered a climate of fear, jealousy and competition for your approval.”
The judge said Balakrishnan had treated his daughter like “a project”.
She said: “Your treatment of her from her birth to the age of 26 was a catalogue of mental and physical abuse. She was slapped with slippers or a stick from a McDonald’s balloon you kept for the purpose.”
Growing up, Miss Morgan-Davies was not told Balakrishnan was her father and her mother was Sian Davies, one of his followers. On Christmas Eve in 1996, Miss Davies plunged out of a window at the commune and died of her injuries. It was only after the accident that Miss Morgan-Davies discovered who her mother was and was then haunted by dreams about her.
After escaping in 2013, she is now living in Leeds where she is studying and hopes to follow a career in politics, having joined the Labour Party.