Beautiful society girl ‘stolen’ from a loving family... by her mysterious dream therapist
Leeds University, her mother married Lord Caledon – whose paternal ancestors acquired their wealth through the East India Company, and whose mother was a Siemens engineering heiress.
The family seat is the 5,000-acre Caledon Castle in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Since 1989, Lord Caledon has been Lord Lieutenant of Armagh, as well as managing a 3,000-acre estate in Hertfordshire.
Victoria’s first connection with Mrs Craig came after a group of her friends studied art in Florence and met the therapist’s daughter, Tara.
One of those friends encouraged Victoria to see Mrs Craig, who works with clients at the South London home she shares with her husband Rodney, a former Royal Navy commander who is chief executive of the prestigious University Women’s Club in Mayfair.
A friend of Victoria, who was also a client of Mrs Craig, said: ‘I was so close to Victoria, she was like a little sister to me. She did not say in detail why she went to see Craig, but did say she didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of her parents – at that age you want to understand yourself. I went to four £100 sessions that lasted between three to four hours each. I came out feeling drained and exhausted. She was confusing me.
‘The sessions focused on looking at your family and taking them apart and, I felt, putting the blame on them and those around you.’
There is no record of Mrs Craig, the daughter of an Irish farm labourer, being a member of any recognised therapist association. Neither is there evidence of any relevant qualifications.
She has, however, posted online adverts offering a ‘holistic approach using healing energies and dreams to help you fulfil your potential on a personal and professional level’. She adds: ‘I teach you how to find your own inner resources and healing.’
Mrs Ticehurst began to see a change in her granddaughter as soon as she started visiting Mrs Craig. ‘Victoria stayed with me when she came down to London and she would come in from a two-hour counselling session barely able to speak because she was absolutely exhausted,’ the grandmother said. ‘This was in the very early days of her involvement. I got the sensation that Victoria was slightly angry, but it never crossed my mind that this would happen and why would it?
‘I was concerned that Victoria did not have a proper job and had lost her boyfriend. With the benefit of hindsight I realise she was becoming isolated.’ It was in December 2012 that the family eventually realised things were out of control.
Mrs Ticehurst recalled: ‘Amanda met with Victoria at Starbucks in Gloucester Road for a cup of tea. Victoria started shouting and accused Amanda and her father of abusing her as a child. She went on to accuse Amanda of all sorts of things that were simply not true.’
Victoria removed all her belongings from her parents’ homes and cut financial ties with her family.
The last time that Mrs Ticehurst set eyes on her granddaughter was shortly before Christmas 2012. ‘I insisted I wanted to see her,’ she recalled. ‘It was very cold, but she wanted to meet outside a Chelsea pub, where we sat with our coffees. Victoria was not very communica- tive and spent most of her time on her phone talking or texting.
‘I felt that she was in contact with someone else throughout. It was a very unhappy meeting and I felt that Victoria was very sad. At the end of it I was so upset.’
Matters took an even more traumatic turn in the summer of 2014, when seven police officers arrested Lady Caledon for alleged harassment after she took a card and some books to Mrs Craig’s house for her daughter. Lady Caledon said the custody sergeant refused to detain her, declaring it to be a wrongful arrest and there was no further action.
In October the same year, Mrs Craig was arrested for alleged fraud – but after six months on conditional bail the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case.
Last year, Lord and Lady Caledon launched a High Court action designed to force the Metropolitan Police to disclose evidence gathered during their investigations into both Lady Caledon and Mrs Craig. They want to use the information in their action against the therapist.
Victoria is not the only previously happy young woman who appears to have undergone a change in character after meeting Mrs Craig.
Henry Strutt, a company director, said his 29-year-old stepdaughter Laura Hue Williams was a client of the therapist and a friend of Victoria – and that she, too, has cut off contact with her friends and family.
‘Laura has in effect gone missing,’ he said. ‘We do not know where she is living and have no contact details for her. We do not know whether she is safe or even whether she is still alive. Attempts to contact her about the death of her uncle or the forthcoming marriage of her sister have met with silence.
‘This is devastating for her mother, her family and all her friends. They fear for her safety and her mental health because she has undergone a complete personality change over the past few years.
‘Those few friends who have managed to see her have said that the “old Laura” is almost unrecognisable. What has happened should be outlawed in any civilised country.’
Another of Mrs Craig’s ex-clients said: ‘I was confused and unhappy and took a few sessions to tell her what worried me – that I was gay and was going to have to come out to my Catholic parents. She took this all in and manipulatively used it against me over 18 months. She’s very empathetic and almost theatrical and slowly hooked me in, turning my confusion into credible answers.
‘She told me that I was not gay and that I had some weird relationship with my mother. She used lots of control methods. We were told not to read books, magazines or newspapers because they were designed to lead us astray.
‘She taught us humans had gone the wrong way because we used our heads instead of our hearts and that she was the only therapist in the entire world that practices this deep healing. She also t told me that she had been sexually a abused. She would say ,“Were you abused?”a Then there wouldw be a pregnant pause. I imagine under that theatrical context so many of herh clients would say,s “Yes.” But I always said no because I was not abused and not going to let some woman tell me that I was.’
The former client added: ‘Eventually I managed to get some distance from her. I paid a heavy price for my experience with Anne Craig. It was a lonely time. She told me my friends and family were bad: it was their fault and never my fault. She controlled my thinking.’
Dr Nicki Crowley, a consultant psychiatrist, said: ‘What is incredibly sad from my point of view is that these essentially high-functioning young women, coping with the usual pressures of life after university, were persuaded to go and see this “therapist/counsellor/healer” for general support and help. Instead, their sense of self-worth and selfconfidence have been eroded.’
Of the planned legal action, Mrs Ticehurst said: ‘In this country there is nothing you can do if you lose your adult children to a supposed therapist or healer. As a parent you have no options legally even if you have been defamed and your family’s home life wrecked.’
A spokesman for Mrs Craig said she had not made up any allegations about any family. She rejects any claims she instilled false memories in anyone, or that she questioned her clients in such a way as to suggest they were abused as children.
‘She told me my friends were bad’