For there was hell on earth in The Family. Anne was breaking bonds, destroying relationships and driving her followers to the brink of madness. Many members of the group attempted suicide either while in The Family or shortly after leaving it.
Meanwhile, Anne's estate grew day by day, reaching £90 million. It largely consisted of property, land and cash donated by followers as donations.
Just before the police raid in 1987, Hamilton-Byrne managed to escape abroad. Extremely wealthy by then, with numerous estates in America, she went into hiding for more than two years. She fell by accident when she was caught forging false birth certificates. Unfortunately, these were the only charges Detective Lex de Man could bring against her. Along with her husband, businessman Bill Byrne, Anne was only fined.
She was never held accountable either for unlawful detention and child abuse in Australia or for extortion and forgery. She spent the last 14 years of her life in a Melbourne care home. Suffering from advanced dementia, she was unable to answer any questions. The only reparation for her victims was a book written by Chris Johnston, a Melbourne-based journalist and writer, and Rosie Jones, a screenwriter and editor, published shortly before Anne's death.
The authors managed - thanks to one of the former Family members - to visit Hamilton-Byrne at the care home. "But although she wasn't able to talk to us, it was a remarkable meeting," Johnston reported. "She was beautifully dressed in blue, had long silver hair and the charm of a former film star. However, it was noticeable that her hairline was unnaturally high due to numerous facelifts that helped her maintain the illusion of youth and immortality. The words she spoke were mostly incoherent and meaningless. Most of the time she sat trying to feed a plastic doll in her lap, "he wrote in the book.
Anne Hamilton-Byrne died three years after the book was published, at the age of 98. Her victims are still trying to find their biological parents today. However, falsified birth certificates and adoption documents mean that establishing their true origins, place of birth or sometimes even nationality verges on the miraculous. Despite this, most of them do not lose hope that they will one day find their way home.
– Maria Radzik
-Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski
TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists
Sources:
•https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/20/growing-up-with-the-family-inside-anne-hamilton-byrnes-sinister-cult
•https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10331329/Home-depraved-cult-Family-drugged-imprisoned-children-make-master-race-sale.html
•https://www.realestate.com.au/news/anne-hamiltonbyrne-olinda-homestead-linked-to-the-family-cult-sells/
•https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/from-the-archives-1987-police-raid-on-secretive-sect-the-family-20190614-p51xtp.html
Books
„The Family: The shocking true story of a notorious cult”, Chris Johnston, Rosie Jones
„Life behind the wire” Ben Shenton