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Brixton commune leader locked up daughter and raped acolytes, jury told
Brixton commune leader locked up daughter and raped acolytes, jury told
(about 4 hours later)
A communist revolutionary who led a Maoist cult in Brixton in the 1970s forced his daughter to worship him “as God” while imprisoning and beating her over a 30-year period at communes across south London, a court has heard.
A communist revolutionary who led a Maoist commune in Brixton in the 1970s imprisoned and beat his daughter and raped and assaulted two other women in a secret cult that existed for 34 years, a court has heard.
Aravindan Balakrishnan, who set up the Workers Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought, is accused of falsely imprisoning his daughter for 14 years until she escaped, aged 30, in 2013. He mentally and physically abused her almost from birth, claiming he was cleansing her of fascist influences, a jury at Southwark crown court heard on Thursday.
Aravindan Balakrishnan told his daughter to worship him “as God” and threatened that “everybody who leaves dies”, Southwark crown court heard.
Balakrishnan allegedly beat and raped two female acolytes at communes where he insisted only he, Comrade Bala, and Chairman Mao had the authority to “lead the world to revolution to establish an international dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Comrade Bala, as he was known, who set up the Workers Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought, is accused of falsely imprisoning his daughter for 14 years until she escaped aged 30 in 2013.
He is facing trial for false imprisonment and child cruelty against his daughter as well as rape, sexual assault and assault against two other women, who cannot be named.
A jury heard he mentally and physically abused her while claiming he was cleansing her of fascist influences.
Balakrishan, 75, sat impassive in the dock as he heard he faces a total of four charges of rape, six of indecent assault, three charges of actual bodily harm, cruelty to a person under 16 and false imprisonment. He denies the charges.
Balakrishnan is also accused of the rape, sexual assault, and assault of two female followers at a series of communes in Brixton, Tooting Bec and Clapham. He insisted only he and the Chinese dictator Chairman Mao had the authority to “lead the world to revolution to establish an international dictatorship of the proletariat”.
He was arrested in November 2013 when his daughter left the commune with the help of the Freedom Charity, alongside two other longstanding commune members, Aishah Wahab and Josie Herivel.
Balakrishan, now 75 with thinning grey hair and thick glasses, sat impassive in the dock as he heard that he faces a total of 16 charges, all of which he denies.
Rosina Cottage QC, for the prosecution, said: “[The daughter] had no independent life. She was bullied, beaten and separated from the world. She never went to school, played with a friend, saw a doctor or a dentist. She barely left the house. She was hidden from the outside world, and it kept from her, except as a tool with which to terrify her into subjugation.”
He was arrested in November 2013 when his daughter left the commune, alongside two other longstanding commune members.
The court heard that Balakrishnan also denied he was her father, claiming instead that her father died “during the people’s war”, and said her mother, who was in fact her main carer in the collective, was also dead. This caused her to have a feeling of “being a non-person that she carried through her life until she left the collective”, Cottage said.
She had been “bullied, beaten and separated from the world”, said Rosina Cottage QC for the prosecution. “She never went to school, played with a friend, saw a doctor or a dentist. She barely left the house. She was hidden from the outside world.”
From the age of four, Balakrishnan beat her “as she had to understand the limits she had been given”, the court heard. He would hit other women in the commune if they helped her, so they ignored her plight, it is alleged. Balakrishnan would also order the others to beat her if she tried to cuddle them, the jury was told.
The jury of four women and eight men heard how Balakrishnan’s ethos inside the secretive commune combined communism, the supernatural and routine violence.
His ethos combined communism and belief in the supernatural and he is said to have told his daughter he had to beat her, otherwise “Jackie”, whom he said was an invisible force with magical powers and a mind control machine that monitored all their thoughts, would kill or torture her. Jackie stood for Jehovah, Allah, Christ and Krishna, and would cause earthquakes, fires and tornadoes if anyone went against Balakrishnan.
When the massacre of pro-democracy protesters happened at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, he told the commune he “wished it had been 3,000,000” killed. He would curse those who paid tribute on TV to people who died in events such as the 7/7 London bombings, Cottage said. He would rail against “ugly dirty whites” who he considered fascist agents.
When she was seven, her diary recalls that she was told by Balakrishnan to “use self-criticism to struggle against one’s negativity”.
He beat his daughter from the age of four, which he said he was obliged to do, the court heard, otherwise “Jackie”, an invisible force with magical powers and a mind control machine, would kill or torture her. Jackie stood for Jehovah, Allah, Christ, Krishna and Immortal Easwaran and would cause earthquakes, fires and tornados if anyone went against Balakrishnan, he is alleged to have claimed. When the girl vomited, aged four, Cottage said he kicked her in the head and threw her out. She thought she would be killed as that is what he always said would happen if she ever left the house, Cottage said.
When the massacre of pro-democracy protesters occurred in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, “he [Balakrishnan] wished it had been 3 million” killed, the court heard. When the commune watched the TV news, “he would curse those who paid tribute to people who had died in events such as the 7/7 disaster”, Cottage said.
Aged five, when his daughter said she liked the sound of the word Israel better than Palestine, Balakrishnan “slapped her face and dragged her across the floor for being reactionary”. He would also order others in the commune to beat her if she tried to cuddle them, the court heard.
The jury heard that Balakrishnan’s alleged crimes began after a period in which he was “a charismatic man and a vivid and energetic speaker”, drawing about 100 followers with his plan to overthrow the fascist state, as he saw Britain in the 1970s. But his influence waned and the collective was reduced to him and six women.
For the whole time they were together, Balakrishnan denied he was her parent, claiming instead that her father died “during [the] peoples’ war” and that her mother, who was in fact her main carer in the collective, died in childbirth. The result was she had a feeling of “being a non-person that she carried through her life until she left the collective”, said Cottage.
Cottage said: “Bala said that he had to control people’s minds and scrub them clean of the bourgeois culture and lifestyle. By 1979, Bala was saying that the world revolution was in a dangerous stage. The house was locked all the time and those inside were unable to come and go freely. Bala said the door had to be locked to keep out the fascist agents.”
Balakrishnan’s alleged crimes began after a period in which he had been “a charismatic man and a vivid and energetic speaker”, drawing around 100 followers with his plan to overthrow the fascist state as he saw Britain in the 1970s, the jury heard. As his influence waned, the collective was reduced to him and just six women. The commune doors were locked “to keep out the fascist agents”.
He mounted a campaign of “debilitating mental and physical violence”, beating, raping and sexually assaulting some of the women, all the while with his wife, Chandra, living with them, the court was told. His wife and the others “had all been so dominated and brainwashed to the extent that they believed that he was all powerful and all seeing”, the jury heard.
Two other women in the commune whom Balakrishnan is alleged to have raped, assaulted and sexually assaulted “were cowed into submission” and “stayed in the collective too frightened to leave and hating to stay”, the jury heard. Cottage said: “He seemed to exult in his power over them.”
Cottage said Balakrishnan’s daughter was born to another collective member, Sian Davies. In 1982, when she became pregnant, Balakrishnan accused her of “allowing the bourgeoisie to attack her” and insisted the baby was “the result of electronic warfare”, the court heard. As a young child, she was not allowed to play with other children, and if anyone else came to the house, all evidence of her would be hidden, it is alleged.
His sexual advances on the alleged victims began after his wife fell ill, it was alleged. He started wearing aftershave and took to rubbing his unshaven chin on the womens’ faces, kissing them and leaving a red mark. He had started “making allusions to animal sexual activity from an article in a Beijing review, bulls covering each other or something such as that”, Cottage told the court.
She tried to escape in 2005, eight years before she successfully left, and went to Streatham police station, but returned to the commune because she did not know what else to do, the court heard.
He allegedly beat the women and told them he could kill them using a single pressure point. Such was his control that one alleged victim was terrified when she bought a pair of Levi’s jeans, because she feared Americans might be controlling her mind, the jury heard.
Two other women Balakrishnan is alleged to have raped, assaulted and sexually assaulted “were cowed into submission” and “stayed in the collective, too frightened to leave and hating to stay”, the jury heard. Cottage said: “They were forced into sexual acts over which they had no choice and were deliberately degrading and humiliating. He seemed to exult in his power over them.
“From being a collective agitating for the rights of the proletariat the group had become the cult of Aravindan Balakrishnan,” Cottage said.
“In order to bend them to his will, he used mental and physical dominance and violence, sexual degradation and, in relation to one, his daughter, he controlled every sphere of her life to the extent that she was unable either emotionally or physically to leave his influence until she was 30 years old and ill with diabetes.”
He progressed to “full sexual degradation” with some, the court heard. He forced one alleged victim to give him oral sex and other degrading sexual acts and later raped her. He was sexually active with three women and said he was “cleansing” them.
His sexual advances began after his wife fell ill, it was alleged. He started wearing aftershave and took to rubbing his unshaven chin on the women’s faces, kissing them and leaving a red mark, it is claimed. He had started “making allusions to animal sexual activity from an article in a Beijing review, bulls covering each other or something such as that,” Cottage told the court.
One woman, a nurse, came from Malaysia and joined the collective around 1977 and was beaten by Balakrishnan and was too scared to leave, Cottage said.
He beat the women and told them he could kill them using a single pressure point, the court heard. Such was his mind control that one alleged victim was terrified when she bought a pair of Levi’s jeans, because she was afraid the purchase meant the Americans were exerting mind control over her, as she had bought from a brand so identified with US imperialism, the jury was told.
“The defendant would come storming into the room and just swipe her across the face or give her a whack with no warning at all,” she told the jury.
“From being a collective agitating for the rights of the proletariat, the group had become the cult of Aravindan Balakrishnan, who had deliberately undermined and psychologically abused them,” Cottage said.
When she tried to resist his sexual advances one day “he punched her in the stomach with his right hand and she was pushed against the wall where she doubled over”, Cottage said. It is alleged he forced her to give him oral sex and told her to swallow his semen and “drink the elixir of life”.
He progressed to “full sexual degradation” with some, the court was told. Balakrishnan would force one alleged victim to give him oral sex and undergo other degrading sexual acts before he later raped her, it was alleged. He was sexually active with three women and said he was “cleansing” them.
When one victim said she wanted to leave the group during a huge row, she hit Balakrishnan. But she was then held down by four other women while he punched her with both hands saying the fascists had got inside her and he was beating it out of her, the jury was told.
One woman, a nurse who came from Malaysia and joined the collective around 1977, was beaten by Balakrishnan and too scared to leave, Cottage said. “The defendant would come storming into the room and just swipe her across the face or give her a whack with no warning at all,” she told the jury.
Cottage said Balakrishnan’s daughter was born to another collective member, Sian Davies. In 1982 when she became pregnant, Balakrishnan accused her of “allowing the bourgeoisie to attack her” and insisted the baby was “the result of electronic warfare”, the court heard.
When she tried to resist his sexual advances one day, “he punched her in the stomach with his right hand and she was pushed against the wall where she doubled over”, Cottage said. It is alleged that he forced her to give him oral sex and told her to swallow his semen and “drink the elixir of life”.
The child never knew Davies was her mother and in 1997 Davies died.
“She started to retch and nearly vomited,” Cottage said. “This was the first time of many occasions”.
The previous Christmas, when the girl was 13, she became distressed and started cutting herself. One night she heard shouting and saw her mother lying bound and gagged on the sitting room floor, Cottage said.
When one victim said she wanted to leave the group during a row, she hit Balakrishnan. But she was then held down by four other women while he punched her with both hands, saying the fascists had got inside her and he was beating it out of her, the court heard.
No help was called despite Davies being in “extreme mental distress”, the court heard, and the next day the child found her lying on the concrete below the bathroom window in a pool of blood, telling Balakrishnan: “Kill me.”
She was admitted to hospital and died the following August.
