A matriarch with a Messiah complex, Anne Hamilton-Byrne was a glamorous yoga teacher whose charismatic aura amassed a cult following and spawned a surrogate family of illegally sourced children, under the auspices of The Santiniketan Park Association.
Rosie Jones’ documentary, THE FAMILY, is an investigation into the cult and the dogged detective work of policeman, Lex De Man, longest serving member of Operation Forest, which sought to prosecute Hamilton-Byrne.
Altogether 28 children spent time under the strict regime of Anne, self proclaimed reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and The Aunties, Anne’s apostles, disciples in strict and restrictive discipline; a core group of 14 believed they were Anne and her husband Bill’s biological children and bore the Hamilton-Byrne name.
Anne Hamilton-Byrne formed The Family in 1963 with Dr Raynor Johnson, a renowned physicist who was the Master of Queen’s College at the University of Melbourne. She recruited wealthy professionals who changed their names, left their marriages, signed over land and had children with new partners at her behest. Some cult members gave their babies to her while others adopted babies stolen from public hospitals.
The children were isolated at Lake Eildon where discipline was perverted and violent. Dozens of children grew up in The Family not knowing who they really were.
Theirs was a world of isolated secrecy, thus the sect motto “Unseen, Unheard, Unknown”. The foster children were tranquilised daily and groomed to look similar with matching blond hair and clothing. Interesting to note Julian Assange’s musician stepfather was a sect member,
Their world was so isolated that although they lived near Melbourne, they had no concept of “a city”. They were raised indoors and not permitted to be outside for fear of discovery. When they became older, LSD experimentations on the foster children were common.
Jones fashions THE FAMILY from a series of interviews with the now adult children deciding to concentrate on the psychological effects rather than focusing on the details of their daily lives at Lake Eildon.
Interleaved with these testaments is the fascinating forensic evidence gathering of Lex De Man, who discovered that Anne herself had a difficult childhood. She was sent to Melbourne Orphanage when her father couldn’t cope with seven children and an unstable wife, who was hospitalised for 30 years as a paranoid schizophrenic.
He tells of the breakthrough after four years of sleuthing to gain Anne’s extradition from America and of the ensuing frustration to make the charges stick.
THE FAMILY is a fascination tale of corruption, conspiracy, and cover-up and an examination of the long-term suffering experienced by so many children separated from their birth parents and damaged by those who were then tasked to care for them.