‘Insidious, predatory’: How new domestic violence laws apply to cults

A special investigation has exposed the tactics used by religious predators to control followers, with many victims not even aware until it’s too late.

• Editor’s view: Laws must be expanded

Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll has likened cults to coercive control and urged anyone with suspicions to report them to police immedistely.

“The Queensland Police Service takes all reports of abuse seriously, particularly when it involves vulnerable people within our communities,” Commissioner Carroll said.

“We know that ‘cults’ can be dangerous organisations that manipulate and often harms its members at the hand of a particular individual or belief system.

“Many of the behaviours demonstrated in ‘cults’ mirror that of coercive control, which we know is insidious and a sometimes-invisible form of abuse, which can have detrimental impacts on victim-survivors.

“Coercive control and emotional, physical, and mental abuse can occur in all relationships, including beyond those of a domestic or familial nature.

“Police encourage anyone who believes someone is victim to coercive control, or potentially abusive behaviour, to immediately report it. Officers can investigate all matters and explore avenues both within the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act and the Criminal Code Act as part of their enquiries.”

It comes as Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said she was “extremely concerned” at shocking allegations of domestic violence and coercive control inside a secretive Queensland cult and will seek a briefing from police “to understand what action can be taken”.

Ms D’Ath was speaking after The Courier-Mail’s three-month investigation into cults including the Anglican Catholic Mission Community, formerly known as the Jesus People of North Queensland.

The investigation revealed cult members were subject to extreme rules governing how they live from dawn until bedtime and forced to hand over all their property and possessions, while court documents and former members raised serious allegations of women being abused and beaten under the former leader.

Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath

“I am extremely concerned by the reports in the media,” Ms D’Ath said.

“I will be seeking a briefing from the Queensland Police Service about the matter to better understand what action can be taken.

“Any act of domestic and family violence is unacceptable.

“We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to keep women safe and hold perpetrators to account.

“That’s why new laws were introduced into parliament that will see coercive control become a crime in Queensland.

“This will save lives.”

The laws were introduced in October but were referred to the parliamentary Legal Affairs and Safety Committee for detailed consideration, with a report due back next month.

Prominent Queensland criminal lawyer Bill Potts said the laws, introduced to combat domestic violence, should be strongly considered for predatory cults that preyed on vulnerable people and obliterated their individuality.

The former Queensland Law Society president said cults were dangerous because they stripped individuals of their money, property and freedom and controlled their entire lives.

“Cults are exactly the same as domestic violence relationships,” he said.

Prominent Queensland criminal lawyer Bill Potts in his Southport chambers. Picture Glenn Hampson

“The most important thing for the person who’s controlling it is the power that they exhibit and utilise to essentially obliterate the individuality and the personalities of those people who are members of a cult.

“You are isolated often from society, from your friends, from your family members who are not members of the group and who often despair of the choices you’re making.

“More often than not, they want all of your money or at least a substantial portion of it and pretend that this is something for the greater good.

“But if you look at it very closely, you suddenly discover that it’s all either in the leader’s name or in some complex corporate structure with trusts attached, which see ultimately that the leader is the beneficiary.”

The state’s new coercive control laws were created following high-profile domestic violence cases such as the murder of Hannah Clarke, who was killed along with her three children in 2020.

The law recognises the pattern of controlling behaviours that keep people in domestic violence relationships.

The late Hannah Clarke, with son Trey, was killed along with her three children in 2020 in a high-profile domestic violence case.

Mr Potts said the concept of coercive control recognised that predators often used various psychological techniques to enforce their will on someone else.

“But it comes down to generally one thing, and that is fear,” he said.

“Fear that they’ll be excluded, fear that they will somehow lose whatever the illusory benefits that are being offered (by the cult) and more often fear that they’ll lose themselves.

“And often the people who are in cults or in circumstances of coercive control feel that they’re lost already, and that’s why it’s so insidious and so harmful.

“If I break an arm or a leg, the wound is visible. If I’m a victim of coercive control, the victim is or the wound is invisible, but it’s still a wound and it’s still affecting the way in which I act.”

Mr Potts said it was incredibly important to shine a light on such groups and how they operate and the potential harm they could cause.

“I think there’s a real argument for our society to put aside faith and perhaps look at coercive control as being something that is in fact not a victimless crime, but in fact is something which has very real victims and very real wounded people amongst us,” he said.

Flowers at the scene of where Hannah Clarke and her three children were murdered. Picture: Liam Kidston

“There’s a very real argument that coercive control is so insidious, it’s so dangerous and is so predatory at all that it ought to be applied to cults.”

Former member of Australian-born cult, the Anglican Catholic Mission Community, Madeline Hardess, said she “100 per cent” agreed that coercive control legislation should be considered for cults.

“It would be interesting to think about what other kind of legislation (exists) where it criminalises behaviour but it affects an entire organisational structure,” she said.

“And that has to be dismantled for it to really stop.”

Matthew Klein, a former member of Twelve Tribes who has helped Cult Consulting Australia extract people from extremist groups, also agreed coercive control legislation should be considered.

“If coercive control laws included groups … half the cults would shut down within a couple of years because most of the leaders in these groups are absolute cowards and they have all their minions doing all their dirty work,” he said.

Email Kate Kyriacou