Leader of sect The Family, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, has died in a Melbourne nursing home

Sect leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne was worshipped as “Jesus Christ reincarnated” by followers of notorious Australian cult The Family, known for brainwashing members and stealing children.

Australia’s most notorious cult leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, has died.

The founder of The Family suffered from dementia since 2007.

Hamilton-Byrne, 97, died while in palliative care in a nursing home in Wantirna South in Melbourne.

The cult stole children through adoption scams and held them captive at a house at Lake Eildon, north east of Melbourne, in the 1970s and 1980s. The cult also had property at Ferny Creek and Olinda.

Hamilton-Byrne initiated at least 28 children into the cult, stealing some and getting others by brainwashing adult sect members.

The children were dressed in identical outfits and had their hair bleached, and claim they were starved, beaten and given drugs including LSD.

The sect was made up of professional people, who, according to former Victoria Police detective Lex De Man, “worshipped Anne Hamilton-Byrne as Jesus Christ reincarnated in the female form”.

Hamilton-Byrne was a powerful figure, described by the cult’s co-founder as his “master”.

Children were brought into the cult as part of Hamilton-Bryrne’s “vision” that she needed to rebuild the world after a future catastrophe.

Anne Hamilton-Byrne was “worshipped” by those who joined the sect.

The news of Hamilton-Byrne’s death brought up a lot of emotions for survivors.

“The survivors that I’ve spoken to all had mixed feeling when they heard about Anne’s death,” Chris Johnston, author of the investigative book The Family said. “For some of them, it triggers all kind of issues from their past.”

The estate may have been worth as much as $5 million a decade ago but years in a nursing home and palliative care are believed to have greatly drained the fund — which is the subject of a legal battle. Victims’ advocate John Helmer described the late cult leader as a “gangster”.

“She was the head of a criminal gang,” he said.

“She was a gangster. She escaped. The story isn’t over.”

The Family came to public attention in 1987 when police raided its Kai Lama compound after her adopted daughter, Sarah, was expelled.

Police removed the children from the property but Hamilton-Byrne and her husband were overseas and it was not until 1993 that the couple was arrested in the US by the FBI.

They were extradited but in the end only faced one charge of conspiring to make false statements.

Hamilton-Byrne with photographs of her “children”.

The cult was formed by Hamilton-Byrne in the 1960s.

Hamilton-Byrne had a “vision” while under the influence of LSD that many children would be needed to repopulate the world as either World War III or a natural disaster was about to cause millions of deaths.

So she began to adopt children of single mothers in the late in 1960s with her husband William Byrne, and they both took the name Hamilton-Byrne.

The sect was co-founded by former Melbourne University master of Queen’s College Dr Raynor Johnson, who met Hamilton-Byrne in the 1960s and they jointly formed the Great White Brotherhood that became known as The Family.

He wrote in his diary that “from that date onwards there was but little doubt in my mind that I had met my master”.

The hold Hamilton-Byrne had over people was likened to an organised crime syndicate.

Children who had been brought up in isolation at the cult properties reported being given tranquillisers and other drugs including LSD, with some saying they were drugged and put in dark rooms and not fed for days as part of a cleansing process.

Despite the serious allegations of abuse by those who had left the group, Hamilton-Byrne was only ever prosecuted for fraud.

Former County Court Judge Carolyn Douglas, who was involved in the case against Hamilton-Byrne and her husband William in 1994, said the woman had “an enormous hold on people and it was admiration, adulation and fear.”

“It’s a little like an organised crime syndicate, they would never ever give evidence against her or make a statement against her,” Ms Douglas said.

Hamilton-Byrne and her husband were fined $5000 for faking birth registrations after they claimed three unrelated children were her naturally-born triplets.

But one child had actually been born in Geelong in 1969, while two others were born in New Zealand in October and December of 1969.

None were Hamilton-Byrne’s children, having each been born to unmarried mothers.

In 2009, Hamilton-Byrne told the Sunday Herald Sun she was ready to die after reconciling with Sarah, the ‘daughter’ who had exposed the cult to the world.

But she denied mistreating the children, saying, “They were normal children and they could be disobedient to a point, but not all the time.’’