‘The Family’ cult leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne dead at 98

Leader of the notorious “The Family” cult, Anne Hamilton-Byrne has died in a nursing home.

Cult leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne – notorious for founding the Victorian-based sect The Family and considering herself to be the reincarnation of Jesus – has died in a Melbourne nursing home at age 98.

She died in a palliative care unit of a suburban aged care facility last night, after a long struggle with dementia.

Hamilton-Byrne’s cult, which she co-founded with Melbourne University academic Raynor Johnson in the 1960s, used adoption scams and held children against their will at a secluded house at Lake Eildon, 235km northeast of Melbourne over the next two decades.

Around 28 children are believed to have been held captive by the cult, and were made to believe Hamilton-Byrne – who claimed to be building a “master race” – was their mother. The property was not raided until 1987, when one child managed to contact police.

Survivors said they were made to take LSD when they were young teenagers, dressed in matching clothes and had their hair bleached.

Hamilton-Byrne was never charged with child abuse.

Adult members of the cult, said to number 500, gave Hamilton-Byrne 10 per cent of their incomes.

Journalist Chris Johnston, who co-authored a book about the cult, The Family, said the death has been met with mixed emotions among the survivors he has spoken to today.

“There’s relief,” Johnston said. “She’s been crook for a long time. It’s been a really long time. She broke her pelvis recently – like two years ago or 18 months ago.

“(But) it’s not the end of the story. There’s a lot of survivors who are wondering about the estate.”

Survivor Ben Shenton, who was 18-months-old when his mother handed him over to the cult, said there was “an element of relief” to learn of Hamilton-Byrne’s death.

“I feel for the many families and people who suffered at her hands over the years and I’m just glad that a chapter’s closed,” Mr Shenton said. “I guess it’s the impact of her being alive can have on people still referring and thinking of her as the reincarnation of Jesus. So (her death) closes that ability to re-assert and continue that blatant lie.”

He said he visited Hamilton-Byrne with his mother in 2012, when they discovered she still had devotees visiting her.

“The impact of other sect members still visiting her, still revering her and their level of loyalty – I guess it’s disturbing, knowing that it was a lie,” he said. “To see that perpetrated and to see the damage that it caused in people’s lives is more of an issue to me. Her death closes a chapter on that.”