Lambeth slavery case

Perpetrator

Balakrishnan was born in Kerala in India but migrated to Singapore, where his father was a soldier, when he was 10. As a student at Raffles Institution and later the University of Singapore, he became increasingly politically active and believed that as a "revolutionary socialist" he would have been imprisoned had he admitted he was a Communist. Bala believed the British state was fascist after witnessing the country's mistreatment towards the people of Singapore during the Malayan Emergency between 1954 and 1960. He emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1963 at the age of 23 on a British Council scholarship to study at the London School of Economics and married his wife Chandra in 1971. Over the years he built up a following by giving lectures on his radical beliefs and staging various sit ins and protests. He was a regular attendee at London demonstrations, where he waved Mao Zedong banners and addressed the crowds. Conferences would begin with a clenched fist salute to the Chinese revolutionary leader. In 1974, Balakrishnan was expelled from the Communist Party of Great Britain for breaching party discipline. In return, he published a leaflet through his Workers’ Institute labeling his old party “fascists”. Eventually, after the more liberal members of his group drifted away, a cult of around 10 female members formed around him. The collective moved to Brixton in 1976, under the title Workers Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. This new headquarters was located above a bookstore that sold Chinese reading materials.

He told them he that everything was controlled by him from the sun, the moon, wind and fires. He claimed he could overthrow governments and control natural disasters. The women believed he had the power of life and death over them all. In order to progress his cause, Balakrishnan invented "Jackie" – a type of dangerous, mystical machine that monitored all thought and could control minds. It was used to threaten the women with torture and death. As the only defence witness, he stood in the dock and told jurors that a challenge to his leadership resulted in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and that his invisible accomplice “Jackie" was responsible for the death of a Malaysian prime minister and the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The women's family members were branded fascist agents and ostracised. Those who worked had to donate all of their wages to the commune. In 1977, the Singaporean authorities claimed that Balakrishnan and others, many of them former Singaporean students he had associated with in London, were plotting to overthrow Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s leader. Balakrishnan was stripped of his citizenship, which meant it was now impossible to deport him there. It is not known if he has a passport for any other country.

Victims

Rosie Davies was originally named Prem Maopinduzi Davies, and she began calling herself "Rosie" in her teens. She has subsequently changed her name to Katy Morgan-Davies, after the American singer Katy Perry. She is the biological daughter of Comrade Bala and a woman called Sian Davies. Rosie was brought up entirely isolated from the outside world and never went to nursery or school, or even to see a dentist or a doctor, and was not even told who her parents were.

Sian Davies died a quadriplegic in 1997 eight months after falling out of a top floor bathroom window after suffering a rapid decline in her mental health. The night of her fall she was talking to herself and tried to cut herself with a knife. Her daughter remembered seeing her bound and gagged on the living room before she went to bed. After the fall, her family were told she had gone to India to do charity work, and did not learn she had been paralysed and was lying in a hospital bed until her inquest. Her daughter did not find out who her mother was until long after her death.

Siti Aishah Abdul Wahab is a Malaysian woman who moved to the United Kingdom at the age of 24 to study, joining the group shortly after. Aishah was reportedly so drawn in by Aravindan's Marxist rhetoric that she left her fiance and moved in with the collective.

Oh Kareng a second Malaysian woman, also died in mysterious circumstances after hitting her head on a cupboard in 2001. The police were not informed of the accident, and she did not receive any medical treatment. Her family were not told about her cremation, and they were told the collective did not have their ashes when in fact they were in a lockup garage in West Norwood.

Josephine Herivel, known as Josie, was a violinist studying at the Royal College of Music before she joined the group. Her father, John Herivel was one of the Bletchley Park codebreakers who helped Britain and its allies win World War II. She is believed to have moved to London in the 1970s and disowned her family after becoming involved with the far-left.

Imprisonment and rescue

The two older victims are believed to have met the male suspect Balakrishnan (also known as "Comrade Bala") in London through, according to police, a shared political ideology, as he was the former leader of the Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought. The women were not being physically restrained, but held by "invisible handcuffs" after being subjected to brainwashing, emotional abuse and physical abuse by their captors. The three women, who are not related, are said to have been held captive for more than 30 years with the youngest of the three thought to have spent her whole life in servitude. However it has not yet been established if she was born in the house from where she was rescued. The police were tipped off by Freedom Charity who contacted police following a phone call they had received on 18 October, during which a woman stated that she'd been held unwillingly for more than 30 years. Aneeta Prem of Freedom Charity confirmed that the Irish woman made contact with the charity after watching the ITV television documentary Forced to Marry about forced marriage in the United Kingdom. The women, who are said to be "highly traumatised", are now in safe accommodation.

The two suspects were bailed until April 2014, and were unable to return to the three-bedroom flat they rented from a housing association.

On 11 December 2014, it emerged that Aravindan Balakrishnan had been charged with offences relating to cruelty to a person under 16, four counts of rape and 17 counts of indecent assault. Balakrishnan appeared before Westminster magistrates on 17 December 2014. His wife, Chanda Pattni, was released earlier in 2014, as there was considered to be insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. Balakrishnan's trial started on 11 November 2015. On 4 December 2015, Balakrishnan was convicted of child cruelty, false imprisonment, four counts of rape, six counts of indecent assault and two counts of assault. On 29 January 2016, Balakrishnan was jailed for 23 years.