RedHanded - Episode 386 - The Kidwelly Sex Cult

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Through the early 2000s, a satanic, paedophilic sex cult, with dozens of members and an obsession with Ancient Egyptian iconography, ran totally undetected in an unassuming cul-de-sac in south Wales. And its depraved, shabby and mostly toothless kingpin, Colin Batley, was perhaps the most unlikely cult leader imaginable…For over a decade, Batley used his twisted free-love philosophy to groom the children of his besotted followers – some as young as seven – into believing that their ‘spiritual path’ was to satisfy his sinister desires. And that was only the beginning…Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. Before we kick off this week's episode, we have got some extraordinarily exciting news for you. Wondry's Exhibit C, a true crime cruise, is happening and it's happening from January the 26th to the 30th, 2026. Setting sail from Miami, Florida to Nassau in the Bahamas. And this exclusive voyage has got all sorts. It's got your favourite podcast hosts, true crime experts, interactive workshops and opportunities for you to connect with other True Crime fans on the high seas. The full talent line-up was just announced and I and Ceruti, both of us, are on that list.

We can't wait to meet you on board. Make sure you sign up for the pre-sale before the 26th of February to secure your spot for the best choice of cabin. If you're a Wanderer Plus subscriber and you are listening to us on Wanderer Plus right now this second, you can get some special perks on board. Go to exhibitseacruise.com for even more juicy, juicy details. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed.

Yes, my sincerest apologies to Michael, my lovely sound engineer who's helping me in Cape Town. We're about to ruin his day with this story. It's about to get real bad. And also, like really unbelievable. I think that's the thing with this story is I just cannot believe, I cannot believe that I did not know about this story. Same, same. Like even if you Google the town, like barely nothing comes up.

It's bonkers. It is like every satanic, panic, toting, 80s Americans fucking wet dream. And it all went down in a little Welsh village. Robes and all. So let's get into it. I have ruined the little drama we tried to create with the first paragraph, but fuck it. We're all a family here. Let's do it. So imagine the scene. It's hot. Far too hot. A young girl, just 14, wipes sweat from her brow beneath the weight of the heavy hooded robe that she's been told to wear for this solemn ceremony.

Around her, cloaked figures bow their heads at an altar displaying delicately carved statues of Egyptian gods and goddesses. The air is dense and heavy with incense smoke. Rhythmic chanting fills the room, strange and indecipherable. The girl sways on her feet, growing dizzier by the second. The gilded faces of Egyptian gods swim before her blurry eyes. Jackals, scarabs and eagles shimmering in the flickering light like a mirage. Are we in the ancient valley of the kings? No, as I've already ruined,

we're in the valleys of South Wales. And if you want to know what the hell is going on here, you'd better sit tight and listen and be prepared to suspend quite a lot of disbelief today. sit tight and listen and be prepared to suspend quite a lot of disbelief today. In 2010, a story emerged that shocked the sleepy Welsh seaside town of Kidwelly to its very core. Beyond the tidy red brick houses and manicured lawns on the quiet cul-de-sacs of Clos Ionan, or Ashtrey Close in stupid English, a paedophilic sex cult had been lurking in plain sight for over a decade. A deluge of sordid details broke loose from satanic-inspired sermons and brainwashed sister wives branded with hieroglyphic tattoos to shadowy black magic rituals that spiraled

into depraved orgies involving children. And at the top of this twisted pyramid, the world's least sexy cult leader. Don't Google him yet, we're going to get there, but you will be entirely reviled. And all of the revelations that we have for you this week churned up a tidal wave of satanic panic right here in the UK and put rural whales on the map for all of the wrong reasons. So welcome to Red-Handed. Stay tuned for the chillingly true story of the Kidwelly sex cult. Sorry. Yeah. So for this story we really need to begin with the villain of the piece, a man named Colin Batley. Because all of the craziness really does start with him.

Growing up in Shoreditch, East London, not far at all from where I'm currently sat. Quite far from where I am. Very far from where Hannah is. Colin Batley had a rough start to life. According to Batley, his late father, a lorry driver, had sexually abused him as a child. And despite working briefly as a night security guard at Tesco's and running a fruit and veg stall at one point, Batley was pretty much unemployed and on the dole for most of his life. Isn't there someone else that's super famous and awful that was also a fruit and veg stall

person? Greg Wallace. Yeah, Greg Wallace. The villain of the 21st century. No, I know. If you look at the front pages of every newspaper, then yes, that would be the case. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know now that you mentioned that. Somebody is screaming at us. Yeah, I know. And no doubt it will be in the comment section of this on Instagram.

So you know, that'd be a fun surprise for us. Is it Millie Dowler's killer? Levi, Belfield? Levi, Belfield. Or maybe, maybe I'm just making that up. It's not important. Never mind. Oh, when I Google Levi, Belfield fruit, it comes up with fruit and veg.

No, I think it's apparently the reason it comes up because I was like, oh my god, Hannah has like remembered this incredible thing because it was like Levi Belfield, F R U and it was straight away like fruit and veg and I was like, oh my god, it must be him. No, the reason it comes up is because Wayne Cousins, the fucking piece of shit that killed Sarah Everard and of course the other piece of shit, Belfield who killed Milly Dowler are insisting in prison that they be offered an all vegan diet and that is why it's going on. Well I may have been wrong but at least we got a good fact out of it. So yeah, Batley, pretty uninspiring life for the first part of it at least because he eventually

Hannah finds his true calling as a dubious cult leader. Batley was a small-time petty criminal before this who scraped a living through gambling and the black market. But at the centre of Batley's world, and what probably set him on that path to wanting to become a cult leader, was one thing and one thing only. Sex. Now, while we don't have the specific offences, like the details of the specific offences

that Colin Batley seems to have committed throughout his early years, Colin Batley was later described by a judge as having been a quote sexual abuser from the age of 12, who had dedicated his life to satisfying his sexual urges by whatever means at his disposal. So it was a match made in hell when as a young man, Batley started taking notice of the esoteric teachings of none other than Alastair Crowley, who is of course the Victorian era occultist and certified Beelzebub bad boy. Also named his son Ataturk.

Oh. Yes. If you hear someone say Alistair Crowley, even if they are in Black Sabbath, they're wrong. It is Crowley. And I know that because not only have I spent probably more time than anyone should looking at Satanism in all its various forms, but we did do a shorthand on Aleister Crowley, the beast.

I think last year at some point, I can't keep track. So go and check that out over on Amazon Music or Wondry Plus. If you want to find out, highly recommend. It's, uh, I don't even know how to describe it. It's all just a bit stupid. Yeah, I would concur. And if you are in or around Hastings in the UK, which is in Sussex, famously, not Kent, he is buried there, I think.

No way. Hastings feels like the kind of place. I'm pretty sure. It feels like the kind of place. I'm pretty sure. It feels like the kind of place. He definitely died in Hastings, but I think he put a curse on Hastings before he died that was like, if you are born here, live here, you will never leave. So there's this like, kind of, I guess, folklore myth legend that if you carry a specific type of stone with a hole in it from the beach, then you're allowed to leave. Like fucking Dracula. Oh my God. Okay, I have figured out where he is and he is not in Hastings, though that is where he does.

He's in Hove. No, he's not in the UK at all, Hannah. Oh, that's right. Yes, yes, yes. So he was actually cremated after he died of chronic bronchitis in 1947 and his ashes are actually buried in the garden of Carl Germer in Hampton, New Jersey. Yes, Carl Germer, interesting guy. Not on my bingo card.

Well, I'm sure we put it in the shorthand. So the guy who bought, who acquired his ashes, the letters he wrote in the Second World War is one of the reasons we know so much about specific concentration camps because he wrote letters and he sent them. So he's a really interesting person. That is interesting. And actually speaking of that, we also do have a shorthand on people who collect weird true crime memorabilia. That's true.

Morbid memorabilia. So if you're interested in learning more about that, you can also go check out shorthand. This isn't just a continuous plug for shorthand, but we've covered a lot by now. We've been doing it for years. We absolutely have. And yeah, go and learn some stuff. But what you need to know contextually for today's episode is that Alastair Crowley is basically considered to be the OG big daddy of modern day Satanism, which is a very specific thing. Anyway, Alastair Crowley did not worship Satan at all. There's a really good documentary called American Satan which explains it all. Go and watch that. Crowley, like all people who are obnoxious, was born into a very wealthy

and hyper-religious family in Victorian England in, can you remember where he was born? Lamington Spa. He was born in Royal Lamington Spa, that is correct. And he spent his whole adolescence, I would say, rejecting the strict Christian dogma that he grew up with. And as he developed into a man, embraced a fuck around and find out attitude to absolutely everything. And he went on all sorts of Hellenistic travels to Egypt, India, Morocco. He had a little island in Italy where he was banished from. He's not only the OG Satanist, he's also just like the early era, like obnoxious traveler who is coming back and doing yoga while he drinks like a Cockerels blood and tells you

about Satanism or something. Yeah. Yes. He was on an eternal gap year to find himself and meaning in the world. Yeah. But it's also like when people go to India for a summer and then come back and then tell me like, Oh my God, have you tried turmeric? It's so good for him from Asia.

And I'm like, have I, with my brown face ever tried turmeric and milk? My mother has been making me drink turmeric milk since I was a baby. Shut the fuck up. And I've always been lactose intolerant. That's Alastair Crowley. But with some, you know, with some Satanism thrown in. Yes. And lots of ancient Egyptian gods, they're his particular favourite. He was fascinated by the esoteric folk beliefs that he encountered all over the world, and he incorporated elements

of them into his own religion, which he called Thelema, the Temple of Thelema, look it up. And you might have heard of that, because it's got some pretty famous acolytes like Peaches Geldof who infamously got a tattoo of the initials of the order which is Ordo Templi Orientis, so OTO. She got that tattoo a year before she died from a heroin overdose in 2014. Crowley also penned several books including Equinox of the Gods, the Book of Magic, spelled with a CK, kill me. He invented that. He invented that. And then the central Thelemite text and the most famous of his works, the Book of the Law, which he claimed was dictated to him by a spiritual entity named Aiwas in 1904. If I'm not mistaken, that was dictated to him in the desert.

Oh, I'm sure you're not. I'm sure he is. I'm sure you're not. So despite not subscribing to the traditional monotheistic belief system of there being a god and therefore his opposite, the devil, Crowley got branded as a Satanist pretty quickly by his contemporaries. He was dubbed the wickedest man in the world, gaining infamy for his freewheeling sexual antics with girls and guys, also his rampant drug abuse and, of course, his involvement in freaky black magic rituals whilst getting frisky. And Crowley leaned in hard to this association with the Beardy Goat Guy. His own mother even called him the Beast when he was a child, which Crowley reveled in and

strived to live up to in his later life. She does call him the beast because he raped his maid. That's why she calls that. It's not just you naughty boy. Oh, look at my baby. He's so chunky. he's such a beast. He's a rapist. He raped our mate. It's really bad. Oh god, yeah, honestly, go listen to The Short Hand, it's all in there. But if we're honest, talking about Aleister Crowley, the whole Satan thing was mainly

just branding for him. He didn't truly worship the devil as a spiritual construct. His beliefs were almost completely about sex, and more specifically, sexual freedom. The central tenet of Thelema is, quote, do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will. Which basically translates to, everyone just be a slut and do whatever you want. It doesn't matter. Love is love. Yeah, it's more like I will cast off the structures of society and if I want to fuck my sister I will. That's basically it.

But obviously this kind of philosophy can go rogue pretty easily when you've got some bad actors involved. Because when the only rule is that there are no rules, you're probably going to have some problems. Some Crowley stans have been inspired by his works to break taboos and push the limits of sexual exploration into some pretty dark fucking places. Kelsa Preece. And this, unsurprisingly, appealed very much so to a dirtbag like Colin Batley.

Batley married his wife Elaine in the early 80s, and they had several children including a son called Damien, give it a rest, and a younger daughter. But by the 90s, Batley just wasn't content with a traditional nuclear family. He was keen to follow in Crowley's footsteps and build a spiritual flock of his very own. And so what if Batley didn't actually know what he was going on about? Well, Masey can read to be honest. Anyway, academic Mog Mawton, who is a real-life Thelemite, they do exist, they are out there, slams Batley as a moral cretin whose superficial knowledge of Thelema was based on unsupervised reading and uninformed

secondary sources. That's my favorite thing. Have you been doing some more unsupervised reading? I'm not happy about that. It's such a dig. Such a like savage academic takedown. Yeah. You know what you're talking about, little boy.

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You can listen to redacted early and ad free right now on Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Redacted early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Being an actual royal is never about finding your happy ending, but the worst part is if they step out of line or fall in love with the wrong person, it changes the course of history. I'm Arisha Skidmore Williams. And I'm Brooke Zephrin. We've been telling the stories of the rich and famous on the hit, wonder show, Even the Rich, and talking about the latest celebrity news on Rich and Daily.

We're going all over the world on our new show, Even the Royals. We'll be diving head first into the lives of the world's kings, queens, and all the wannabes in their orbit throughout history. Think succession meets the crown meets real life. We're going to pull back the gilded curtain and show how royal status might be bright and shiny, but it comes at the expense of, well,

everything else. Like your freedom, your privacy, and sometimes even your head. Follow Even The Royals on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Even The Royals early and ad free right now by joining Wondery+. Anyway, like everything else in Batley's life, this bargain bin bastardization of Crowley's philosophy was just a tool that he used to get himself laid. If I haven't banged on about this enough, I'm in Cape Town right now and I was driving the other day and South Africans, instead of saying beep the horn, they say hoot. So there was a sign that said, on the side of the motorway, that said no hooting. And then the next sign was emus getting laid. So they didn't want people

to like beep the emu so they stop fucking each other. But getting back to Batley and his, I don't want to say perversion of what Crowley was saying to get laid because I do think Crowley would have been incredibly proud of like what was going on, like Batley using his teachings and his philosophy to get sex. But crock of shit or not, Batley was absolutely making it work. And by the late 90s, he'd gathered a devoted bunch of groupies who hung off his every rancid breath. And most of these followers turned out to be women, with young children.

But if you're thinking that this put a fly in the ointment of Batley's plans for a sexy satanic coven, think again, because this was all part of Batley's intentional strategy to snare his victims as young as possible, brainwashing them into catering to his every sick whim. That's right, friends. Peto Alert. One of the mums caught up in Colin's web was Jacqueline Marling, but everyone called her Jackie. And like Colin Batley, Jackie hailed from East London. She grew up in Poplar, which is where Saruti and I met, in my property guardianship flat. And my neighbor had an ISIS flag in their window.

It was the perfect place to start a True Crime podcast. It certainly was. Like my friend came to visit me and she was like, do you live in EastEnders? I was like, Liza, you have no idea. It's worse. Way worse. Way worse. I had to go to the laundrette because I didn't have a washing machine for ages and the laundrette had a sign that said no spitting in the bin. So that is what we're dealing with. And I don't care if you want to come for me for slagging off Poplar because I'm right.

Anyway, after a brief stint as a dental nurse, Jackie went on benefits and by the late 90s she was living in a rundown East End block of flats with her two daughters, who we're going to call Annabel and Olivia for obvious reasons, they are not their real names, but that's what we're going to run with. But you should remember Annabelle's fake name because years later she'd go on to write a memoir about her harrowing experiences in Batley's cult titled Devil on the Doorstep. This book is how I found out about this case. So we know, you know, we all know that anytime we do anything about satanic panic, anything we do anything about like the devil, demons, etc.

You guys love it. They are like consistently very high performing episodes for us. So obviously if I see a book that is titled Devil on the Doorstep and then I read the blurb and it is about a bloody paedophilic sex cult complete with robes and ancient Egyptian statues that went down in Wales. Honestly, draw on the floor that I'd never heard about this before, but it's a very good book and you should definitely go and read it. The book's ghostwriter is called Katie Weitz and she was reflecting on Jackie's fascination

with Batley from those early days in London. And Katie Weitz and she was reflecting on Jackie's fascination with Batley from those early days in London. And Katie Weitz suggests that Batley had a quote, certain aura that convinced his lovesick female followers that he truly did have access to a higher realm. 100 aura points for Colin Batley. Am I done with the kids yet? I don't know. I think it's too late for us. I think we just need to let it go. We're old now. Do you know what? I'm so fine with that. I was coming up to the studio today and Seb, producer Seb was helping me set up and it's his birthday on Friday and he was like, oh,

I'm turning 28. And I was like, I'm gonna push you down these fucking stairs with my elderly knees. And he was like, how old are you through like 33? I was like, I'm gonna push you down these fucking stairs with my elderly knees." And he was like, how old are you, Saru? Like 33? I was like, and the fucking resume. I'm 35. I'm gonna be 36 this year. Shut up. Help me plug this all in. Because I don't know how many of it works. Falls out your brain when you turn 35. Yeah, so we're looking at some pictures of Batley. So now you are allowed to go and Google him. Yeah.

Not, not a lot of teeth going on. No, maybe that's why he wanted a dental nurse like Jackie around, but I think it's too late. Maybe. I think it's too late. A dental nurse is a very steady job. It is, but she was like, I want to join this fucking weird sex cult. But I don't know. If you look at pictures of him, look at pictures of Colin Batley now, Hannah and I are looking also and there you go, there's the man, the myth, the legend,

the piece of shit that he was. I don't know how we're talking about the same person. And look, I am, I'm all in agreement that like looks and charisma don't necessarily like match up perfectly. You can of course be less conventionally attractive and still you know be super charismatic. But with Colin Batley, it is so extreme. Like he looks like a six foot three owl with one tooth. It's bad. Like it's really, really bad because Colin Batley is definitely not what you would picture as like a charismatic cult leader surrounded by like a harem of women. He's a scruffy guy with this long, straggly, greasy hair and only a few teeth, maybe only one tooth. And what would he typically be wearing? His everyday

uniform consisted of stained tracksuit bottoms and footfall shirts. And his signature scent? The lingering perfume of the Dorchester cigarettes that he chain-smoked. Definitely more of like a haggard Jimmy Savile than a Charles Manson, I'd say. But, you know, what do I know? But Batley must have had something about him. A certain pull that made women stop and listen to his ramblings about the church. Maybe it was the occult theatrics, the Egyptology-inspired tattoos, the silken robes, the dark mystique. To a certain kind of woman, that combination of mystery and menace was irresistible, clearly.

Whatever Colin Batley's secret was, we'll probably never know, but it worked. By 1997, his so-called Church had grown to an impressive 17 members, and Batley even managed to convince several of his followers to uproot their lives from the East End and move with him to Kidwelly in South Wales, bringing their kids along for the ride. According to one former member, Batley claimed that the occult was strong in Wales. Pfft. Um, I don't know. Yeah.

I guess, I mean, there's a lot of Celtic folklore kicking around. I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to say. No, but I think what's actually going on here is like, South Wales, the valleys of South Wales for Batley is, you know, his Guyana, basically. Oh, 100%, he ain't got Guyana money. No, he's not. He's got South Wales, the valleys money. And so that's where he goes.

And it is interesting though that I do think like there are other groups that have operated out of this part of Wales, all Wales in general, and I do think it is probably something to do with how rural it is, the isolation of, you know, less population, fewer people asking questions, etc. And maybe this belief in that there is something to do with the occult there, because there's another group that I have come across, which I definitely think we should do an episode on later, is the Order of the Nine Angels. And it's just like, it's absolutely batshit. It's like some sort of like white supremacist, satanic, left-hand

path, militant, occultist terrorist network because they have committed acts of terrorism. Yeah, obscure Nazi Satanists hanging out in South Wales as well. So bad stuff. Yeah, we put them in, I always want to say I'm a Mivus. It's not I'm a Mivus. I'm a Norwegian and I am racist. And is brave it? Yes. Yes. Who am I? a Mivus. I'm a Norwegian and I am racist. And is bravish? Yes. Yes. Who am I? Red-handed version.

Yeah, we briefly touched on the order of the nine angels in that episode right at the end, but I also think I did say nine angles, but... Possibly. There we go. It is angles. You're right. It is. I'm saying it wrong. It's the order of the nine angles because I remember reading about them recently and I kept reading angels and then I double checked myself and it's actually angles. So you are right. It's the order of the nine angles.

Well whatever I said in Anders Bravik was wrong. I can't remember. Anyway we could talk about mysticism in Wales all day long, but we're not going to. Batley's mystical excuse for getting everyone to Wales was much more likely to be a smokescreen for a far more practical motive, the classic isolating his followers to tighten his grip on their lives. We've seen it time and again, it is rule number one in the sexual abuse playbook. And this unassuming quiet town in South West Wales, where the church members knew nobody but each other, was the perfect place for Batley to test the limits of what

he could get away with. Journalist Bob Arthur describes the area as remote, and Insula, a place where people can vanish if they choose to. There are all sorts of alternative lifestyles underway down there. Tucked away, no one can see them. No one knows what's happening. And in this idyllic corner of the world, Colin Batley was building his own little kingdom to rule. Now, Jackie Marling, dental nurse, had never exactly been the warm and fuzzy type of mother. Her daughter Annabel says that Jackie quote,

glided through my childhood like a shark, a sleek, dark, brooding presence, a vaguely threatening outline on my horizon. That's such a good description of this like just kind of omnipotent toxic mother figure that she is in, in this child's life. Because yeah, I mean, obviously foreshshadowing everything we're about to tell you. Jackie Marling, you are in the fucking mother bin for me. Now, before moving to Wales, Annabel at least had the support of a close family network, including her aunts and grandparents in East London. But in this strange new country, that safety net was pulled out

from under her. And at just seven years old, Annabelle was about to meet an even more dangerous beast than her shark of a mother. Or be it one with far fewer teeth. Nice. One night soon after the move to Wales, Annabelle remembers being woken up by her mum and asked to go downstairs to where a strange man was sitting in the armchair. He was cast in darkness with candles lit all around him. Annabel wrote in her book, I could just make out his face in the flickering candlelight.

Black hair fell long and greasy around his angular cheeks. He had a wide mouth, thin lips, and wore large square black glasses. And when he spoke, I saw he had very few teeth. In fact, it looked like he only had one tooth. Confused and sleepy, seven-year-old Annabel watched Jackie's head bobbing up and down over the man's lap as he rambled about spiritual stuff that she could not make any sense of. Batley was saying, the church will be your life now, and everyone in the church will be working towards the same end. You have a new role, a chance to be something special, to make something of your life. Classic cult fucking bullshit. Oh my God.

It is, it's so typical. What's already started here. This idea of like, your life will mean nothing if you do not join this church. This is your one true opportunity to make something of yourself. And all the while, like, oh my God, obviously we all know what's going on. It's fucking horrific. When Batley's clammy hands pulled seven-year-old Annabelle closer by the back of her legs, she saw that her mum, Jackie, ex-dental nurse, was giving him oral sex. Which I'm sure…

Yeah. Yeah, you could have done without me explaining, but here we are anyway. Annabelle obviously didn't know what she was looking at. And as Annabel stared on in confusion, she heard these chilling, raspy words. I'll have you one day, Annabel. One day, when your periods start, I will have you. And while she didn't understand what was being said to her, Annabel did know that this man was very powerful. He seemed to be exercising a strange command over her usually cold and

distant mother. And ringing in Annabel's ears were the strange words that that man had chanted. That the church would be her life now. Annabel's family had never been religious before, so what did this mean? Well, she was about to find out. Now honestly, we have no idea how Colin Batley managed to orchestrate moving his entire cult into a row of council houses on the same street. But somehow, the Weasley Toothless Bastard did it. And by the early 2000s, several church families had followed him to Wales and ended up living on the same small cul-de-sac in Kidwelly.

These Londoners formed a tight-knit group who didn't mix with the Welsh locals. So they formed a sort of broad, extended clan made up from several smaller family units. Now, there are too many people involved in this to name all of them, and it's just going to get confusing if we do. And to be honest, a lot of the cult members flew under the radar. There are too many people involved in this to name all of them and it's just going to get confusing if we do. And to be honest, a lot of the cult members flew under the radar. So for now, the only ones you really need to know about are Annabelle and Colin Batley's families who were next door neighbours on Ashtree Close.

Annabelle remembers Colin's wife Elaine as becoming like a second mum to her and Batley's daughter, who's referred to as Hope in the memoir, became Annabelle's new sister. From the moment she moved on to the cul-de-sac, Annabelle stopped being lonely. And Colin Batley stopped seeming so scary as well. Now he was just her best friend's dad, and more importantly the head of their church. In his role as high priest or prince priest, Batley called all of the shots in their small community, even when it came to money, which again, cult leader rule number two, get your hands on all of it, because then they can't leave. When church members received benefits, they had to immediately

hand them over to Batley, and he would redistribute them however he saw fit. He would give Jackie just 20 quid to pay the gas and electric bills and 50 quid for a big shop at Asda once a fortnight. And look, I know I've trotted this line out before but I've got to. Not in this fucking economy. 50 quid for a fucking fortnightly shop for an entire family. An extended family with sister wives. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Aster is banging them. And after all of the shopping was done and all of the bills were paid, the rest of the benefits money that he had collected went straight to the church, which obviously just means straight into his pocket. Batley called his community the Church of the BPH,

although nobody actually told Annabel what BPH stood for. But that didn't matter too much. Membership of the BPH came with a set of very specific rules. Drinking and swearing were banned, and the female members of the sect had to refer to Colin Batley as My Lord. The adult women were all also branded with Egyptian-themed tattoos of the Eye of Horus and the Ankh, supposedly as protection from dark powers.

These tattoos later had coloured ink added to them to symbolise the member's rank. Annabelle remembers her mother Jackie boasting about hers. It was a dark mauve, because this meant she was high up in the church's hierarchy. The women also wore upside down cross necklaces, because he is as beta as they fucking come. And of course, anybody who's ever watched any sort of fucking exorcism movie will know that of course the upside-down necklace is a symbol linked to Satanism. The group even did naked meditation sessions for hours and hours each day in front of makeshift altars populated with

figurines of Egyptian deities. Egypt in fact was a major craze for the church. Members were expected to fill their houses with framed artwork of the gods, which it was forbidden to turn once back on, even if you wanted to leave the room. You basically had to shuffle backwards to avoid disrespecting these ancient Egyptian god paintings you had to have in your house. Criminologist Elizabeth Yardley describes the iconography used by the cult as a powerful way for Batley to maintain a culture of fear, especially for the kids who were of course intimidated by the symbols of scary gods, scarab beetles, jackals and mummies.

And the reason Crowley has so much to do with Egypt is his argument is that they are the first and only gods, like they were here first and any other, iteration of any other religion is them in a different disguise. Nah, I've seen Graham Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse. The very first rule of church club was not to talk about church club. It was forbidden for church children to mix with non-church kids outside of school or mention anything about their faith under any circumstances. As a cover, Batley instructed everyone to tell anyone who asked them what they were doing, what their religion was, who they were following.

He just said to say that they were Mormons. Which is weird. It's weird that cult leader would not want other people to know what it is they're doing because maybe he was aware of his limitations and he was just like, we can't get any bigger. I don't want more people to join. I don't want more people to know what we're on about. Let's just say we're Mormons. Nobody wants to join that shit. Like, I don't know. What is his motivation there for saying they're Mormons? I think firstly, there just aren't that many Mormons in the UK, right? But everyone knows the word and they're like, oh, okay. So whereas like Jehovah's Witnesses are a lot more common,

so people are more likely to know that what they're doing definitely isn't what Jehovah's Witnesses do, but they don't know too much about Mormons perhaps, but they just know it's weird and they don't like it. And it was quite an impressive way of shutting down any line of questioning because nobody, let's face it, wants a Mormon to start talking about why they're a Mormon. This is true. So basically what we're saying is if he lets everybody run around telling them that they're in an ancient Egyptian sex cult. That's gonna, you know, ask some questions down the local pub. Yeah, I mean, arguably it's a lot more interesting than being a fucking Mormon.

Yeah, I mean, when does anybody say, oh my god, you're a Mormon? Tell me more. Unless you are Hugh Grant and you're going to murder them in your fucking rape dungeon. And that's not an accusation against Hugh Grant. Oh my god, go watch her too. Do you watch it in the end? I haven't watched it yet, no, no. Spoilers. In the 1980s, a rose swept the country. Hey Mike, I really like this white Zinfandel. Well good, good. Now put it down, I'm going to try another one. White Zin became America's top-selling wine. But most don't know that this sweet drink has a sour history. What began in 1986 with counterfeit bottles… A big fraud. A multi-million dollar fraud.

Sent investigators chasing one of the most powerful families in the business, the Lacharties. But the closer the feds got to them, the more dangerous things became. It's a story of deceit, threats, and murder. What started with a scheme to mislabel wine spilled into a blood-soaked battle for succession. Welcome to Blood Vines. You can binge listen to Blood Vines exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts, or Spotify. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music

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listen to the rise and fall of getting exclusively with wondering plus. And years later, Annabelle realized how ironic this Mormon lie was because famously apart from those Mormon moms on that show, as a Mormon you are supposed to follow quite strict chastity rules. But within Batley's church the rule was a bit different. It was, let all chaste women be despised. But to Annabelle and the other church kids, it just didn't seem that weird. Other people had religion in their lives. The only difference, as far as Annabelle could see, was that they just weren't allowed to talk about theirs. And Colin Batley took extreme care to make his church seem legitimate to those on the inside.

He was always banging on about how they were just a small chapter of a much larger organization that had its headquarters in France, with many powerful members around the world, including celebrities. With the assurance that they were just a tiny cog in a big machine, everything went on. And there was a subtle threat that other people higher up the chain could enforce their power if they had to. So no one really dared to question the Church of who knows what. Another key part of Church life was the weekly worship meetings. But, as you can probably guess, this is not your average Sunday school. Although incidentally they did take place

on a Sunday. In these sessions, Batley would read for hours from the church's version of the Bible, which was of course Alistair Crowley's The Book of the Law. Meetings were conducted with a heavy air of secrecy, with incense burning and statuettes of Egyptian gods arranged on a makeshift altar. Batley held court, reading long sections from Crowley's various books, which he'd had specially laminated because there's probably all sorts of horrible bodily fluids splashing about later. And of course he would bore the children to absolute tears.

That's why the pages are laminated, to catch their tears of boredom. Oh no, I don't even want to know what he does with them. Bill Bailey had a really good bit about Argos years ago. And like, you know, in the day, like when you go back into Argos and the pages were laminated and the big joke is- The good old days. Yeah. Bill Bailey being like, it's to catch the tears of joy.

So I have stolen that joke from Bill Bailey. I'm sure he will forgive me. So while the kids are crying all over the Argos catalog that is Alastair Crowley's book of the law. The adults seemed deeply engaged and would jump at the chance to ask questions about various sections at the end of each session. That's the worst because you know they're not all interested and then you've got the fucking losers who were like, hey, get another, shut the fuck up. We're never going to fucking leave. But that's how they went down, and so these questions would come flooding in. But whenever Batley couldn't quite explain something, he would claim it was quote,

governed by church secrecy, which conveniently prevented him from elaborating. Even as a child, Annabel could see the quite stark contradictions in Batley's sermons. Like the often repeated phrase, every man and woman is a star, which was supposed to mean all the church members were equal. It's like, it's the equivalent of like ashes to ashes, dust to dust, like you are dust and to dust you will return. It's like that. But Annabel knew that that was all complete bollocks.

It was very clear there was a hierarchy within the church. Batley was at the top. He was the prince priest, and then it was Elaine, and then it was Jackie, and then it was Sandra, and then it was Shelley. So they weren't all equal at all. Batley talked endlessly about everyone's paths and how they could climb higher in the church. So how was Annabelle supposed to believe that everybody was the same? Annabelle also remembered ritual humiliations during the meetings, another classic where Batley would single someone out to bully each week. Everyone, every week, prayed that it wouldn't be their turn because being in Batley's bad books was not only embarrassing, it had serious spiritual implications.

Falling out of favor meant that you couldn't progress in the church and that you wouldn't make it to the palace, which is what they called their heaven equivalent when you died, which is obviously the most powerful thing you can say to a religious person. Like most cult leaders, Colin Batley wrapped his spiritual authority around his personal power, casting himself as a messiah figure who was intimately connected to the gods. And as Annabel put it, he ruled our little community with an iron will. We were made to do what he ordered

for fear of angering the gods. And while Annabel never saw Colin Batley actually hit anyone, no one would tell anyone if he had hit them anyway. He was volatile and unpredictable, often raising his fist to make people flinch and then laughing at their fear. At six foot three, Batley's imposing presence added to the sense of threat he enjoyed wielding over his flock, largely made up of, remember, women and children. Like his idol, Alastair Crowley, Batley leaned into his connection to Satan, the beast, to

intimidate his followers into obedience. One of the rules was to never look Batley in the eyes, with him warning, if you stare too long, you'll see into the abyss where there's nothing but suffering." So yeah, he's just on a full like power trip. Very Eddie Lee Sexton, isn't it? Very much so, very much so. And he just had to keep adding to it, adding to it, adding to it because he soon started roaming around the streets of this small town in Wales with two massive Rottweilers. And their names were

Toots, which is adorable, but it was short for Toot and Carmoon because he's such a fucking dork. And the other dog was called Sikhet, after the Egyptian goddess. And Batley called Toots and Zickette his dogs from hell, Satan's own canines. Fucking hell. I know. He's such a fucking bellend. Can you remember what Dennis Nilsen's dog was called? Ah, Flash? Bleep. Bleep. Ah.

I remembered that the other day. I kept thinking Pop It, but that was Ian and Myra's. Yes. Yes. Yeah, Ian and Myra's was Poppet. Ugh, hideous. Ugh, I know. So yes, Colin Batley had his disciples, especially the children, utterly under his fearsome spell.

They totally believed his words to be true and followed his every command, terrified of both the earthly and spiritual consequences of disobeying him. So, of course, the stage was set for even darker horrors to unfold. Annabelle was first raped by Colin Batley when she was just 11. It was the summer holidays, and she and the other kids were playing outside in the communal back garden. They'd long since torn down the fences between the church houses, making every day feel like a permanent sleepover with your best mate. They also had a bouncy castle in the garden. Annabelle was feeling hot so she went up to her room to cool down and Batley followed her.

She remembers the pain as he pinned her down on the bed and did things to her that she didn't understand and she also remembers the stale cigarette smell on his breath. I don't think I've ever talked about someone's breath so much in my life. It's making me feel sick. Honestly, it's such a like pervasive thing that comes up again and again and again when like Annabelle talks about him and any of the other followers who do talk about him mention it. And he is just that kind of person that you look at and you're like, yeah, it's going to be real bad. If you've only and you're like, yeah, it's going to be real bad. If you've only got one tooth in your head, it's probably going to be real

bad. Annabelle though, not understanding what was going on, tilted her head and stared at her wallpaper, which was blue with white clouds. And she imagined floating away on them. She didn't know what happened to her, but she did think quite instinctively that this was one of the things governed by the church secrecy that Batley was always banging on about. Afterwards, Batley dished up hot dogs and burgers on the barbecue like nothing had happened. But for Annabelle, everything had changed. The abuse continued regularly from that point on.

Colin Batley sold it to Annabel as a series of tests designed to help her progress within the church, and also, of course, to secure her place in the palace in the afterlife. But Annabel knew she didn't like the tests and didn't want to do them. But Batley said that in his role as Prince Priest, he communicated directly with the gods, and that they had told him that she had a special destiny to fulfil. Crucially, Batley always made Annabel believe that it was her choice. He used spiritual jargon to confuse her, invoking the concept of pure will, a twisted version of Aleister Crowley's Thelemite teaching of true will, which insists everyone is responsible

for their own path in life. Batley told Annabel, This is the only way to fulfil your path and your true will, the way to prove yourself to the gods Horus, Basset, Anubis, Nuit and Isis, to prove you're worthy of the special status they've given you, worthy of entering the palace. If she passed all the tests, Batley promised that Annabelle would become a priestess, a goddess. So, when Batley asked his 11-year-old victim if she wanted to embark on her spiritual path

like this. Of course she said yes. How could she not? Annabelle was just a child. She couldn't consent, but she didn't know that at the time. And this is a common tactic used by sexual abusers, even outside of a cult setting. Abusers manipulate victims into believing that they are choosing to engage in this behaviour, which leaves them feeling guilty, ashamed and unable to recognise the abuse for what

it is. As the abuse escalated to most nights, Annabelle felt numb and powerless. There was no point in asking for help because Batley had absolute power over his home in the cul-de-sac and everybody in the church. And she couldn't tell anyone at school either because they were outsiders. I do think it's surprising they're letting them all go to school. It's probably just to keep the heat off them because, you know, they're living in council houses. They're obviously going to be known to social services possibly, especially with that many kids in

one area that they're isolating themselves from the community. And maybe Colin Batley is not the stupidest man on the planet. And maybe even he realized that if all of the kids don't go to school, people are going to come knocking and asking uncomfortable questions. And probably a bit of a thrill for him as well in a Colleen Stan kind of way. Like I have so much control over these children. They can go to school and not say anything. Absolutely. Annabel describes this period of her life as schoolgirl by day and sex slave by night. And then things took an even more sickening turn. Batley preached that there was no such thing as family in the church, and I think

you can tell where this is going. And that set the stage for a twisted world where incest was not only acceptable, it was encouraged. That's classic Crowley. Batley forced Annabelle into threesomes with him and her mum at just 14, and even instructed Jackie and Annabelle to have sex without him. And as quite often happens to children in this situation, Annabelle reached a totally new level of disassociation. She felt cold and dead to the world, like she was made of stone. Meanwhile, the religious indoctrination continued to escalate. Every few months, the church held thanksgiving ceremonies, making offerings to the Egyptian gods at an altar.

Members wore silky hooded gowns, each color denoting their rank. Light blue for kids and those lower on the spiritual ladder, with dark purple being reserved for higher ranking adults. Importantly, everybody wore nothing underneath the gowns. With incense burning, members took bread and wine, like a goth holy communion, and later they disrobe, or in their words, become sky-clad and embark on a mammoth group sex session. Children were passed around by cult members at these ceremonies, with the events sometimes being filmed on home video cameras. And of course there were other child victims besides Annabel, at least three young girls

and one young boy. But it's unclear exactly how many were involved in these sessions. Like the spider at the centre of a web, Batley reportedly used the church children to lure in other local kids for him to abuse, which is probably another reason why he let them go to school. One female victim says that when she was a teenager, Batley raped her as part of an initiation into the cult, and threatened to have her killed by high-ranking church assassins if she refused. Colin Batley was out of control, but still

he wanted more. To consolidate his power, Batley began pitting the women and girls of the church against each other by preaching about the way of the scarlet woman. As the yet-to-be-identified spiritual wife of the Prince Priest, Batley, obviously, the scarlet woman would allegedly have the power to unite man and woman as a divine savior. And Batley hinted to Annabelle that if she continued to pass all of her tests, she could be a contender to ascend to those dizzying heights. But needless to say, competition for this particular role was fierce. Batley began regularly sending his own wife and daughter away to a caravan for weekends,

during which he'd implemented a new dress code for the girls, teeny weeny skirts and Cleopatra-style makeup, and he told them that they looked like Egyptian goddesses. And in their twisted world, since Batley was the high priest and almost a god himself, they all desperately wanted to be chosen. And despite not officially holding the title of scarlet woman, Jackie clearly considered herself to be at the top of the pack. Her devotion to Colin Batley extended to her calling him her husband, which quite unsurprisingly ruffled the feathers of his actual wife, Elaine. And in October 2004, Jackie gave birth to Colin Batley's baby.

And she named her son, Amos, which apparently means son of God. I don't know in what fucking language, but oh, fine. And that didn't go down particularly well with the other disciples living on Ash Tree Close, because they were all vying for God Colin's approval. By now, Batley was living out his Crowley-esque dreams. The head of his very own cul-de-sac kingdom, with a harem of women and girls fighting over him. But while he was free to pretty much do as he pleased, he still attempted to cover his tracks, in some respects.

When Annabelle was fourteen, he instructed her to start a sexual relationship with cult member Thomas, five years her senior, at nineteen, which would provide a convenient cover for his own sexual abuse, should she ever get pregnant. Still, Batley knew his control over their little world was so strong that he could command his followers like chess pieces on a board. At 16, Annabelle was instructed to have sex with Pete, a boy with learning disabilities that she'd grown up with, and she was forced to do this while her mum Jackie filmed the entire thing. Annabelle felt sick with shame. Pete was

technically her age, but mentally he was a child. It's yet another page ripped right out of the Sexual Abusers Playbook, because the more ashamed you make your victim feel, the less likely they are to speak out. And for Annabel, it was all too much. Unsuccessfully at 17, she tried to take her own life. The next day, Batley told her that he knew exactly what she'd done and it wouldn't work because the gods were protecting her. But actually, he probably just found the empty pill packet she'd left behind. But Annabel didn't think of that. It was another reminder of his omniscient status and how she was totally powerless against him.

Batley was always one step ahead, or at least it seemed so, having weaponized Annabelle's naivety and lack of knowledge of the real world outside the cult. Annabelle had never been to a party, she'd never used social media, she didn't have any friends outside the cul-de-sac and the world which she inhabited. Batley's control over her was so great that he forced her to get a massive scarab beetle tattoo on her arm, branding her for life as a member of the cult. To Annabelle, Colin Batley was everything. Her father, her protector, her lover and her leader. And then the inevitable happened. Her father, her protector, her lover, and her leader. And then the inevitable happened. Annabelle became pregnant. She knew the baby was Batley's. She and her boyfriend, Thomas, always used condoms. When she told Colin Batley, she noticed the shock

flipped over his face, before he claimed that he already knew, as of course she knew he'd say. To Annabelle's relief, Batley initially ordered her to have an abortion, but later he changed his mind, claiming that this baby would be a child of the occult. He threatened that Annabelle would be a murderer if she went through with the termination. It was another choice for Annabelle that wasn't really hers at all. And it killed two birds with one stone for Batley. Not only would a child together make their connection permanent, but Annabelle would be tied down and find it much harder to disentangle herself from the cult.

Still covering his tracks, Batley told Thomas the baby was his, and Thomas, not the sharpest tool in the box, went along with it. And Annabelle found herself more trapped than ever before. In February 2008, a shock rippled through the church. The sudden death of Batley's 25-year-old son, Damian, whose naked body was found hanging from his bedroom door. And the police were on high alert because there'd been a spate of hangings in South Wales. And they were afraid they could all be linked to an online suicide cult. Which maybe they could have been, but Damien at least wasn't one of them.

Footage found on his phone later on proved that his death was an accident. It was a case of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong. Just a really humiliating way to go. Truly. But a favourite of the Conservative MP. Moving on, Annabel saw Batley's genuine shock after learning of his son's death. And she wondered, not for the first time, but she wondered if Batley did truly know everything. He certainly hadn't seen his son's death coming. But Annabel had bigger fish to fry at this particular point in our story. Her baby was due any minute.

And the same week that Damien died, Annabel gave birth to a little girl she called Emily. And for the first time in years, she felt love. When Annabel turned 18, Batley announced that it was time for her to start earning her keep through special work for the church. Jackie and the other female cult members had been doing this for years now, often disappearing for up to days at a time without Annabelle knowing where they were. But now it was Annabelle's turn to find out. It turned out that this meant sex work, with Annabelle and the other women forced to work

24-hour shifts at a brothel called the Paradise Lounge in Bristol. Under the false name Camilla, Annabelle was instructed to charge £60 for oral sex and sex with a condom. While she could keep half of what she made, the rest went to Batley. After each client, the girls had to text Batley the word hello and a string of kisses, with each kiss representing an extra they'd upsold for £20 on top of the standard fee. Pimp Colin was sat on his arse in Wales, 100 miles away, but he managed to come up with

an incentive scheme for the women all the same. As a part of their spiritual quest to become the scarlet women, they had to sleep with 318 men, and then reset and get up to 618, and then they reset again, and then reach 918. Which if you add all of that together, is a body count of 1,854 men. Ugh, my god. And, of course, all this was, was another way to humiliate the girls that Batley controlled. According to Professor Christine Sanderson, an expert in sexual abuse from the University of Roehampton, Batley had already possessed the minds and souls of these women. And proof of that was to enslave them into prostitution.

So now they became merely a commodity. And Colin Batley wasn't just getting sexual gratification. He was making serious money. Batley claimed that the proceeds were going to the church's supposed headquarters in France. But Annabelle knew that this was bollocks. She saw it in the extravagant purchases that he made, like the brand new car that he gifted his daughter hoped. For Annabelle it was maddening.

She was the one who had paid for that car, with her body. In a single year, she'd already slept with over 1,800 men, and was almost at the magic number of 1,854. But by now, the spell had worn off. She knew it all meant nothing. After all, her mum and Shelley had already far exceeded that number, and they were still there. For years, Annabelle had felt dead inside. Her daughter's birth had brought back her capacity to love, but now she felt angry too.

She saw the signs of neglect every time she had to leave baby Emily in Batley's care when she went to work and was terrified he might hurt her too one day. And this is the classic reason we've talked about it before, why cults are very reluctant in some cases for women to have babies because then it gives you a bigger purpose depending on the type of woman that you are. Yeah, it gives you a reason to live. Exactly. And it makes you start, and even if you don't particularly love yourself, but you love that baby, you're probably not going to stick around or you're going to try and find a way out.

And that's exactly what's happening here. And as we suggest, later Annabelle did recall that Batley's fatal mistake was making her a mother. She wrote in her book, when he did that he sowed the seeds of his own destruction. Loving Emily had broken the spell. Annabelle knew it was time to get out, so she hatched an escape plan. She began secretly skimming money from her earnings, feeling a thrill as Colin didn't blink an eye. Along with her boyfriend Thomas, who'd also grown disillusioned with cult life,

Annabelle secretly sought out her ex-stepfather, Alan, via Facebook, and asked for help to escape. Now though Alan didn't know yet the full extent of the cult's darkness, he says he'd always felt that one day a similar call might come, and he agreed to get them out. In the dead of night, Annabelle left a note for Batley, snuck out with Emily in her arms, and climbed into Alan's car. As they drove away, she finally breathed a sigh of relief. They were free. Rebuilding her life after the cult wasn't exactly easy. Having never really been a proper couple, Annabelle and Thomas split up naturally shortly after they escaped. And Thomas ended

up going back to the church. After staying with Alan and his new wife for a bit, Annabel reconnected with family members in the East End and went to stay with them. Until that point, she'd been really cagey about the details of life in Wales, but when Annabel began tentatively opening up about the sexual abuse, she was stunned to learn for the first time that what had happened to her was rape. She'd been brainwashed into thinking that everything that happened to her was a part of her true path and she'd never even considered that it was abuse. And this discovery sent Annabelle off the

rails for a while, quite understandably self-medicating with drink drugs and sex. But after a very close HIV scare with with a nurse telling Annabel she had been very lucky to survive considering her high-risk behavior, Annabel realized it was time to stop running from the past. She needed to face it head-on instead. Annabel needed to get justice. In 2010, Annabel bravely went to the police with her story. A string of arrests were made, including Colin Batley, her mum Jackie Marling, Elaine Batley,

Shelly Miller, and Sandra. We don't know her surname for her. And following these arrests, police continue to investigate the alleged cult. But unsurprisingly, the cult closed ranks and denied knowledge of everything. Video recordings of depraved sex acts were swiftly deleted as church members tipped each other off about the police's inquiries. Even Annabel's fellow sex workers refused to testify against Batley, showing blind loyalty to their lord by insisting he wasn't their pimp.

But Annabelle's voice had turned the tide and more victims began to come forward. And when DNA testing proved conclusively that Colin Batley was indeed the father of Annabelle's child, the web of lies started to tumble down. This was the beginning of the end. He's like a less successful sounds horrible. He's lazy, a lazier, whatever you're about to say. Eddie Lee Sexton. Yeah, I think because Eddie Lee Sexton does all of this shit, but he does it for decades, decades. I think Colin Batley makes mistakes a lot earlier.

Yes. And that's where it all falls down. I think Colin Batley is less smart than Eddie Lee Sexton by quite a stretch. I think he grows the church too big and it's not like multiple people are out of his control, but he's not thinking clearly. He's so wrapped up in his own bullshit and you know letting Annabel keep that child, not that she wanted to but you know what I mean at the start of letting Annabel become a mother was as she says herself the big mistake because he's so arrogant, he's so arrogant

and also he's so lazy, he's so lazy and I think that was ultimately his undoing. You know in our short-lived series Sinister Societies I really do think the more successful cult leaders that we saw were the real business people. They're the ones that succeeded. And Colin Batley just piss in this money away. He doesn't, this sounds awful. He doesn't reinvest all of his ill-gotten gains from forcing these women into selling their bodies, into building church infrastructure, into building

his cult's infrastructure. He just pisses it away on frivolous shit like bloody Egyptian statues because he's a twat. The trial of Colin Batley took place at Swansea Crown Court in February 2011 and it lasted five weeks. Colin Batley's defence strategy was simple, just deny everything. He admitted that he had had sex with Annabelle twice, but claimed that it was all consensual and definitely not tied to any spiritual mumbo jumbo. He also denied following the Book of the Law or Aleister Crowley's teachings, dismissing the cult allegations as a load of rubbish, insisting that he wasn't a leader. He admitted

to a swinging lifestyle with his wife, Elaine, and she was perfectly happy about it, and they had threesomes with Jackie Marling because they were having a long-term affair with her. But as for the cult, according to Codden Batley, it didn't exist, it never had. And he played dumb when asked about his obsession with ancient Egyptian spiritual business, just saying Egypt? Don't mind Egypt. Batley's defense team downplayed the cult allegations because they don't really have a whole lot of options and they tried to paint the whole situation as just a bit of a joke. Batley's lawyer, Kevin Riordan, asked the jury, judging by his overall intellectual

abilities, his looks, his demeanour, is this a modern day Rasputin? Which tells me what you know about Rasputin, my friend. I was going to say, his demeanor. Is this a modern day Rasputin? Which tells me what you know about Rasputin, my friend. I was going to say, famously smelly. No, famously not. Oh, is he not? I thought he smelled like goats. No, he was in bath houses all the time. It was impossible. The mythology surrounding him is like, oh yeah, disgusting, stank like a goat. But every member of the landed gentry is going to think

that an Imperial Russia or someone who's not one of them. Do you know what I mean? I reckon that beard smells. And barrister James Jenkins said that just because they had an interest in Egypt, it doesn't mean they went to Asda and Sharia. All right, James. What? That doesn't make any sense. No it doesn't but come on, look at what he's left them with. Look at what he's left them with. James just like, maybe he's playing like some sort of weird bingo with his colleagues and

he's like, come on, you've got to say that he doesn't go to Asda and Chariot. You've got to say it. But also, we're not really concerned with the 50 quid every Friday night in Asda. We're talking about child sexual abuse. I don't know. I honestly don't know. But the cult just wasn't a bunch of spiritual nutters. Colin Batley had been financially exploiting his members too. The prosecutor, Peter Murphy QC, explained how Batley took at least 25% QC, explained how Batley took at least 25% of any cash that his followers earned. And while Batley insisted that he never received a penny of the £45,000 that the women of the cult made through sex work, he couldn't give a good answer as to how he'd afford it to live so far outside of his means for quite so many years. Like buying a £21,000 luxury caravan

in February 2010 with a cash deposit of just over £3,000, despite being, at the time, unemployed. There is nothing sexy about a caravan. He claimed that he made £10,000 a year breeding pedigree rottweilers and Siamese cats. I honestly read that. I've got my laptop at a weird angle because of the way I'm sat. I honestly thought it said made 10,000 pounds a year breastfeeding pedigree rottweilers. Oh my god. So yeah, he said that it's all down to these animals he's breeding.

And he also said that he went gambling on the dogs and horses. But frankly, the maths just wasn't math-ing. Scrutiny also fell on the co-accused women in Colin Batley's Harim, of course, Elaine Batley, Jackie Marling, and Shelley Miller. Elaine denied the existence of the cult cult but did admit to an interest in ancient Egypt and in Aleister Crowley's work. And she showed the courtroom her tattoos, including the eye of Horus on her arm that she was so terribly proud of. And there was also a pentagram above Egyptian script on her leg and a depiction of Tutankhamun on

her back, along with more Egyptian hieroglyphics that she claimed not to be able to understand, and I believe her. Having split with Batley after the arrests, Elaine accused him of laughing at her from the dock and said that she felt ashamed to be married to him, and she promised that she had changed. But it soon became clear that she was absolutely not an innocent bystander in her ex's reign of terror. Elaine had enabled Batley's sexually inappropriate behavior and had even engaged in sex with underage boys. The judge described her as a willing participant to her husband's wickedness

which I think is a pretty spot-on Until now, Annabel had always felt sorry for Elaine. She thought she was a victim of Colin too, but as the truth poured out, it was very obvious that she was an abuser. And we obviously, I don't really want to bang on too much around Eddie Lee Sexton, but it is burned into my brain forever. So, you know, you live here now. Even if somebody is a victim of abuse themselves, it does not make it fine when they abuse other people. Full stop point blank, the end. It's not an excuse. It's also not the most common path. No. Like yes, most people who sexually abuse people, there is a high percentage of them who have

been sexually abused in the past in their childhood, but most people who were sexually abused in their childhood do not go on to become sexual abusers. No. So fuck off. And Shelly Miller, who also lived within this little community emerged as having a central role in the prostitution ring, admitting to sleeping with about 3000 clients over two years in both Swansea and in Bristol. She was described in court as Colin Batley's sex slave and had also raped a 12 year old boy. Ugh. And while Annabelle's mum Jackie had initially denied ever taking part in

sex work at all, she was forced to change her statement when CCTV evidence was brought forth showing her car making regular trips to brothels in Swansea and in Bristol over a period of several years. And the jury also heard all about Jackie's long-standing affair with Batley and the brief lesbian fling that she had with his wife Elaine. Jackie was exposed at the very heart of Batley's twistedisted Cult and called his right-hand woman. But the most crucial testimony came from the survivors, including Annabel, who bravely spoke via video link to expose the horrific abuse they endured in the cult. Prosecutor Murphy told the jury the offences were committed through relentless psychological

manipulation and fear, using the occult. The victims were brainwashed, terrified, and felt powerless. By testifying, they finally shattered the cult's code of silence, and for the first time people were willing to listen. The jury deliberated for four and a half days before delivering guilty verdicts for nearly all the charges brought against the cult. Colin Batley was found guilty of a whopping 35 offences, including 11 rapes, causing prostitution, and indecency with children.

He was seen smiling and even laughing as the verdicts were read. Jackie was convicted of five offences, including aiding in a betting rape, causing prostitution, and indecency with children. Elaine was found guilty of five offences, of indecency with children, and Shelley was convicted for two of the same. Sandra was acquitted. Whilst being led to the cells, Elaine screamed at her ex-husband, I fucking hate you. Annabelle went to the sentencing in person in the hopes that her mum might reach out to her in some way,

perhaps even showing some remorse maybe. But instead, a still besotted Jackie smiled over at Colin Batley, and upon seeing her daughter Annabelle, she simply sneered, look who's here. Oh yeah, Jackie, it really sounds like you've changed. Annabelle said that those words, quote, finally killed whatever feeling she had left for Jackie. And that was the moment that Annabelle knew for certain that her mother was an evil person. Jackie wasn't just under Batley's spell. Jackie had done what she did because she wanted to.

Colin Batley was sentenced to 22 years, with at least 11 to be spent behind bars. Jackie was jailed for 11 years. Annabel feels that she should have got more and I agree. And Elaine and Shelley got 8 and 5 years respectively. The judge, Paul Thomas QC, had these final remarks for Colin Batley. The judge, Paul Thomas QC, had these final remarks for Colin Batley. You set yourself up as ruler in your own sick little kingdom, where three women danced as your willing attendants. You became their master and formed a community within a community, involving child abuse, rape and prostitution. You have been described as evil. That, in my view, is an entirely accurate

statement of your character." And turning to Jackie Marling, Paul Thomas said, "'After Colin Batley, you are the most culpable in this horrific scenario. Your relationship with him brought together two kindred evil spirits. I view you as effectively as his second-in-comm command in all this." The judge ruled that the pair had both fully lived up to the ideals of their mentor, Alastair Crowley, by using the occult to further your sexual excesses in an organized and systemic abuse of children.

In a joint statement, the survivors of the cult said, "...it has been a nightmare journey for each and every one of us. And we hope that this can be the start of a new beginning. With one female victim adding, a hundred years would not be enough for Colin Batley, but at least now, myself and the other victims can start to rebuild our lives. So yeah, there you go guys. That is the fucking weird ass, horrific nightmare fuel, Egyptian God, worshiping robed sex cult of Kidwelly and how Colin Batley somehow managed to set up.

I think that phrase, a community within a community is perfect because I know we joke that it was Guyana, but he didn't literally go off to the jungle. He was in a fucking terraced row of houses doing what he was doing, with the children going to school and still getting away with it. And yeah, at least he ended up where he should have been. I'm amazed that Jackie only got 11 years. Usually when it's women abusing children, the sentences are much heavier than that because we find it so like shocking and repulsive.

No I don't know. There we are. Miserable. Truly. So yeah, there you go. Nightmare times. Bye. A few miles from the glass spires of midtown Atlanta lies the South River Forest. In 2021 and 2022, the woods became a home to activists from all over the country, who gathered to stop the nearby construction of a massive new police training facility, nicknamed Cop City. At approximately nine o'clock this morning, as law enforcement was moving through various sectors of the property, an individual, without warning, shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper.

This is We Came to the Forest, a story about resistance, The abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty and shut down. love and fellowship, It was probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. and the lengths will go to protect the things we hold closest to our hearts. Follow We Came to the Forest on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

UFO lands in Suffolk and that's official, said the News of the World. But what really happened across two nights in December 1980 when US servicemen saw mysterious lights in the forest near RAF Woodbridge, and claimed to have had a close encounter with an actual craft. Encounters, a new podcast available exclusively on Wondery+, takes a deep dive into one of the most famous and still unresolved UFO encounters to ever take place in the UK. Featuring shocking testimony from first-hand witnesses, hosts, journalist, podcaster and UFO researcher Andy McGillin, that's me, and producer Elle Scott take us back to the

nights in question and examine all of the evidence and conflicting theories about what was encountered in the middle of a snowy Suffolk forest 40 years ago. Are we alone? Encounters is a podcast which is going to find out. Listen to Encounters 40 years ago.