Cult leader ‘imprisoned daughter for 30 years’ – BBC News

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-34798822

Prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC told the court that, in his youth, Mr Balakrishnan was a charismatic man who brainwashed his followers.

“This case concerns the brutal and calculated manipulation by one man, this defendant, to subjugate women under his control.

“In order to bend them to his will, he used mental and physical dominance and violence, sexual degradation and, in relation to one, his daughter, he controlled every sphere of her life to the extent that she was unable either emotionally or physically to leave his influence until she was 30 years old and was in fact very ill with diabetes.”

The court heard that in the 1970s Mr Balakrishnan was at the helm of a communist group known as the Workers Institute, based in Acre Lane in Brixton, south London.