Maoist cult leader guilty of rape and imprisonment

The 75-year-old Maoist ran a “hate cult” and demanded total obedience from his brainwashed female followers, who called him “Comrade Bala”.

He was convicted of four counts of rape, six counts of indecent assault, two counts of actual bodily harm, cruelty to a child under 16 and false imprisonment at London’s Southwark Crown Court. He was found not guilty of one count of ABH and one of indecent assault.

Balakrishnan, of Enfield, North London, emigrated to the UK from Singapore in 1963 and studied at the London School of Economics in the late 1960s.

He said he believed Britain was a fascist state, and by the 1970s he had attracted a circle of devoted female followers to his Maoist commune – the Workers’ Institute in Brixton, south London.

Balakrishnan went on to subject two of the women to sex attacks.

Cruelty to daughter

He fathered a child with a follower called Sian Davies and oversaw a lifetime of cruelty, forbidding the girl from attending school or leaving the house alone.

Balakrishnan’s daughter – who is being referred to as Fran as she cannot be named for legal reasons – told Southwark Crown Court how Balakrishnan hit her, spat at her, threatened and bullied her for 30 years.

She told the court her father began spitting in her face when she was just eight or nine years old, telling her: “I can’t believe how much I hate and despise you”.

He used to say nearly every day … she’s going to be tortured to death. He used to say it with such sadistic glee. “Fran”

On one occasion she was attacked for singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and when she swore at Balakrishnan under her breath he threatened to “beat her to a pulp”.

“He said: ‘I’m the police, I’m the law’. He used to say nearly every day … she’s going to be tortured to death. He used to say it with such sadistic glee.”

The girl was 13 when she found out that a commune member she had been taught to call “Comrade Sian” was her mother.

Ms Davies died after falling from the second floor window of a house where the collective had been living on Christmas Eve, 1996.

The court heard how Balakrishnan’s daughter was inspired by the struggles of good against evil described in the Harry Potter books and the Lord of the Rings to pluck up the courage to try to break away.

She ran away in 2005 and made it to a police station before being persuaded to return to the commune.

Balakrishnan denied all wrongdoing, but his evidence took a bizarre turn when he told the jury that his daughter had run away briefly because of Jackie, an electronic satellite warfare machine created by the Communist Party of China.

May Day is Jackie’s birthday. He did something to her obviously. He put some idea in her head. Aravindan Balakrishnan

He told the court: “May Day is Jackie’s birthday. He did something to her obviously. He put some idea in her head.”

On 23 October 2013 “Fran”, now 30, finally escaped the commune and was met by police.

She had never been to school, gone out with friends or visited a doctor or dentist, and she was very ill with diabetes.

Rape victim “forced to keep explicit diary”

A woman who fell under Balakrishnan’s influence told the court how he had made her keep an “extremely explicit” sex diary detailing her past lovers, which he shared with other followers to humiliate her.

She said “Comrade Bala” began to abuse her while his wife was in hospital in a diabetic coma.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, the woman told the jury: “The only thing that saved my sanity was going outside because I was meeting with normal people.

“I know he is there (in the dock) and I want him to hear it because I loathe him so much. You must know that – how much I despise him.”

The woman was asked by prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC if she ever refused to take part in the sex acts. The witness said she had not refused – “because his authority was so complete, his control was so complete”.

Psychologically he had already manacled you. You didn’t have control over your own mind. He controlled your mind. Rape victim

She added: “Psychologically he had already manacled you. You didn’t have control over your own mind. He controlled your mind.

“It was something you had to go through. It was almost like we were like animals by then. It was seen as training, that we had to get through this.”

Balakrishnan could die in jail following today’s verdict, which police said ended years of “torment and torture” for his victims.

Detective Sergeant Paul Wiggett said it was a “completely unique” case and said Balakrishnan’s daughter was so terrorised by her father she “genuinely believed the day she left the house she was going to explode – that her life would come to an end”.

“Fran” said today that she was “overwhelmed with relief” after his conviction for imprisoning her, adding: “I believe justice has definitely been done. I am very happy with the result and at the end of the day he is still my dad.”

Balakrishnan was remanded in custody to be sentenced on 29 January 29.