01x01 - In Search of Truth

[bunniefuu]

[ominous music]

♪

- They're completely cut off from the outside world.

- Journalists are seen as evil.

- You're trespassing on our--

- Well, you're assaulting my cameraman.

- The women are always wearing a bonnet,

a sign of submission to their husband.

[all cheering]

- They're just breeding machines.

Like the real-life version of "The Handmaid's Tale."

- The leaders want total control over the population.

- The leaders make sure that members are

broke, bruised, and brainwashed.

- They don't want to see you because you disgrace them.

- There's abuse after abuse inside that place.

- They were working before school, after school.

These kids were sl*ves.

- If you got any problems with our way of life,

things we do...

- The police are raiding their farm.

- Convicted of inappropriately touching a nine-year-old girl.

- Abused multiple Gloriavale children,

the youngest of which was five.

- My name is Howard Wendell Temple,

an American citizen by birth.

- Gloriavale's leader is now a convicted sex offender.

- How long do we just put up with that sort of stuff

happening in our own backyard?

- You're not welcome here.

- All my daughter wants to do is see her mother.

- Like, tear it down. Tear it down.

- I'm not going to stop until I get all these kids out.

- They won't talk to you, but they'll keep bullshitting you.

I need to destroy them.

[somber music]

♪

- Want me to sit down?

- Yep.

- Camera set.

- Cut mark.

- Hi.

- OK. - Mm-hmm.

- Great.

♪

- My name's Cheerful, and I live at Gloriavale.

I'm years old.

And I live in a family of .

I have five sisters and four brothers.

- You only have to look at us to know how well fed we are.

- I want to live here because of what I'm offered here.

I'm offered truth, and I'm offered

a wholesome life where I can learn about God.

It's a secluded place.

Well, reasonably secluded, and I don't really like cities.

I wouldn't choose to live in a city.

Some of the things that you hear

from people who don't know us,

or who think they know us because of what they've heard

on the media, and they yell at you across the street

and things like that, that doesn't make you feel

like it's a nice environment out there.

- I like making bread.

Smells good, tastes good.

- I want to be here.

I want to keep this community running.

My parents and grandparents have worked so tirelessly

to build this place.

And now it's my turn to carry that on,

carry on their heritage.

- Good. Make sure they are red.

We're fighting multiple forces that want to destroy us.

If you actually looked at it through different eyes,

you could see another whole side that has not been seen.

- The devil thinks that he can hurt and harm

and tear down and destroy.

- And there's been investigation

after investigation,

and there's been so many problems.

- The devil means for our destruction.

- The controlled oppression, dominance, and fear remains.

That has always been a key hallmark of Gloriavale.

- Hallelujah.

- It appears that something might be happening.

It appears that the government might be taking action.

And then it just all fades away

and goes back to the way it was.

- Come on, Ben, come on!

- I think it's a little bit arrogant,

to be frank, for people to say,

because problems have occurred there,

it needs to shut down.

Things happened, but it was rare,

and it wasn't us.

It's not what we do.

We're just run-of-the-mill people

who have chosen to live slightly differently.

- Dear Heavenly Father in heaven...

- When you take away our religion

and the weird way we live,

we're normal people wanting to raise a family,

run a business.

Live quiet, happy lives and not hurt anybody else,

and not have other people hurt us.

It's our choice.

We get to choose, and this is what we choose.

- From an outsider looking in, when you see the hostels,

there'd be a lot of questions about, well,

how do these people manage to live together

so closely and happily?

And I can tell you, there is a bit of conflict at times,

but we love one another.

And at the end of the day, Jesus commanded the disciples,

"All men know ye are my disciples

if ye love one another."

- He's facing a grand total of charges

of sexually offending against children.

- My name's Gideon Benjamin.

It was one of the hardest things in my life,

to call my own father a pedophile.

[tense music]

I decided to leave Gloriavale because, obviously, of things

I'd experienced, things I'd seen.

And I decided that I didn't want that for my kids.

- God can forgive us, and we ask that other people

outside that have left, or others,

that they'll forgive us any wrong that we may have done.

And we would like to make peace with everybody,

and keep the word of God, and keep the laws of the land

as well.

[sirens wailing]

- Gloriavale shrouded in controversy again.

Police are returning today as an investigation continues

into a range of alleged offenses.

- We don't want to hide the truth of what's happened.

If individuals have been here and have been wrong,

they must answer for their actions.

And it shouldn't mean that we can't live this life

and raise our children the way that we want to now.

- We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord.

- I had to leave.

I had kids.

I had to do what was right for them,

what was best for them.

I couldn't just let them live like that, grow up like that,

with all of the trauma and the--

the sh*t that does to your brain.

I still wake up with nightmares.

- Wrong things have occurred in our life.

They do not define who we are.

They do not define our faith or the value of it.

What's left for us to do now is to go back and understand

how these things could have occurred,

and the hurt and the trauma and trouble

that has happened in our history.

- That's why we're here.

That's why we serve who we serve.

- OK. You good?

- We've never changed our core beliefs.

Our ultimate goal has been and always will be

to be like Jesus,

and that's what this place is for.

- Like, we believe in purity before marriage.

We believe in lifelong marriage and not divorce.

- We believe that the husband is the head of his home,

and his wife is there to love her husband

and nurture her children.

- What was the sin...

- Gloriavale was founded by a man

who came to be known as Hopeful Christian.

[mysterious music]

- His name used to be Neville Cooper.

And of course, what we started to get called was Cooperites.

Like Hutterites, you know, Mennonites.

So Hopeful decided he'd change his name

from Cooper to Christian.

So when you change your name to Christian,

they'd have to call us Christians.

[laughs]

- Tell me what happens when you give your life

to the Lord Jesus Christ.

- You repent of your sins, and everything becomes new.

- How many hours did I spend listening to him?

Like, it was every single mealtime.

I feel that my entire life was completely filled

with his voice.

It feels constant to me

as I'm thinking about my childhood.

- The first thing that coming back to Christ and God means

is to surrender our own will.

We're going to do God's will, not my will anymore.

- Your whole life is just basically listening

to this person shape everything you believe

about the world.

And the way that we should live,

the way women should be, how men should be,

how children should be.

It was all shaped by him.

- And so we sing that song, don't we?

Not my will, but Thine be done.

Now let's sing together, shall we?

all: ♪ Not my will, but Thine be done ♪

- For all of Hopeful's idiosyncrasies

and strong-mindedness, he pioneered something

that was really amazing.

It was a miracle.

- All you young children who can feel

that God is calling you,

that He beckons through His word,

turn to Him early.

[tense music]

- When there's been so much control and manipulation

and coercion inside of a place like that,

when you come out of it, how much do you really trust

what you've heard and what you believe?

- Therefore, all you parents teach

your children to be obedient.

Raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

Get them used to obedience that they break their own will

and deny it.

- I was told that Hopeful knew about a lot

of what my dad was doing.

- To me, my dad, he was the best Christian ever.

Like, he was up there next to Hopeful in my mind.

So it absolutely rocked my world.

- Now, when that child comes to the age of reason,

as it says here, it's expected

that they now turn to Christ...

- Hopeful's word was basically as good as God's word.

God speaks through him to the church.

That's how we viewed him.

- My Bible tells me that God has concluded all under sin.

Why? Because all have sinned.

It says all have sinned.

- My last name is Cooper, and my dad is Neville Cooper.

I'm not a conformist.

I wasn't going to be put in a box.

- Yield to Him and obey Him completely in all things.

- Dad is very good at doing that to people

where he's like, OK, I'm going to push you.

So he pushes them as far as they can,

gets the reaction, and say, see?

I told you so.

Then he's like, see?

You proved me right, you know what I mean?

- Yeah.

He's still kind of present

because Gloriavale is him, right?

So Gloriavale is him.

So his legacy is there.

So everything he created, good and bad,

that comes from Dad, right?

♪

- Thank you, Lord, for this food.

- So Phil Cooper, yeah, interesting character.

It's like he just did not agree with his--his father.

And he was on the outer.

And Phil eventually left, you know,

but his wife and children didn't come with him.

He went in there and grabbed them.

- He was motivated to get his family out,

and he thought that perhaps using the publicity would--

would help him.

- It's sad for me to think that

she has lost her salvation

if she leaves the community.

- She thinks that she's lost her salvation

if she leaves the community.

Is that what you're saying? - That is correct.

- I'm rolling. I'm rolling.

- I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before.

An abduction actually taking place.

- I'm not sure.

Someone must have tipped them off that I--

because I'd planned to go and get her out, and--

and grab her, but I have no idea, at that point,

how the media found out that I was going in

to try to rescue my wife.

- He told us what he was going to do.

So we went down there, had our camera there, and--

even though he puts his hand over the camera,

he knew exactly what was going on there.

- When you're in the heat of the moment,

you just worry about the consequences later.

[sinister music]

♪

- Yeah. Presumably, yes.

That was very much our right,

but...

- To some people, it might seem strange that we didn't react,

but as Christians, we cannot ever use force.

- We also, at that time, believed quite strongly

in not taking things to the authorities in that way

and trusting God for the outcome.

And the outcome did come eventually.

[melancholy music]

♪

- The story, as my mom has told me,

is of this, like, amazing, miraculous event that happened.

My grandfather was flying with his pregnant wife, Gloria.

There was a terrible plane crash.

[expl*si*n]

The only thing that survived was the cabin.

So, resourceful man that he is, builds a raft

so that he can get help.

And then a few months later, my mother was born,

and her name was Miracle.

Because it was-- it is a miracle.

- She's the th child.

After Miracle, there is five boys.

And then there's a girl,

which is the last of the children.

He founded this community because he could never find

a church that believed

the same things that he believed.

No divorce and remarriage.

No contraceptive.

And the other one was love not the world,

neither the things that are in the world.

If any man loved the world,

the love of the Father is not in him.

- His passion was to make a difference

and impact people's lives.

You know, voice of deliverance,

Neville Cooper speaking.

So, you know, there was even talk

of him being the Billy Graham of Australia

because he could capture the audience.

- I am a son of God, by the grace of God.

And I pray that God will open all of our eyes.

- Hearing my grandfather preach was like

you got transported to another place.

- And the only boldness we have

is in the name of Jesus, amen.

- As you're asking me these questions,

as I remember what it's like,

almost feels, like, exciting in my body.

Like, my body feels like, wow,

I'd love to hear him preach again.

- Only God can take this across to your hearts.

- Just to hear someone speak with such conviction

and such authority, it's just undeniable.

Like, your whole entire world is just constantly shaped

by this belief that you're in the one true church,

and everything outside of this is evil,

and the world is going to end one day.

So you better be good and you better do as we say,

otherwise you'll go to hell,

and you'll be tortured for eternity.

- My name is Leanne.

I live at the Gloriavale Christian community.

And I have actually lived here for close on years now.

- Child sl*very is normal there.

- People out there are slandering us

and saying stuff, you know?

And that is a huge hurt.

It hurts me inside.

I tend to get angry, and then my husband says to me,

"Honey, Bible says love your enemies."

I go, like, "Do I have to love them?"

But if you say so. "Why are you still here?"

"Well, why would I not be?"

I came as a teenager.

And I just met these people that loved the Lord.

And I could see how in this day and age,

they could just live the Bible.

So I chose to live here with the people of God.

- Grandma and Granddad, they had four children.

So there's Auntie Leanne, Auntie Sandy,

Auntie Yvette, and my dad, Jonathan.

Yeah, obviously very idealistic views

about what they wanted the Christian life to be.

And that's what attracted a lot of those young people

at that stage.

- Sandy, at that stage,

she was or when they joined.

There's four years' difference between us.

I'm four years younger than her.

She was a strong-willed person,

and I could relate to that.

[melancholy music]

♪

Way back then, it was more of a normal church organization.

We would be going into the square at Christchurch,

and there would be witnessing,

and there was a lot of outreach.

- It was kind of a young people's thing, I suppose.

It was fun. It was exciting.

We'd just walk up to people and we would witness

about Jesus,

about what He can do in a person's life.

Because it was burning within us,

and there was always people wandering all over the square,

people from everywhere.

[upbeat music]

- I come from Vancouver, Canada.

In , I cycled through New Zealand

and actively seeking for truth

in different Christian spheres.

I met some of the people from the community,

and one of them approached me

and challenged me to come and see their life

that they were living.

[soft dramatic music]

- I felt that I couldn't find Christ anywhere,

but I still wanted God.

So then I went looking in all of these other places

to try and find God.

So I got heavily involved

in all sorts of obscure religions.

Probably too many for me to name.

[laughs]

And I met Phil Cooper with a couple of his siblings.

They were talking about the community back at Springbank

and how wonderful it was, and their dad

was this Australian evangelist,

and all the rest of it, you know.

And I thought to myself, OK, fine.

So look, I'm a freelance journo.

Let's go and have a look at this place

and write a story about it.

[indistinct singing]

♪

- There was something wholesome

about what I saw in these people.

♪

- My dad's thing was, it was either his way or the highway

type of religion.

So at the end of the day, if you weren't following

his version of religion, you're an outcast.

You're kind of going to hell.

This community is my dad's dream.

This is not my dream.

So we clashed, and he used whatever tool or manipulation

he could to try to break me.

[curious music]

♪

- The men were men, and the women were women.

Modestly dressed.

The men bore the brunt of life,

and the women were nurturers and keepers at home.

This is quite opposite to the direction

that the world was taking with women's lib and weak men,

emasculated men, disobedient children, all these things

that were deteriorating in society.

It was found intact here.

- And that just shone out to me that this is

the way God wants us to live.

Left, left, left, right, left.

Left, left, left, left, left...

- I literally just walked off the street,

dressed up in my typical hippie clothes.

I'd made a vow that I was not going to shave

or cut my hair until I found the truth,

so by this stage, I'm looking pretty woolly.

I was just this totally wacko guy.

And within about hours, I knew that was it.

- He that believeth and is baptized

shall be saved.

- I was constantly looking for people who were just literally

going to pick up their Bible and do what it said,

and this is where I found it.

I found that at Springbank.

- So I'm going to forsake everything I have--

had.

My parents, my family, my career,

my ambitions, my house, my car, my cat,

everything for my Christ.

- Amen.

And the Lord raised you in the Resurrection.

Hallelujah!

all: Hallelujah!

[all cheering]

- I heard a gospel that I'd never heard anywhere else.

- I phoned home and let him know

that I found a people that are following what the Bible said.

It didn't go down very well.

This was the time in the 's,

there was a lot of controversy with groups

like the Moonies, Jonestown.

But I went into this with my eyes wide open.

I wasn't tricked.

I wasn't brainwashed.

- We've got builders.

We've got electricians.

Plumbers.

Plus, of course, the farmers.

We've got a team on horticulture here as well.

That all combines to give us our income.

- We didn't take the line that people should sell their homes

and give the money to Hopeful.

He basically said, sell your assets

and donate the money to someone else.

So it was all given away, and so we all took on jobs.

- At the end of the week, the men would bring in

all the income, the wages that they got.

And they would put so much for power,

so much for fuel for the vehicles,

how much for food.

And at the end, they had $ left,

and they could decide what they want to do with that.

- Thank you.

- And most of them would put it in for the ladies

to go and buy material to make dresses.

[indistinct singing]

♪

And the standard was, there should be modesty.

We're not going to advertise what's not for sale.

And there was bits of vanity creeping into the women

with, well, oh, look, she's got a nicer dress.

And these things create a bit of competition

between the womenfolk.

And so how do we engineer a dress

that can be modest, practical, can do your breastfeeding,

and do away with competition?

[soft dramatic music]

♪

- The color was chosen because of its practicality.

Because it doesn't show up as much shape,

and most people know that darker colors

will tend to hide your size.

Also, in the folds here is the design for breastfeeding,

so they can now do it modestly and can do it in public.

And the round yoke, the collars,

the bow, this softens everything,

makes it more feminine.

- And it also ticked the box of unity.

So it kind of just swept away the whole vanity thing

because everybody was the same.

- Yes, I'm aware that TV show "The Handmaid's Tale."

They say that they modeled their costuming there on ours.

But I think those cloaky type things

they wear on that show are quite different from ours,

but if they're after just a standard of modesty,

well, yeah, so what?

I don't care. [laughs]

I don't take that as a reproach.

[suspenseful music]

♪

- Oh, that's right.

OK, so I had actually a guy say to me the other day,

oh, you must have some really great orgies out at Gloriavale.

You know, so the perception is that there's all this free love

and all the rest of it. It's not like that.

One of the early Christians, Tertullian,

wrote that Christians share everything except their wives.

We do not share our womenfolk.

And one of the great things that I love

is that every child here knows who its father is.

Every child can say, that's my dad.

Now, Dad may not be here, right?

Dad may have abandoned them, but every child knows

who daddy is, because our womenfolk are so faithful.

[somber music]

- It's good to die, but that's only half the story.

You'll be raised again in a new life.

The resurrected life of Christ...

- My name is Faith Loyal.

So I've been here for years.

- And the Lord will raise you in his Resurrection.

God bless you.

- Christ. Hallelujah. - Praise God.

- Hallelujah. - Hallelujah.

- I was traveling.

I came here from Switzerland, and God answered my prayer

because I was looking for a people

that I could share my life with who believed God.

[all cheering] - Hallelujah!

- I'm very pleased to be here and very thankful.

And I'd just love to share this bread with you

if I could, but your tooth--

whatever.

all: ♪ Happy day, happy day

♪ When Jesus washed

♪ My sins away

- Praise God.

- I'm here because in the face of difficulty, we keep singing,

we keep praying, and we keep trusting God,

and that is why I'm here.

- When you got baptized, what did you believe?

All right?

Somebody else would like to testify.

- Christ means everything to me.

Before I was baptized, I knew I was wrong,

and I'd wake up at night

and I'd just be sweating all over.

When I was baptized, I just felt so free.

I was so happy.

- That's my mother.

I was born in Gloriavale, and so were my parents.

And it's easy to see why the people who--

who joined Gloriavale in the first place,

the people who were sold that idea, liked the idea.

[somber music]

It would be really nice

to have people that cared about you.

Where you could just spend time,

you know, doing your job.

Guaranteed work at one of Gloriavale's businesses.

You could come home, look after your family.

Your relatives live close by.

You can visit them whenever you like.

And you're cared for.

That's a brilliant idea.

- There were many experiences that all of us had

in there that were pretty terrible,

but we all wanted it to be good.

I promise that I will always put God first in my life.

I promise I will always obey the leaders.

I promise I will raise our children to love the Lord

and to serve Him.

And I will always love you.

We were all hoping that if we worked hard enough,

if we tried hard enough, if we kept at it, eventually,

it would be the utopia that we were working towards.

all: In the beginning, God created

the heavens and the Earth.

- The whole thing about Gloriavale--

well, Springbank when it started,

was about families

and to create environments for families.

[soft music]

♪

I suddenly realized in my life that I was just

working day in, day out kind of for my dad's dream.

There was no benefit to me.

All this money I was making was going into the community.

And I was traveling all the time.

I was hardly home for my kids.

[indistinct singing]

♪

- Praise God.

Children, this afternoon, we want you to understand

what is actually happening here.

- Our father, he was always busy helping everyone else,

but kind of never having the time to actually be a dad.

[melancholy music]

- If a child has either got a mummy

or a daddy that loves God,

the child is sanctified in God's presence.

- He struggled with the fact

that he always had to be right.

I also am strong-willed, so at the end of the day, we clashed.

And he always liked to rein me in

because I had my ideas, he had his ideas.

Yeah, many occasions we'd clashed,

so someone had to give in.

- Isi, would you give thanks for us, please?

- Thank you, Lord, for this nice food, amen.

all: Amen.

- I think the turning point for me was when I came in

for dinner, and my oldest son, Israel,

he was standing on the stage

with his back at the dining table, and--

because he had wet the bed.

So I stood up and said, "What's this?"

Right?

And Dad stood up and said, "Sit down.

"Just because you're my son

doesn't give you a right to question me."

This whole thing became a battle between a father

and a son, right?

And the casualties of that w*r was Sandy and the children.

- He felt betrayed.

And someone that calls himself a Christian,

that feels like they are doing, you know, and building--

help build this community, and supporting their father,

to turn that, that was, like, betrayal.

Not just his wife and children,

it feels like he's betrayed us as well,

his sisters and mum and dad.

- I've got my own dreams.

I've got me own visions.

And I hadn't even really discussed it

with Sandy at that stage.

It was just like, something's got to give.

I've got to get out of here.

And yeah, I just left.

[dramatic music]

♪

I was calling Sandy every week.

And I asked if I could talk to my kids.

It was happening for a while.

And then she said, "Sorry,

you can't talk to them anymore."

That was a trigger point for me because, you know,

no one was going to stop me from getting to my kids

or talking to my kids.

I knew it was Dad's manipulation.

He knew how much I loved my kids, right?

There was no question I loved them to death, right?

And that's when I went and grabbed the kids

in the middle of the night.

When I went in and took the kids out,

young Crystal was in the bed, and I said,

"Can I hold the baby?"

And Sandy was like, "OK, OK, but quick,"

you know what I mean?

And it was a hard thing

because I took the baby and left.

Do I regret that moment?

No, I don't.

I look at my daughter Crystal now and say,

what if I had have left her, right?

That, then, you know, justifies the means.

- [sighs]

[indistinct chatter]

[soft music]

- The crazy thing is,

you have two people that loved each other,

and she loved her children.

And she was a great mother.

- She would have loved to be together.

- Well, by her going back, dad's belief was

that with her going back, she would save her children.

- From--from going to hell.

- In a case like this where you've got the father

gone away, and the mother remains true,

then she's not just saving her own soul,

she is also covering the souls of her little children.

And that's one of the real drives

for our women to remain faithful.

It's one of the things that really makes them

think about their position before God.

[somber music]

- These are emotionally just wrought.

You can imagine what it would be like to have those children,

to be a dad, and to be separated from your wife

so many times.

It must have been horrendous for him.

- It was the most toughest time in my life.

[children chattering]

Kids are crying for their mother

and, you know, wetting the bed, and it was just crazy.

So, yeah, I just would cry myself

to sleep, sometimes, right?

- Mm-hmm.

[pensive music]

♪

The media used to say I kidnapped my wife.

Well, in one way, I did, but the other way,

I kind of knew she wanted to.

She was hoping that I would

because what it did mean is the fact of,

she could get to see her children, right?

And then she could honestly say, "I was forced to go."

[solemn music]

♪

When we flew out to America, I had someone

escort her through the terminal,

so she felt she had no choice.

So that way, she could feel comfortable

that she didn't just go willingly.

- Does she actually want to leave the country tonight?

- Um, that choice is taken from her.

As head of the home and as--

as husband of the family, I've taken that choice

and told her that she is going.

And I feel that it's my God-given duty

to make that choice for her.

Wasn't the finest moment, right?

But when--when you're young and you're fighting

for the things you love, you kind of do things

that you look back now and think,

oh, my goodness, right, was I crazy?

- What are you hoping that will happen?

- What I'm hoping will happen is that we, as a family, will--

the scars and the wounds that have happened over the months

will be healed.

We can be reunited.

My wife is pregnant, is due to have a baby in six weeks,

and we can enjoy that blessed time together,

which is a godsend.

And I'm not making any plans for the future.

I'm just going to wait and see and trust God.

[soft music]

♪

[baby cries]

♪

- We're in a warfare, we're in a fight,

and we need to be properly equipped for that fight.

If we're going to get to that heavenly goal,

that crown that is laid up for us,

we must fight the good fight of faith.

- I feel sorry for those women who live inside the community.

They don't understand what freedom is.

They don't understand what it is

to be able to make a choice,

because they've never made a choice,

and they're just living inside a straitjacket.

- Apparently, the women of Gloriavale

haven't got the cognitive capability

to figure out anything for themself.

I beg to differ.

I've decided to follow Jesus, and there's no turning back.

- We pray for healing.

That Your spirit would come upon them.

- Jesus actually requires all of us,

He wants our whole mind, spirit, body, soul.

Every day that we meet each other on the path

and it's like, bless you, I love you.

My sister Prayer has that same love for the people of God.

[tense music]

♪

Phil promised her

that he would live here with God's people.

And he would love her and give himself to her

and to the people of God,

and she married him on those promises.

And he broke his promise to her.

He broke his marriage vow that he would love the Lord.

- We have a free choice.

You don't have to follow Christ.

You don't have to go to heaven.

- She loved him. She did love him.

It broke her heart when he went.

And then he took the children, and that was all.

So a big sadness to her.

- You don't have to get to the end of your life

and be confident as you face death.

- The reason that she stayed is because--

it wasn't because his father made her.

No, it was because she loved God,

and she had the conviction

that she wanted to serve God in the church

with the other people of God.

[intense music]

♪

- Police swooped on the caste Christian community

just after dawn.

It was silent but swift.

More than officers searched the property

and rounded up men and women for questioning.

They seized g*ns, documents, diaries,

and some , videotapes.

- There was police involved.

They descended on the community.

There was helicopters flying over.

The phone lines were cut.

[sirens wailing]

They went through every room in the community

and confiscated everything they could find

that they might feel was evidence,

whatever they could find in drawers.

People didn't know whether they were going to be shot or--

or what was going on.

- They put pamphlets

all in our drawers and everything to say,

you know, this is how you can contact us

if you're getting abused.

And I took it to my mum and I said,

Mum, why would they think that?

She said, well, some people have been.

She told me outright.

Some people have been.

[suspenseful music]

- The cult leader is charged with sexually assaulting

a woman with a wooden object.

- This man in his s helping these young people understand

what sex was all about.

- I've got something to tell you.

Your wife has got a baby.

- I'm not going to let them take that child away from me.