Sarah Jones - Call Me Evil, Let Me Go: A mothers struggle to save her children from a brutal religious cult

A Mothers Struggle to Save Her Children from a Brutal Religious Cult

To all my beautiful children and to all the broken
lives that cults have left in their wake

T he phone rang just as I started cooking spaghetti bolognese for the childrens tea. It was the junior-school head. Even though she knew me well her voice sounded harsh, cold, and formal and my heart immediately started pounding. I could sense that I was in for a telling-off. Again. Without any preamble she said that my son Paul had been very naughty at school that afternoon. He had been messing around with some other boys after football, throwing the caked mud that had collected on their boots everywhere and, worst of all, he had even thrown a piece into another boys face, cutting him slightly and making him cry. She told me I had to deal with him at home.

I thought her formality was a bit over the top and asked if there had been any teachers in the changing room while this was going on. She admitted there hadnt been, and I thought to myself that it wasnt too much to worry about and that boys will be boys. Even so, I was gripped with tension. I knew only too well that being told to deal with him was an unspoken order to smack Paul. He, along with his sister Rebecca and his brothers Luke and Daniel, went to Tadford School, a small establishment that belonged to Tadford Charismatic Church in the south of England.

The Charismatic movement is not a church in itself, but includes many different churches. Its members believe that faith must be deeply felt rather than just experienced through ritual. Tadford was under the overall control of its founder and pastor, Ian Black, and was unlike any other church. He was a controversial, powerful, supremely confident man who regularly preached that it was important to break a childs will early and believed in corporal punishment.

I had grown used to being told what to do by the Church leaders, and especially Ian Black, ever since my parents had placed me in their care years earlier, when I was in my mid-teens. Id been desperate not to be uprooted from my family home in a small market town in the Pennines, to board at Tadford, as it was far too far away from family and friends, but my well-meaning parents, particularly my mother Pamela, were worried that what they saw as my increasingly rebellious teenage behaviour meant I was on a slippery downward path. They believed that a school with strict religious guidelines, firm discipline and an inflexible routine would do me good.

Although my feisty spirit had largely been squashed over the years, it had never quite been extinguished and I had a reputation for not always toeing the line. But the phone call on that cold November evening shook me to the core and I was anxious to get away. OK, Ill deal with it, I said, then put down the phone.

I knew the head was right, in that Paul had been naughty, but I thought it was just the sort of silly thing a boy of his age might do, especially when no teacher was present. I also wondered why I hadnt been told about it when I collected Paul from school. I glanced at my watch. It was just after 5 p.m. I knew I had better sort Paul out before my husband Peter came home from work as he was likely to be far tougher on Paul than I would be.

I called Paul. Will you come into Mummy and Daddys bedroom, please, I said, trying not to let my anxiety show in my voice. I want to speak to you. I didnt want to punish him in front of his siblings.

Paul was struggling with his homework in the bedroom he had to share with Rebecca. He had dysgraphia, a writing disorder, and the help the school had given him had, six months earlier, suddenly been withdrawn without warning or explanation, and as a result he was finding schoolwork much harder.

I told him about the phone call, and he admitted that he, along with some of his friends, had been silly. It wasnt, he insisted, just his fault. I listened carefully to his explanation and told him he had been naughty. I then pulled down his trousers and underpants and gave him two quick smacks with my hand on his bare bottom. After that I cuddled him tightly, pleased that he didnt cry. I hated smacking him, but I knew that if I didnt Peter would and it would be far worse.

As all four children ate their supper Paul didnt seem at all concerned about being smacked. No more was said until a couple of hours later when Peter arrived home from a nearby town, where he was working as a fitness coach. Peter and I were not getting on well. We had married when I was only 18 and very naive. He was several years older than me and, if possible, even more innocent, but the Church encouraged its young members to marry early, so we did what was expected of us. I always felt suspicious that ours was an arranged match, but I had genuinely come to love Peter. I also knew I was lucky to have a husband at all, because you could only marry within the Church and there werent always enough young men to go round.

Sadly our marriage had recently become little more than an empty shell. Peter seemed to be permanently in a bad temper and was hardly at home, choosing instead to spend any spare time when he wasnt working late at the fitness centre helping out in the Church. Soon after he got back from work I told him what had happened at school, and made a point of adding that I had dealt with Paul and smacked him. Peter ignored my comments, went straight to find Paul and took him into our bedroom, grabbing as he did so a squash racquet that was lying by the door. He then smacked Pauls bare bottom several times with it.

I was mortified. Paul was our first child, but still our baby. He needed our protection, not our anger. When it was over he went straight back to the bedroom he shared with Rebecca without saying a word. He stayed there for the rest of the evening, and wouldnt speak to me when I tucked him up for the night. Paul and I had always been close and his silence was like a dagger in my heart. He might have been brave enough not to cry, but I wasnt. I wept for him. I thought it was totally wrong to hit him like that, and couldnt bear the thought of his pain, but I knew from experience it was pointless to say anything to Peter, let alone criticize him. If I protested he was likely to fly into a rage. But I hated myself for being so weak.

I knew if I confronted Peter hed also tell Ian Black, who ran the Church with a rod of iron, what had happened, and he would certainly haul me into his grand office and go through his usual emotional battering. This included telling me in very strong language that I was rebellious, or worse. Although he was a religious leader he didnt mind his language, and it seemed to me that he enjoyed trying to undermine me.

Paul was still very subdued the next day, a Friday, but went to school without any fuss. When I collected him in the afternoon he told me, with no apparent emotion, that he had been whacked beaten with a shoe that was kept in the classroom and used to hit children if they disobeyed one of the schools many rules. I was furious that he had been beaten without my knowledge or agreement. It meant that my poor little boy had been punished not once, not twice, but three times for the same, not very serious, offence.