LONDON: Neighbours and people in contact with Maoist cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan, 75, and members of his collective, described them as “odd” and “strange”, hardly mixing with other people and living in a house with windows and doors always shut.
Neighbours told police that they occasionally saw a male Indian, flanked by two women; one white and another believed to be a Malaysian.
The two women were always seen shopping together once a week or going to the laundrette. They hardly spoke to other people and sometimes had a younger woman with them, believed to be the daughter of Balakrishnan from his relationship with another woman from the commune, Sian Davies, who died in 1997 after a fall from their bathroom window.
Balakrishnan of Enfield, who founded his own radical sect dubbed the ‘Worker’s Institute’ in Brixton, south London, in the late 1970s, faces 16 charges in relation to three victims.
He denies four counts of rape, three of assault, seven of indecent assault, one of false imprisonment and one of child cruelty.
He was arrested in November 2013 after his daughter and another member of his collective phoned a charity organisation to say that they were falsely imprisoned.
His daughter claimed that she had been imprisoned for 30 years, since she was born, until she was rescued two years ago.
A nurse who worked in the ward where Davies was warded after her fall spoke of “odd people who used to visit her regularly”.
“The two women always flanked the man. It was strange. One of the women always wore a green jacket. Only the Asian man would speak. He was always with a briefcase with an air of importance. If I asked a question, they (the two women) would look at the man.
“I recall the lady in the green jacket holding her (Davies’) hand. They would sit there for hours. The two women seemed to be in a trance, always looking down and never made eye contact,” said the nurse in the police report.
She added that when asked if Davies had any next of kin, Balakrishnan allegedly said no.
Margaret Elery Morgan, a former teacher and cousin of Davies who was called as a crown witness yesterday, gave a different story.
They both grew up together in Wales and moved to London where Davies studied at the London School of Economics while Morgan pursued her teaching career.
Although she saw her cousin initially, it became more difficult to contact her after Davies joined the cult led by Balakrishnan.
Once when Morgan asked about Davies, she was told by Balakrishnan that she was in India working.
She last saw Davies in Clapham in south London with her then boyfriend Martin Clarke. Davies studied at one of Britain’s top independent schools, the Cheltenham Ladies College, before moving to London, with interests in cricket and horse riding.
“I visited the house where she lived and knocked on the door but no one answered,” she said from the witness stand yesterday.
When she heard news of Davies’ death , she was asked to identify the body in the mortuary and to collect her things.
Her cousin, whom she said had loved to dress up in expensive clothes with Chanel handbags, had only some towels and “just very basic things and a night dress she would never be seen dead in”, she recalled.
At the inquest into Davies’ death, attended by Balakrishnan and the women from his collective, Morgan heard that Davies had no child of her own.
Later during the trial, prosecutor Peter Clement read a transcript of the interview conducted with Balakrishnan after his arrest on Nov 21, 2013, where Balakrishnan told about how Davies came to be a member of his collective.
“She was a normal attractive woman. She met me during a meeting in Stockwell,” he had said.
When asked who was the father of Davies’ baby, he said he was not sure as “she had a number of people”.
Balakrishnan said everyone helped to look after the baby, who grew up to love books from the age of 5 or 6.
When asked why the child never went to school, Bala said that Davies did not want her to go to school because of her own bad experience at Cheltenham Ladies College, where she was bullied.
He also said that he took the child on weekly “outings” to the laundrette, where she got to know people.
Balakrishnan added that the child was not allowed out because it was a dangerous world “with stabbings taking place”.
“She had one of the happiest times compared to other kids. She loved me so much.”
The court also heard some very poignant poems that the daughter had written of life in the house, which she called a dungeon.
In a poem called “A Monster’s Dungeon,” among others, she had written:
“If only I could smile for a change
This life devoid of respect in Monster’s Dungeon/If only they were gone.../If only I had gone away/I could sleep peacefully instead of trembling fearfully in Monsters’ Dungeon.”
On the day the police came to take two women away from Bala’s house, the daughter of the Maoist cult leader kept in almost total isolation since birth, could barely walk.
The court heard that she was given so little chance to exercise that she could only hobble when she was rescued.
The third woman, believed to be the Malaysian woman, was taken away later on the same day.
The jury of five women and seven men had earlier heard of alleged brainwashing, violence and sexual assaults by the person known as Comrade Bala.
None of the victims could be named for legal reasons. Balakrishnan was represented by Adam Wiseman, while the prosecution was represented by Rosina Cottage, QC.
The trial, being heard in Southwark Crown Court before Judge Deborah Taylor, continue.