'My dad was an abusive cult leader who kept me locked up for 30 years'

Cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan died in prison last Friday, but his daughter Katy says she wanted reconciliation

My London News, UK/April 12, 2022

By Callum Cuddeford

Katy Morgan-Davies spent her childhood staring out the window and "craving to be out there". Now, when she returns to London, she feels free. It's been nearly ten years since she escaped her dad's Maoist cult in Brixton, where she was held captive from birth for 30 years and watched her mum lying in a pool of her own blood after falling from a window. Sian Davies died two months later.

Four days ago (Friday April 8) cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan, 81, died in HMP Dartmoor. Referring to himself as Comrade Bala he was jailed for 23 years in 2016 after his cult the Communist Collective was discovered. He was convicted for offences dating back to the 1970s, including child cruelty, false imprisonment, and the sexual assault of two women.

Despite being locked away for 30 years and rarely granted fresh air, Katy, 39, told MyLondon she regretted not reconciling with her dad. She said: "I could not say I am happy that he's gone. But he's my dad. It's a loss of someone who should have been a loving person. I do regret that I was not able to make up with him."

On October 25 2013, Katy and another woman, Josephine Herivel, then 57, escaped the house in Peckford Place after reaching out to a slave victim charity. Katy only dialled the a helpline number after memorising it from TV. Police later went back for a third woman, Aisha Wahab, then 69, rescuing her from the grip of Comrade Bala.

This was the last time Katy saw Bala and hugged him. She said: "The morning of my escape I did not think it would be the last time I saw him, but I knew it would be a while. I did hug him. I think there was sadness it turned out like that, it did not have to be that way. If he considered my perspective as well it need not have been that way."

Katy remembered her dad's hugs were "creepy". "I did used to dread his hugs because he would ask the question about a body wash," she said. Katy explained that when she was 30 she would come out the shower and he would ask if it was "just a hair wash or a full body wash". She added: "I used to find it so bloody annoying. What the f**k, do you need to ask that?"

"Rather than a father and daughter it was a hug to thank you for being a good slave. He also stunk as well so that did not help," she continued. Her dad's smell was due to his refusal to open any windows in the house, both to stop "fascist agents" getting in, and so Katy could not get out. Katy once had an affair with a neighbour after sneaking out of the window. Bala reacted by "locking everything".

Even in boiling summer heat the windows and doors stayed shut and the heating on full whack, solar panels on the roof also made the house a heat trap. Katy said: "He would sweat none stop, his pillow would go dark yellow. Even if he washed he would stink within an hour. It was like he was not well, it was a noxious sort of sweat."

Despite his campaign of abuse, Katy said she still enjoyed the hugs "because they were the only ones I was allowed to have". Katy has previously revealed how she was beaten, banned from singing nursery rhymes, going to school or making friends, describing herself as a "shadow woman" who was kept like a "caged bird".

Living under the shadow of Bala's fictional world controlling machine, Jackie (an acronym for Jehovah, Allah, Christ, Krishna, and Immortal Easwaran), Katy made her first escape through the fiction of Lord of the Rings. It was only through her secret reading habits she began to figure out her dad. "Tolkien gave me a great moral compass and different perspectives which talk about being kind," she said.

"Some people say burn in hell, but that would make like him," she said, "I do not want to become like him". After leaving a cult where Bala would say "black is white" Katy has devoted herself to forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance. Those are religious values but she refuses to align herself with another ideology. "I won't hold onto an organised religion, that feels like giving myself away to someone else," she said.

Despite this mindset she joined the Labour party after her escape, but then quit because of the internal "criticism of men". A self described libertarian that liked Jeremy Corbyn for his pacifism and hated seeing Boris Johnson attacked, Katy was ready to admit "I do not know" when it comes to divisive issues like trans rights and vaccine mandates. After growing up under a tyrant she wants everyone to be heard and have their freedom, but never in rage.

"If anyone shows anger or if there is sudden noise I jump out of my skin," she said, "If people are harshly critical. If someone's voice changes I think what's going to happen now; I remember my dad rushing across the room and slapping across the face. If anyone shows anger or irritation in my presence I feel paralysed, I can't move, it's so weird."

After being under the control of a single man for so many years, Katy told MyLondon she could see herself in a relationship "in time, yes", but for now she was more keen on getting a fluffy white Samoyed dog. "The ones who sleep on their owners to keep them warm," she added. Sadly, as a final year Philosophy and Sociology student at Leeds University, her dream of a dog is on hold - for now.

As a child, Katy's rare taste of freedom was a Tube journey from Brixton to Green Park or Oxford Circus on the Victoria Line. She still likes to use the London Underground on her own, even returning to the area she was imprisoned. "It feels good to walk those streets as a free person," she said.

Katy never has spite in her voice - which is almost accent free after growing up in near isolation. Her dad's death came as a shock. "I had the thought there would be a reconciliation," she said. In fact she would rather he never went to prison. "I do not like punishment, I grew up with so much punishment. He loved the idea of the death penalty and genocide, he just loved all that. I found it repulsive. I did not want my dad to be in prison, all I wanted was to be free," she said.

The freedom she enjoys now allowed her to write her memoirs Caged Bird . It tells both the story of her imprisonment and how she navigated a completely foreign world on release. More than anything though it appears to be life come full circle, telling her story of freedom through the medium that gave her a first taste of freedom.

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