Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The gentlemen opposite might listen to what this poor woman has so bravely put into writing. She continues:

I have never had any regrets about the path I have chosen, i.e. to live a life outside this sect. However, the sadness of being separated from my family has also never left me, it is cruel in the extreme that an innocent young girl in her 20s could be so punished and traumatized just because of not seeing eye to eye with their beliefs.

Subsequently, the Exclusive Brethren excommunicated my father when he was in his late 70s. They forced my mother to leave him and go and live with one of my siblings. They would deny this happened, they would say my mother made her own decision, but they would be lying. My father had committed no sin, other than not agreeing with one of their edicts concerning their vile leader at the time, James Taylor of New York. My father’s heart was literally broken, and he tried continuously until his death to get back into the Brethren and to try and be re-united with his wife. I took on the responsibility of his care, and he ended his life in a nursing home, and died of a stroke, a broken-hearted old man of 82. He grieved daily and any attempts at contact were rebuffed, they even sent a horrible Solicitor’s letter to him warning him not to attempt to contact his wife ... he was destroyed. I made several unsuccessful attempts to contact my mother during those years.

And so on, in a letter where she states she was not even told when her mother died and therefore could not attend her funeral. That is one of many attestations to a deplorable situation which led in Britain to a private member’s bill to protect children from what goes on in this sect. (Time expired)