This is a fascinating story on many levels.
I'm off out in a moment but just wanted to share as this story has many resonances with the experiences of victims of newage criminals, including the fact that the victim was a highly intelligent and successful person, but who regardless was duped by a predatory fraud.
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The truth about the grasping guru who 'brainwashed' RAF officer into giving her his £800,000 farmhouse
By BARBARA DAVIES
The moment Richard Curtis gave away his £800,000 medieval farmhouse in Wales is not one he is likely to forget.
It was April 2004 — just over a decade since the former RAF officer and his wife Fiona had first come into contact with self-styled spiritual guru Judy Denton.
Persuaded that the way to true enlightenment and peace lay in handing over all his worldly goods, Mr Curtis picked up his pen and signed everything away to the Self Realization Meditation Healing Centre.
The wording of the Declaration of Trust document alone would have been enough to send most people running for the hills.
‘I give to the centre all that is mine. If I wish to leave the centre I will be free to do so but without the trust having to return anything to me.’But, by that time, as 53-year-old Mr Curtis told Cardiff Civil Courts of Justice this week during a battle to win back his home, he had been ‘brainwashed’. He had no idea, either, that his wife was cheating on him with another man.
‘He did it for love,’ said a close friend. ‘He wanted to support his wife. And you have to understand that he had been under the influence of this group for years by this point.’
Fortunately for Mr Curtis, a judge agreed this week that he had been ‘unduly influenced’, though found ‘no clear indication of brainwashing’.
Mr Curtis — who was suing both his ex-wife and the Centre — is now entitled to claim back a share in Edwinsford Farmhouse in the village of Tally in Camarthenshire, which is still being used as a residential ‘Sister Centre’ for the Somerset-based SRMHC group, accused by some of being a cult.
His ex-wife, 48-year-old Fiona, who is still an enthusiastic member of SRMHC, is also entitled to part of the property.
But those who have watched this sorry saga unfold have been left wondering just how this educated man, who specialised in intelligence work, could have done something so foolhardy in the first place.
What then is the truth about 80-year-old Judy Rena Denton, the ‘guru’ who trained as a ballerina and once attended the Italia Conti Stage School in London — and the strange influence she appears to exert over her educated, middle-class devotees at the ‘Mother Centre’ in the picturesque village of Queen Camel, near Yeovil, Somerset, where she is group leader.
Certainly Mr Curtis is not the first — and is unlikely to be the last — to give up everything in the name of SRMHC and later regret doing so.
The British-based Cult Information Centre and the Family Survival Trust have both confirmed that they have received complaints about Mrs Denton’s group.
more, with photos here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1351539/Guru-brainwashed-RAF-officer-demands-goods-enlightenment.html#ixzz1CpAI4bpZ
