A 'therapist' brainwashed my daughter to believe I had sexually abused her: A mother's harrowing story of family torn apart by 'healer' who targeted girls from wealthy backgrounds

Only pinch nan use of hindsight tin Sarah Strutt now spot that she missed a cardinal informing motion of nan horrors to come.

She'd been invited to a last image sitting astatine her beautiful, creator daughter's studio, only to find that connected presence each she could talk astir was her caller therapist.

'She told maine she only took nan really typical group and that while she charged £100 for nan hour, they would past chat for 3 hours non-stop,' Sarah recalls. 'And that's erstwhile my reddish ray should person travel on.'

Yet moreover if it had, what could she person done astir it?

Sarah did not cognize it, but her daughter, who was successful her early 20s, was already successful nan grip of a self-styled 'healer' called Anne Craig who would, complete a matter of months, abstracted her from everyone she loved successful nan world.

Within 2 years of coming into Craig's orbit, nan young female became convinced she had been sexually abused arsenic a child, and trim disconnected each interaction pinch her family and friends for six agelong years.

The image she had lovingly painted of her mother was burned astatine Craig's suggestion.

For overmuch of that time, a despairing Sarah, now 69, together pinch her daughter's father, stepfather and siblings, had nary thought wherever she was, an acquisition she describes coming arsenic for illustration 'drowning successful a vat of achromatic oil'.

It yet took nan thief of a backstage detective and moreover an master successful cults to get her back. Although perhaps, astir of all, it was nan fierce emotion of a mother who would ne'er springiness up connected her child, that has resulted successful their reunion today.

A changeless reminder that things will ne'er beryllium nan same, however, is illustrated by truth her girl has now changed her sanction by Deed Poll, to region herself from her aged personality and past. Now going by nan sanction of Hui Hue, she's a happy mother of 2 boys, aged 3 and five, and a regular visitant to nan beautiful Suffolk location Sarah shares pinch her 2nd husband, Henry.

To her family, it's a mini value to pay. Sarah knows really adjacent she came to losing her, though her alleviation is accompanied by a visceral anger astatine nan state fixed to unqualified 'coaches' who stay mostly ungoverned by immoderate existent laws.

'We tin ne'er get backmost nan years we lost,' she says. 'I person to get beyond that, but I cognize really overmuch we suffered — and really others are still suffering — and I don't want anyone to spell done nan aforesaid agony.'

Her determination to raise consciousness of unqualified practitioners is 1 logic Sarah took portion successful a compelling six-part investigative podcast, Dangerous Memories, which features women whose lives person been affected by Craig.

Most were from privileged backgrounds, a explanation that surely applies to Sarah's vulnerable, youngest daughter.

Her maternal grandfather, Sir Charles Smith-Ryland, was a erstwhile Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire and owned nan Grade II-listed Georgian manor location Sherbourne Park, wherever Hui, now 37, and her elder sister Sophie, spent their early years moving free successful nan grounds of nan sprawling estate.

Her begetter Timothy was an aged Harrovian stockbroker.

Sarah, an engaging and charismatic blonde, was adjacent to her clever and creator daughter, who showcased her talents while astatine nan backstage Tudor Hall schoolhouse adjacent Banbury. 

After sixth-form, she began a three-year-course astatine nan prestigious Charles Cecil School of Art successful Florence, wherever Sarah believes she sewage to cognize Anne Craig's daughter, who was successful nan metropolis astatine nan aforesaid time.

Sarah admits she initially didn't bat an eyelid when, successful astir 2010, her daughter, precocious returned from Italy, told her she was seeing a therapist who 'healed from nan heart'. Nor did she cognize she was 1 of respective young women, each from nan aforesaid societal circles, who had started to spot Craig — who was not registered pinch immoderate recognised assemblage — astatine nan location she shared successful Battersea pinch her erstwhile Royal Navy commandant husband.

'She said she needed clip and abstraction arsenic she was going connected a journey,' Sarah recalls. 'I trusted her. She was an unthinkable young woman, and while we saw her a spot less, she hadn't trim disconnected contact.

'I retrieve she came to a family statement and said she'd forgotten really awesome family were.' They spent Christmas 2011 together – 1 which Sarah latterly learned Craig had told her girl would beryllium 'the past pinch her family'.

'Can you judge really chilling that is?' she asks.

It was surely prophetic successful nan short term; Sarah would not observe Christmas pinch her girl again for galore years. She detached herself not conscionable from her mother but astir everyone she knew, breaking up pinch her fellow of 4 years and cutting disconnected aged friends and closing her Facebook account. By 2012, she stopped taking her mother's calls.

'I tried calling her from different line, but erstwhile she heard my sound she slammed nan telephone down,' Sarah says. 'She was really surviving adjacent by astatine nan clip and I ran retired to nan level and hammered connected nan door. She looked startled to spot maine and past her eyes glazed complete and she jumped connected her bike. She rode disconnected pinch maine screaming aft her, 'Don't trim maine retired of your life'.'

Sarah pauses. 'That was nan past clip I saw her for six years, isolated from nan occasions we ambushed her.'

Sarah uses nan connection 'ambush' to picture hopeless attempts to way her girl down and effort to logic pinch her, among them an juncture successful November 2013 erstwhile she waited pinch Henry extracurricular an creation workplace wherever her girl was school to show her they were marrying nan pursuing period and would emotion her to travel to nan wedding.

'She replied saying thing like, 'Oh, it's each astir you, isn't it?' '

Henry past asked, very calmly, whether he aliases Sarah had done thing to upset her. 'She replied no, truthful Henry suggested that if I had done nothing, shouldn't we each spell location together?' recalls Sarah. 'She had nary answer, but past abruptly nan brainwashing must person kicked in, because she put her shoulders backmost successful nan aerial and said, 'It's not for maine to show my mother what she's done, it's for my mother to find out'.'

A mates of months later, successful early 2014, Sarah received a missive saying her girl was 'disinheriting' her family and cutting each ties to her past. She changed her telephone number and moved to an encrypted email server.

A analyzable and labyrinthine bid of events followed. Months turned into years, and milestone events came and went, including Sarah's 60th birthday, arsenic she and Henry continued their hopeless attempts to scope her absent daughter. 

At 1 constituent she moreover resorted to penning a nonstop entreaty to Craig herself. 'Sophie was getting married. I knew Anne had a girl of her ain and I wrote to her, mother to mother, begging her to show my girl that she'd worked difficult connected her way of self-discovery, but it was clip to travel home,' she says.

She received nary reply, and later learned that Craig had apparently suggested to Hui that Sarah was making threats against her (Craig's) daughter. 'Everything was twisted,' Sarah says.

So twisted that it was only successful 2017 — 4 years into their estrangement — that Sarah learned from a journalist that her girl was claiming she had been sexually abused by her mother.

'Bear successful mind that until past I had nary thought what I was expected to person done wrong,' she says.

'I almost laughed because it was truthful absurd. I conscionable couldn't moreover ideate it. I just...' she trails off.

She was not nan only 1 to guidelines accused of heinous acts: a personnel of different family besides learned their girl had been 'brainwashed' into believing her parents were blameworthy of horrendous abuse. They had attempted to prosecute Craig done some nan criminal and civilian courts, and successful November 2014 she was arrested and charged pinch fraud.

Part of her bail conditions prohibited her from seeing her clients, but successful April 2015 nan Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute, and nan civilian lawsuit was besides unsuccessful. Her narration pinch some Hui and different young female pinch whom she had been progressive instantly resumed.

Only now does Sarah cognize that this marked nan commencement of what would, ultimately, beryllium a parting of ways for Craig and her daughter.

Sarah says she has since described really astatine nan clip of Craig's apprehension her girl had seemed '6ft tall, and a goddess' but erstwhile she came backmost she was 'just this mini small woman'.

Her separation, however, was not easy. Hui first moved to Brighton to unrecorded successful a caravan and past aft she was evicted slept unsmooth successful nan woods for 2 months.

Throughout each this Sarah had small thought wherever her girl was. At 1 constituent she employed a backstage detective who tracked her to Spain, only for her to spell missing again. 'All I could do was conscionable believe each time that she was safe,' she recalls.

She besides sought counsel from Steve Hassan, an master successful nan power of cults.

'He told maine that you tin put a slug done nan personification you deliberation has taken your child, but you still won't get them back: their ray bulb has to travel on.

'And of course, though it was gradual, that's what happened pinch my daughter. His insights helped maine understand what I should and shouldn't do.' As it was, destiny intervened: successful June 2018, Sarah received an email from a erstwhile schoolhouse friend whose boy had travel crossed her daughter, purely by coincidence, successful a Brighton cafe.

'She told maine she was pregnant, which was rather a batch to return in.'

Within hours, a backstage detective had an address.

But Sarah knew she had to tread carefully. 'I had Steve's proposal successful my head, not to beryllium excessively pushy.'

In nan extremity she sent a postcard, saying, 'I perceive you are having a babe successful October. I emotion you very much. This is my email.'

Ten agonising days later, an email arrived, precocious astatine nighttime saying she was 'predisposed to see' her mother. 'I knew I couldn't expect excessively much, but my bosom was successful my mouth,' she says.

That first tentative meeting, successful July 2018, took spot astatine a autobus extremity successful Brighton. 'There she was, my darling pregnant daughter. She looked rather drawn, and very pregnant,' Sarah recalls. 'I shook her manus arsenic I didn't want to invade her abstraction and we walked up into nan hills. I felt incredibly calm.'

Mother and girl talked for 4 hours, tentatively filling successful nan gaps of nan past.

'At 1 constituent she said thing astir intersexual abuse, and I told her she had to judge she'd had mendacious memories planted, astatine which constituent she started screaming astatine me,' Sarah recalls. 'And I can't moreover retrieve what I said, but immoderate came retired of my rima calmed her down and we sat and talked for different 3 hours.'

When they parted, it was pinch an unspoken knowing that they would spot each different again.

'She hugged me, and I can't explicate it, but I conscionable knew everything was going to beryllium each right,' Sarah says.

Indeed, it would beryllium to beryllium nan commencement of a gradual but aggravated reconciliation during which Hui and her partner became parents to their 2 boys.

'It's been an incredibly agelong process,' says Sarah. 'For nan first 3 years aft I sewage her back, slow by slowly, we conscionable said for hours astatine a clip arsenic she told maine each these atrocious things that she'd been made to believe.' Curiously, it was nan proposal that Sarah had murdered nan family's beloved labrador, Bella, that Hui struggled pinch nan most.

'She said, 'Mum, I ne'er accepted it, I ne'er accepted that you would execution Bella',' says Sarah.

Over time, Hui was diagnosed pinch PTSD, and has undergone extended therapy. 'I would opportunity it was 4 years earlier she was capable to judge that she had mendacious memories,' Sarah says. 'The astir horrendous point was that astatine 1 constituent she said, 'Mum, I cognize these things didn't hap to me, but they mightiness arsenic good have, because Anne made maine judge it.' She made her unrecorded done it.'

Watching what her girl has endured — and nan agony she, too, has been done — has made Sarah wished to run for changes successful nan rule to make judge what has happened to them cannot hap to others.

Craig's whereabouts are unknown, and successful nan eyes of nan law, she remains an upstanding personnel of nine and free to counsel whoever wishes to employment her.

Daniel Jennings, partner astatine rule patient Shakespeare Martineau, who represents Craig, said: 'Ms Craig believes this is yet different information of nefarious allegations suggestive of those put to her previously, to origin her harm and damage.

'These allegations, and those of a akin nature, person continuously been presented to Ms Craig but, to date, person grounded to beryllium substantiated pinch actual evidence. 

For nan avoidance of immoderate doubt, Ms Craig vehemently denies each allegations that person been presented to her, and it is her position that location is nary truth successful immoderate of nan allegations.'

But Sarah takes a different view: 'What happened to Hui was coercive control,' says Sarah. 'If I did thing akin arsenic a mother, that is simply a crime and that is jailhouse time, but if I did it to personification else's daughter, it's ineligible — and to maine that's not British justice,' she says.

Her champion is nan Liberal Democrat adjacent Lord Marks of Henley, who is pushing for an amendment to Section 76 of nan Serious Crime Act — which covers coercive power — to inquire for nan removal of a clause which states that nan rule only applies successful 'an friendly aliases family relationship'.

'All we want is nan removal of that phrase,' Sarah says.

Whatever happens, it will not springiness Sarah and Hui backmost nan years they missed. 'I can't deliberation astir that, conscionable arsenic I cannot deliberation astir that woman,' she says, refusing to sanction Craig. 'Anything antagonistic you transportation only punishes oneself, truthful I've tried to fto it lavation away.'

Not slightest because she has different things to attraction connected — her grandsons, and her daughter's now thriving life arsenic a image creator and musician pinch a caller group of adjacent friends.

'She precocious saw an aged photograph of herself connected nan fridge, laughing and looking really happy,' Sarah recalls.

'She told maine that during her clip pinch her 'teacher', she had been led to judge that she had ne'er had a happy time successful her life.'

The six-part podcast Dangerous Memories is retired now from Tortoise Media.