Rau angry at sister's visit

The Sunday Mail (Australia)/February 13, 2005
By Kevin Naughton

Cornelia Rau's family have seen her for the first time since December 2003, but only through a glass window.

And despite an angry response from the woman who ended up in a detention centre after being mistaken for an illegal immigrant, her family was relieved.

In an emotional visit yesterday to an Adelaide mental health hospital, sister Christine and favourite niece Alexandra, 8, made the long-awaited contact, hoping familiar faces would help Cornelia's recovery.

"We saw her through the dining room window and she saw us," Christine said.

"She didn't want to see us and she was angry that we were there and didn't want to acknowledge us.

"I'll be able to reassure my family that she's well. She looked fine, hadn't lost any weight and she looked healthy."

Reminders of home and happier times are being used to smooth the path to recovery for Cornelia Rau.

The family have brought her "things that have meaning to her", said Christine.

"The encouraging news is that she's not denying the existence of her family outright."

Details are emerging of how Ms Rau slid into schizophrenia while the member of a cult.

The 39-year-old former Qantas flight attendant was expelled from the secretive Kenja cult, after being humiliated in a cruel ceremony in Melbourne.

She joined other members of the cult at a get-together in October 1998 where witnesses said she was humiliated, "demonised" and expelled.

That was the last time most members saw her.

One witness said humiliation was a common Kenja technique - "building them up and tearing them down."

Kenja's activities - run by millionaire guru Ken Dyers - are now being investigated by police.

Dyers, 83, was convicted in 1999 of sexually abusing girls as young as 11 who attended his "energy conversion" sessions, but was cleared after a High Court appeal in 2002.

Ms Rau, after being found by Aborigines on Cape York Peninsula in March, was detained at the Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre and then moved to South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre as a suspected illegal immigrant.

Her detention has caused a national outcry. Several hundred protesters gathered outside the Adelaide office of Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone yesterday, demanding a public judicial inquiry.