The leader of a personal development group described by police as a “cult” groomed young girls to be sexually abused by her late husband and gave them antiseptic lollies after ushering them into private sessions with him, a senate committee has been told.
Jan Hamilton operated Kenja Communications with her husband, Ken Dyers, until he died by suicide in 2007 when new allegations of sexual abuse were raised against him, and has run the group by herself ever since.
Dyers was accused during his lifetime of sexually abusing seven young girls during “processing sessions” that were supposed to clear the girls of negative energy. A police strike force formed to investigate some allegations in 2005 formed the position that Kenja fitted the profile of a cult.
Earlier this year, former banking executive Michelle Ring told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that she had also been raped by Dyers during private processing sessions that occurred over a period of seven years when she was a teenager, but lied in court to protect him when charges were brought against him in 1996.
Ms Ring told a senate committee on Monday afternoon that many adults who are still active in Kenja knew about and witnessed her abuse, including Ms Hamilton who also groomed and emotionally abused her as well. The group, which describes itself as a spiritual and communications training centre, is based in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. It also runs sporting competitions and musicals.
Ms Ring’s submission to the committee was protected by parliamentary privilege.
“[Ms Hamilton] drove me in her white VW to Ken,” Ms Ring said.
“She sent me into the room and ushered me out when he was done, or held me there until the next girl arrived to join us. She gave me antiseptic lollies after each session with Ken so I wouldn’t get infections in my mouth from his abuse. There are many who have the same story.”
When Ms Hamilton unsuccessfully sued the NSW Police for persecuting Dyers and driving him to take his life, the NSW Supreme Court heard in 2019 that other adult members of Kenja witnessed the sexual abuse of children.
Police tendered a statement by Alison DeCamp in which she claimed that a woman known as Person 3 – not Ms Hamilton – had been in the room while he sexually abused her as a 12-year-old child.
“I told him that it hurt when he touched me and that this was wrong,” Ms DeCamp said in her police statement. “I said there had to be another way to solve my problems. He started talking to Person 3, ignoring me and talking about me in the third person. He said that my natural sexual responses were abnormal.”
Ms Ring has tried to make a claim against Kenja under the National Redress Scheme, which was set up following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, for survivors to access counselling, an apology and a payment from the institution that was responsible for the abuse. She was unable to do so because Kenja has refused to join the scheme.
She raised Ms Hamilton in her submission to a senate committee into the implementation of the National Redress Scheme because she said the complicity of the adults who remain active in Kenja is a point of vulnerability that could be leveraged to encourage the group to join the scheme.
Other groups have only joined the scheme when the government has threatened to withdraw their charitable status for taxation purposes, but Kenja is not a registered charity.
“The adults of Kenja knew what was going on and have never been investigated, just like Jan Hamilton has never been investigated because responsibility of care wasn’t an issue like it is now,” Ms Ring told the committee.
“I do think there is some vulnerability there because one of the ways that Jan manages to stay within that organisation is with the support of her very dedicated followers ... [but] the way that it’s set up from a finance perspective doesn’t make them vulnerable.”
Kenja said in a statement that Ms Ring’s statement was “false and malicious” and an abuse of parliamentary process.
“All Ms Ring’s statements are completely denied. They are baseless and degrading. Furthermore, the allegation that other adults were aware of the alleged abuse is similarly baseless. This is a terrible smear on people’s good character.”
