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New film investigates Kenja Communications
July 30, 2007 Transcript
Reporter: Matt Brown
www.abc.net.au
This is a transcript from PM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 5:10pm on Radio National and 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio.
MARK COLVIN: The Australian cult leader Ken Dyers took his own life last Thursday, but the controversy around him and his Kenja group has not died with him.
He had been due to face court in May on 22 charges relating to the sexual assault of two girls, but Dyers was deemed unfit for trial.
It’s now emerged that police were investigating further allegations against Dyers from another girl involved with Kenja.
An entry in this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival also looks at Dyers’ group, Kenja Communications.
Matt Brown reports.
MATT BROWN: Last Wednesday, Ken Dyers’ lawyer rang him to say the police wanted to interview him about further allegations of sexual abuse from a girl who attended his “energy conversion” sessions.
It turned out to be the last straw as the 84-year-old ended his own life.
Filmmaker Melissa Maclean spent time with Dyers last year, interviewing him for the film Beyond Our Ken.
MELISSA MACLEAN: I was very shocked. This is a man who really believes in himself. Ken Dyers always expressed the utmost confidence in what he believed in and to kill oneself just seems the opposite of that so I always expected him to battle on to the very end, whatever that was.
(excerpt from interview in Beyond our Ken)
KEN DYERS: Prove they’re not lying. Hell, why have I got to prove they’re not lying? They’re liars! I don’t have to prove that. I might have to prove that to God but I don’t have to prove that to anybody else.
MATT BROWN: In October last year, Melissa Maclean asked Ken Dyers about the sexual assault allegations he was preparing to defend in court.
She only got halfway through her first question before Dyers produced a furious outburst.
(excerpt from interview in Beyond Our Ken)
KEN DYERS: Why don’t you have that viewpoint as well and do something worthwhile with your thing, instead of asking me to defend myself and defend myself? Defend myself!
MELISSA MACLEAN: Have a look at the young people who are not…
KEN DYERS: Defend Kenja, well we’re playing a clean game, the cleanest game that’s ever been played in Australia here and why do I have to defend myself for that?
MELISSA MACLEAN: You don’t Ken, you don’t.
KEN DYERS: I don’t and I’m not going to.
MATT BROWN: In making the film, Melissa Maclean witnessed a re-enactment of one of Dyers’ “energy conversion” sessions.
It was during these sessions that two girls alleged he had sexually assaulted them.
MELISSA MACLEAN: It seemed to me quite strange and I actually discussed that with him, I said that I felt uncomfortable watching him do that because it is so unusual to watch an old man, an 84-year-old man essentially hit on a young girl, but he said he did that so they would recognise when they were being hit on.
MATT BROWN: The case should have started in May but the court ordered a mental health assessment for Dyers, whose health was deteriorating.
(excerpt from interview in Beyond our Ken)
KEN DYERS: I’m on the way out. I don’t expect to last more than two years but I’ll tell you this much, I condemn these bastards of people that still…. I’ve tried to be honest and I’ve really opened myself completely to you and you’re still asking stupid bloody questions like that, questions asking me to defend.
(end of excerpt)
MATT BROWN: Yesterday, the Kenja group took out full page adds as a tribute to Ken Dyers.
They called him “A Great Australian” and criticised police, the media and cult-awareness groups for “ruthlessly attacking” Kenja over the years.
Melissa Maclean says it’s exactly what she expected.
MELISSA MACLEAN: It will be to bond together and say the bastards got him in the end. He’s a martyr to the group now. It’s not that he killed himself, it’s that the press, everybody attacked him and they got him. They beat him down.
MATT BROWN: But she says without Ken Dyers, Kenja will struggle to survive.
MARK COLVIN: Matt Brown.
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