 |

|
 |
Facts regarding the film 'Beyond Our Ken'
- Melissa Maclean was granted free and totally unrestricted access to Kenja activities – nothing was withheld from her.
- She
also was granted complete access to Ken and Jan and she must have at
least 20-30 hours of interview footage with Ken and Jan.
- She
gave her word to Ken that the documentary would be fair and balanced,
and that she would not engage in the tabloid, sensationalist sort of
propaganda that is in the film. It was under these conditions that she
was granted access to Kenja, Ken and Jan.
- She
gave her word to over 100 Kenja participants that the documentary would
be fair and balanced. She claimed to be researching ‘new spiritual
movements’ and that she had intended to go to America but was
fascinated by this home-grown product. She indicated that there would
be other groups covered in the documentary as well. She gave her word
to these people that she would let them see it for comment before it
was finalised in documentary form.
She did not keep any of these promises.
- Melissa
Maclean did not let us know that she was talking to former Kenja
participants, so there was no opportunity for right of reply to these
people.
- The first negative person seen
attacking Kenja is Annette Stephens. In late 1991 we asked her to cease
participating in Kenja activities. We had had ongoing clashes with
Annette over her unethical behaviour. She was also bitter and angry
that we had not allowed her to begin a Kenja centre of her own. She was
to later state that she had been "deprogrammed".
Deprogramming is an activity which emerged in America which at that
time involved the forcible kidnapping of an individual, imprisoning
them and subjecting them to mental and sometimes physical assault in
order to change the belief system of this individual back to the belief
system of the hirers of the deprogrammers. For example, in the 1970s
and 1980s in America some families availed themselves of this
deprogramming service, horrified that loved ones had turned their back
on the family religion and were embracing a new one. This practice was
finally outlawed in America, and the American organisation that acted
as a referral system for deprogramming "Cult Awareness Network" was
bankrupted after a million-dollar payout was awarded to a young man who
had been deprogrammed before he sued and won his case against the
deprogrammer Rick Ross, and Cult Awareness Network for acting as a
referral organisation for deprogramming.
After therapy, including hypnotism, by "exit-counsellors" (the new name
given to deprogramming), Annette Stephens became the face of an
Anti-Cult movement attack on Ken, Jan and Kenja.
She joined forces with an Australian ex-politician Stephen Mutch who
had strong personal connections with a woman associated with the
English equivalent of Cult Awareness Network. Stephens publicly stated
she intended to bring Cult Awareness Network to Australia. She did
this, and in association with Stephen Mutch and the other woman Marea
Capell began initial attempts to sue Ken, Jan and Kenja for
"brainwashing". She stands to make thousands of dollars through this
personal enterprise.
So the attack on Ken, Jan and Kenja began. For Annette, this included
attempted civil action, newspaper attacks, tabloid sensationalist
television attacks. All of these attacks failed. It was only after the
suicide of a young man Michael Beaver and subsequent false claims that
Kenja was responsible, that their attack got off the ground.
- The
truth was, Michael had been deprogrammed (2 years after leaving Kenja,
on good terms). Despite police exonerating any implication of Kenja in
his suicide, Annette Stephens and Stephen Mutch and Michael’s mother
Wendy Beaver, ruthlessly attempted to use Michael’s death to get more
negative press on Ken, Jan and Kenja. When this failed, Annette
Stephens began to canvass a close friend of hers, who had 3 daughters.
All of them had been present at the deprogramming of Michael Beaver.
After this, Annette was able to get one of the girls from this family
and her best friend (the girls' mothers were also best friends) to
falsely bring child molestation accusations against Ken. The girls were
17 and 18 at this time. After their association with Mutch and
Stephens, the 3 sisters and other best friend were eventually to bring
charges against Ken. These were the initial charges - prompted by
Annette Stephens and assisted by Wendy Beaver, in 1993. Ken eventually
successfully defended himself against every single charge.
- There
is a concerted attempt to confuse you at the end of Melissa's film.
However, here are the facts about that first court case: Ken was
charged on 11 counts of child molestation. He was found not guilty on
10 of them and in a separate trial he was initially found guilty of
kissing a girl on the forehead. In the trial, the prosecution had
wanted to drop the case, because the complainant "did not come up to
proof". This means she did not in her evidence, accuse Ken of what she
had originally told the police. And also the prosecution admitted there
were "glaring inconsistencies" between the evidence of the girl and her
mother.
On appeal to the High Court of Australia, this
conviction was quashed, the High Court stating that the judge in a
lower court had misdirected the jury to find Ken guilty.
- The
type of allegations and sexual innuendo you will hear Annette Stephens,
Adrian Norman and Jenny Hodges make, were all aired during the 1993
court proceedings against Ken - a thinly disguised attack against
Kenja. These people and their allegations were discredited and
documented proof from this trial indicates quite clearly the conspiracy
between Stephens, Mutch and other protagonists in association with the
girls. (This documentary proof forms the basis of our highly successful
lecture touring Australia at the moment, "Guilty until Proven
Innocent").
The gradual increasing sexual frenzy that
takes over Melissa's film is heightened by very old footage of
interviews of women canvassed by Annette Stephens, appearing in tabloid
TV current affairs programs, which were part of the 1992 attack and
made before and as a lead up to the court case.
- Jenny Hodges
Jenny Hodges was asked to leave Kenja in the late 1980s. She had a very
sad history of drug abuse, "exotic dancing" and was renowned for the
sexual fantasy worlds she lived in, along with her attempts to engage
with many men.
- Adrian Norman
A young man in the mid-1980s, he held a position at a Kenja centre but
was asked to step down due to inappropriate sexual behaviour with
female clients.
- The
black silhouetted figure in the film is a known ex-Kenja participant
who was asked to leave in 2002, after inappropriate behaviour with his
daughter. He was a self-confessed wipe-out with drug and alcohol
problems, when he first met Ken in the early 1980s. He publicly
attributed Ken as the source of the help he received, which pulled him
back from the brink of death. Just prior to being asked to leave Kenja
activities, this man had been suspected of money laundering and
subsequently lost a major business deal. He is actively involved with
activities to destroy Kenja to this very day.
|
|
Back
|
|
|
|
 |
|