Cruel and charismatic, Anne Hamilton-Byrne was the Australian leader of a doomsday cult who thought she was the Messiah. As leader of The Family, ... she claimed to be Jesus reborn as a woman. One of the few female cult leaders in history - and apparently one of the cruellest - Hamilton-Byrne operated in almost total secrecy over two decades. The police, acting on information from two child escapees, raided the cult in 1987. Over the years Hamilton-Byrne had collected 28 children through bogus adoptions and "gifts" from followers. She subjected them to vicious beatings, starvation and emotional torture. "Anne wasn't giving love," says [a parent] whose young son was one of Hamilton-Byrne's victims. "She was offering it and then taking it back. She broke people's spirit." The glamorous guru used the same tactic on her adult followers, handpicking them from Melbourne's wealthy professional elite. Preaching a mishmash of Christianity, eastern mysticism and apocalyptic prophecy, she allegedly forced followers, including children, to take dangerous amounts of LSD and other hallucinogenics as part of prolonged initiation rites. Once they had submitted, she'd dictate every aspect of their lives. The cult leader amassed an estimated AU$150m (90m) through property, land and cash donated by followers. She hid overseas and was eventually arrested in 1993 on relatively minor fraud charges. She received an AU$5,000 fine, but no jail time.