AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)
Yoga master ‘beat and groomed young girls’ before telling them to have sex with him ‘to enhance their spiritual growth’, inquiry told
By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
Parents handed over legal guardianship of their children to a yoga master who beat and sexually exploited the young girls, an inquiry has been told.
The child sexual abuse royal commission sitting in Sydney heard some parents living at the Satyananda Yoga Ashram at Mangrove Mountain in NSW in the 1980s signed over legal guardianship of their children to Swami Akhandananda and his partner Shishy.
Some witnesses will give evidence they were beaten violently by both the swami and Shishy, who will give evidence at the hearing.
The Mangrove ashram was founded in November 1974 with Akhandananda as director and spiritual leader. He was 22 and Shishy was 16.
Peggy Dwyer, SC for the royal commission, said in her opening statement that children were sexually and physically abused at the ashram.
She said some parents endorsed pension cheques payable to them in favour of the swami who was considered to be a spiritual, god-like man who had attained enlightenment.
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