The ‘other person' | Dangerous Memories Ep 4

Transcript

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Speaker 30 Tortoise.

Speaker 36 Just a warning before we start. This episode contains references to child abuse and to sexual assault.

Speaker 36 It was 2010 when Huey started to see Anne Craig for sessions.

Speaker 36 Over four years, Huey's world had slowly become smaller and smaller.

Speaker 36 Until now, in 2014, It was just the two of them.

Speaker 36 A seal had formed around Huey,

Speaker 36 protecting her, shielding her from the perceived threat of family, friends, doctors, lawyers,

Speaker 36 outsiders.

Speaker 37 I remember looking out to the river when I was at work and just realising that if anything ever happened to Anne, I would just crumble and die. Like I was so reliant on her.

Speaker 36 When I look at the span of this story, there are moments when things happen slowly, like Huey's dependence on Anne.

Speaker 36 It's difficult to convey when we condense it down, but it happened bit by little bit over years and years, until Huey's worldview became completely warped, with Anne at the centre of everything.

Speaker 36 But then,

Speaker 36 there are other moments when a lot happens. quickly.

Speaker 36 And 2014 is one of those moments in time.

Speaker 36 When everyone who became caught up in Anne's web, her clients, their families and outsiders, started to realize what was happening.

Speaker 36 They started to see the web, the connections.

Speaker 36 They started to see the trap.

Speaker 36 What Huey didn't realize that day when she thought she saw her mum outside Anne's house, leading Anne to call the police, is that someone else had dialed 999.

Speaker 36 Another client,

Speaker 36 because there was someone else still seeing Anne as well.

Speaker 36 A young woman who was just as deep in as Huey was.

Speaker 36 And this other client of Anne's made a decision that kick-started a chain of events that would begin to see Anne's web torn apart, thread by thread.

Speaker 36 I'm Grace Hughes Hallett and from Tortoise, this is Dangerous Memories. Episode 4 The Other Person

Speaker 36 When I asked Huey's mum Sarah about standing outside of Anne's house on that day in 2014, She told me it wasn't her.

Speaker 36 And now, 10 years later, Huey agrees. It can't have been her mother.

Speaker 36 Whoever it was that she saw the back of, leading to that phone call to the police, it wasn't Sarah.

Speaker 36 However, Sarah was planning something similar.

Speaker 36 By now, she'd had two years worth of emails, texts, and attempts to confront Huey and intervene on her journey with Anne.

Speaker 36 And none of it had worked.

Speaker 36 So, Sarah had begun to plan a more direct approach to try and get her daughter back.

Speaker 36 In February 2014, she was part of a group alongside other ex-clients and parents that sent a legal letter to Anne Craig via a high-profile London law firm.

Speaker 36 The letter alleged that Anne had been implanting false memories of abuse and demanded that she stopped seeing her clients.

Speaker 36 Despite Despite threatening legal action in the High Court if Anne didn't comply,

Speaker 36 the only response the lawyers received was a letter from Huey.

Speaker 36 In it, she said,

Speaker 36 There is no question of me being under the influence of Mrs. Craig.

Speaker 36 I take full responsibility for the rewarding life I live today.

Speaker 36 At this point, Sarah felt the only option she had left was to confront Anne face to face.

Speaker 36 And she worked out a plan with her husband Henry.

Speaker 38 It was very much seen as a last resort. And I think Sarah might have been advised by somebody to try and eyeball Mrs.

Speaker 38 Craig and say to her, look, I'm a mother, you're a mother, can't we sort something out?

Speaker 36 So Sarah, Henry, and Sarah's brother Robin planned a visit to the Craig's house.

Speaker 36 They didn't have a particular plan, but the hope was that they could start a conversation.

Speaker 38 We knocked on the door and it was answered by Mr. Craig, who was immediately very defensive.

Speaker 36 They didn't get to speak to Anne.

Speaker 36 Instead, the door was opened by her husband.

Speaker 36 Now, from what we've seen, there's no evidence to suggest he was involved with his wife's business.

Speaker 36 But from the way he reacted to Henry's knock on the door, it does seem that he might have known enough about her work to know what to say if someone started asking questions.

Speaker 38 I said, I know what you are, I know you are, I don't know where you've come about this.

Speaker 38 And then, you know, we said all we want to do is

Speaker 38 to

Speaker 38 see your wife and discuss this issue.

Speaker 36 Quite quickly, the visit got heated.

Speaker 38 And they said, I'm calling the police, and if you don't go. And so we left.
He was.

Speaker 36 It was another failed attempt.

Speaker 36 There wasn't much more they could do on that doorstep. It wasn't like Anne was physically holding Huey in there and that they could barge in and retrieve her.

Speaker 38 And that was it for the time being.

Speaker 36 Until a couple of weeks later, Henry got a phone call from the chairman of a company he worked for.

Speaker 36 He told Henry that Anne's husband had sent an email about him to the company, alleging that Henry had harassed and intimidated him.

Speaker 36 And he was now threatening to go to the press. And there was something else in the email, too.

Speaker 38 Saying that you've issued a leaflet to him and to the neighbours, to his neighbours, which contained a death threat.

Speaker 38 And so I was a bit surprised about this. I mean, I knew I'd been to see him, but nothing happened.

Speaker 36 Henry assumed that the harassment allegation must be connected to the incident on the doorstep.

Speaker 36 Henry would go on to issue a High Court libel claim against Mr. Craig, which was subsequently settled.

Speaker 36 But he had no idea about this apparent death threat.

Speaker 37 So somebody put leaflets through the doors.

Speaker 38 The leaflet is a bit of a mystery.

Speaker 36 Anne and her family had moved to a new part of London that year. It's just across the river from the famous Chelsea.
a more affluent part of London compared to where they had been previously living.

Speaker 36 Some time after Anne and her husband moved into their new house, a leaflet was put through the letterbox, and they weren't the only ones to receive it.

Speaker 36 Some of their new neighbours also found a copy on their doormats. We've seen a photograph of the leaflet, and this is how it begins.

Speaker 40 Beware your new neighbours.

Speaker 39 Holistic healer Anne Craig has moved into your street. Your daughters are in grave danger.

Speaker 36 It goes on to list accusations about Anne.

Speaker 36 Implanting false memories, pressuring clients into believing their parents sexually abused them as children. The list goes on.

Speaker 36 The leaflet also has a picture of a gravestone.

Speaker 36 The gravestone of Anne's mother and father in Longford, in the Republic of Ireland.

Speaker 36 It suggests that someone had been doing their research on Anne's

Speaker 36 and it does look quite sinister. You can see how Anne's husband might have interpreted it as a death threat.
It ends:

Speaker 39 This evil and destructive person has moved into your street,

Speaker 36 and then includes Anne's address.

Speaker 36 What's missing from the leaflet is anything to indicate who had sent it.

Speaker 36 Sarah and Henry deny having any involvement with the leaflet,

Speaker 36 and I've not been able to find proof of who organised it. But I think it's fair to say that by this point, there were a number of ex-clients and concerned parents, all of whom had possible motives.

Speaker 36 Whoever sent it, though, Anne was outraged. She too interpreted it as a death threat, And she tried to get the police involved, to uncover who'd sent it.

Speaker 36 But nothing came of it.

Speaker 36 I'm so curious to know what Anne's thinking was behind getting the police involved.

Speaker 36 Maybe she really believed what she was telling Huey.

Speaker 36 Maybe she was so convinced by her tales of abuse, elite paedophile rings and evil parents that she believed the police would support her.

Speaker 36 But if that's the case, then why, when Huey had been in the hospital, had Anne told her, don't involve the doctors, don't say my name?

Speaker 36 Perhaps Anne felt like she'd run out of other options, and receiving the leaflet had genuinely frightened her. The outsiders were now breaking into their world, piercing the seal.

Speaker 36 And getting the police involved might not only lead to an answer about who was responsible for the leaflet, but it might put a stop to the perceived harassment.

Speaker 36 The truth is that we don't know. This is an investigation, and this is one of the answers we're looking for, and we'll come to it soon.

Speaker 36 Whatever the case, that time Huey thought she saw her mum knocking on Anne's door turned out to be the tipping point.

Speaker 36 The police were called, and not long after they arrived at Anne's house in Battersea and Huey and Anne were waiting for them.

Speaker 37 They said, you know, what's the issue here? And I said, look, I'm working with this woman and I'm trying to, I'm an adult, my mother is harassing me, she's harassing Anne.

Speaker 36 Huey didn't go into any more detail than that. She didn't tell them the awful things she believed of her family.

Speaker 37 She remembers the police officers saying, We can go to your mother's house right now and ask her what she's doing and what she's playing at.

Speaker 37 And by this point, I could not make decisions about anything. I was calling Anne when to eat, when to sleep, when to start writing, when to stop writing.

Speaker 36 Huey was paralyzed by the decision in front of her. She was desperate to do the right thing with this choice.

Speaker 36 Panicked.

Speaker 36 She told them not to worry, that she'd sort this thing out herself.

Speaker 36 She went to Anne.

Speaker 37 And then she was like, why did you make that choice then? Why didn't you make this choice?

Speaker 37 And already it was coming up, this idea that I wasn't prepared to fully go against my family. I wasn't prepared to fully stand up to them, that I was kind of protecting them in some way.

Speaker 37 Which side am I really on? Am I prepared to really stand up to my mother?

Speaker 36 So I felt a lot of panic and fear. The pressure on Huey to do something decisive was building.

Speaker 36 Sarah and the rest of Huey's Huey's family were not relenting in their efforts to speak with her.

Speaker 36 She was still receiving texts and emails from the family, and they were posting things through her letterbox too. Like letters and books, and of course, she was telling Anne about all of this.

Speaker 37 We needed to make it stop.

Speaker 36 So, with all of these things happening around them, it was decided that Huey should call the police again to ask them to investigate. And this time, Huey was going to tell them everything.

Speaker 36 Huey ended up speaking with a detective from the Metropolitan Police. He seemed to be interested in what she was saying about the harassment at the hands of her mother.

Speaker 36 He was taking it seriously and he asked a few preliminary questions, including about whether abuse was involved.

Speaker 36 Huey told him she didn't want to go into details over the phone.

Speaker 37 So he said, I'm going to come to your house and we're going to go through everything and you can tell me everything.

Speaker 36 And in the meantime, he asked Huey to send him evidence of the alleged harassment, every email, every text her family had sent to her, so he could start to understand their relationship.

Speaker 37 And I remember thinking, something doesn't feel right about doing this. I don't know what it is.
And I remember saying to Anne, I'm not sure. Should I really send all these emails?

Speaker 37 She said, just send them, Just send them. So I sent them all.

Speaker 36 I've seen several of these emails from family and friends. They're desperate pleas for Huey to come back, to reinstate some kind of contact.

Speaker 36 Some of them say things like, Why are you still seeing this woman? Can't you see the others have left her?

Speaker 36 It makes me feel like this is a point for the case of Anne believing the allegation she was making.

Speaker 36 The emails don't reveal anything sinister. They don't look like evidence of parents harassing their daughter.

Speaker 36 But maybe Anne truly believed that they did.

Speaker 36 Through the course of that summer, the detective combed through the documents that Huey had shared with him. He really took the time to understand what was going on.

Speaker 36 And when he was ready, he asked if he could come and see Huey where she was living with Lee to talk in person about the next steps.

Speaker 37 This detective came to the house and

Speaker 37 he sat down with me and said, okay, take me through everything.

Speaker 36 I took she went over the last few years in more detail.

Speaker 37 He said, I read all the emails and just as he was about to leave he said, I just want to let you know that I am going to be investigating your family, but I'm also going to be investigating Anne.

Speaker 37 And it just suddenly felt like

Speaker 37 the world

Speaker 37 came crashing down.

Speaker 37 What do you mean you're going to investigate Anne? Why would you investigate Anne?

Speaker 36 You can imagine the stomach drop moment this must have been for Huey.

Speaker 36 The realization that she'd started something that she could no longer control.

Speaker 36 And now the police would be going to Anne next to start asking questions.

Speaker 37 So I called her absolutely. I was really frightened of Anne.
I don't know why, but I was so... frightened of her getting it wrong or displeasing her and I said Anne um

Speaker 37 the the police have told me they're going to investigate you. And so she and I knew I was in big trouble.
I just knew that I'd done something really, really bad.

Speaker 36 Anne told Huey to come over as soon as possible. When Huey arrived just an hour or so later, Anne made a cup of chamomile tea as usual.

Speaker 36 They climbed the stairs and when they got into the room, Anne gave her a giant piece of paper and something to write with.

Speaker 36 Then she asked Huey a question.

Speaker 37 Why have you done this? Why have you done this?

Speaker 37 And I wrote the question with my left hand and I got the answer in my head before I was to write it and I remember shaking and I burst into tears and I was like, I can't write it, I can't write the answer and I can't.

Speaker 37 And she was like, write it down, what is it?

Speaker 37 And what I got was, I want to destroy you. as in destroy Anne.

Speaker 37 And I was like, why have I written that? Why have I written that? and I was so confused and

Speaker 37 she had another question like why do you want to destroy me

Speaker 37 and I think

Speaker 37 I got the word like I hate you and again I burst into tears

Speaker 37 and that was the moment where

Speaker 37 where like all that trust between us just got completely broken and I could tell she just stopped trusting me and this coldness and this frostiness started between us.

Speaker 37 So I was then, my role started to be seen as I was like this mole that was colluding with the darkness and the paedophiles and that I was trying to destroy her.

Speaker 37 So that there was one part of me that wanted to be light and wanted to be good and wanted to do the deep work and there was another part of me that was not prepared to give up my addiction to the abuse and my addiction to men and my addiction to the darkness and that I'd been lying to her for all these years and now it had finally come out and that terrified me.

Speaker 37 It was like this idea that I didn't know who I was and that actually I was this evil person that wanted to destroy her.

Speaker 36 And all the time the fear that Huey was going to destroy Anne.

Speaker 36 Either herself or because of what she'd given to the police.

Speaker 36 The same police who Anne was now suggesting were part of the paedophile network, maybe out of a sense that their investigation was turning against her.

Speaker 37 And it was just this awful six months because the police were applying a lot of pressure on Anne. She was having multiple interviews with the police.
I was being interviewed by the police.

Speaker 37 It was like hanging over us, this thing, are the police going to arrest Anne? Are the police going to arrest my family? Or what's going to happen?

Speaker 36 Unbeknownst to Huey, the police were not just investigating Huey's situation

Speaker 36 because there was this other client of Anne's who was also deep in her web and who had also made a police complaint.

Speaker 36 We've been in touch with several ex-clients of Anne.

Speaker 36 and are also aware of several that we haven't been able to speak to yet.

Speaker 36 Huey knew about a lot of them, either because, like Fipsy, she knew them personally, or because Anne would tell her about them in their sessions.

Speaker 36 But from around the time of the cowshed pub, years earlier, there was one client in particular that Anne would tell Huey about again and again.

Speaker 36 She was simply described by Anne as the other person.

Speaker 37 She'd always talked about me and the other person just being kind of the two that she needed to break through with this work and get to the light.

Speaker 36 Anne never told her the other person's name, but what Huey says Anne did do was make a constant point of telling her about the brilliance of the other person's journey, about how deep she was willing to go, and as a result, the progress she was making.

Speaker 37 It all felt quite competitive, I suppose, being compared to the other person who had all this depth that I didn't have.

Speaker 36 At one point, she told Huey that the other person had decided to disinherit herself from her family's wealth and encouraged Huey to do the same.

Speaker 41 So I'm Tori. I'm 34 years old and at the moment I'm living in Bali.

Speaker 36 I've been speaking with this other person for two years now.

Speaker 36 Her name is Tori.

Speaker 36 She is, alongside Huey, the client whose life has been most derailed by seeing Anne Craig.

Speaker 36 She's a similar age and background to Huey and could also be described as posh. All girls boarding school, royal connections.

Speaker 36 She's friends with some of the Florence art school crowd but didn't study there herself.

Speaker 36 Tori went to see Anne around the same time that Huey did.

Speaker 36 She went to her for help. with an eating disorder that she'd been struggling with for years.

Speaker 36 Her journey with Anne up until this point had been similar to Huey's. Tori believed that her family was part of this elite paedophile ring too.

Speaker 36 Anne had also recently started telling Tori that the police were part of the paedophile ring. Tori too had been told to use an encrypted email server, to burn all of her work for Anne.

Speaker 36 and also to burn all photos from her old life and gifts from her parents.

Speaker 36 Tori had cut all contact with everyone in her life, had shunned pleading letters, ignored desperate visits from family members, and had disinherited herself from a significant trust fund.

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Speaker 36 Tori's family had in fact for some time been desperately trying to find ways to get their daughter back.

Speaker 36 All the time that Sarah had been fighting, so too had they.

Speaker 36 In fact, Sarah and Tori's family had been in regular contact over the years,

Speaker 36 ever since they'd worked out through mutual friends that their daughters were seeing the same healer.

Speaker 36 They would share information about Anne and their daughters, and legal advice too.

Speaker 36 For example, that lawyer's letter Anne got from Sarah.

Speaker 36 That letter had been from Torrey's family as well, demanding she cease contact with their daughter as well as with Huey.

Speaker 41 So it was around my birthday. My mum came really late at night.

Speaker 41 And so it was dark and I could hear

Speaker 41 someone on the doorstep.

Speaker 36 Around the time that Huey and Anne had reported Sarah to the police, Tori was at home alone one night when her mother turned up.

Speaker 41 And I just felt terrified. I was so afraid because I was believing all these things about my mother and these things led me to believe that she was very like violent and immoral.

Speaker 36 Her mum was trying to drop off some flowers for her birthday and a book about false memories.

Speaker 41 So I was really, really, really afraid and I remember shaking and

Speaker 41 yeah I thought the only thing I could do was to call the police because I in my mind she was trying to get into the house to harm me. So yeah that's what I did.
I called the police.

Speaker 36 Tori called the police and told them her mother was harassing her.

Speaker 36 I've been trying to piece together what happened that summer of 2014.

Speaker 36 and after speaking to a Met police officer involved in the investigation, I've learned that it was this incident that was really the catalyst.

Speaker 36 Huey might have thought it was seeing who she thought was her mother outside Anne's door that changed things, but she wasn't quite right.

Speaker 36 The night Tori called the police, officers turned up at her flat.

Speaker 36 After they took a statement from Tori, who alleged that her mother was harassing her, the officers went to her mother's house and arrested her, taking her straight into custody.

Speaker 36 But she was quickly released. The custody sergeant decided her detention had been unauthorised.

Speaker 36 It was a traumatising event.

Speaker 36 But during this incident, Tori's mum raised her concerns about Anne Craig with the police.

Speaker 36 And so a night that started with the police looking into a case of a mother potentially harassing her daughter turned into something else entirely.

Speaker 36 It was then that they first started looking into Anne.

Speaker 36 It didn't take long for detectives to be assigned to the case.

Speaker 36 As they started to speak to people involved, they were put in touch with a private investigator. He'd been paid to look into Anne by a concerned relative of a client.

Speaker 36 I've met and spoken with that private investigator. He'd rather we don't use his name, but he's happy for us to share details of his years-long investigation.

Speaker 36 He looked into Anne, her background, her work,

Speaker 36 and he also tracked down a number of women who had been clients of Anne.

Speaker 36 and they told him about the experiences they'd had with her.

Speaker 36 They were all similar to what Huey, Torrey and Fipsy have told me about. They'd just untangled themselves from her web much earlier.
All of this information was handed over to the police.

Speaker 36 And what was of particular interest was that some of the statements these women gave to the investigator contained allegations about Anne.

Speaker 36 And those allegations informed what the police did next.

Speaker 37 At eight in the morning, I got this knock on the door, heard a knock downstairs, and I heard, police, open up, police.

Speaker 36 And I was like, what the f?

Speaker 37 And I like jumped out of bed and I was shaking and I was terrified. I was like, what's happening? And then I heard them coming up the stairs and they opened my door and they said,

Speaker 37 police, we need to come in. And then I opened the door and there was a female police officer, a male police officer, and this really tall man with grey hair.
and the detective.

Speaker 37 And I was like, what's going on? Why are you here? And they said, look, we've come to tell you that we've just arrested Anne

Speaker 37 and

Speaker 37 we need you to come to the police station with us now and make a statement. And I was like, I've got to go to work.
And what do you mean you've arrested Anne? And I burst into tears.

Speaker 37 And I was like, This is crazy.

Speaker 36 Years later, Anne told a journalist that the police had been investigating her in relation to three potential offences: fraud, administering a noxious substance,

Speaker 36 and occasioning psychological, actual bodily harm, which in simple terms was whether she was fraudulently advertising her services, whether she had been spiking the chamomile tea she had been offering to her clients, and whether her methods amounted to a form of psychological abuse.

Speaker 36 Anne denied all of them, but at the time

Speaker 36 the police believed there were grounds for arrest. And when the police prepared to make that arrest in late October October of 2014, they also put together two intervention teams.

Speaker 36 The idea was that on the same day Anne was being taken into custody, one team, including a mental health expert, would go to Tori's address and another would go to Huey's.

Speaker 37 And there was this, yeah, this tall grey-haired man was like, look,

Speaker 37 Just stay calm. Like, we want to help you.
And he seems so nice. And I was like, oh, I can get through to this man.
I can get him to see that there's nothing wrong with Anne. She's good.

Speaker 37 And there's been a terrible misunderstanding. And I can get through to him.
And so we sat down

Speaker 37 and

Speaker 37 I started speaking with him directly. And he said,

Speaker 37 Look, I'm a psychiatrist. That's when the walls started imploding around me.
So I was like, oh my god, I'm going to be sectioned.

Speaker 41 Oh, my God, what's happening?

Speaker 37 And there'd been this belief that Anne had told me over the during this whole police stuff that

Speaker 37 if my family ever got me back, that they'd section me, that my family wanted to silence me, that I'd opened up all of the family secrets, I'd opened up all of the family darkness, and therefore if they ever get their hands on me again, they'll section me and silence me and put me away.

Speaker 36 Huey eventually agreed to go with the police officers.

Speaker 36 While she was getting dressed, alone, she deleted all the emails she had from Anne.

Speaker 36 She was scared that the officers would take her computer.

Speaker 36 And then she went to the station.

Speaker 36 She remembers making a statement, although it's all a bit of a blur now.

Speaker 36 And that was that for now.

Speaker 37 And suddenly it was just like this veil came over me of guilt, of oh my god, they've won, and they've won because of me and I've done this to her, I've destroyed her work, this kind woman who's done everything for everyone, the light, this is all my fault.

Speaker 37 And that was the closest I've been to wanting to kill myself because I just thought, this is all my fault.

Speaker 36 Huey didn't know what was happening. She tried calling her local police station to find out,

Speaker 36 but she couldn't get the information she wanted.

Speaker 37 Can you imagine you've been brainwashed for like years? You're completely dependent on this person. They arrest her and they leave you with no one.

Speaker 36 Anne had been bailed.

Speaker 36 And one of the conditions of her bail was that she was not allowed to see the clients while the police followed up their lines of inquiry.

Speaker 36 After years of dependence, Huey couldn't make contact with Anne while the investigation continued.

Speaker 41 I just remember...

Speaker 41 I felt like I went into this survivorless mode and I was really worried for Huey because I knew that Huey was really struggling and in a really really dark place

Speaker 41 so although I hadn't had like direct contact with Huey

Speaker 41 Anne had spoken a lot about her so I knew roughly where she lived I knew the area that she lived in I knew her place of work I knew what she did for work on the day Anne was arrested Tori's world fell apart too So I wrote a letter to Huey and put it in her workplace with my phone number number and said, like, contact me.

Speaker 41 And I was really concerned about Huey, actually. So that was sort of my focus.

Speaker 41 And I felt like if Huey and I could sort of team up in a way, it would be easier for both of us because we could then support one another.

Speaker 36 And then what happened after that?

Speaker 41 I think Huey contacted me. I think she did.

Speaker 41 But she was really afraid of us meeting up because, you know, in her dynamic with Anne, she felt like she just had to stay on her own and like do the work and couldn't really be in connection with other people.

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Speaker 36 Huey was afraid of Anne and she felt incapable of making decisions without her guidance.

Speaker 37 So I didn't reply to her letter for like quite a while,

Speaker 37 maybe a week. And then eventually I wrote her an email saying, thank you so much for your letter, but this is all my fault and you should kind of stay away from me.
And

Speaker 37 she wrote back saying,

Speaker 37 What are you talking about? This is not your fault at all. This is, of course, this is not your fault.
Like, my, my, this is just as much my fault. It was my family that were involved in this as well.

Speaker 37 And it was kind of this like, what? Like, waking up to this other perspective.

Speaker 36 Tori and Huey met up.

Speaker 36 They were otherwise all alone in the world. The protective layer Anne had offered them both had vanished overnight.

Speaker 37 I guess we started talking about Anne. for the first time of

Speaker 37 who is Anne and it started coming up really quickly that our experiences of Anne had been really different.

Speaker 37 So the way in which Anne would belittle me or put me down or blame me for things she wasn't doing with Tori

Speaker 37 and Tori's experience of her

Speaker 37 was completely different.

Speaker 36 From what Tori's told me, it seems like Anne behaved in a different way around her.

Speaker 41 We would go for walks together and she would make time to have tea with me. She became like a like a friend.
More more than a friend, it was like a motherly figure. Then

Speaker 41 towards the end, she was quite vocal about me being, yeah, like a favourite and

Speaker 41 that I was willing to go the furthest and the deepest and sacrifice the most. And

Speaker 41 yeah, she would say these things like she only needed one person to finish their journey with her, to finish the work with her, and I was that person.

Speaker 41 Yeah.

Speaker 36 Tori told me that it was this feeling of indebtedness to Anne for choosing her as her favourite that ended up trapping her for so long.

Speaker 36 Because her self-esteem became entirely based on Anne's attention and praise.

Speaker 36 And she had nothing else in her life. Without Anne, she knew she was nothing and no one.

Speaker 36 And it was this that kept pulling her deeper into Anne's world.

Speaker 36 Even in moments of doubt, the thought of leaving Anne had just become too terrifying.

Speaker 36 And neither of you were

Speaker 36 led to question Anne by this experience.

Speaker 36 You didn't think the police are taking this

Speaker 36 seriously enough to stop her from seeing us. Perhaps there's something going on here.

Speaker 41 No, because we had we were living this story that the police were not to be trusted and they were affiliated with this

Speaker 41 paedophile ring and they were sort of working for this

Speaker 41 system that we were trying to expose or bring to light to through our own personal work.

Speaker 36 But

Speaker 36 like when Fipsy went abroad, For the first time in years,

Speaker 36 they both had space to think without Anne.

Speaker 36 And as the weeks and months of Anne's bail period continued, new thoughts did start to enter Huey's mind.

Speaker 37 I guess all this doubt around Anne for the first time started coming in because it was like,

Speaker 37 why don't we have similar experiences? Why doesn't she teach us the same things? Why does she treat us differently?

Speaker 36 And Tori had her own questions.

Speaker 36 Did you in any way step back from what she'd led you to believe?

Speaker 41 And And sort of like, doubt it, you mean?

Speaker 36 Yeah.

Speaker 41 The thing is, doubts are always there. There was always part of it.
And I was always communicating those doubts to Anne. And Anne would always say, well, that's the nature of trauma.

Speaker 41 When you have something really traumatic happen to you, you repress that memory. And then it's very difficult to

Speaker 41 well, remember it. And the younger that this traumatic experience happens to you, the harder it is to recall it.
But the body retains the memory in some way. And, you know, I researched this a lot.

Speaker 41 And that's like

Speaker 41 often what people

Speaker 41 share. And

Speaker 41 so the doubt was normalised. It was just like a normal part of

Speaker 36 the work, really.

Speaker 36 Even with Anne on bail and out of reach for months, they both continued to shun their families and friends. The false memories of abuse had been woven so intricately into their minds.

Speaker 36 They even wrote letters in support of Anne, which they sent to the police.

Speaker 36 It didn't matter if Anne wasn't right beside them anymore.

Speaker 36 When I started reporting this story, I thought I had a good understanding of counselling and therapy.

Speaker 36 either from my own experience or from what I read about it, as we've been encouraged as a society to be more open and talk more about our mental health.

Speaker 36 So when I first started listening to Anne's former clients about how Anne was behaving, I assumed that she was doing something wrong, at least in the eyes of the industry she was working in.

Speaker 36 But I was wrong.

Speaker 36 As things stand in the UK, anyone can call themselves a therapist, psychotherapist or counsellor without standard qualifications or training.

Speaker 36 Unlike clinical psychologist or general practitioner, they are not protected terms.

Speaker 36 What this means is that I, someone with zero qualifications, could set up a therapist's office tomorrow in my front room with a gold plaque on the door saying Grace Hughes Hallett, therapist, and start seeing paying clients.

Speaker 36 And in terms of regulation, for private therapists, i.e. anyone who isn't working for the NHS, it's up to each individual whether they want to be associated with an accredited body.

Speaker 36 These bodies have a code of ethics, complaint system, and minimum qualifications, which are all overseen by the Professional Standards Authority.

Speaker 36 But if you decide not to be part of this accreditation system, None of that applies to you. What this all means is that it's all optional.

Speaker 36 This really shocked me. I had no idea.

Speaker 36 And having told this to friends over the past few months, I've seen more than one person's face drop as they wonder whether the person they're telling all their problems to is qualified to help them or regulated in any way.

Speaker 36 This is all to explain that there were no regulations that could be used to prevent Anne from practising in whichever way she saw fit.

Speaker 36 The burning, the left-hand writing, the dream interpretations, the isolation, the hours-long sessions.

Speaker 36 And in April 2015, it was decided that there was nothing in the law that could stop her either.

Speaker 36 The police eventually referred their investigation to the Crown Prosecution Service. and they decided that the threshold criteria for a successful prosecution were not met.

Speaker 36 There was not enough evidence for a realistic prospect prospect of conviction.

Speaker 36 Anne was never charged, and she's always denied the allegations.

Speaker 36 So Anne was released from bail.

Speaker 36 There was nothing to prevent her, either in law or by any professional body, from seeing the women she needed to get to the light.

Speaker 36 It was not the news that Huey and Tori's families had been hoping for.

Speaker 36 They'd hoped that with the police finally involved, it would put an end to Anne's healing and bring their daughters back.

Speaker 36 But

Speaker 36 this wasn't the last time Anne would be investigated.

Speaker 36 Coming up on dangerous memories.

Speaker 42 I received a telephone call asking whether I wanted to talk to Anne Craig. And she said, I haven't told anybody my side of the story.
And I want to tell you my side of the story.

Speaker 37 I couldn't believe it was her. It was like I couldn't believe I was speaking to her.

Speaker 42 She was definitely on a mission. She was definitely on a mission.
She had a conviction and convictions are very dangerous things.

Speaker 36 In the past Anne Craig has issued categorical denials of any wrongdoing. She has denied responsibility for mentally abusing or psychologically manipulating clients.

Speaker 36 She has said she is the victim of a campaign of harassment.

Speaker 36 Mr. Craig denies any involvement with Anne Craig's work as a teacher of personal development.

Speaker 36 If you're looking to speak to a reputable therapist or know someone who is, you can search the Therapist Directory compiled by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy or BACP.

Speaker 36 Only registered members accredited by the Professional Standards Authority are listed, which ensures they meet high professional and ethical standards and and are fully trained and qualified.

Speaker 36 Just go to bacp.co.uk.

Speaker 36 If you'd like to get in touch with us about your own experience, you can send us an email. It's dangerousmemories at tortoesmedia.com.

Speaker 36 Thank you for listening to Dangerous Memories.

Speaker 36 If you're enjoying this podcast, you can listen to all episodes today by subscribing to Tortoise Plus on Apple Podcasts or by downloading the Tortoise app.

Speaker 36 And you can listen to our previous investigations right here on Tortoise Investigates.

Speaker 36 Or to hear more podcasts from our award-winning newsroom, search for Tortoise wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 36 Dangerous Memories was written and reported by me, Grace Ushallett, and by Gary Marshall. The producer is Gary Marshall.
Additional reporting and production from Imogen Harper.

Speaker 36 Fact-checking was by Xavia Greenwood. Sound design and original composition from Tom Kinsella.
The theme music is Far Gone, Don't Leave by Pictish Trail.

Speaker 36 Podcast artwork by Lola Williams.

Speaker 36 The commissioning editor was Basha Cummings.

Speaker 36 The executive producer was Kerry Thomas.

Speaker 36 Tortoise

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