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A kid in Australia鈥檚 doomsday cult

When he was a baby, Ben Shenton鈥檚 mum gave him to one of the world's most notorious, drug-taking cults.

Ben Shenton's mum handed him over to a notorious Australian cult when he was a baby. The group was called 'The Family.' His hair was bleached, he was forced to take drugs and was told that the glamorous cult leader was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. So what happened when the lies came crashing down?

Correction: We said two girls went to the police with information about the cult. In fact there were three.

When Judy Evans-McIntyre was a child growing up in Canada, she always knew her father Audley Evans was kind-hearted. What she didn鈥檛 know was that her dad was in fact a hero of the race equality movement in the UK in the 1960s. Audley was part of the group behind the Bristol Bus Boycott, which eventually led to the first race equality laws in the UK. Judy recently travelled to Bristol for the first time to see a brand new mural about her father and his important actions.

Mexican Octavio Aburto has always been in love with the sea. As an adult, he became a marine biologist and made an exciting discovery. While diving, he came across an untouched underwater paradise in the Islas Marias, an archipelago in the Gulf of California. He was amazed by the variety of submarine life he saw there and is now fighting to preserve the underwater haven by turning the whole archipelago into a sanctuary.

Image: Ben Shenton (second child on the right) with other cult members
Credit: supplied by Ben Shenton

Available now

53 minutes

Last on

Fri 12 Jul 2019 03:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Thu 11 Jul 2019 11:06GMT
  • Thu 11 Jul 2019 15:06GMT
  • Thu 11 Jul 2019 17:06GMT
  • Thu 11 Jul 2019 20:06GMT
  • Fri 12 Jul 2019 02:06GMT
  • Fri 12 Jul 2019 03:06GMT

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Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

Step into someone else鈥檚 life and expect the unexpected