A Very British Cult (2023)

[bunniefuu]

This programme contains some
strong language

So why did you get in touch?

Someone said the line,

"If you really want to get
to the bottom of something...

"..contact a journalist,

"not the police."

We've had private investigator reports...

There's been so much work done on
this organisation and...

..you can only ever go so far.

So what did she say?

So she says that her boyfriend
is in a cult.

But it's not like any cult
I've ever heard of.

I had had these ambitions to do something.

I've always wanted to build
business or be inspiring

or do something good in life.

What is Lighthouse?

Lighthouse?

It's life coaching.

It's a pioneering mentoring organisation.

He had this mentor...

We exist to help people
to develop themselves...

I'm thinking, "I can achieve
something here." It was brilliant.

Phone calls. All day, every day.

And then that's when I started worrying.

I started to feel as though
I couldn't think anything

unless my mentor said
it's a healthy thing to think.

You started becoming separated from people.

They're still recruiting now.

I did feel this feeling the whole
time, like he was watching me.

Everyone has handed over so much money.

The total I invested was £131,000.

I knew he was going to sell his house.

The people that he
m*rder*d... Yeah, yeah...

It's such a strong stereotype.

The only cults are in California
where people wear long orange robes.

There is a cult in your neighbourhood.

It's as if my daughter's died.

They are brainwashing people.

I didn't want him to end up not being him.

He told me, "Remember,
we have all your secrets."

Are you going to take that out
or are you going to keep it in?

Keep this up. Come close!

I'm abandoned...

Wake up and smell the coffee, Jeffrey.

She's not who you think she is.

That's to sync the cameras up.

Oh! I thought there was a fly.

OK, and...

Three, two, one.

So how did you meet Jeff?

I met Jeff on a Friday night,

very drunk in the pub in Chichester.

I shouldn't say this on public TV,
really, but...

So I thought he was just a little
bit of a ruffian,

and he had a squashed nose,
so he looks like a boxer.

You don't think it was
going to be anything,

and then he's...
Yeah, he's completely different.

He's a sailor and he's all
into his adventure

and I'm probably the one that's more
common out of the two, really.

How are you feeling?

I'm OK, I'm a bit nervous.

I grew up in Sussex.

I used to have a lot of freedom.

I had a lot of adventure as a kid.

Yeah, we had a tight, a tight family.

One of my ambitions,
which I've had since a kid,

was to go to the South Pole.

I needed...

I needed something more than just
myself to...

to make that happen. I needed some
sort of other knowledge

or some people that
were successful already.

Jeff's 34 and from Portsmouth.

He was working as a skipper,

teaching military personnel how to sail,

when in late 2018,
he joined an online book group

looking for help in making
his ambitions come true.

and they're studying the 7
Habits of Highly Effective People.

I thought, "Well, if I can learn
them, use them in my own life,

"I'll do well."

You had to leave your number,

so a week later, I had a phone call
from Jai Singh...

Ah! Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

Good evening.

So when I first met Jeff,
only within, like, a few months,

he was talking about this mentor, Jai.

I thought he was smart,
he could speak well.

So we're reading the start of habit seven,

so right from the top,
habit seven, Sharpen The Saw.

He was interested in, you know,
the same ideas

that I was interested in.

We read most of the book.
I really enjoyed it.

Saw it benefiting my life, too.

That's when Jai offered me the
opportunity to work with him

one-on-one and have
some personal mentoring.

It felt great - I was motivated,
I was inspired,

and I started working hard.
I could speak better, write better.

I'm more in flow.
Yeah, I'm loving it.

He said, "We run this discipline programme.

"We found it to be the most, sort
of, basic thing that anybody needs."

You said it a while ago, your dream...

By this stage, Jeff had been talking
to Jai Singh constantly

for more than six months.

They were like best mates.

Discipline programme was £10,000.

That was going to be a year's
worth of mentoring.

And these calls then became
more frequent, longer, more intense,

more about deeper parts of your life.

What sort of things were you
sharing with him?

Loads of stuff.

At first just what I was doing
all day, every day,

and I would share my ambitions,
my desires, insecurities...

If Dawn and I were having trouble,
I'd share that.

In time, began to share traumatic things,

things I found deeply painful.

So they would be on the phone for,
like, four hours.

He would check everything off with
him, have a dispute about something,

or he'd let me down
and I would send him a message,

upset about it.

And the message I got back
didn't sound like Jeff,

because the language was different.

They weren't messages from Jeff,
they were messages from Jai.

What is Lighthouse?

Lighthouse was something that
just sort of grew in my life.

I thought it was a network
of entrepreneurs.

Just to give you a little bit
of background on Lighthouse,

we've been going for about 16 years,

I've been involved for... 11,

I think, for my sins.

We exist to help people to develop
themselves so that they can

improve themselves and improve
the lives of others around them.

Mentoring, coaching, counselling,
leadership development.

Yeah, so I'm Simon, and...

Yeah, so I... Well... Let me..
Let's go back to the beginning.

I've got so many questions still!

I was going to a lot
of networking events at the time.

Tom kind of just came over
and introduced himself.

That was Tom Hasker.

Ten years ago, I got involved
with Lighthouse.

Tom and Simon gone really well,

and soon Tom was Simon's mentor.

I think it really helped me
to feel, like, seen and heard.

It felt he was someone I could
share my experiences with

and my aspirations...

..for the future.

Tom Hasker and Jai Singh
are part of Lighthouse,

a mentoring and coaching organisation

led by a man called Paul Waugh,

who everyone calls "Paulie".

What we're doing is helping human
beings to actually gain control

of themselves, not for us to gain
control of you, but for you to

gain control,
because that's where your power is.

He is very charismatic,

wonderful, sort of, big, warm personality.

It's not in mentorship coaching that
you should be putting your trust.

It's in who's behind the mentorship
and coaching.

He could talk very well.

He's really tapped into something there.

It really draws your attention in,
inspires you.

Our responsibility not only is to
help you think well, feel well,

eat well, look well, be well,

but to raise your level
of conscious awareness

that you own enough of yourself,
that you know you'll never lose.

Yeah!

How many here see tendencies
in you you're not happy with?

Paul would talk about the millions
he made as a businessman

in South Africa, about his close
relationship with Stephen Covey,

the author of the best-selling 7
Habits of Highly Effective People.

He used to speak here once a quarter.

After almost a year of talking to
Jai Singh, Jeff was invited

to become part of the
inner circle at Lighthouse,

a Lighthouse Associate Elect.

So I had a meeting with Jai,
he said, "There's an opportunity

"that's come up and
the price is £25,000."

He said the door was going to close,
the next opening will be 50,000,

then 100, then 250,

so there was a sense of urgency around it.

He said it would be the "best
opportunity for you to succeed."

It was a big risk to
put in that much money,

but I understood that you don't
really get places unless you take...

..huge risks.

After one year of mentorship
with Tom Hasker,

Simon was offered the same.

They didn't come straight up to me
and said,

"Hey..." Like, "Become
a Lighthouse partner."

It was a lot more gentle, steady approach.

It was a big investment -

so it was £25,000 to become what
they called an Associate Elect,

like a Lighthouse Trainee Mentor,
you know, in layman's terms.

So you had to pay to become...? Yes,
but nothing was never described

as "pay", it was always, "You're
making an investment in yourself."

In June 2020,

when the world had just gone into
its first Covid lockdown,

Jeff joined Lighthouse full-time.

In November, the same year, Simon did too.

Jeff wasn't working anyway,
because of Covid.

Simon quit his full-time job.

And what did being full-time involve?

It involves being on these calls.

These were, like, almost 30 people...

..on the call.

Mainly listening to other people speaking,

waiting for Paul Waugh to arrive.

..with feeling, and with
care, and with consideration.

And how long would they last?

In the beginning, quite short.

They got longer and longer as we went,

so within six months, they're...

..five to six hours.

But you'd never know when
they were going to finish.

I think we went on to about
6:00 on one call. Ten-hour call.

Lighthouse has a team of live
transcribers working on every call,

and they mustn't miss a word
of what Paul says.

How does the transcribing work?

Yeah, well, it's quite a procedure.

You're all mature enough to hear this...

But believe you me, conscience
is the great liberator.

You're trying to get as much
of Paul Waugh's words as you can.

As Stephen Covey said, educating
is conscience.

What you'd have is two lead typers,

you'd have two others come in behind them,

and they'd fill in the
abbreviations and the typos.

You'd have others come in behind
them, and they would highlight

certain words which were later
made into a summary.

I'll leave you with that.

By the end of a call,
you'd probably have anything between

a 50-page or 100-page transcript.

So... So... So... So... So...
So, with that...

That's then sent out to a
group of maybe ten,

who listen back to the recording,
go through the written transcript,

and fill everything in, word for word.

It's self-regeneration, self-renewal.

And that's every day? Every day.

Self-love, self-nurture,
self-understanding.

Every day, seven days a week,
it just didn't make any sense.

Saturday and Sunday?

Saturday, Sunday. I had one
Christmas Day off,

one New Year's Day off.

I went up to see Paul Waugh
a couple of times,

so I had those days off too.

He started becoming, like,
separated from people.

We did go to his family's...

He would... You'd find him sitting
in the car on the phone to Jai,

and it was actually quite
embarrassing at times,

so my friends come round to see me,
they'd be like, "Where's Jeff?"

And I'm like, "Oh, he's just upstairs

"on the phone call, as usual."

We were meant to go on holiday
to Mexico for his dad's 60th.

We didn't go because
they said he couldn't go

because there was a big launch happening.

Lighthouse team members are so busy

that they're often not questioning,

at least out loud,

what the point of these calls
are or what anyone's achieving.

The moment he'd get off the phone calls,

he'd have me asking questions,
he'd have his sister

asking him questions,
his family asking him questions.

"Is it mentoring or is it business?"

"Are you working for them
or are they mentoring you?"

"Is it a pyramid scheme?"

Around 20 Lighthouse team members
lived together

in shared rental houses in the Midlands.

We believe one house near
Wolverhampton had around

seven members living in it.

How did you end up living with your mentor?

Tom had broached the idea of...

"Why don't you come and live with
me?" I don't know..

I just think... maybe it was
persistence, I don't know,

but there was just something in me
that just went, "OK, fine.

"Let's... Let's just do it."

I kind of had the bedroom,

and then he slept in what was the
small living room-kitchen.

It was a really tiny flat.
No space, no sort of real privacy.

All day, every day.
Just me and him.

Financially, I was paying
for the whole flat

and I was running out of money.

I remember one evening, I was in my
room quite late and I'd actually

turned the lights out to try
and get some sleep,

and I could hear him walk in,

standing just outside the door.

I did feel this feeling
the whole time, like...

Like... he was watching me.

They asked Jeff to move up with them.

I just felt like the moment he
moves to... them houses, that's it.

Jeff started saying, "Oh, I think
I'm going to sell my house

"cos money's...
Property's dead.

"There's no-one... No-one invests
in property any more."

I was like, "That's rubbish."

In June 2021, two and a half years
after he first started speaking

to Jai Singh, Jeff sold his house.

He gave £28,000 to Lighthouse.

He'd already remortgaged it and
given them 32,000 of that money.

Do you think you would have sold your house

had it not been for
Jai Singh's encouragement?

No chance.

I had no reason to sell that house,

other than the reasons put in front of me

and the opportunities put in front of me...

..at Lighthouse.

Why do you think they wanted Jeff?

Well, he's a cash cow.
It sounds awful.

They realised there was money to...

..to have... there.

How much money did you hand over?

The total I invested was £131,000.

Key to the philosophy of
Lighthouse were the levels.

The idea that everyone is at a
different stage of

human spiritual development.

What, the levels? Level one to four.

They came from M Scott Peck,
who was a psychotherapist.

He's, uh...

..very intelligent.

Chaotic, childlike.

Institutionalised, somebody
that maybe is religious

but follows religions on blind faith.

The sceptic, so these are scientists,

who don't just follow things
on blind faith.

Mystic-communal,
somebody that has really transcended

a lot of challenges in life, is
able to take quite a profound view

on the world, see patterns,
patterns of nature, see wisdom.

What were the various levels
that were in Lighthouse?

Well, everybody was level one.

Paul Waugh was level four.

That was it?

That was it.

Why? A million reasons.

He said nobody there had had an upbringing,

and so they were in Lighthouse
to get that upbringing

that they didn't get at home.

Paul said once you'd got to level four,

you could start achieving your goals.

Many people who don't know me very well

think I'm a mystic, because
I'm able to sort of feel things

that no-one else can, because,
quite simply, I'm able to...

I'm in touch with this heightened
sense of extraordinary awareness

that's becoming more
extraordinary all the time.

I just... Increasingly,
it seems like...

..these people were under control,
under his control.

He has his presence and...

..I felt nervous around him.

Used to go and to play golf with
Paul Waugh,

and then we're teeing up
and Paul just sort of gets out

of the golf caddy, grunts at one of
the seniors and shakes his foot.

I look down at his foot,
his shoelace has come undone.

It was the way the senior responded.
He sort of...

He dropped his golf club.

He sort of moved so fast across
the green, dropped on one knee

and knelt there, tying up his shoe laces.

I looked at him and thought,
"Is that where I'm going?"

So, I would listen in, at times,

and the types of topics
they were discussing,

which were beyond mentoring
and coaching and business,

and was more about beliefs
and... how you should live your life.

And then that's when I started
worrying, cos I thought

"He's literally being brainwashed
all day, every day,"

and the topics were getting more sinister,

so about narcissists,
you know, toxic parents.

Families become dominant families,
controlling families,

narcissistic families,
become like HIV. That's what it is.

I used to sit on these calls and
I would hear people speaking about

their families, endlessly,
or their mothers endlessly.

Of course, all families have difficulties.

And... Lighthouse would find them,

find them in your journal or find
them in your personal mentoring.

Other people's families
were generally destructive,

narcissistic, cynical, hateful,

didn't want to let their family members go

and would sabotage their potential.

And they would sabotage
Lighthouse, as a whole.

So other people's families were
dangerous. What about your family?

What did they say about your family?

My mother and sister are
narcissistic, my father's weak -

worst family at Lighthouse.

My partner, Dawn, well,
she just got endless flack.

I won't repeat what he said. I think
you've heard some recordings.

Oh, we've got the recording, yeah.

What are some of the things
you remember from it, that he said?

Oh, well...

I don't know.

The whole thing is
just incredibly belittling.

He was sitting there all day,
listening to quite unpleasant stuff,

some of it insulting you personally.

Why did you stick around?

I thought the moment I... You know,
I let this...

You know, I finish with him,
for my own self-dignity and worth...

..he's just going to plough right
into it and we've lost him.

And I feel like I was his...
The only glimmer of hope

of not him completely
going into that, so...

Sorry, I'm trying not to cry, but, um...

Yeah, so, part of it was like
not wanting them to win,

which sounds awful.

Other part is cos I love him
obviously loads,

and we did have such a nice
time before he joined.

Cos I do really love him and I
didn't want him to end up in that...

..that shared house, like,
with all his money gone

and not being him
and us all losing him for good.

Like Jai and like the rest of them now.

Jeff was part of
Lighthouse for three years.

Simon for four.

..a little bit about my family...

I've been working on this
investigation with a whole team,

and we've tracked down more than 40 people

who've had experience
of Lighthouse or Paul Waugh.

I had four years of mentoring.

My company paid for it.

I'm an educated man, but I handed
over tens of thousands of pounds

and got nothing.

Would you be OK if we use
what you've told us?

They told us about
the history of Lighthouse.

Started in 2004,

it had two previous names -

FranklinWaugh and The Entrepreneurial Club.

Even 17 years ago,
people were investing £25,000

and getting bullied by Paul Waugh.

From the very beginning,

members paid big money
to become Lighthouse Associates.

We kept hearing how so
many long-term members

were in terrible debt.

Paul Waugh lives in a mansion,

but the people below him
live in shared houses.

Like students, they don't pay bills,
take out credit cards,

until their credit rating is destroyed.

One of the things that really stuck
out to me from these calls

was just how terrified some people
were of Paul finding out

they'd spoken to us. Threatened.

She thought Paul was dangerous.

Please, please don't use my name.

I need to protect my family.

And that long Lighthouse daily call
was transcribed every single day.

We've been given 16,000 pages
of transcripts

of exactly what was said on them.

We also found a growing Reddit community,

highly critical of Lighthouse.
Let me tell you now...

And the recordings you've been
hearing? We have hours of them.

Everything Lighthouse does is recorded.

He sent 181 calls.

It's 90 hours of Jeff and Jai, but
it charts their entire relationship.

Paul Waugh says it's because
they've got nothing to hide,

but ex-members know it means
Lighthouse have

their deepest secrets recorded.

We record everything,
and we cut nothing out.

The recordings mean our team have
been able to verify the accounts

of former members and hear from
those inside Lighthouse

in their own words...

Until we heard this recording,

we'd heard Jai Singh,
being a mentor, being controlling,

described as a perpetrator.

But Jai Singh has been in
Lighthouse for more than a decade,

and now we learn something about the
process Jai's been through

to become who he is today.

So would you like to explain
that... experience, Jai?

In some cases, we have video too.

This is Jai Singh's brother
Sukh Singh, also part of Lighthouse.

Here he is promoting it to newer mentees.

When I started, I was...
I was 24, fresh out of uni...

..and just really wanted
to find some direction.

I just was, like, "I'm feeling lost,
I don't know why,

"I don't know what this means,
but I just... I need something."

We think there are more than
40 people still involved

with Lighthouse.

People like 28-year-old Mel.

In the beginning of 2020,

I received a call from
Dagmar, Melissa's mother, saying...

..that she was very worried,
that Melissa had got involved

with this organisation
and she'd got a bank loan, £25,000,

and she gave all this money
to the Lighthouse Group.

She had met her mentor through
a dating app,

Chris Dykler.

I would say that she found

the family that she thinks
she never had in Lighthouse.

They appeared to scrutinise a
lot of aspects of her life.

We had a holiday booked.
It was just me, her and my wife.

We were... The three of us,
we were really close.

She was saying that Lighthouse
don't think it's part

of her development plan.

So I went on Google, the first thing
that stood out was there was a lack

of information on Paul, the leader.

He'd been built up as this
super-successful entrepreneur.

It was just weird to find no trace
of a supposedly prominent

entrepreneur and business coach.

When Martin found out that Mel
had left her job to go full-time

at Lighthouse without telling her family,

he called her up.

And so, I had a phone call with her,
and I said,

"Look, all this research I've done,
these guys are absolute crooks."

The next day, Chris, and
somebody else in the group, came

and took her away.

One feels so powerless
in a situation like that.

You feel, "What... What can I do?"

I mean, you can write to the police.

Nothing happens.

Mel writes a lot...

..online about being in Lighthouse
and she says she's happy.

How do you feel about that?
Do you think she's happy?

The difficulty about this
whole process is that if Melissa

is watching this programme,

she will think that I am

being hostile to her because she is happy.

Why do you think that all of your family,

and 99% of your friends,
and things like that,

think it's a bad idea?

Surely... Doesn't that ring
alarm bells?

Are we ALL wrong?

It is absolutely horrendous what,

you know, Paul Waugh and his cronies...

Such an odious person!

How intelligent people like my
daughter can fall victim of this,

I find it totally incomprehensible.

What's it like having
a child in Lighthouse?

It's as if my daughter's died...

..because she's not... My daughter
that I know is not there any more.

Hi, guys!

So...

Yeah, it's been a while. My bad!

I have moved out of my room at university

and I am back in my house in London,

which is a bit of a mess,

but we can overlook that.

And I've booked my flights!
Well, my dad booked my flights.

I'm sorry.

And I just... And it's just...

And it is not Melissa.
It cannot be Melissa.

And this dreadful organisation,
I mean, it absolutely...

They should all be in jail.

Basically brainwashing people
and destroying families.

Why have you decided to go public?

I think it's...
Basically, it's a last resort.

Paul Waugh is... is, you know, says
he's going to sue everybody's arse,

and yippee, bring it on.
Let's see him in court.

The last place he ever wants to be
is in court.

I'm an old man, I'm self-employed,
I've got nothing to lose.

So if I'm not going to speak out,
who is going to speak out?

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you now, yeah.
I've got my volume up.

Awesome. How are you?
Yeah, I'm OK. Yeah, I'm good.

You're not allowed to use "OK"
and "good", remember.

Oh, yeah.

I'm... feeling focused.

As we learnt more about the group,

we also learnt more about
their damaging behaviour.

Are you feeling ready for your interview?

Yes, I am, yeah. Yeah?

Can I just get you to tuck that
in your pocket?

I'm Anthony Church,
I'm 30, and I'm from Peterborough.

So I struggled from when I was
at school with anxiety,

and then I did a masters
in applied computing.

And it was after I finished that course

when I had a... breakdown, um...

and... and took an overdose,

um... making a suicide attempt.

Um...

and then later in that year,
I came across Lighthouse.

Awesome. You're looking very smart.
I like it. Thank you.

And then it was after that when I met Jai,

and claiming that he'd be able to,
um... get me better,

that Lighthouse would be the cure
for depression.

That's what he said? Yeah, that's...
Yeah, that's what he...

Yeah, that's what he'd say, yeah.

Anthony Church worked as a volunteer
web developer

for Lighthouse for four years.

He was mentored by Jai Singh throughout.

Yeah, look, even if you're not
doing the exercise...

Oh, yeah...
..must do the meditation.

Shall we take a few minutes? Yeah.

What made Anthony story worrying

was Jai Singh's attitude to his medication.

Anthony takes two types of medication

for his mental health problems.

It's one of these medications
that Jai, um...

..then suggested
that I speak to, um...

..my doctor about, um... reducing it.

Jai would prepare me for the calls
with the specialist

and getting me to say about
how much better I'm doing

with Lighthouse, and, um...

..and they'd agreed to, er... reduce
the medication gradually.

He would tell you what to say
in your calls with a specialist?

Yes. Yeah.

Jai Singh is, of course,
not qualified to do this.

Anthony eventually started
questioning Lighthouse,

asking things like why he had no contract

for the money he'd handed over.

So when I'd ask questions about Lighthouse,

Jai would blame the medication
and say I was being paranoid

because of the withdrawal symptoms.

Um... I knew I wasn't experiencing
withdrawals,

I was just thinking about things
that didn't add up.

When Anthony eventually left,
he sent messages to other members

with information about cults
and mind-control.

He soon received an email from Jai.

I don't think you have any
idea what you're doing, Anthony.

If this is you just having
a psychological paranoid episode,

as you have had before,
and we can reason with you,

then with sufficient evidence,
we can present this to the lawyers

and in the police report.

Take this very seriously, Anthony.

There are consequences to your actions.

Erin joined Lighthouse
in a very similar way to Jeff.

She joined a book club.
Jai Singh became her mentor.

Erin was convinced to pay them £35,000.

I took out an interest-free credit card,

and the idea came from my mentor,
Jai Singh.

So he was talking to me about
how I should change my mortgage

to be able to borrow money back.

I started to feel as though
I couldn't think anything

unless my mentor said it was
a healthy thing to think

or a true thing to think.

Erin was sexually abused as a child
by someone known to her family.

We've changed her name.

I talked about the abuse
I'd experienced when I was younger.

When Erin asked questions about
the legitimacy of Lighthouse,

her mentoring calls turned very nasty.

They said there needs to be some
kind of way of making my parents pay

for not looking after me better as a child.

There was talk of seeking legal action,

taking my parents to court,

getting money out of anybody.

Obviously, to invest back
in Lighthouse, I now know.

Paul Waugh seemed obsessed
with talking about sexual abuse.

About how damaged I was.

Because of what had happened to me,

I was a dangerous person to be around.

They were just telling me how awful I was.

How dare I, you know, question
anything about Lighthouse?

And I thought, "My gosh,
perhaps I am really damaged."

And they said, "If you leave,
if you turn against us,

"remember, we have all your
secrets."

Erin did leave, and her experience shows

just how much the group hates
being criticised.

They keep a close eye on
what's written about them,

especially on Reddit.

And the reason we know about this is
because it was one of Simon's jobs.

My role was to monitor this.

We had a document for every post,
we took a screenshot.

Look at the date,
what was the Reddit pseudonym?

If they'd posted something
that was crucial or critical,

I'd mention that to the right people

so they could decide
how they were going to respond.

And respond they did.

One of the ex-members that's taken
the most abuse since leaving

is a teacher called Jo.

They wrote an email to my headteacher,

basically saying that they had
concerns about me

and my ability to do my job,

and that I was a threat to children.

And then, they also began to CC in

senior executives
at the local authority. Oh, my gosh!

And one email had two, um...

A 25-page report
and an 18-page report about me,

with making various spurious claims.

One of which was that I should be
psychologically evaluated.

It's just laughable, really.

At some point after Jo
posted her experience on Reddit,

Lighthouse reported her to the police.

The police looked at it,
but took no further action.

But Lighthouse wrote to her school

to say she was under
criminal investigation.

And this is just cos you left?
Because I left.

And you wrote on Reddit?
And because I asked questions.

Because I wrote about my experience
on Reddit, yeah.

If you've got that sort of pathology, Jo,

I'm telling you now, people like you

should not be looking after little
children.

I'm telling you from me right now.

And I will make sure that you
get out of that job,

as long as I live.

Or unless you reform, or unless
you get the help you need.

Because what you're doing here
is damn, g*dd*mn awful.

Throughout history, groups known as cults

have led ordinary people
to believe unbelievable things.

We came from what some might call
another dimension.

The Rajneeshes describe themselves
as dropouts from the top of culture.

Charles Manson is the mystical
leader of the hippie cult...

Everyone you've heard from that's
been part of Lighthouse

believes it's a cult.

Every person we've spoken to
who's had a family member

inside Lighthouse believes it's a cult.

We also wanted multiple
expert opinions from specialists.

I've been doing this work
for about 30 years now.

We get more calls about Lighthouse

than any other group in this country.

Lighthouse International, in my opinion,

meets the criteria for a cult.

I'd say it's on the extreme end
of the continuum.

It seems to me that Lighthouse Group
is a cult.

They monopolise their members',
er... time, energy,

and are financially exploiting them.

When did you first hear about Lighthouse?

I had someone come to my practice
to seek some help.

I consider Lighthouse a very classic
example of a cult.

It fits all the criteria that I use.

And what is that?
Firstly, the cults are started

and often continue to be led by
a charismatic

and authoritarian leader.

But they're also bullies.

So I kind of refer to them
as charismatic bullies.

The structure is steeply hierarchical.

Everything comes from the leader.

But importantly, the structure
is heavily isolating.

Then you have this process
of what I call brainwashing,

or we could also call coercive control.

And then, the final point
is that if you do this to people,

you can then exploit them.

So we see these phenomena,
like people selling their houses,

giving all their money to somebody.

They've gone through this process,

they didn't do it cos they were stupid.

How does Lighthouse compare to other
cults, other more famous cults?

In this country, what I notice is
there's such a strong stereotype

that the only people in cults, and
the only cults are in California,

where people wear long, orange robes.

And I really want to say to people

that there is a cult in your neighbourhood.

And coercive control is now
recognised by the UK Government

as being a crime when it occurs in
a personal or family relationship.

As this exact same dynamic
can happen in a group,

or in a workplace,
or in a coaching business,

if your boyfriend does that to you,
he might go to prison,

but if your neighbour does it
to you, that's legal.

So when we started investigating
Lighthouse,

it was not a religious group.

But now, religion is a huge part of it.

Yeah, I found that really fascinating,

where they seem to be morphing a little bit

and bringing a lot more Jesus talk.

Which is not what I saw the first
time I looked into them at all.

The belief system of cults is very fluid.

It's what works at any given time.

And the ideology, really,
is the kind of advertising.

I-I call it the, um... sheep's
clothing around the wolf.

Does Lighthouse know that you're
aware of them? Yes, they do.

And I know they know, because
they've been trolling me on Twitter.

And in fact, I, last week, made a complaint

to the Met Police about it,

where I have 53 pages...

That's not tweets,
that's 53 pages of tweets.

So the Met Police have decided that

it's just a disagreement about ideas.

But as one of the things they said
in one of the tweets was,

"You'll pay the price",

I don't consider that a normal way
of disagreeing with somebody.

And also, contacting my previous workplaces

is also not the way people
usually disagree about ideas.

I've genuinely not experienced
the fear that I see of Paul Waugh.

Well, cult leaders are psychopaths.

They appear charming and nice one minute,

and the next minute they're terrifying.

I had to stare down a m*rder*r
in my cult who was trying to have

my now-ex-husband take full custody
of my children.

For me, getting out of a cult

was the most frightening thing
I've ever done.

I knew that I couldn't tell anyone
that I was having doubts.

And I thought, "If I can get away from Tom,

"even for, you know,
just a small window of time,

"that will give me the opportunity
to go."

Not sure where I'd go, but I'd go.

And I was walking away from the flat,

first thing I did was I pulled out
my phone and I called the police.

And I said, "I'm not sure what to do,
but I know that I can't go back there".

They said, "Go to the police station.

"We're going to tell them you're
coming and that you feel unsafe."

So I kind of put my phone on silent
and just stuck it in my bag,

cos I knew that if they would
call me, I could feel it vibrating.

I was stressed. Like, my anxiety
level was off the chart.

Simon left Lighthouse less than a year ago.

He's never spoken to anyone even
connected with the group since.

We obviously wanted to put
our allegations to Lighthouse,

but before that, we had a few more
pieces of our investigation to put together.

Firstly, Paul's claims that he was
a millionaire in South Africa.

It's one reason people trusted him
as a mentor, as an inspiration.

So we had a South African
investigative journalist

look into those claims, who found
three businesses he ran there.

Hello. Can you hear me? Hey!

These companies themselves,

there are no properties
registered under them

or any kind of assets.

Their, er... business addresses are
usually residential areas.

Essentially, flats
that Paul rented out in Durban.

Were you able to speak to anyone
that knew him, that met him?

Yeah, yeah. His former landlady
remembered, er... you know,

Paul as a colourful, colourful character.

He was always trying out these
get-rich-quick schemes.

He ran one of his businesses
out of her flat.

But she also remembered
Paul was struggling, in fact,

to pay rent on time.

That's interesting.
So we have a recording of Paul...

..saying between the ages of 24
and 35,

he produced about 100 million...

That...
Catrin, that is absolutely...

It... it... it can never be true.

It would not have been possible

for someone running millions

to have not a single asset in South Africa.

None of these businesses
have any kind of profile,

and this is a person who then, you know,

struggles to pay his rent on time.

Paul seems to have been just an average Joe

trying his luck
in different kinds of businesses.

We've been told that those in
Lighthouse are in terrible debt,

and we were able to find evidence.

We found 17 County Court judgments
against current members of the team

for unpaid debts totalling over £87,000.

£20,000 of them are for Jai Singh.

Paul Waugh, well, he has
none of these kind of debts.

We found Paul's very nice
five-bedroom house with a sauna,

half an acre and a Range Rover
outside with a private numberplate.

Whilst he lives in this rented place,

many Lighthouse team members live
all together in shared houses.

Hi! Hi, there! Is that better?

Juliet rented a six-bedroom house
out to just Paul Waugh.

She was told he would have guests staying,

but ended up with around eight
Lighthouse team members living there.

When they left, she was flooded
with letters.

They were all to do with these people

who were living there who owed money.

They were just pouring in every single day.

When I was living back there, I got
a knock on the door from this guy.

They were tracking down a guy called
Jai Singh.

And he said to me, "He owes money".

And I said, "Listen, I rented
this house to these people.

"It was Wild West here."

Every single bedroom had been turned

into what I would deem as
a bedsitting room.

There were things like kettles
in the bedrooms,

a chest freezer full of meat up
in the bedroom!

Pots and pans in the main,
um... bathroom.

I said, "They shouldn't have been
living here".

I gave them Paul Waugh's address.

I would suggest you contact him.

We also looked into Paul's claims of
being very close with Stephen Covey,

author of The 7 Habits
of Highly Effective People.

Stephen Covey died in 2012,

but I contacted his company, FranklinCovey,

where many employees still there
used to work with Stephen every day.

They told us...

Something else that kept coming up -

we had multiple people who've
been close to Paul Waugh tell us

he liked to show people videos
of him having sex with women.

I just said, "Please,
I don't want to see that".

And he made me look at this.

I was horrified.
Absolutely horrified.

I felt really violated.

And then, something
totally unexpected happened.

We found out about a secret
investigation into Lighthouse

ordered by the UK Secretary of State
for Business.

Lighthouse were being taken to court.

And this document gives the reasons

government investigators say
Lighthouse should be shut down.

The investigator has written to Mr
Waugh on a number of occasions.

He has failed to attend at least
five scheduled interviews.

That's... that's an email to...

..the investigators
for the Secretary of State.

They've been able to find some stuff
that we couldn't get to.

Most significantly, the money.

We could see that almost
£2.5 million

had been paid into
Lighthouse's bank account.

And between March 2018 and July 2022,

more than 1.1 million
had been paid out to Paul Waugh.

Paul argues this is because
he put the most in.

And then came Lighthouse's day in court.

Paul Waugh arrived with another
22 people from Lighthouse.

Jeff and Dawn came, too.

And five hours later,
a judge shuts down Lighthouse

in the public interest.

By this stage, we had invited Paul
Waugh and Jai Singh for interview

and sent the group 120 allegations
in writing.

It was time to talk to them.

Paul's there.

Hi, Paul. How you doing? How do you
feel about being closed down,

shut down in the public interest?
Well, it is in my interest.

It's totally in my interest. I've been
trying to shut it down for a while, so...

You've been trying to shut it down? I've been
trying to shut it down for a while. Not the court?

Well, the court, too.
We've worked here together on this.

So we've shut it down...

A court has said you're
working against the public interest.

Well, those are the issues we will
deal with reputationally after this.

Are you going to carry on?
Yes! We are carrying on!

How do you feel, Paul, about the fact that
so many people think you're running a cult?

We're not running a cult.

Because they don't know
what a cult is. They don't know...

If you asked them what's
the difference between a cult

and a community that supports
people, they wouldn't be able to tell you.

Why do you think so many people say it?

Because they're slurring us. They're
smearing us. That's exactly what they do.

These parents are child abusers,
that you're supporting.

And you supported
Sir Jimmy Savile... You...

Me? You. OK. You supported
Jimmy Savile and his paedophilia.

You going to take that out
or are you gonna keep it in?

Paul, why do you...? Come close.
Why do you...?

Paedophile supporter.

Why, Paul, have you contacted
people's employers who've criticised you?

W... Why have you done that?
Because... because... because if my people,

or the people that worked with us,

were going around on Reddit
like the foul ret*rds they were,

on that paedophilia site,

I would want to know that
that's how my people,

or people I work with, or
an employee, handles their problems.

And... and the companies
are grateful for us telling them.

Some people have been fired for this.

Who's been fired?
You go and find out.

You just... I'm not... It's
data-protected, I can't tell you.

Right. You could just tell me that.

No, I can't. It's data-protected.
OK, fine.

We've sent you all of our
allegations in huge detail,

and you've not responded to any of them.

Well, that's... Well, there's
a reason for that. Why is that?

Because I want to know the context
of what those things are.

Where did they come from? A lot of
it is just absolute nonsense.

I am responding.
I'm responding, I'm responding with

our own documentaries,
with our own videos. We're doing it.

Do you think, given the level of criticism

and given the level of people
who are deeply unhappy

with their treatment at Lighthouse,
it is...?

How many people are deeply unhappy
with your treatment of Lighthouse?

Here they all are! How many are
deeply unhappy? Would you like to talk?

She said, "all these people that are
deeply unhappy." Ask them...!

Have you spoken to the people...?
Ask them! Go on!

Go on, you all tell me. Ask them...!
Tell me, tell me.

Tell me what you'd like to say.
You're here.

How many of you are deeply unhappy?
Not at all.

She really, desperately wants
one of you to be deeply unhappy.

OK, please tell her, for the... for
the god of Wales!

Paul? Please ask her.

Paul? Thank you. We've had enough.
No comment.

I fully appreciate that the people
currently in Lighthouse...

No comment... like Lighthouse.
No comment.

This is going nowhere.
This is going nowhere.

Do you think it is right for us
to investigate,

given the level of complaints there are...?

Oh, yes, but... Of course!

But you must receive the facts.

True and fair and complete...
Send us the facts, Paul.

You're getting them. They're coming. Send us
the facts. They're coming. Have a god night.

Jai, could I ask your reaction
to the shutting down of Lighthouse?

It's not surprising. We...

Do you agree it's working
against the public interest, then?

No. Because I'm standing here.

Many, many people standing here
have actually benefited,

and you guys have only spoken to
the people...

..who have got some, a vendetta.

Why did you tell Jeff that the price
of being an Associate

was going to increase so much,
and that wasn't the case?

We were about to expand.

So you told Jeff...
We've got the recording.

Well, I've got it as well.
I'll share the recording with you.

The price of being an Associate
Elect has never actually increased.

So, do you agree that was
a pressurised sales technique, Jai?

No, it wasn't. No.

Leave it now. Leave it now.
Leave it now. It's done.

Would you like to say anything?

Everyone's allowed to have their say.

Being part of Lighthouse
isn't something you forget,

that you can just move on from.

It changes you.

I'm nearly 40 years old, this is not
how I imagined my life being.

But I'm working hard each day
to recover, to heal,

to... to... to... to rebuild my life,
and I will.

I think perhaps the average person,
let's say,

look at a group like Lighthouse
and look at us and think,

"Well, that would never happen to
me."

It can happen to anyone.

If you could speak to your daughter now,

what would you like to say to her?

Er... forgive me for everything
I'm saying

if you think, you know, that
I'm trying to do it to hurt you,

because I'm not.

I'm doing it because I think
it's the last...

My last chance to save you.

Am I glad I stuck with him?
Yeah, 100%.

Cos he's back to being like Jeff.

We're trying to get everything
back to normal the best we can.

We've just got a puppy
and Jeff's back to sailing.

We've just got accepted
on our first home together,

which won't be getting sold
to be given to a cult.

Are you telling people, "I was in a cult"?

Huh! Well, I am now, yeah.

Well, this, yeah. Huh-huh!

Um... I do. I find it hard,
cos it's, er... it's embarrassing.

The first person I told, um...

..was my... was my friend James.

Who, at the time, I didn't
actually know James that well.

I just went for a pint with him and, er...

..I just sort of came out with it.
I said,

"I've been part of this weird thing
and it looks like a cult".

So, yeah, I do find it quite hard
to say, but I do say it.

Atmosphere by Joy Division

# Walk in silence

# Don't walk away. #