A young woman has told a court she was brainwashed to such an extent that she feared being “sent to hell” if she carried out her plan to escape from a cult in the New South Wales.
William Kamm, the leader of the Order of St Charbel near Nowra, allegedly first told the complainant when she was aged six that it was her “mission from God” to become one of his many queens and bear 45 of his children to repopulate the world after the apocalypse.
On Monday Mr Kamm, 76, and his wife Sandra Susan Mathison, 60, faced the fifth day of their joint trial in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court.
Both have pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually grooming a child under 14.
The young woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court the pair groomed her for sex over more than a decade before she made the decision to leave.
“I knew if I stayed, I would pretty much kill myself,” she told the court.
“I knew that if I left, I might get sent to hell … but it was better than killing myself so that was the option in my head at that moment.”
The court heard Ms Mathison was also one of Mr Kamm’s “queens” and allegedly facilitated calls between Mr Kamm and the complainant while the cult leader was in jail for separate offences.
Ms Mathison also allegedly repeatedly urged the complainant to “stay strong” for her mission.
The complainant, now in her early 20s, previously told the court she was excited about the “mission” when she was a young girl, as it was presented to her “positively” and she wanted to participate in carrying out “God’s will”.
But she told the court that when she moved to the Nowra cult grounds in her early teens she began experiencing panic attacks and suicidal thoughts after Mr Kamm allegedly pressured into performing sex acts over the phone.
Mr Kamm, also known as “Little Pebble”, had been released from custody but was not living at the grounds.
He was required to remain in Sydney due to court orders prohibiting him from returning to Nowra.
William Kamm arriving at the Downing Centre. (ABC News Julia Andre)
Escaping the Order of St Charbel
The complainant’s diary entries were tendered as evidence and detailed how she began experiencing anxiety when she began turning away from her mission, and her feelings of relief when Mr Kamm returned to custody in 2022.
She said she confronted Mr Kamm in a phone call, telling him she wanted to leave the cult grounds and abandon her mission.
“William said that he was disappointed, that he had been waiting so long for me and he didn’t want to stop doing God’s mission now after all of the time we’ve waited,” the complainant told the court.
“I said there were a lot of things I was uncomfortable with.
“I said, ‘Why did you come onto me so sexually so young?'”
She told the court Mr Kamm denied suggesting they should go on a cruise to circumvent age of consent laws when she was a little girl.
The young woman told the court of her stress when she decided to leave the cult. (ABC Illawarra: Ainslie Drewitt Smith)
The complainant said Ms Mathison allegedly encouraged her to stay on her mission and keep praying, but she decided to “escape” the grounds when she was 16.
“It was hard because in my mind I had to let go of my faith in God if I wanted to escape,” she said.
“I couldn’t see where the religion started and where the cult ended, so it was just hard to make that decision to leave the Catholic Church as well as the order.”
The court heard Mr Kamm had previously given the complainant a wedding dress and an engagement ring.
The pair never met — alleged plans to do so were prevented by COVID-19 restrictions.
The trial before Judge Nicole Noman continues.
