Welcome to... A Very British Cult

A Very British Cult

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, True Crime, News

4.8 • 867 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2023

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Catrin Nye gets a mysterious call that plunges her into an unsettling world of self-help and cults. What happens when a life coach takes over your life?

In early 2019 Jeffrey Leigh-Jones from Portsmouth got a life coach. Someone to mentor him in life and help him realise his business ambitions. Two years later, Jeff had sold his house, his relationship was in pieces, and he had handed over tens of thousands of pounds. And he wasn’t the only one. In this eighteen-month investigation for the BBC, journalist Catrin Nye and her team expose control, intimidation and fear at a mysterious life coaching company taking over people’s lives and ripping families apart. As the investigation hots up, the group fights back, and there’s a surreal final showdown…

Listen to all eight episodes from Wednesday 5 April 2023. Reporter: Catrin Nye Written by: Jamie Bartlett and Catrin Nye Producers: Osman Iqbal, Natalie Truswell, Ed Main and Jo Adnitt Researcher: Aisha Doherty Executive producer: Ravin Sampat Sound engineer: James Bradshaw Original music by: Phil Channell Commissioner: Rhian Roberts

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.0	Do you want to improve your life?
0:10.0	For more fulfilled, do you ever feel stuck? Like you have big dreams and ideas, but you don't know how to make them happen? I have. Most of us have.
0:20.0	Maybe you need a life coach, someone who can lend you a helping hand.
0:25.6	Many people, you don't know me very well, think I'm a mystic.
0:28.8	Sorry, a phenomenal thing that you got going on.
0:30.3	No, wonderful man.
0:31.3	Yeah, I thoroughly enjoy the conversations you and I have.
0:34.4	It was brilliant. I was motivated, I was inspired.
0:37.2	But what happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are.
0:44.8	I did feel the whole time like he was watching me.
0:47.6	Come from a family of servants and priests and cow.
0:51.1	I'm Katrin Nai and for the last 18 months I've been investigating a pioneering life coaching
0:57.1	organization but instead of helping people it controls them.
1:02.2	I couldn't think anything unless my mental said that it's a healthy thing to think or a good thing to think
1:08.0	The total I invested was 131,000 pounds. It's as if my daughters die.
1:13.2	They are brainwashing people.
1:16.2	And when people start speaking out,
1:18.7	that's when the trouble really starts.
1:21.4	They wrote an email to my head teacher, basically saying that I was a threat to children.
1:29.0	And they said, if you leave, we have all of your secrets and information we'll be at your
1:34.8	door and we will be at your office every conversation you've ever heard is
	...

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