Mother who tortured her two children to lie about satanic child sex cult based at a primary school ‘to get back at her ex’ in custody dispute

An evil mother tortured her children to make up sickening allegations about a satanic cult based at a primary school in the midst of a seething child contact dispute, a High Court judge ruled yesterday.

Ella Draper and her partner Abraham Christie forced her two children to lie about sexual abuse and ritual torture in Hampstead, North London, Mrs Justice Pauffley said.

She named and shamed the pair in a written ruling on care proceedings brought by a local council and said their internet campaign about the cult was ‘evil’ and ‘baseless’.

The judge suggested the couple may have fed the two youngsters, aged eight and nine, cannabis soup to gain their compliance.

More than four million people worldwide have viewed the ‘fantasy’ online material and police had to protect worried parents at the gates of Christchurch Primary School where the ‘main action’ was alleged to have happened, the ruling said.

The ‘grotesque’ claims against ‘blameless’ people included drugged babies being sent from abroad by courier services such as TNT and DHL to London and then sacrificed.

Cult members were said to have drunk their victims’ blood and danced around with the babies’ skulls.

At least seven other schools were named, a swimming pool identified as a meeting place and ‘rituals’ were alleged to have been performed at a McDonald’s fast food restaurant.

The children’s father Ricky Dearman, whose three-year relationship with Draper ended acrimoniously in 2006, was falsely said to be the leader of the cult, and teachers, police and a priest to be among its more than 100 members.

                                         

The judge said: ‘Many of those individuals are now living in fear because they have been identified on the internet as abusers of children and their contact details including telephone numbers, home and email addresses have been published.

‘Several of those implicated have received malicious, intimidating phone calls and emails at all hours of the day and night from all over the world. For example – “We’re coming for you. You paedo scum”.’

The two children, who are now in care, were repeatedly named in the internet campaign and films of them uploaded to the internet ‘with flagrant disregard for their welfare interests’.

Mrs Justice Pauffley was asked to investigate by social services bosses in care proceedings brought by Barnet council after the two children were said to be at the centre of the cult’s abuse.

But the judge said they were in fact forced by Draper and Christie to ‘provide concocted accounts of horrific events’ in filmed mobile phone recordings and to lie to police when interviewed after the allegations were brought to the attention of officers in September last year.

The children’s stories came about as the result of ‘relentless emotional and psychological pressure as well as significant physical abuse’.

                      

Torture is a strong word but is the most accurate way to describe what was done to the children by Christie in collaboration with Draper,’ the judge said. 

‘Both P and Q have suffered significantly. Their innocence was invaded. Their minds were scrambled. Their grip on reality was imperilled.’

Tests showed they had both also ingested cannabis in the three months before being taken into care. It was impossible for analysts to say if this was via passive smoking or oral ingestion, but both children had described in interview how hemp was made into soup at their home using the juicer, the judge said.

Draper took no part in the court proceedings and has ‘not been seen by anyone in authority since February 12’.

There are ‘rumours that she has fled abroad’ because she fears being arrested, Mrs Justice Pauffley said.

The judge completely cleared Mr Dearman and all others named in the campaign of any abuse and called the material published on the internet ‘nothing more than utter nonsense’.

‘I am entirely certain that everything Ms Draper, her partner Abraham Christie and the children said about those matters was fabricated,’ she said. ‘The claims are baseless. Those who have sought to perpetrate them are evil and or foolish.

‘All the signs are that those responsible for posting material derive a great deal of personal satisfaction from attracting interest to their spiteful work from many thousands of people.

‘It’s akin to the sensation, I imagine, of a Facebook user receiving an indication that some posting or other has been liked.’