Police Scotland confirmed an inquiry into the Children of God cult, which operated around the country in the 1980s and ’90s.

The inquiry can be revealed just weeks after Alexander Watt, the first British member of the cult to stand trial for child sex abuse, was convicted in Scotland.

In a harrowing interview, his daughter Verity Carter today breaks her silence to reveal her years of abuse in Children of God communities around Scotland.

The cult was founded in 1960s California by David Berg, whose teachings encouraged sexual relations between children and adults. He died in 1994 while on the run from the FBI.

Detective Chief Superintendent Lesley Boal yesterday confirmed an “ongoing investigation” into the Children of God.
My Hell on Earth
A sex cult survivor has spoken for the first time about the abuse she suffered while growing up in the notorious Children of God sect.

Verity Carter was repeatedly raped and abused, forced on to the streets to trick people into donating money and taught how to conceal her torment from social workers and teachers.

Verity, now a 38-year-old Edinburgh mum, said: “My earliest memories are from the age of four, being abused by my own father.

“He would touch me and kiss me in a way that made me feel so uncomfortable. I would cry and beg him not to.

“If I complained, I was told that I must have a demon inside me because sex was love, and love was what God wanted us to show each other.

“I was not even old enough to go to school at that point but there was far worse to come.”

Verity was brought up until the age of 15 in the Children of God, which was started by David Brandt Berg in California in 1968. By 1972, there were 130 communities scattered throughout the world, and in Scotland operated in Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Edinburgh.

Hollywood actors Rose McGowan and Joaquin Phoenix were among those born into the cult. They have talked about their early childhood experiences in the sect which has since changed its name to The Family International.

Berg, who went on the run after the FBI launched an investigation into sex abuse, liked to be called Moses, or Mo, and preached a distorted Biblical rhetoric which, they claimed, justified their abuse of women and children.

Verity said: “My father, at least, did not rape me and would often even be ‘kind’ to me.

“The worst abuses, the rapes and numerous sexual assaults, came from others within the communes we were forced to live in around Scotland, right under the noses of the authorities.

“I can remember all their faces still, but the cult was very clever. Most did not use their real names, but the names they were given, usually Biblical.

“I was called Rejoice, although I had little to rejoice in.”

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Her father Alexander Watt, 68, of Ayrshire, was sentenced at Paisley Sheriff Court last month after admitting four charges of sexually abusing Verity and another child. The father of 10 was given 240 hours of community work, ordered to attend a rehabilitation course and placed on the Sex Offenders Register.