Sect told girl: banish your dad

The world leader of the Exclusive Brethren church intervened personally to break up a family this year, telling a 12-year-old that she would lose her mother if she did not renounce her father.

The Sydney-based Bruce D. Hales - the "Man of God," or "Elect Vessel" of the separatist cult - urged the girl to cease contact with her father, saying: "Your mother will not be able to accept you if you continue contact with him."

Notes of the conversation, taken immediately after they met in Sydney in January, also reveal Mr Hales told the girl: "You cannot love Christ if you wear pants [jeans], and you cannot be a Christian if you leave the Brethren."

And documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act demonstrate the Brethren's efforts over 15 years to bend the Family Court and the Federal Government to its will, in the hope of keeping lapsed Brethren away from their children.