Episode 5: Bad Grandpa

REAL

Naomi Channell

Society & Culture, News, Documentary, True Crime

4.8 • 725 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the 1990s, more survivors who had escaped the Children of God started appearing on television around the world, sharing their stories. And it wasn't just the media the survivors were talking to... it was also the authorities.

In this episode we meet Hope Bastine, a survivor of the cult and one of the first people to get a successful conviction against one of her abusers, here in the UK.

This is Bad Grandpa.

WARNING: This series contains descriptions of abuse against minors, sexual abuse, suicide and murder. Whilst the descriptions are not explicit, please take extra care whilst listening.

To find out more about Hope's work, you can view more information here - her book will be released on the 5th of February 2026:

https://hopebastine.com/

Kristina, Celeste and Juliana's book can be found here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Without-My-Sister-violated/dp/0007248075

You can support the Safe Passage Foundation here:

https://www.safepassagefoundation.org/

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please see the organisations below who can help and support you:

https://www.mind.org.uk/ - Mental health support

https://www.spuk.org.uk/ - Suicide Prevention UK

https://www.samaritans.org/ - The Samaritans

https://www.thesurvivorstrust.org/ - For people who have been the victim of sexual abuse (UK)

https://www.rainn.org/ - Sexual Abuse Support USA

https://988lifeline.org/ - Suicide Prevention USA

https://www.nasasv.org.au/support-directory - Sexual Abuse Support Australia

https://www.suicidepreventionaust.org/ - Suicide Prevention Australia

https://www.rcni.ie/useful-links/ - Sexual Abuse Support Ireland

https://www.pieta.ie/ - Suicide Prevention Ireland

https://www.thefamilysurvivaltrust.org/ - Support for cult survivors (UK)

https://www.peopleleavecults.com/services/support-groups - Support for cult survivors & Intervention (global)

If you'd like to support the podcast, you can do so here, thank you:

buymeacoffee.com/podcast4justice

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Warning, this is a true crime podcast and is not suitable for all audiences.
0:05.5	Please use discretion.
0:07.9	This series contains descriptions of sexual assault against minors, murder and suicide.
0:15.3	Whilst the descriptions are not explicit, please take extra care whilst listening. This is part five of a six-part
0:24.5	series. If you haven't listened to the first episodes, please go back to the beginning so you can
0:29.8	follow along. The children of God were also known as the family of love and the family
0:36.3	international. The irony of their new name was not
0:41.0	lost on the hundreds of children who had been abused within the cult and the organisation's
0:47.3	PR machine was now in overdrive after former members of the cult started to speak out, but not just to the media.
0:57.6	They were now talking to the police.
1:01.1	I'm Naomi Channel and this is episode 5 of Bad Grandpa.
1:05.4	Music I'm I'm going to be able to be. In 1994, Britain's flagship breakfast news programme GMTV, which stands for Good Morning Television, invited Christina Jones onto the show.
1:57.8	Christina had been raised in the children of God and she had escaped. She wasn't American,
2:04.7	she wasn't from Thailand or one of the Spanish islands where so many of the families had come
2:09.8	from. She was from England and she was now sharing her story with the world. Christina had suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the
2:22.0	adults in the organisation from the age of three. Christina had been separated from her siblings and her
2:30.1	parents. She'd been moved around the world, being made to live in communes away from her
2:35.9	family, where she was often abused by the adults who were put in charge of her well-being.
2:42.4	Adults who were following David Berg's twisted instructions via his infamous Moe letters.
2:49.9	Here's TV presenter, Aiman Holmes, interviewing Christina.
2:54.4	The sound quality isn't perfect, but I think it's an important listen.
2:59.3	Christina, first of all, if I could start with you,
	...

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