The week of 27 July to 2 August carried cult and high-control stories across Europe and the UK: Spanish police moved against the ultraviolent online networks 764 and The Com; Madrid’s archdiocese dissolved the Hijas del Amor Misericordioso after abuse allegations against its superior; Irish courts jailed men for coercive control of their wives; Dutch survivor Joris Rietveld published a book on a kungfu cult in Kessel, Limburg; a former tutor who worked in Mauritius faces a Paris criminal trial over alleged child sexual abuse; Czech writing tracked AllatRa and the Church of Almighty God in Europe; Polish and UK Catholic press covered the Society of Saint Pius X after contested bishop ordinations; and Tim Booth of the UK rock band James described a 1990s meditation cult in a new documentary.

Separately, the Australian state of Victoria’s first parliamentary cult inquiry called for stand-alone coercive-control laws and faced a privacy breach. Summaries draw on monitored European and UK outlets; full source links follow.

Spanish police target 764 and The Com online networks

El País reported that Spain’s Guardia Civil, Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra and the Basque Ertzaintza jointly arrested a 17-year-old Spanish national in Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country, as the alleged author of death threats issued early this year against Irene Montero, a Podemos Member of the European Parliament, and television commentator Sarah Santaolalla.

Investigators treat the minor as the principal Spanish figure in 764, a transnational online extremist network founded by a US teenager in 2021. The paper describes the group as Nazi-, satanic- and pedophile-tinged, promoting violence to collapse society and recruiting other minors through sextortion. Nine European countries have recently acted against related cells.

Days earlier, El País said Spain led a late-June to early-July internet operation with eight other EU states and Europol, the EU police agency, against The Com (the Community), a decentralised transnational network Europol has flagged for extreme violence. The sweep located 4,340 links hosting illicit propaganda: self-harm and suicide footage, assaults, child sexual abuse material, and animal cruelty.

Spanish interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska had hosted an international Madrid conference on online terrorism and violent radicalism in April.

UK band James on a 1990s meditation cult in new documentary

The Mirror reported that Tim Booth, singer of the UK rock band James (best known for the hit “Sit Down”), and bassist Jim Glennie discuss a 1990s meditation group they call a cult in the documentary James: Getting Away With It, filmed over three years.

Booth told the paper the band had kept private “car crash” years secret and had not been public about meditating “in this kind of meditation cult.” He called making the film “quite a traumatic experience. Like therapy on camera.”

Booth spent about three and a half years in his twenties in the group, living “like a monk,” abstaining from drugs and alcohol and practising celibacy. He has said he left after finding the gurus doing what followers were forbidden to do, though meditation stayed with him.

Glennie said watching the cut still brings tears and laughter and means reliving painful episodes. Cinema screenings are listed for 17 August 2026 with a livestream Q&A and performance.

Madrid archdiocese dissolves Hijas del Amor Misericordioso

El País reported on 28 July that the Archdiocese of Madrid decreed the suppression of Las Hijas del Amor Misericordioso (Daughters of Merciful Love, often abbreviated HAM), a Catholic public association of the faithful based in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains northwest of Madrid.

The move follows about a year of ecclesiastical intervention and a recommendation from the Tribunal of the Rota in Spain, a church court of appeal, to dissolve the association after complaints of serious internal harm linked to its superior, María Milagrosa Pérez Caballero, known as Marimí.

More than a dozen complainants alleged sexual abuse of young men and women in the related Hijas and Hermanos del Amor Misericordioso communities, isolation, penitential self-punishment, and manipulation of members’ activities, in some cases under false promises. The Church judged continuity of the group unviable after reviewing the complaints.

Met questions two more suspects over Al Fayed enabling

BBC News reported that a woman and a man, both in their 80s, were interviewed under caution between Monday and Wednesday on suspicion of aiding and abetting rape and sexual assault, and assisting the commission of sexual offences, in the Metropolitan Police inquiry into Mohamed Al Fayed, the late Egyptian businessman who owned London department store Harrods from 1985 to 2010.

That brings the total questioned to six. No arrests have been made. Al Fayed died in 2023 aged 94 and was never charged.

Earlier this year four other people were interviewed under caution, including on suspicion of human trafficking for sexual exploitation. The Met calls the enabling investigation one of its largest and most complex. To date 157 victims have reported allegations of sexual assault, rape, sexual exploitation and trafficking. Commander Andy Day said the interviews were an “important step” and credited victims’ support.

Irish courts jail husbands for coercive control

In Dublin’s Central Criminal Court on 31 July, Judge Patrick McGrath sentenced a man in his twenties to three years and six months for coercive control and fifteen months for sexual assault, concurrent and backdated to 23 April, the Irish Times and Irish Independent reported. The defendant cannot be named for legal reasons.

A jury had convicted him of sexual assault on 18 March 2022 and coercive control between 1 January 2019 and 15 September 2022. He has thirteen previous convictions and faces a UK arrest warrant.

The judge placed the coercive control in the upper range, citing derogatory abuse and threats to throw acid in his wife’s face and that she would leave him only “in a coffin.” Evidence included violence before the wedding, assaults on honeymoon and during pregnancy, and the 2022 sexual assault after he accused her of cheating.

In a victim-impact statement she said she was “gaslit, controlled, betrayed and disrespected” and that “the shame is not on me; it is on you.”

Separately, the Irish Independent reported on 27 July that a 46-year-old doctor was jailed for ten years at Sligo Central Criminal Court for the rape, coercive control and assault of his wife over three years. He pleaded guilty to assault causing harm but denied two rape counts and coercive control; a jury convicted him after trial earlier this year.

The couple met in Sudan, married in 2010 and have three children. They moved to Ireland in 2017. She could not practise as a doctor there and stayed home while he worked in regional hospitals. She described isolation, financial control, demeaning language and panic attacks.

The rape convictions cover two 2018–2019 assaults after she said no, including once while fasting in Ramadan. Assault evidence included violence in front of their children. Justice Sean Gillane set a headline of twelve years, then imposed ten, noting breach of trust, the children’s exposure to violence and that the man has been suspended from medical practice since July 2024.

SSPX row after bishop ordinations without papal mandate

Polish Catholic outlet Misyjne.pl reported that Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, sharply criticised the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX / FSSPX), the traditionalist Catholic fraternity founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and long at odds with Rome over Vatican II, after bishop ordinations on 1 July without papal consent.

In a 13 July statement Paprocki called the fraternity “in essence another Protestant sect” for rejecting Vatican II teaching and papal authority, while saying he shares many of its moral positions. He urged diocesan faithful not to attend SSPX services and argued that confessions and marriages there are invalid.

Canonists noted that Pope Francis had granted SSPX priests faculties for confession and marriages and that Pope Leo XIV has not revoked them.

The Observer (UK) framed a wider clash between the Vatican and an online “Catholic manosphere” after the excommunication of a bishop ordained by what it called a rogue traditionalist fraternity, casting the dispute as the latest flashpoint with conservative Catholic counterculture.

Dutch survivor publishes book on Kessel kungfu cult

De Limburger reported that Joris Rietveld, 50, has published a book about years inside a kungfu cult based in Kessel, a village in Limburg in the southern Netherlands, under a teacher from nearby Roggel identified in coverage as René L.

The paper photographed Rietveld with Linda Toonen, another complainant against the same leader. Rietveld told the paper:

Ik kon niet meer, was helemaal op

The July 2026 book is titled Is het geen sekte? (Isn’t it a cult?). De Limburger places the account alongside allegations of psychological pressure, violence and threats. René L. has faced criminal proceedings in the Netherlands that led to prison sentences on appeal.

Paris court date for Mauritius tutor accused of child rape

Le Parisien and Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that a former private tutor who worked in Mauritius will appear in late October before Paris’s departmental criminal court on charges of sexual violence against minors, including rapes of young girls.

An investigation opened in December 2022 after 2021 complaints. He is sent for trial over rapes of three girls between 2012 and 2017, corruption of minors for showing pornography under the guise of sexual “instruction,” further sexual assault counts, and an alleged rape of his niece in January 2017.

One complainant’s mother had described him to police as highly spiritual, talking constantly of love and happiness. She later told investigators she now reads that as guru-like behaviour. The accused denies wrongdoing and claimed one girl was manipulated by a jealous father; the examining judge said that revenge theory was never substantiated. He is presumed innocent.

Czech blogs warn on AllatRa and Church of Almighty God in Europe

A Médium.cz post under the open-blog series České sekty a sekty v ČR (Czech cults and cults in the Czech Republic), on Seznam’s blogging platform, summarises analyst Jakub Jahl’s video work on the Russian-origin AllatRa movement. The piece describes AllatRa as a disinformation-friendly network reaching into Czech and European politics.

It cites Czech interior ministry warnings and says Ondřej Knotek, a Member of the European Parliament for the Czech ANO party, gave the group a platform at an official European Parliament event in Brussels, prompting Pirate MP Barbora Pipášová to question interior minister Lubomír Metnar on monitoring and protection from the movement’s harassment of critics.

A second Médium.cz post in the same series, again drawing on Jahl’s video reporting, said the Chinese Church of Almighty God, also known as Eastern Lightning, is running aggressive online recruitment in Poland and Czechia, including large numbers of fake social profiles and targeting lonely elderly people. It describes bait-and-switch posts that later swap wholesome Catholic imagery for apocalyptic prophecy.

Beyond Europe

These stories concern events outside the UK and EU.

Victoria, Australia: cult inquiry backs stand-alone coercive-control laws

Australia’s first parliamentary inquiry into cults and fringe groups handed down its report on 29 July with 98 findings and 39 recommendations. The government of the Australian state of Victoria has six months to respond.

The Herald Sun, citing the committee, said the panel called for a stand-alone criminal offence targeting sustained psychological pressure, financial control and isolation that strip independence. Hearings heard from survivors of groups including Shincheonji, Children of God / The Family International, NXIVM, Twelve Tribes, Universal Medicine and Exclusive Brethren accounts. The committee declined a formal cult list or legal definition of “cult,” focusing on harmful behaviour.

Lilydale and Upper Yarra Star Mail, local papers in the Yarra Ranges east of Melbourne, quoted cult-awareness advocate Renee Spencer, whose daughter Ellicia joined the Jesus Christians, a high-control Christian group, calling the report a “watershed” personal and policy validation.

Clare Heath-McIvor of Survivors of Coercive Cults and High-Control Groups backed recommendations so victims need not prove a group is a “cult” before proving harm.

The same reporting wave covered a serious privacy failure: stakeholder emails were wrongly shared, prompting a parliamentary privilege probe and an apology from the committee chair. IBTimes UK summarised survivors’ distress at the exposure of confidential contacts. ABC News and the Guardian reported that hundreds of addresses were left visible, including people who had made name-withheld or confidential submissions.

Separately, a participant the Victorian inquiry granted anonymous status in November 2025 documented on Reddit’s r/cults that Australian anti-Scientology YouTubers Tee McNally, who posts as A Voice Downunder, and Abby James, known online as Mrs J and formerly a moderator for UK Scientology critic Alexander Barnes-Ross (Apostate Alex), doxxed and stalked that person after anonymous status was granted, publishing private details previously declared part of a data breach by Mid Sussex District Council last year. The posts include screenshots referring to both YouTubers by those aliases.

Source citations

El País (Spain): “Detenido un menor del grupo ultraviolento 764 acusado de amenazar de muerte a Irene Montero”, 2 Aug 2026.

El País (Spain): “España lidera una ofensiva policial contra la propaganda en internet de la ultraviolenta red ‘The Com’”, 30 Jul 2026.

The Mirror (UK): “90s icons James recall 'cult-like’ experience and 'traumatic’ past in new movie”, 31 Jul 2026.

El País (Spain): “La archidiócesis de Madrid decreta la supresión de una asociación religiosa denunciada por presuntos exorcismos y agresiones sexuales”, 28 Jul 2026.

BBC News (UK): “Two new suspects questioned over allegedly aiding Al Fayed abuse”, 31 Jul 2026.

The Irish Times (Ireland): “Husband jailed for three and a half years for sexual assault and coercive control of wife”, 31 Jul 2026.

Irish Independent (Ireland): “Husband jailed for coercively controlling and sexually assaulting wife”, 31 Jul 2026.

Irish Independent (Ireland): “Doctor jailed for 10 years for rape, coercive control and assault of wife”, 27 Jul 2026.

Misyjne.pl (Poland): “Lefebryści to „w gruncie rzeczy kolejna sekta protestancka””, 30 Jul 2026.

The Observer (UK): “‘Catholic manosphere’ clashes with Pope after excommunication of bishop ordained by rogue sect”, 2 Aug 2026.

De Limburger (Netherlands): “Joris (50) zat in sekte Kessel en schreef boek over mishandeling en misbruik door kungfu-leraar uit Roggel: ‘Ik kon niet meer, was helemaal op’”, 31 Jul 2026.

Le Parisien (France): “Un professeur particulier jugé en octobre à Paris pour violences sexuelles sur ses élèves à l’Île Maurice”, 30 Jul 2026.

Médium.cz (Czechia): “Ruské dezinformace a Evropa: Jak sekta AllatRa proniká do české politiky”, 31 Jul 2026.

Médium.cz (Czechia): “Čínský lov na katolíky: Jak sekta Všemohoucího Boha infiltruje Evropu”, 30 Jul 2026.

Herald Sun (Australia, paywalled): “Victoria cult inquiry calls for new coercive control criminal laws”, 30 Jul 2026. Publisher original (paywalled).

ABC News (Australia): “Victorian cult and fringe group inquiry recommends criminalising group coercion”, 29 Jul 2026.

The Guardian (Australia): “Victorian cults inquiry accidentally shares email address of anonymous survivors with group members”, 29 Jul 2026.

ABC News (Australia): “Cult survivors fearful after inquiry shares email addresses of those who made anonymous submissions”, 30 Jul 2026.

Lilydale Star Mail (Australia): “Inquiry into cults report a ‘watershed moment’ for Yarra Ranges cult survivors”, 2 Aug 2026.

Upper Yarra Star Mail (Australia): “Inquiry into cults report a ‘watershed moment’ for Yarra Ranges cult survivors”, 1 Aug 2026.

IBTimes UK (UK): “Victorian Cults Panel Accidentally Shares Sensitive Emails to Sect Members: 'I Feel Devastated’”, 29 Jul 2026.

Reddit / r/cults: “In Nov 2025 the Victoria Govt’s (AUS) Cult Inquiry granted me anonymous status… So why is Australian YouTuber ‘A Voice Downunder’ Tee McNally doxing me?”, 14 Jul 2026.

Reddit / r/cults: “Shameless Australian youtuber ‘A Voice Downunder’ aka Tee McNally… today virtue-signals about the brave cult survivors who gave testimony”, 30 Jul 2026.