Catrin Nye

Followers of BBC journalist Catrin Nye’s documentary and podcast “A Very British Cult” will be unsurprised to learn that three members of the “cult” at the centre of her investigation, Lighthouse Global – formerly Lighthouse International Group – have been charged with harassing her.

Kristofer Deichler, 46, Jatinder Singh Kamra, 45 and Sukhraj Bir Singh, 38, were arrested in September 2024, and this week they charged with harassment without violence between 28 August and 6 September 2024.

Nye’s investigation into the group began in November 2021 when she received a phone call from “Dawn”, whose boyfriend “Jeff” was trying to leave Lighthouse after giving the group over £100,000. “Jeff” was said to spend all day, every day, on the phone to the group’s leader, Paul Waugh.

Lighthouse rebranded as “Lighthouse Global” after “Lighthouse International Group” was wound up by the UK High Court. According to the Insolvency Service, “Between August 2014 and July 2022 Lighthouse received over £2.4m in income from customers. From this income at least half was paid over to Paul Waugh”. Waugh and other Lighthouse members refused to co-operate with the investigation.

A former member of the group said that, after she left, Lighthouse members contacted the school and local authority which employed her, attaching reports they had compiled about her and saying she needed psychological evaluation.

Another former member has alleged that when she asked questions about where her money had gone or what progress she was making, Waugh verbally attacked and threatened to release details of her private conversations – including that she had been sexually abused as a child. After she left, Waugh followed through on his threat, publishing her full name and detailing her abuse in a YouTube video.

Deichler, Kamra and Singh remain on police bail.