Cases, Convictions, and Realities of Organized Ritual Abuse

Written by Go El
Aug 17, 2026

In the United Kingdom, at least 14 cases of ritualized sexual abuse have yielded convictions.

• Malcolm and Susan Smith, along with Susan’s sister and brother in law Albert and Carole Hickman were convicted in 1982 for sexually abusing four children aged 1 to 15. Smith convinced his child victims that he was Lucifer, mutilating and object raping his victims during their abuse. The Hickmans were later revealed to have ritualistically raped a child, who reported the abuse to the police only to be dismissed because the police did not believe a married woman could or would abuse a child.
• In July 1987, Brian Williams was convicted in London after he raped his victims on an altar dedicated to Satan.
• In August 1990, Reginald Harris was convicted for raping a 15 year old girl and her younger sister. Harris told his victims he was a satanist high priest, and used their fear of satanism to coerce them into sexual abuse.
• In March 2011, the leader of a Satanist coven, Colin Batley, was convicted for more than 20 sexual offenses against children, including 11 rapes. His victims were as young as 11 years of age, and the coven systematically ritually abused multiple child victims. Batley’s wife Elaine was jailed for eight years, his fellow coven member Jacqueline Marling was jailed for 12 years, and Shelly Millar was jailed for five years.
• In December 2012, another Welsh coven’s members were jailed for ritual abuse of multiple young girls. Jack Kemp and Peter Petrauske were both jailed for 14 and and 18 years, and Judge Graham Cottle declared that the victims’ abuse was so severe ““that it would seem extremely unlikely that either of them have any real prospect of recovery.”
• In July 1988, Hazel Paul was sentenced to five years in prison for falsely imprisoning a 15 year old girl and ordering a 15 year old boy mutilate the female victim during satanic rituals.
• In August 1989, Peter MacKenzie was sentenced to 15 years in prison for four rapes and seventeen other sexual assaults against victims as young as six years old. MacKenzie told his victims he was “Asmodeus,” a satanic entity, and promised his six and seven year old female victims magical powers if they had sex with him.
• In December 1987, Andrew Newell was sentenced to seven years in prison after he murdered his friend Philip Booth during a satanic ritual.
• Michael Horgan was convicted in 1992 for organized ritualistic abuse of children as young as two years of age, with Horgan’s daughter Philomena described how her father and his accomplices had taken children to a moor for abuse. Horgan built a black magic altar in his attic, and he suspended children from hooks in his home while he and other men abused the children.
• In 1988, eight people in Devon were convicted after evidence was presented of an intergenerational group that operated for 35 years, abusing children as young as 3 years of age with gang rapes. The abuse was reported 30 years before, but law enforcement did nothing.

This article and its successors are intended to present specific examples readers can point to where allegations of organized ritual abuse led to criminal convictions. IRA will present examples of ritual abuse convictions to demonstrate that ritual abuse is real, and that abuser truthers are bad faith actors.