Ken Dyers

Ken Dyers (14 July 1922 – 25 July 2007) was one of two founders of Kenja Communication. He served with the Australian Army during World War II, joining the Church of Scientology after departing from the military. He founded Kenja with his partner, Jan Hamilton, in 1982. In 1993 he was charged with sexual offences against four young girls, but was found not guilty on ten of the 11 counts, with the remaining conviction overturned in 2002. He was again charged with child sexual assault in 2005. The court case received a temporary stay on the grounds of ill health, but Dyers committed suicide before the case could return to court.

Dyers was born on 14 July 1922. His father was 54 when he was born. His father, Charlie Dyers, was a toddler on Daly Waters station in the Northern Territory where he had become lost at the age of three. He was picked up by a drover three years later at the age of six and returned to Daly Waters station. He lived with an Aboriginal tribe in the intervening years.

During World War II he served in the Australian Army as a military policeman with 9th Div Provost Coy from his arrival in the Middle East on 25 September 1941 until he embarked for Sydney on 27 January 1943; and again from 30 July 1943 until his return to Sydney 23 March 1944. His record details a chequered career and a large amount of time in field hospitals and casualty clearing stations. Dyers served in the 32 Works Coy in Australia until he was discharged. He was court-martialled three times. In late 1943 he was in jail for five days awaiting trial on three charges, and eventually convicted of "conduct prejudicial to the good order and military discipline". In June 1944 he went absent without leave for 16 days. In April 1945 he was fined for leaving his sentry post and in July fined again for misconduct. It also refers to an assessment of his "mental instability" which is rated at 10 per cent on the day he was demobbed in August 1946. Sydney Morning Herald journalist Robert Wainright referred to Dyers' War Time biography as exposing a 'Walter Mitty Complex' in his article examining the inconsistencies between Dyers' claims and verifiable records.

Dyers joined the Church of Scientology but later left it. In a list published from the 1950s onwards by Scientology, he is listed as an "SP" (a suppressive person).

In 1993 Dyers was charged with 11 counts of sexual offences against four girls, three of whom were sisters, who were between the ages of 8 and 15. After several trials and appeals, which lasted almost a decade, Dyers was found not guilty of 10 of the charges. He was found guilty of one charge (tried separately) and jailed at Long Bay Correctional Centre for six days before being released on bail. An appeal in 2000 failed, and in 2002 the charge was overturned in the High Court of Australia on the grounds that the trial judge had potentially misdirected the trial. A new trial was ordered but the DPP did not seek a retrial as they determined he had served his sentence.[1]

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