Arrest warrant issued for member of cult exposed by BBC

An apprehension warrant has been issued for a elder subordinate of Lighthouse, the life-coaching radical which was the taxable of the BBC podcast series, A Very British Cult.

The warrant was issued for Shaun Cooper, a manager of the group's concern entity Lighthouse International Group Holdings Trading LLP, for failing to be court.

Cooper is the archetypal elder subordinate of the radical that the authorities person taken this benignant of enactment against.

Lighthouse began arsenic a beingness coaching organisation founded by a antheral called Paul Waugh. But a BBC probe exposed it arsenic an organisation that ruined the lives of its members and tried to soundlessness immoderate critics.

In the 2 years since the BBC published its investigation, respective radical person near the radical and are rebuilding their lives. But a small, committed radical of members - present calling themselves Lighthouse Global Media - stay devoted to Paul Waugh. They contradict that Lighthouse is simply a cult.

Following a abstracted probe into Lighthouse conducted by the Insolvency Service, the High Court successful London unopen down the concern entity "in the nationalist interest" successful March 2023, connected the grounds that it had filed mendacious oregon misleading accounts and not cooperated with the investigation.

The Insolvency Service probe established that, betwixt August 2014 and July 2022, the radical received much than £2.4m income - adjacent though it had not declared immoderate assets oregon income.

Since then, the High Court has requested that each 4 institution directors – Paul Waugh, Chris Nash, Shaun Cooper and Warren Vaughan – cooperate with the Official Receiver's ongoing efforts to place immoderate assets to wage those owed wealth by Lighthouse.

• Listen: A Very British Cult
• Inside Lighthouse, the beingness coaching cult that takes implicit lives

Paul Waugh, the leader, moved to South Africa soon aft the institution was unopen down, on with Chris Nash. Both Waugh and Nash person failed to comply with a November 2024 tribunal bid to crook implicit Lighthouse's fiscal records. According to Lighthouse's letters to the court, this is due to the fact that some are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

According to Daniel Curthoys, successful tribunal for the Official Receiver, Shaun Cooper had besides failed to crook up for immoderate of the galore interviews arranged by investigators.

At a proceeding connected the 25 February 2025, the tribunal was told, successful a missive from Cooper's Lighthouse colleagues, that helium was suffering from slump and anxiety, and had near the country. The missive was accompanied by heavily-redacted aesculapian notes.

Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Sebastian Prentis said Lighthouse's missive was "a precise agelong mode short" of explaining wherefore Cooper had failed to look oregon supply immoderate accusation to the two-year probe into Lighthouse.

Granting the exertion for an apprehension warrant, helium noted that contempt the claims made successful Lighthouse's letter, Cooper was seemingly good capable to permission Britain. Cooper's whereabouts are presently unknown.

Of the 4 erstwhile directors, lone Warren Vaughan has truthful acold cooperated. At an earlier tribunal hearing, helium told the investigators helium had near Lighthouse.

In effect to the probe by the Insolvency Service, Lighthouse acceptable up a website criticising the service, accusing it of "bullying" the group.

The tract says that "Lighthouse refuses to comply with the Insolvency Service's demands, beyond the carnivore [sic] minimum necessary, connected the ground that immoderate 'investigation' has been falsely triggered by malicious and vindictive individuals and is thereby corrupt and invalid."