A life coach who was linked to a high-profile imbroglio involving an Adelaide Crows AFL training camp has been charged with rape and indecent treatment of children.
Queensland police last month released a missing persons alert for Wolfgang Raven Wildgrace and his wife Sonya Maria Lindley-Jones, who disappeared from their Brisbane home where they ran a counselling and therapies business.
Police cited concerns for the safety of the couple, who were later arrested in north Queensland and appeared in Mareeba Magistrates Court on Thursday.
Mr Wildgrace, 58, faces one count of rape and 32 of indecent treatment of children.
Ms Lindley-Jones, 51, is charged with one count of indecent treatment of a child.
Mr Wildgrace is a former bricklayer who earned a bravery decoration from the Australian government in 1995 for disarming a gunman who was holding TAFE students hostage in Logan, south of Brisbane.
He changed his name by deed poll and became a self-described “emotional fitness personal trainer”, conducting men’s retreats on the Gold Coast for up to $735 a client.
The couple registered “Emotional Fitness Personal Training” and “Emotional Fitness Australia” as trademarks.
In 2018, Mr Wildgrace helped another organisation deliver a leadership program called “Mark of the Warrior” to members of the Adelaide Crows AFL team in a pre-season training camp.
The program drew public criticism from a South Australian politician and was controversial with some players, who questioned the lack of formal qualifications of camp facilitators as they conducted “mind-training exercises”.
Critics included the now-retired Indigenous AFL great Eddie Betts, who told the Age newspaper in 2022 that he “sought permission to remove all the Aboriginal [players] from any further interactions with the ‘leadership specialists’ and their mind-training exercises”.
Last month police in their missing persons alert released an image of a distinctive Orange 4WD vehicle bearing the name of the business, Wildgrace Counselling and Therapies, and the numberplate “GROWTH”.
The couple have been remanded in custody and are due to appear in Cairns Magistrates Court for a committal mention on 24 May.