Volunteer Ministers from the Church of Scientology’s UK headquarters near East Grinstead, Sussex were seen delivering bottled water to vulnerable residents after the town suffered from a major water crisis, photos show.
Earlier this month, the quiet countryside town was left with no running water for several days due to burst pipes and power failures caused by Storm Goretti. South East Water’s licence is due to be reviewed by government officials after MPs criticised their response and delays in restoring the network to the 30,000 people affected.
The Church of Scientology, which has its Saint Hill headquarters in the town, wasted no time in jumping to capitalise on the crisis. Posting in local Facebook groups, the Church asked residents to get in touch and offered to deliver bottled water only to receive backlash from the town, with one member of the public replying “Think a lot would rather drink piss than water from Saint Hill donations.”
Now, Scientology Business can reveal, the controversial Church enlisted the help of its ‘Volunteer Ministers’ to make deliveries around town – and were quick to publish photos promoting their ‘help’ in a bizarre display of what could be described as disaster capitalism.
The Volunteer Minister program was established by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard in the 1970s as a public relations tool to promote the church. It’s goal, he wrote in ‘Flag Bureaux Data Letter 424’, was to “put basic Dianetics and Scientology technology into view and into use at the raw public level.” It has since drawn criticism for hampering relief efforts during major disasters in an attempt to gain publicity.
Last year as devastating wildfires spread across Los Angeles, Scientologists flocked to the worst-hit communities with camera crews only to be slammed online for exploiting the victims for producing a “propaganda video”. In one comment posted on social media at the time, a local resident wrote “Beware of these people. They came to the Santa Anita race track donation center and helped themselves to food for ‘their low income community’. Wouldn’t listen to us volunteers and now half the food is gone.”
When asked about Scientology’s response to the water crisis in East Grinstead, County Councillor Jacquie Russell told us “The water outage commenced Saturday 11th January and concluded in general by Wednesday 14th January barr a small area of the town not receiving their water until the early hours of Thursday morning. Whilst there are intermittent episodes of service disruption in the town for some, which have meant they have lost water for a short period, in general the situation has been overcome and there are no longstanding issues.”
“From memory, the Church of Scientology contacted me via a Facebook post advising that they were offering assistance to private residential care homes and suggested that if further assistance was required, they would be happy to help. I advised them that I was focussing on ensuring that those residents on the priority services register were receiving their water deliveries and thanked them for their contribution and offer of help although it was not required.”
She continued, “I can confirm that at no time to my knowledge were they involved with the work being carried out by West Sussex County Council (WSCC) and/or the Sussex Resilience Forum which focussed on ensuring priority services listed customers obtained their water deliveries.”
“In terms of whether or not the efforts by the Church of Scientology were a help or hindrance to the local authority/resilience forum response, the answer is neither because to my knowledge they were not involved.”
Water points were set up throughout the town for residents to collect bottled water, but those who were vulnerable and on the Priority Services Register were delivered water by the Council. Councillor Russell confirmed “The details of those listed within the Priority Services Register were given to me in strict confidence and not shared with anybody other than WSCC or with volunteers approved by WSCC to undertake vital water deliveries. This did not include the Church of Scientology.”
Photos published by the Church show children carrying heavy packs of water bottles, volunteers approaching people’s homes and posing with NHS staff.
