Scientology first appeared in the United Kingdom in 1959, when science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard purchased Saint Hill Manor, a rural country estate on the outskirts of East Grinstead, Sussex. It was to become their international headquarters, and to this day remains an important management base responsible for much of Scientology’s UK and European operations.
Following a covert surveillance operation, a 1975 internal government report concluded “The Church of Scientology does not merely persuade people to part with their money. It is a harmful movement with an evil reputation.“ Despite this, and failing to obtain charity status in 1999 after the Charity Commission ruled it “does not benefit the public,” Scientology’s operation has continued in the UK – unchanged, unaltered…. and unchallenged.
We call on the government to intervene on the issue of Scientology and finally put a stop to human suffering.
These are just a handful of accounts, written by former members who experienced Scientology’s abusive practices first-hand, in their own words.
I first entered the Church of Scientology in Edinburgh, Scotland, in late 2022. I was 18 years old at the time. By 2024, following intense peer pressure from the Sea Organisation and staff members returning from three years of training in Clearwater, Florida, I was recruited as a staff member. Despite my youth and lack of prior professional experience, I was forced into a senior executive role where I was responsible for one-third of the organisation’s departmental structure and stability for two years.
During this tenure, I was denied any semblance of ideal staff support; I was frequently expected to work 14-hour days with almost no assistance. My labour was systematically exploited; I often went three weeks at a time with zero pay. On the rare occasions I was compensated, it was usually less than £100 for a full week’s work. Simultaneously, I was pressured to fundraise thousands of pounds from parishioners. As a member of the Executive Council, I witnessed first-hand how financial planning meetings prioritised sending these funds to the “Mother Church” in the United States or into marketing campaigns, rather than paying the staff who generated the income. This systematic withholding of wages constitutes a clear violation of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
Beyond financial exploitation, I observed deeply disturbing practices mandated by L. Ron Hubbard policy regarding the recruitment and maltreatment of minors. Children as young as 12 to 15 were employed in full-time executive posts. This environment included highly inappropriate physical boundary violations; for instance, young girls were instructed to rub the legs of men in locked rooms under the guise of a “Scientology nerve assist.” These practices represent a severe failure in safeguarding and a flagrant breach of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 and the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003. Furthermore, I witnessed the organisation maintaining detailed, confidential dossiers on politicians and celebrities, which likely violates the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.
My time with the Church of Scientology in Edinburgh ended in January 2026 after I spoke to a former staff member who is considered an “enemy” by the organisation. In Scientology policy, communication with any critic or former member is labelled a “suppressive act” and a “high crime.” As punishment for exercising my freedom of speech, I was subjected to two weeks of intensive interrogations by the Office of Special Affairs (OSA) and the Executive Director.
I was subsequently sentenced to a programme of disconnection and punitive heavy manual labour. I was forced to work over 10 hours a day with zero pay, operating dangerous equipment at a renovation site on 18 South Bridge. This forced labour, used as a tool for ideological “rehabilitation,” further reinforces a culture of modern slavery and the stripping of a person’s fundamental right to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act 1998.
In January 2026, I reported these abuses to the police. I was told by the officer that it was “my choice” to be there and that there was little they could do. Regarding my concerns about extremist practices, child labour, and abusive practices involving sexual boundary violations with minors, the police indicated they could not intervene as they presumed these acts occurred with parental consent. Despite stating that I possessed documented evidence of financial crimes, extortion, modern slavery, and child abuse, the case was closed without me ever being asked or allowed to provide my evidence to the authorities.
I am providing this testimony so that the government and relevant authorities understand the level of abuse occurring within this organisation across the UK. These dangerous, extremist, and abusive practices are being carried out daily, free from government scrutiny. This is a matter of grave concern to all UK citizens. I call on the government to take immediate, appropriate action to end this abuse and safeguard all citizens.
A.E.
My story starts growing up in a family of ‘public Scientologists’. Us kids were sent to the private Greenfields School. About half of lesson time was based on checksheets (ticklists) supervised by the teacher, similar to a Scientology course room. More teacher-led classes were introduced in the run up to an important inspection. We learned ‘Study Tech’, direct from Scientology. There was a strong emphasis on artistic subjects which we enjoyed greatly, however I suspect a lack of ‘critical thinking’ was not coincidental. (For any people still inside, ‘critical thinking’ is “the application of logical principles, rigorous standards of evidence, and careful reasoning to the analysis and discussion of claims, beliefs, and issues.”) I knew of kids who weren’t doing well on a GCSE subject so were not allowed to take their exams so the school could not record a low grade, or kids were even allowed to stop going to school before they were even 16 years old. If any kids graduated, for years ceremonies were heavily-attended by Scientology staff members, driving a strong trend of channelling their naive, youthful energy into the Scientology Sea Organisation to work, opting out of gaining professional qualifications. Many remember Russell and Margarita, school students that were recruited into the Scientology Sea Org who tragically died as teenagers in separate driving accidents. At one awful point in time, it was revealed that Mr. Kent was convicted of paedophilic abuse of some boys whilst working as their sports teacher. Mrs. Douglas died of suicide despite having reached a Scientology state of ‘clear’ (free from past trauma), tragically leaving her three children. I once overheard a school staff member claiming how they had to recruit a lot of teachers that year who had to be Scientologists and also qualified in their topic, an obvious religious bias. I was convinced to join the scientology Saint Hill Foundation organisation (evenings and weekends working) with recruiters using ‘police state’ scare-tactics in France at the time. I bought the manipulation and felt there was no choice, I simply had to join because religious freedom was at stake. I was still a teenager, almost never relieved from my job for lunch, working until 3pm regularly before being able to eat lunch. Metres away from the canteen yet too responsible to leave my post. Or should I say ‘vulnerable and easily-manipulated’? I hardly got paid from this Saint Hill Foundation ‘job’, the system set up so pay was directly dependent on sales stats. It may be no surprise it was a salesperson who was supposed to cover my post for me to eat lunch. They looked underweight and smoked a lot, I imagine that the pressure was stressful. A few months later I was convinced to join the Scientology Sea Org full time Estates Project Force (EPF), living on site. We were ordered to run everywhere in our blue boiler suits in summer. Passing by, we were expected to say ‘Hello, Sir!’ to every single Sea Org staff member – imagine the farce as we ran past a crowd of these Sirs on their way to the lunch room. During my EPF, there were several 16, 15, 14 year olds doing manual labour all day, studying Scientology courses every evening. We lived at Walsh Manor and once cleaned bathrooms laden with weeks of dust. Senior staff members had better quality of berthings with more space, we lived in dorms with 6-8 beds. I remember a nice man joined with daughters from Europe. One looked about 7 and looked very sad most of the time. I’d heard their mum had died, they’d moved countries and now they hardly saw their dad. At Walsh Manor in Crowborough, we regularly saw people in black clothes who were on the RPF (‘Rehabilitation’ Project Force), which seemed more like a place people got stuck for years, isolated since shunned by the group, a daily regime of hard labour and, presumably, regular study and interrogation after breaking a group rule. I wonder now if they’d simply become disillusioned. That would be ironically sad, so deep in that they’d struggle to get out with no support network. ‘Hidden negative intentions’ is one reason to be sent to the RPF, sounds much like ‘thought crime’ to me. I decided I’d had enough, I couldn’t grasp many course concepts from evening study and I no longer scapegoated myself by presuming it was caused by a misunderstood word. Eventually, I realised what I was sticking on were actually over-simplistic and flawed concepts! Now I wanted to leave and not graduate into the Sea Org. Staff members arranged a ‘Fitness Board’ panel. As if I had even asked, they then told me how I wasn’t fit and what I needed to change to come back. Unsurprisingly, I observed their attempt at flipping my decision to leave into theirs. Later in time, my internal doubts and instinct had collected enough momentum, I couldn’t explain them away, I couldn’t ignore them any more. Finally, I was fully sure I hadn’t committed supposed harmful acts, I now knew criticisms could be valid. This led to me seeking out others’ stories on the internet, I might’ve doubted them but so many tallied with mine. The so-called church’s policies finally lost the war of information control, with huge thanks to the new information highway. I confided in an old friend how my doubts had been corroborated. Out of the blue, I discovered I’d been ordered to the ‘Ethics office’ for looking at critics’ information online. I felt newly alarmed by the plaque on the wall, its meaning shifted as once soe indoctrination had unwound; “remove other intentionedness from the environment”. This wasn’t the last time I confided my doubts to a Scientologist who then reported me. Neither told me first. Is thought, doubt and personal choice a crime? When scientology policy is dutifully acted upon, they are in practice. Another policy I abhor is ‘disconnection’. I endured threatened or actual disconnection from three family members. One couldn’t see it from my point of view; heartbroken to be abandoned simply for having my own, different, ideas. Scientology’s Disconnection is coercion of the worst kind, all emotions and family bonds are stripped when ‘the entire planet’s future is at stake’! Inadvertently, these loved ones actually did do a good thing. They helped me confirm scientology as the rigid, judgemental, systemically-rigged against vulnerable people, profit-making, tax-exempt, religiously-cloaked, above-the-law, high-control, pseudo-scientific nest of toxicity that it is. I am grateful to them for trying to perpetuate the coercion so fervently that it pushed me further towards freedom of thought and exploration. To a world where I could feel unconditional love. I hope, one day, they experience this truly for themselves on their own journey. I love them no matter what.
Anonymous
I was first introduced to Scientology, around age 13 c.1992 by my mother. She was a public Scientologist at that time, meaning she was paying for their services. She was impressed with some of their entry level courses and believed I would benefit from them. So I went to stay with a Scientology family in Sunderland to do some courses and the purification rundown.
the purification involves taking overdosing quantities of vitamins and minerals and sitting in a sauna for around 5 hours a day, every day, for several weeks, sweating out all impurities in the body.
I was paired up with a Middle Aged man to do this and we would go together into Newcastle every day to use a public sauna. While there, we would need to take salt and potassium supplements due to the amounts we were losing in the sauna. A concerned member of the public saw me, a 13 year old girl and Middle Aged man together, taking pills and reported this to the management of the leisure complex and the police were called in to investigate. We were both arrested on suspicion of drug use and taken to Newcastle police station. My mum was called to come and be my appropriate adult for interview, but by the time she could get up there from Yorkshire, I had been held like a criminal, scared and alone, in a cell for three hours.
The outcome of the interview was that the police were satisfied that this was a religious practice, and I was bailed pending testing on the pills we were taking.
I went back to Sunderland, and back into a sauna the next day. After this purification was finished, I went home to Yorkshire.
A few months later there was to be an event at Saint Hill, Scientology’s UK headquarters, in Sussex. As my mum was attending, she would take me along. By this time, I would have been nearing my 14th birthday. On arrival at Saint Hill, I saw the castle and all of the sea organisation workers in their naval style uniforms, all looking so full of purpose, all looking so positive and focused. The event we attended, had had its desired effect on my young mind and I told my mum I wanted to join the Sea org. So we went to the office which would later become mine, the recruitment office. Mum was given assurances that I would be assigned a guardian and that they would look to get me a scholarship to a local Scientology run independent school, Greenfields. Satisfied by their reassurances, I signed a billion year contract to dedicate this, and all future lives, to the church of Scientology.
Neither the guardian, nor the scholarship actually materialised.
Instead I was given berthing in a dorm of women of various ages, in a run down old Manor House type building called Stonelands. And set to work on the estates project force EPF. Stonelands was cold, with draughty windows. conditions were cramped, every room filled with bunk beds. No space for any personal possessions. During my time there I was berthed in three different dormitories, so there was no sense of permanence to your personal space either. The women all shared a cold and very old and basic bathroom with maybe 4 or 5 shower cubicles. Being able to get a hot shower was a very rare occurrence and shower time was strictly limited due to demand. There was little to no relaxation space and often we’d sit outside on the old coach which was used to transport staff, just to find a comfortable place to sit.
The days started early. A table was laid out with raw porridge oats and cold milk. If we were early enough, there might have been a little sugar left, there was no seating here, this was breakfast on the fly, if we had time but it was often a choice between eat or shower. The coach would leave for Saint Hill, and the women and girls were all experts at doing their make up on the bus as it was the only time they had to do it.
On arrival at Saint Hill the work day would begin immediately. The EPF was the basic training period and new recruits would be issued with a blue boiler suit and work boots. Work involved cleaning windows with wet newspaper, then dry. Cleaning bathrooms, sweeping floors, vacuuming the carpet in the great hall, scrubbing out the sauna with a bucket of soapy water and a hand scrubbing brush, raking leaves to keep the grounds looking nice for the public. And as hard as this was, this was the easy work. Because after a hurried lunch of plain boiled chickpeas and plain boiled rice, we would be out digging clay out of the banks of the lake with spades. Here we would see a group of people across the other side of the lake, wearing black boiler suits, doing similar hard manual labour. They had to run everywhere and it was forbidden to speak to them. They were on the RPF, rehabilitation project force and it was well known as a kind of sea org prison. The very last place you’d want to end up, but always a very real threat if you broke the rules. As hard as we had it, they had it so much worse. As the autumn drew near, all thoughts turned to the annual IAS event. The biggest fundraising event in the Scientology calendar. I was taken to a huge field to the side of the main gates of Saint Hill and given a pick axe almost as big as me. This field was to be used as a car park for the event but it wasn’t level and cars would struggle to get in and park. I was left alone in this field with the pick axe with the only instruction being to level it so it could be used as a car park. At age 14, I had never swung a pick axe before, I had no idea what I was doing and was faced with a truly overwhelming task. Someone came along after a while to check on me, demonstrated how to swing more effectively, then left me to it. Alone again.
For 3-4 months my days were filled with around 9 hours of hard manual labour and 4 hours of study time, all while surviving on a diet of cold raw oats and chickpeas and rice.
my pay during this time was dependent on whether any services had been sold that week, whether any money had been made. During the EPF I was told I’d get £10 a week. This happened for a few weeks, but more often my pay was zero. Our pay was needed to buy our personal items, toiletries and washing powder for our clothes, and to put money into the coin slot on the communal washing machines. But these items were regulated by policies and none of them were permitted to be scented. We all knew where to source unscented products locally, but it meant paying a premium and not being able to opt for budget friendly choices, there were no choices.
At the end of my time on the EPF, I was finally given that naval style uniform and my first assigned post of sea org recruitment officer.
Saint Hill staff were split into two separate organisations, Advanced org Saint hill or AOSH and Saint hill foundation or SHF. These orgs had their own targets and finances, if we wanted to get paid, we needed to sell services. If we wanted to eat, we needed to sell services. If we didn’t sell services we’d be on basic rations, so the chickpeas and rice meals continued. And the pay rise to £50 a week never happened either. I had been recruited into SHF which was the evening and weekend organisation so I should have only been working in the evenings and at weekends. I failed to recruit anyone into the sea org and someone was needed to run the communications office. I was the only person working in this division, so where the organisational structure shows that this division is staffed by several people, the reality was that I was working all day, every day, from morning to night, 14 hours a day, doing the work of numerous people and failing to meet my targets. Failing to meet targets gets you pulled in for a security check or interrogation on the Scientology e-meter. A device which is believed by Scientologists to measure your responses to questions, it’s a very basic form of lie detector device. Failing this check means you have committed crimes against Scientology, and you have to disclose everything you have done wrong, write up knowledge reports against your friends, admit to any small thing you’ve done. All of this is written and held on file, indefinitely. This is time consuming, and so the cycle of failing to meet targets because of being over worked continues.
Somewhat surprisingly to most people though, is that some actual law breaking crimes, are not necessarily subject to security checking, and if a law of the land is broken, it will always be dealt with in house by the ethics officer. It is written into Scientology policies that reporting another Scientologist to law enforcement or authorities is in itself a high crime against Scientology.
During this time, I was romantically involved with a man who was around the age of 30. It was no secret that we were in this “relationship” among the other staff and sea org members, we would openly walk hand in hand going to meals together, sit together, and during rare moments of free time, we would spend this time together. Sexual activity before marriage is strictly forbidden in the sea org, but the boundaries do get pushed, so kissing, cuddling occurred. He was, and still is, a member of the Scientology jazz and swing band, and BGT semi-finalists, The Jive aces. Because of his position, being a stable source of income for the org and him hitting personal targets, that meant that he wouldn’t be subject to security checking. and no one ever questions a relationship between a child and an adult because of the core belief in Scientology that there are no such thing as children. Every person is thetan, or spirit, inhabiting the body. The body may be young, but its inhabitant is billions of years old. This belief creates a culture where children are left open to being abused in all manner of ways. Grooming and inappropriate relationships, neglect and inadequate supervision and guidance. We were treated the same as adults, and that is an outright exploitation of a young person’s vulnerabilities.
In 1994 just after I turned 15 I told my friend, a 17 year old German national, that my nephew had been born, I was homesick and desperate to meet him. This was a dangerous thing to do, because if that friend is true to Scientology, they will report you to ethics in a knowledge report. I suspected that this friend was also struggling under this restrictive totalitarian regime and took a big gamble. Sat on the empty bus late at night we planned our escape. Packed our bags with our limited personal effects and silently left our dorms into a waiting taxi in the middle of the night. She had some escape money saved and paid for the taxi to Gatwick coach station. We had no idea of the coach times and were constantly looking over our shoulders in case we had been followed. We agreed to jump on the first bus north, wherever it may be going. Travelling through the night and into the next day, we arrived in Yorkshire. We met my baby nephew and slept at my mum’s house. Early the next morning, before 8am a knock on the door signalled that we had been found. Two Sea org members were there to take us back. They had no money to feed us or pay us, but they had money to hire a car and retrieve us from hundreds of miles away just over 24 hours after we had escaped. We pleaded not to go back, but it was clear that the two sea org members had no intention of leaving without us. We had signed those contracts and we needed to go back and route out properly.
We had to spend the entire journey back to Sussex in silence, not permitted to talk. On arrival we were separated and I never saw my friend again.
Of course I was security checked on the e-meter and interrogated. Segregated from everyone, not allowed to speak to anyone except my handler. I was terrified that I was going to be sent to the RPF, not allowed to leave. A couple of days later I was dropped off at the bus station with a bus fare home. I was finally free.
But that wasn’t the end. The letters continued to come, inviting me back. The same letters I had been forced to sit down and write to people who weren’t active. we haven’t heard from you in a while, we have this course that can help you, have you read what Ron had to say in this book? Get in touch, we’d love to catch up and hear how things are going. Even when you leave your abusers behind, you’re never really free.
Z.H.
My name is Phil Jones. I was in Scientology for nearly 40 years and have since left the group.
When I was at Scientology’s St Hill, UK organization in East Grinstead for auditing once, I was punished for what I considered a minor infraction. We were supposed to carry our auditing materials in a locked case, with the briefcase also being chained or tied to our wrist.
One day when walking less than 25 yards from the auditing room to the Examiner (who checks to see that you’ve completed your assignment), I failed to spin the locks on my case. The case never left my possession and was still tied to my wrist the whole time.
Because of this perceived transgression I was told I was in a Condition of Treason to Scientology and put on manual labor as punishment. This caused me a lot of anxiety. This anxiety still haunts me to this day and affects my behavior in so many things with my interactions in life. The harsh punishment for what I considered such a minor slip was emotionally crushing.
That was only part of the mental control and manipulation that Scientology affected my mind with over the years.
P.J.
In the 1980s and early 1990s I spent time involved in scientology in the UK. I was initially attached to Sunderland org(anisation) and also travelled to Saint Hill manor in West Sussex for training. The time involved in total was almost 7 years.
The first instance of deception was in getting both my wife and I to join staff. This involved signing a “contract” for either 5 or 2 and a half years. Up to that point we had only had positive experiences. During discussions about pay and conditions we were assured that we would receive about £200 each and it was this that made us take the plunge and sign up for 5 years.
First week we got nothing and were told that as we were training we wouldn’t get full pay but to get nothing at all was a shock to say the least.
I was next sent to Sussex for training and although my fares were paid I was left to fend for myself regarding accommodation and food and again for 6 weeks I received no pay.
My wife joined me and now we were both trying to survive spending 14 hours a day studying thereby not earning any money. After about 8 weeks we received £40 but this went nowhere as we owed rent not to mention had to buy food. My wife was pregnant during this period so we were concerned about our unborn child too.
Fortunately or not, we had just sold our house and lived on the proceeds of that for a while.
In the three years that I was associated with the Sunderland branch I didn’t get anywhere close to £200 in total, never mind weekly.
As I learned more about the workings of this racket I found out that pay depended on income so if your org made no money, you didn’t get paid anything.
We were already committed but things came to a point where we couldn’t afford to carry on. We had our first child and were due a second. What little we received on benefits went on paying a babysitter so that we could work over 12 hours a day for scientology.This was all quite ruthless as discipline got tighter the longer you were involved and the higher up the ladder you progressed.
Eventually we escaped by borrowing train fares from my wife’s relations and just going without telling anyone. If you told anyone you were thinking of leaving they would try to prevent that at all costs.
If you did leave, like we did, they declared us Suppressive Persons and this meant that no scientologist was allowed to communicate in any way with us and we were in fact excommunicated.
I would advise anybody and everybody to have nothing to do with scientology as although we were fortunate that our suffering wasn’t too intense, it did cost us our house and would have cost us much more had we stayed.
The religion angle is just that, an angle.
People involved in scientology will tell anyone that it is a religion but amongst themselves they readily acknowledge that it isn’t, unless the worship of money is religious.
P.G.
I was involved with Scientology for 17 years, starting from my early 20s. It presented itself as a self-improvement system and a “Modern Science of Mental Health,” promising to help me achieve my dreams by making me a dynamic, confident, successful and happy person – free from irrational fears or phobias, cured from many diseases and immune to others. Resisting the pressure to join the staff, I remained a paying customer. Joining the staff would have involved working 100+ hours per week for a pittance (much less than minimum wage) and only getting Christmas day off to see family if I had worked hard enough. The cheaper introductory courses had a few interesting and useful ideas in them, but their real purpose, combined with a continuous bombardment of promotions and “success stories”, was to create a desire or desperation to take the more expensive services – where all my problems would resolve. The well-timed big sell arrived, and they pressured me into taking a loan without the knowledge of my partner. After initially paying several thousands of pounds to get the promised results, the cost of additional services needed to get me out the hole I now found myself in soon turned into 10s of thousands, coupled with extra hidden costs, membership fees, demands for donations for new buildings and legal battles, spiralling out of control over £100k. All of which were paid under duress in loans and on numerous credit cards, some of which were arranged via the organisation in questionable circumstances. My experience was common amongst other customers and staff, some going bankrupt or taking out IVAs, selling their properties, donating inheritances or divorce settlements, and so on. After leaving the organisation on the brink of financial ruin, it took me 7 painful years to get out of debt and to regain a healthy credit score. I was lucky in that I had a decent income. Others may not have been so fortunate.
Besides the extortion, my health issues and phobias were not resolving. I had high blood pressure, and they expected me to treat this with vitamins and exercise, hoping their services would eventually do the trick. When I eventually parted ways with the organisation and sought the correct medical treatment, my blood pressure was dangerously high. Had I not got the correct treatment, I may not be here today. It was common in the organisation to discourage medicine and especially psychiatric drugs, preventing people from getting the best care needed. An abundance of conspiracy theories about pharmaceutical companies, the mental health industry and general medicine bred throughout the followers, eliciting more donations to save them from such “evils.”
Scientology is a totalitarian organisation that seeks to control its members and anyone else around. There is even a policy called “Command Intention” meaning whatever the current leader demands, all staff and followers are to comply with, no questions asked. All orders from seniors are expected to be carried out by their sub-ordinates with harsh penalties for failing to do so. Even paying customers suffer the same level of control, getting several phone calls per day until they agree to whatever. One time, they made me clean out the sauna as a punishment. During a visit to their East Grinstead headquarters, someone decided I was to stay there for a week and pay for a £10k service. “There is no alternative,” they told me, and I witnessed their fear of not wanting to inform their superior that I couldn’t do it. They held me down there for several days using various manipulative techniques – apparently, I did not have “permission to leave.” Whilst there, I saw a lady storm off and leave. Within half an hour, they had gone to her home and brought her back in. I used to get people turning up at my house unannounced, and one time had someone turn up to my workplace in Birmingham, demanding that I take time off and finish my current course.
Overall, followers are under constant pressure to donate vast sums of money, to spend at least 12 hours a week taking services with no breaks in between, to turn up to every promotional event (and buy the latest releases), to donate materials to libraries, to support and take part in their outreach activities and to promote Scientology to others, all whilst trying to keep a job and a family, and to keep a roof over their heads.
These are not just the actions of a few members. Scientology’s policies are ingrained with an “ends justifies the means” mentality. Their ultimate goal is to have all governments under their control. Scientology may not be big in the UK compared to other countries, but they are buying up expensive real estate off the back of overworked, abused, manipulated and deceived British citizens, giving up their homes and inheritances, whilst not telling them about the few billion dollars they have in reserves in the US, or the millions of dollars they waste each year trying to harass and silence critics.
In the current climate of disinformation, dangerous cults such as Scientology that are major spreaders of such anti-scientific lies, using them to profit from people’s fears, and subsequently bleeding them dry, need to be investigated and brought to account.
D.G.
I am writing to you as a concerned former citizen of England. I am originally from Switzerland and I grew up as a child in Scientology. Because of that I have been victim to abuse and neglect during my childhood including no proper education and being cohered at the age of nine, to sign a contract to work for the church of Scientology for the reminder of my life. But I would like to focus on my time in England between 2005 (age 13) and 2012 (age 20).
I was moved along with my parents under false pretences to England to work for the church of Scientology (as so-called Sea Org members, the most elite workforce for Scientology) at its main headquarters at St. Hill in East Grinstead. From the age of 13-16 I worked during the week about 6h and on the weekends usually 8-10h. From the age of 16 my workday was 12-14h for seven days a week. We were under constant watch from other staff and cameras and where never allowed to leave the premises unless strict permission to do so.
We where daily transported from our berthing at Walsh Manor in Crowborough to St. Hill. I lived in badly maintained housing. Single panel windows, rotten wood at the windows, during winter not always heating, insects in room, poor ventilation. And I was housed in a small room with a total of 12 men (six bunkbeds). My personal possessions where few and to be frank, I hardly ever had the chance to enjoy them.
I worked more then 100h a week, yet my weekly pay was between £0.00 and £20.00, a few times I even had gotten £50.00 but that happened maybe six times in all my years working there.
When I was about 16, I came to realise that I am in fact homosexual, but I was not able to come out or seek help/advice as Scientology is extremely homophobic. I was under a lot od distress and became very depressed and suicidal. At the age of 20 I could not bare it any longer and I wanted to take my own life and thus communicated it to the right authorities at St Hill. I told them, that in order to protect the church I would like to rout out, so as to kill myself while not officially working for the church any longer. I assumed they would want to help me so as not to lose a valued member. Instead of showing concern, compassion or offering help, they proceeded to start the process to get me out of the headquarters as soon as possible, so as to get rid of a major problem.
To answer the question, why I did not just walk away much sooner or just go to the doctor or a psychiatrist for help: I grew up in this very controlling environment. I was never permitted to be on the internet, or have any contact with the outside world. I was living a very isolated life, not knowing how life outside of Scientology was actually like. During my time as a child and as an adult I was constantly given propaganda about the outside world. How it is unsafe, there are always wars, most people are drug addicts and criminals. How doctors do not wish to actually heal you, as they much rather keep you sick so as to make more money and that psychiatrists and psychologists will try to lobotomise or use electric shock therapy with anyone that they can. I was very frightened of a world without Scientology as I was constantly told how Scientology was the only thing in this world, that actually is good and is trying to help mankind.
And so, if I where to leave, I would have no chance of survival let alone be able to have a happy life. On top of that I was considered to be a lower class of person or as Scientology would categorise me as a Degraded being, an aberration due to my homosexuality.
In the Sea Org, there is no such thing as retirement. I know of two adults by the name of Jon Cox and Robere Edwards, who worked almost to the last day of their life. They both where over 80 years old. There are a couple of other seniors I knew who passed away while I worked there, but I do not recall their names.
If targets where not met, then there were severe punishments. This included staying on work for several more hours, being publicly shamed, made to do demining labour, not allowed to eat the regular food, but instead dry reis and beans, denied the time to sleep, reduced pay or even no pay at all.
As I was working in the kitchen, cooking the food for the staff I can inform, that during most of my time there it was just myself and one other person having to cook, clean the kitchen & store-room, wash up, clean all the dining rooms, do the food order etc. for 350 people. The budget for such a number of staff for three meals a day, was about £2000 a week. That would come to less then 30 Pence per person per meal.
Indeed, this has been more then ten years ago, but Scientology doctrine is based on the works of the founder L. Ron Hubbard and it is per their own policies, that they are not allowed to alter the technology. This would then also mean that not only would they have to continue with their very abusive behaviour, but that it would be done worldwide in all the Scientology Churches.
Although I now live back in Switzerland and am not part of Scientology any longer, I am still suffering from all the abuse I suffered under and Scientology is still in operation in the UK. I plead, that you please investigate and inform yourself. Please look up stories of victims of Scientology, there are hundreds of individuals who have come forward and have spoken out and there are thousands of videos on YouTube, newspaper articles and blogs describing all the abuse that Scientology has been a part of for decades.
S.Z.
I started doing Scientology courses from the age of 6, as a member of public in South Africa then arrived in England in 1973 to join what they call the Sea Organization. At age 11 (just before my 12th birthday) I was sent by myself completely alone to join the flagship Apollo in Lisbon. The intention was for me to become what they call a Commodore’s Messenger working directly with L. Ron Hubbard. From the day I got there I wanted to go straight back home to my mother in the UK, but was not allowed to. I did physical work on the ship for a few months and thought the only way I could get off the ship and back to my family was if I was as naughty as possible. I was sent to work for what they called the ethics officer and he set me to work to file a backlog pile of knowledge reports. Instead of filing them, I shredded them. This was just one of a few naughty things that I did that got me into a lot of trouble. Unfortunately for me, the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) had just been formed, and so had the RPF’s RPF. I was assigned to the RPF, then the RPF’s RPF where one was forced to wear black boiler suits and a black armband. One was not allowed to talk to other members of the crew, and you had to do physical work all day and study at night. You don’t have any time off and you eat after everyone else has eaten (if there was food left). I still didn’t want to stay and wanted to go backl to my family so after while I was locked up in the chain locker of the ship by L Ron Hubbard. After three days and three nights I was eventually offloaded and sent back to be with my family in the UK, but not before having had to petition L. Ron Hubbard for permission to do so.
Once back in the UK I was sent back to school, but during my A-levels was taken out of school against my will and made to work for what they call their Guardians Office. At age 14 I was sodomised and didn’t tell anyone as I felt so ashamed. The perpetrator admitted to his wife what he had done, and she reported it. I was then hauled into the ethics office and told that it was my fault it happened and that I was not allowed to report it to law enforcement. I continued to work for the organisation for a few more years, before finally managing to make my escape in 1982. I was the last of my family to leave, but the catalyst for me wanting to leave was that my mother had suffered a stroke at age 42 due to the stresses that she was under having to work for the organisation till 3 o’clock every morning for at previous three weeks.
This is just a small snapshot of what happened to me. There’s a lot more to say. This is a dangerous cult and they continue to use children for forced labour. It has to stop.
D.C.
I personally as a 15 year old was permitted to go to a London Night Club after having successfully cleaned the windows of a Scientology building with newspaper. As a child visiting England I thought this was of course fantastic. I was being treated as an adult in a childs body. Anything could have happened to me that night. I came from a small village in another country and had no idea about the dangers in the world. Treating children like adults and allowing them adult freedoms is nothing short of abuse.
As a younger child I also remember very clearly going to the jewellers with my mum. My mum tried to sell her jewellery to get some money for food and bills and an unpaid mortgage as Scientology had convinced my dad to give them all the family money for courses.
On another occasion I was asked, as a member of the public, to pop into a room, just off the reception area for a chat. Soon I was sat there as a young lone female with 3 men much older than me. I was extremely scared as I was seated furthest from the door. I was asked to sign a Billion Year contract. I was there for hours, being word cleared on help, various other men in uniform came & went showing various references as to why joining the SeaOrg was a good thing. Eventually I was left with 2 females in uniform. The organisation had closed and it was now only us and security staff. I was coerced into voluntarily signing the contract in the early hours of the morning. I have never been so panicked. I had been informed I would have to disconnect all contact with my mum, for her anger at my dad giving all the money to Scientology.
I have also witnesses a very distressed friend, absolutely distraught as her elderly mother had no money for food, was starving and in distress, all because she had been convinced to hand her money over to the “church” for the betterment of her spiritual freedom, leaving her nothing to take care of her physical self.
The occasion that finally got me out of Scientology was when a very dear friend and new Scientologist got Cancer. The Church of Scientology said they can help with that, had a remedy. They built his hopes up. He sadly died a few weeks later. The process for handling cancer can be found in what they call their “scriptures” (any writing or lecture by L Ron Hubbard), in the “Organization Series – Part 14 of 20 The Scale of Havingness Lecture 29 Nov 1956.
“It (cancer) always requires a second-dynamic or sexual upset…This is cancer at the outset….we have processed such things as wasting babies, and accepting babies, and mocking up babies and throwing them away and doing such like and so on” L Ron Hubbard from the above lecture.
These processes have to be paid for, what church puts a dying man through that? No other church I know, that’s for sure. My final straw.
Please stop all this abuse happening here in the U.K
S.A.
At age 6 I was put onto the Emeter, and my Scientologist parents were told: I was a suppressive person (pure evil) after I failed a security check. This is an invasive interrogation. I would be regularly interrogated for years on the Emeter as they attempted to remove the “evil” from me. My Parents were told they had to either handle me or disconnect from me. I was consistently punished under Scientology Ethics instructions. The doctrine of Scientology led to the breakdown of my family relationships. Extended non Scientologist family members were disconnected from us all. The organisation demanded so much money that my family was in serious debt. The “church” do not care about their parishioners. By the time I was 16, I was living alone after being kicked out of my home. I required many years of mental health support to recover from the abuse I experienced. Scientology is harmful, especially to children. I believe that the books and services should be banned in the UK and the organisation investigated and brought to justice. Scientology is a destructive cult.
K.G.
I got into Scientology in 1981 after a painter/decorator at my parent’s house introduced me to it. I read some of the basic books and they made a lot of sense, and since I had been on a “search” for answers the books seemed to answer a lot of questions I had. I did some elementary courses at Tottenham Court Road (which used to be the Central org, now is just a test centre for “raw meet” as the staff call possible new recruits). I was signed up to go to Loughborough University that autumn, so started Aero Engineering there, but my interest in Scientology was distracting me from applying myself. After a second semester at Loughborough where I was really wasting my time and my Dad’s money I knew I had a decision to make. One day in early 1982 I phoned my Father (Air Commodore FC Padfield CBE FIEE) and said “Daddy, I have decided to join the Sea Org”.
I must say he took it very well, and despite obvious disappointment he accommodated my start in the billion-year contract – even to the extent of driving me down to the base to start.
At that time the UK Management was based at St Mary’s College near Rottingdean – an ex convent which was used to house Management, The Guardians Office (forerunner to the Office of Special Affairs) and outer-Org training of regional staff. It is now luxury apartments but back then it was a severe looking and bleak building; stone walls and floors, dim lighting and run down. All I knew of the Sea Org was what the promotional material of the time said – that it was “an infinite guarantee that Scientology would always be around”. Beyond that I knew very little.
So I was a little shocked to immediately be put on a work schedule starting at 8am with hard physical labour for 8 hours, followed by 5 hours study of the character and history of the Sea Org. I was berthed with other new recruits. My flippant request for a single room with a sea view was met with a mirthless glare. This was the “EPF” the Estates Project Force which all new recruits to the Sea Org have to do.
I graduated that after about four weeks and got trained up as the Outer Org Supervisor, meaning my job was to train technical staff to go back to their local Orgs and deliver. I still really didn’t know what I had got myself into, but gradually I started accepting the pretty awful conditions and lack of pay (about £10 a week typically) on the basis that I was helping to “Clear the planet” – even though to this day I still don’t really know what that means.
Around summer 1983 St Mary’s was sold and the entire Sea Org crew was shipped up to St Hill East Grinstead to permanently locate there alongside the Advanced Organisation that had been set up by Hubbard in the early 60s. I had various jobs and went on a couple of “missions” which were Sea Org personnel going in to sort out wayward outer Orgs usually. I was completely out of my depth but the ethos of the Sea Org is “make it go right”. In other words, just handle it! (Or else!). One is expected to follow orders as in the military.
In 1984 things started going badly wrong. I had done a particularly successful mission to put a standard EPF onto the base at St Hill and caught the eye of an Int Management executive named Kenny Seybold who was the Deputy Establishment Officer for security Int (they love fancy job titles). He was there managing the security for the formation of the now Infamous IAS – International Association of Scientologists, a membership Organisation that had the purpose of being separate from the Church to protect it against attacks and build up a “war chest”. He needed to take some one back to LA with him to start training in security to get a Security Force established at St Hill, as until that time there was none, and there had been perimeter attacks and some internal security issues.
Very reluctantly – since security just wasn’t my thing, I had only wanted to be involved with the “tech” of Scientology – I eventually agreed, and boarded a plane for LA. It was either that or face the RPF for non-compliance. My training started there while I underwent extensive “security checking” on the E meter. This probed every aspect of my life, especially my life prior to Scientology to see if there was anything that could pose a threat to Scientology. Past sexual partners, visits to therapists or hospitals, antagonistic family members etc. I must have given enough right answers because before long I was shipped off to the mysterious “Int base” in the middle of the night which location then was completely secret, even to other sea Org members.
My life at Int was, even as a Sea Org member used to savage demands and heavy penalties, a culture shock. The atmosphere was intense and threatening – there was always the sense of fear and anxiety – and the production targets were ruthless and HAD to be met. I started training first as a guard, looking after the perimeter of the base, and Eagles Nest, a spot overlooking the entire complex with binoculars, looking out for any external threats or attacks. Even then there was a very elaborate security system, with barbed wire fences (since upgraded to razor wire with the sharp bits pointing inwards), motion sensors, and spotlights that would come on if any presence was detected outside the fences. I was trained to use a “PR24” – a kind of baton similar to police batons but with a handle. I didn’t do weapons training but some of the guards did, and were armed.
The night shifts seemed endless, and apart from the “perk” of being able to wander round Bonnie View – Hubbard’s personal house, although he never lived there – there was little to do and the main threats came from rattle snakes, for which we had specially adapted poles to decapitate them when found. One night though, I did actually spot a couple of local intruders, called the alarm and they were apprehended. But the schedule was unforgiving and on a couple of occasions I dozed off in the guard booth.
The culture of security checking is all pervasive, and it was expected that one wrote his transgressions regularly. So I wrote up what I had done on watch. I remember clearly the security Chief at the time reading my write up and there were sharp intakes of breath and tut-tut noises as he read. I knew it was bad. On top of that, all incoming mail is read by Security and my Mother wrote to me quoting an anti-Scientology piece in the Sunday Times which referred directly to the Int Base where I was, so I was now a “security risk” myself.
Within 48 hours I was on the RPF – the notorious Rehabilitation Project Force. This is nominally a voluntary programme to “help” Sea Org members who have royally screwed up to get with the programme and sort themselves out. In practice it is little more than a punishment regime, and some have been on it for years, even decades. The schedule is even more gruelling, the targets even more insane, and the punishments for slacking or missing targets could be brutal. One has to wear navy blue or black boiler suits so other Sea Org members know not to speak to you, and you have to address even the newest recruit as “Sir”. You run everywhere, never mind it is the desert and a building site with lots of hazards such as planks with nails sticking out. There is even an “RPF’s RPF” which is even more inhumane, where you have to do the most foul and disgusting jobs dawn till dusk till you are considered suitably “rehabilitated” back to the regular RPF – although I never made that far down the food chain!
Our main job was building a sound / music studio from the ground up for recording the music for the promotional videos and albums. Artists such as Edgar Winters and Chick Corea regularly came to make music there upon completion. It was skilled work, and I got quite adept at carpentry, the section I was assigned to. We built the cabinets and frame walls and any other construction needed doing.
Health and safety was non-existent, and due to extreme exhaustion accidents were common. One guy fell off a scaffolding about 20 feet and nearly broke his back. Another individual lost a finger on a circular saw. One day while cutting felt on a blistering hot roof the knife slipped and I gashed my leg deeply. I still have the scar to this day. All-nighters were common and sometimes we would go several days without sleep.
There was a brief, unexpected but welcome respite in May 1985. Julie Christofferson had won a case against the Church In Portland Oregan and was awarded $39m which the Church didn’t have. It was a do-or-die situation, and there was a call to arms to Scientologists the world over. They came from around the world to protest and make a claim for the Appeal that is was anti-religious and unconstitutional. We were all shipped up to Portland and the story is told briefly in this short video. You will see me being interviewed by local TV at 2.0 in the video.
Our job was to build the stages for the musicians and speakers – we were still very much on the RPF but it was like complete freedom compared to lock-down at the Int base.
After we returned to Hemet to continue as normal, there was a briefing about the affair by David Miscavige, my first look at him up close. He said, after the Appeal was won, that it was a great victory that “even he” hadn’t been able to imagine. I remember thinking at the time “even you” – Who the hell are you anyway?
Later that year the music studio was finished and as a reward we actually got a couple days off. Part of that was a party at the big eating area MCI (massacre canyon inn) and I was assigned to work behind the bar and serve the execs drinks. At one point Miscavige walked up and ordered a drink and some tortilla chips. I didn’t know what they were then and rummaged around looking. I told him I didn’t think we had any.
He has, as anyone who has met him will tell you, a piercing gaze and a unique, quite threatening persona. He looked me right and the eye and simply said “you don’t know what you doing, do you”. As a little footnote to that – years later when I was doing some voluntary work at St Hill and by this time Miscavige was the undisputed leader of Scientology I bumped into him while he was doing an Org inspection. He said “I know you” – to which I regaled him with the amusing anecdote of years earlier with the tortilla chips. He, nor his entourage, saw the funny side and had I still been on staff no doubt I would have been re-assigned to the RPF then and there.
I never did graduate the RPF. My visa expired and I was sent back to the UK around Christmas 1985. I did a few more months on the programme and got a reprieve. Even by its own standards of entry, my assignment had been incorrect. Although my security training was a long way from finished I was yet tasked with the establishment of a Security Force at St Hill, which went fine until one day I went out with a girl and engaged in “heavy petting”. This is absolutely forbidden for Sea Org members, so after another spell doing hard labour I was re-posted to the Tech area St Hill, where I spent the last 2 years of my sea Org career until I decided in October 1987 I had had enough and asked to leave (route out in Scientology lingo).
Asking to leave is tantamount to treason, and I was yet again assigned to a spell of hard labour. This was just after that hurricane of 87 so there was plenty of work to do with clearing all the fallen tress around. One of my last – accidental – actions before I left was putting a chain saw through the only phone line into and out of the base. (The electricity and phone lines were down for a month). I left in shame, confused and disorientated in November.
With nowhere to go or work to do I decided to move to Germany to reunite with a girlfriend I had met at Gatwick while still on staff. I ended up staying there through 88 and most of 89, working in factories or manual labour jobs. I joined a local Ska band and started enjoying life again. A 9-hour shift with so much spare time was heaven compared to what I was used to. I caught on my reading played lots of music and taught myself chess to near Grandmaster level.
In 1989 I left Germany for a short trip to the Far East – India and Thailand. I was trying to get my head straight, as I “knew” that Scientology was right and good, but how well had I progressed in it, really? Not a lot was the answer. I had done virtually none of the “Bridge to Total Freedom” – the essence of the subject. That was in common with most staff though, Sea Org or otherwise. I concluded that I just hadn’t applied myself adequately, and started taking services again in the UK, now as public. I integrated myself firmly into the local Scientology community around east Grinstead, socialising almost exclusively with other Scientologists and doing what courses or auditing i could afford. But the prices kept increasing to a level where it seemed only the rich would be able to afford to traverse the “Bridge”. So I went to the Freewinds ship in 1993 to get “de-bugged”. Still I couldn’t seem to make progress.
In 1999 I met my now wife Maria, and introduced her to Scientology. In 2001 we went to Las Vegas to get married, followed by a short visit to the Celebrity Centre in LA for our honeymoon. On Sept 11 2001 we drove up coast in shell-shocked America, to San Francisco for a few days and finally to Flag in Clearwater where I had about $10,000 on account to get “case cracking”.
THIS surely would do it! I would be in the hands of the most technically adept Scientologists in the world. Flag is “the Mecca of technical perfection” – according to the promo – after all and “the friendliest place in the world” to boot!
I was dismayed when the first session of this “case cracking” began with the words “I am not auditing you”. I knew exactly what this meant. Sec Checking is done “not auditing you” because it then gives the right for the auditor to file reports of things that come up in your session to the Ethics Officer who can take action against you for misdemeanours or transgressions. In other words, this auditing is done for the benefit of the Organisation, not the benefit of the person receiving it.
My protests went nowhere and before I knew it the entire 50 hours had been used up in this wise. I was again angry and confused. One is taught to rationalise in Scientology that nothing is ever the Organisation’s fault. If something doesn’t go right you must look at what you did to “pull it in”. But however hard I looked I saw that this was about the most flagrant breach of Church policy one could hope to find. Senior policy of the Church according to Hubbard is “We always deliver what we promise” and clearly, that had not happened.
In talking discreetly to other public Scientologists back in the UK I discovered I was far from the only one getting this kind of treatment. A little research suggested to me that excessive security measures had been put in place at Flag after the Lisa McPhearson debacle in the late 90s, whereby poor handling and treatment had led to her untimely death at Flag itself.
The 2000s were dotted with visits to the Flag rep at St Hill to get some kind of reconciliation on the matter – but it was futile. A second visit to the Freewinds in the Caribbean in 2003 didn’t help much either. Something was very wrong – but what?
Finally a conversation with a senior “OT” at St Hill in 2009 broke the dam. She told me that if I didn’t make it go right to get up the Bridge this lifetime I would be “losing my eternity” or words to that effect. Something clicked – I saw the spiritual blackmail for want of a better term – the hook that keeps you going back and back. How could anyone or anything forsake my eternity? It’s mine!
I went home and started researching the situation within the Church with the blinkers off. This in itself is quite dangerous for a Scientologist – you are very carefully conditioned to believe that anything critical could be harmful, both to your spiritual enhancement, and the well being of the group. Not to mention, it could cost you a small fortune in newly needed sec checks!”
But I was past caring. I went online and looked and looked. I found that so many of the top execs who had just “vanished” had all left in disgust. Some I knew personally such as ex Int Security Chief Gary “Jackson” Moorehead. Others like Marty Rathbun I knew from a distance. I knew Jeff Hawkins who had written an astonishing book about his decades in the cult. And the stories they had to tell were worse than I ever could have imagined.
For all the insanity I had seen and been aware of myself, I had no idea how bad things had gotten, especially at the Int base. Mike Rinder, former head of OSA – the Intelligence arm, had personally been beaten savagely by Miscavige in excess of 50 times. This is a man I knew to be of the utmost integrity and honesty. Dozens of others told of their nightmares and the stories were obviously accurate and factual accounts. Besides, of the many useful things I had gained from my own Scientology training was the ability to tell when some one was telling the truth or not.
There was absolutely no doubt about it – the top management of the Church had become a cesspit of violence, injustice and in some cases outright sadism, all under the stewardship, or direction of, David Miscavige himself.
I am not one for standing around on the side-lines. As soon as I realised the full extent of the shocking abuses taking place I took it upon myself to inform other Scientology friends who seemed blissfully unaware of what had been going on – not to mention how their hard earned “donations” were being spent. OSA’s reaction was to generate a hate page on one of their web sites about me http://martyrathbunblog.com/mark-rathbun/martin-padfield-whose-loss-2/ (it’s been toned down since) and I have been turfed off the St Hill base after trying to deliver a letter asking for my IAS donations back (on video).
When Debbie Cook, a 17-year veteran Commanding Officer of Flag went on to the witness stand in San Antonio Texas last year the Church didn’t even bother putting up a defence. She told of being tortured at Int, ridiculed and abused. THAT is now a matter of court record.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the subject, as far as I am concerned that is a conversation for another day. Today the Church needs to labelled for what it is – a dangerous corrupt and sinister cult, and I will continue to do whatever I can to bring the truth out to those who need it most – rank and file Scientologists.
M.P.
