Ex-league star damns 'toxic' Scientology leader
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| Photo: Ex Australian league star Chris Guider says Scientology is about "money and control". |
A former Australian rugby league star who abandoned his sporting career for a life in the Church of Scientology says its head is a "violent" and "toxic" individual.
Former St George captain and player of the year Chris Guider walked away from his league career in 1986 at the age of 24.
After spending more than 20 years in the church in both Australia and the US, working closely with Scientology leader David Miscavige, Mr Guider has now left the movement, which he says is more about money and control than anything else.
"I would go through the day looking for people that weren't following policy properly or weren't in the right space they were supposed to be or the right area they were supposed to be in and then handling those people so they got back to what they were supposed to be doing," Mr Guider said of his time as an honour guard, or RTC, for Mr Miscavige.
"I'd report directly to Miscavige on what I did that day."
Mr Miscavige became the leader of the Church of Scientology soon after the death of its founder L Ron Hubbard in 1986.
He was active in recruiting Tom Cruise to Scientology and was best man at his wedding.
But Mr Guider thinks Mr Miscavige is not the kind of person who should be the head of a religious movement.
"He's a violent individual. He is and there are accounts of him being physical with people," he said.
"I've seen him physically beat one staff member, Mark Fisher, who was formerly an executive in the RTC, worked very closely with Miscavige for a lot of years, and I witnessed him beating him."
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'Lies'
Mr Miscavige was not available to respond to these allegations.
He has done only one television interview in 25 years as head of the Church.
The Church of Scientology in the US turned down Lateline's requests for an interview.
In an email, a spokeswoman claimed the allegations were "a lie" and attached two sworn declarations from Scientologists Marc Yager and Mark Ingber who claim Mr Miscavige did not hit Mr Fisher.
But Mr Fisher has told the St Petersburg Times in a previous interview that Mr Miscavige did beat him
"He was pulling on my hair and he was punching at me and kicking at me, and this went on for two or three minutes," the former Scientology executive told the newspaper.
"And when he finally stopped and calmed down, I stood up and reached behind my head and my head was bleeding."
At least four other former Scientologists have claimed publicly that Mr Miscavige has also hit them. They include Jeff Hawkins, Mike Rinder, Bruce Hines and Tom De Vocht,
The Church of Scientology in the US said in an email to Lateline a small group of anti-Scientologists were feeding stories to the tabloid press to generate controversy.
The Church describes them as a "posse of lunatics" led by a media whore.
But Mr Guider says Mr Miscavige is a violent man, and at one point he was instructed by the church leader to hit a colleague who was editing a Scientology promotional video.
"He was standing behind the person who was editing the property and telling him he was doing this wrong and that wrong and screaming at him," Mr Guider said.
"In the ethics officer role you have this little, basically it's a riding crop. It's just a little baton. It's just meant to be a symbol of authority that the ethics officer has.
"Miscavige told me to beat the guy with the stick. I looked at him and I refused to do that. He took that very, very severely on me because I didn't do what he wanted me to do."
In a statement the Church of Scientology in the US described Mr Guider's allegations as delusional.
The church provided copies of three sworn declarations from current Scientologists who deny the incident took place, including Mr Guider's ex-wife and the editor involved, Gary Wiese.
Lateline has tried to contact Mr Wiese but he has not returned its calls. The church has described Lateline's attempts to contact Mr Wiese to test his written denial as "inappropriate".
It is common practice for the Church of Scientology to issue blanket denials of allegations made against them.
When Anderson Cooper raised allegations of violence against Mr Miscavige on CNN, the four ex-wives of the accusers claimed their former husbands were lying.
In the Church of Scientology's internal justice system making a public statement against Scientology or Scientologists is considered a high crime - the worst of all crimes within Scientology.
"That's church policy - they're not supposed to admit to anything. So anybody you interview they won't admit that they've done something wrong or it's not that way," Mr Guider said.
"They'll go after you the reporter, they'll go after whoever's putting the program together, they'll go after the individual. That's how it works.
"RTC would run that. There were executives in RTC on the phones to attorneys telling them what to do, how to handle former members of the church."