2.
The
statements herein are of my own personal knowledge and if
called
upon as a witness, I can testify competently thereto.
3.
I was born
in 1978 in London, England. At that time, my mother was
a
member of the Church of Scientology.
4.
When I was
5 or 6 years old, my mother took me to the Scientology
organization in England called Saint Hill, which is located in
East Grinstead,
Sussex. There I received approximately 12 hours of
"auditing." The auditing
I received consisted of an "auditor" telling me to "look at
that wall, thank
you, walk to that wall, thank you, touch that wall, thank you,
walk away from
that wall, thank you," and similar such commands. I was
made to follow these
commands on a repetitive basis.
5.
When I was
growing up in England to the age of seven, my mother would
apply the Scientology technology for sicknesses. When I hurt
myself, she would
make me do a "contact assist" which meant that if I hit my
elbow, I had to
touch it back to the place where I hit it over and over until
it felt better
and I wasn't allowed to stop until it felt better. If I
was ill, my mother
gave me a "touch assist" where I would lie down and close my
eyes and she
would touch me with her finger and ask, "feel my finger."
This was also done
until I felt better. I never felt better from theses
processes but would have
to pretend I did because she wouldn't stop until I said I felt
good.
6.
Throughout
my years in scientology, in all the auditing I received I
never felt good at the end. I made up wins to get it over
with and generally
felt relief that it was over and dread that I would have to
have another
session. I kept this secret always because it is
scientology policy that if a
person does not get gain from auditing, it means they are a
suppressive
person.
7.
In 1986,
when I was seven years old, my mother's father died. He
left
her some money and she used it to go to "Flag" which is the
highest-level
Scientology delivery organization in the world, located in
Clearwater,
Florida. While she was there, she was recruited for the Sea
Organization which
is where people dedicate their entire life, and supposedly the
next billion
years of their lifetimes, for the purpose of "clearing the
planet" which means
getting everyone into Scientology and processed to the level of
"Clear." She
called and told us she had joined after she had already started
working there.
She told us we all needed to join, that we were moving to Flag
to live in a
beautiful apartment, that we kids would go to a very good
private school and
this would all be paid for by Scientology. She
additionally told us that her
and my dad would get bonuses, time off every other weekend and
family time
every evening.
8.
When we
arrived in 1986 to the Sea Organization in Clearwater, myself,
my brother, my sister and mother all lived in one motel room
for several
weeks. Then we were moved into the main living quarters for the
Sea
Organization members who had young children called the QI
(Quality INN) and at
this point my dad joined us. Again, we lived in one small
motel room. All
five of us lived in this room for approximately 3 months, when
my brother
moved out. From this point on, the four remaining family
members lived in
this room for about a year, wherein I was moved into a dorm
with 4 or 5 other
girls. In this dorm, I slept on a couch, as there was no
bed for me. I lived
there for another year, which was the remainder of our time in
Clearwater.
9.
We were
never sent to a private school as promised. We instead
went
to the local public school. I only recall my mother
taking 3 days off out of
the two years we were there. She almost never spent the
evening family time
with us (1 � hr), but stayed at work across town. After being
in Clearwater
for about a year, my father was sent off to help on the
renovations of the Sea
Org ship, The Freewinds. As I was moved into a dorm, my
father was gone and
my mother didn't take time off to spend with us, I almost never
saw my
parents.
10.
At one point of
our time in Clearwater, we went back to England to
take care of our Visas. My father, my brother and I
begged my mom not to take
us back to Florida, as we disliked it so much. I spent a
lot of my time
crying about it. My mother refused and insisted we
return.
11.
For the two
years that we lived in Clearwater, I went to school until
2 p.m. and then worked at the "Cadet Org" where we did such
jobs as cleaning,
etc. On weekends, we would work as well.
12.
In 1988, when
I was 9 years old, my mother was transferred to middle
management of the Sea Organization, which is located in Los
Angeles,
California. When we arrived, my father took a leave of absence
so that he
could obtain our Visas and work to pay off debts. When we
arrived in Los
Angeles, we were moved into a rundown studio apartment.
After living there
for about a month, my father paid for and moved us into a
proper apartment.
13.
For
approximately a year, from the age of 9-10, I was in the Cadet
Org in Los Angeles. This is where the children of Sea Org
members go. During
the day, we went to school at a building they had rented where
there were two
classrooms; one for older kids and one for younger kids.
The teacher was not
a trained or certified teacher, but a trained Scientology
"Supervisor." We
had no class lessons, but instead worked straight out of books
and were made
to make clay "demonstrations" of what we were studying.
If we acted up in
class at all, the supervisor simply threw us out of the room.
This happened to
me on several occasions. One time, when I was 10, there
was going to be an
inspection of our school. Many of the children were made
to stay until about
3 a.m. cleaning up the premises.
14.
Every day
after school, we were made to work. We were sent to the
basement of one of the main offices for the Sea Organization
and made to do
filing, as there were mounds of it piling up. When work ended
at approximately
9-10 p.m., we went to sleep on cots or directly on the floor
with pieces of
blankets to keep us warm. When my mom got off work, she
picked me up. From
what I recall, this was between 11pm-12am.
15.
After being in
the Cadet Org for about 1 year, I refused to go back.
Several things happened that caused me to feel this way.
A boy who was there
got upset and climbed to the top of a billboard and threatened
to jump and
kill himself: another boy threw a cockroach at me and
kicked me. My mother
continuously tried to get me to stay but I refused and moved in
with my dad.
I did continue to go to their school, but after a few months, I
was told that
I either had to work in the Cadet Org or discontinue attending
their school.
At this point, my father enrolled me in a private school.
It was a
Scientology run school at my mother's insistence.
16.
At the
Scientology school I attended, which was called "Ability
Plus,"
there were again two classrooms, one for younger kids and one
for older kids.
There was no proper curriculum and no student had ever
graduated from high
school, even though they claimed that you could. There
were no class lessons;
we just worked from books and "checksheets". Our
"teacher" spent several
hours reading us the science fiction book from L. Ron Hubbard
called
"Battlefield Earth."
17.
When I was 14
years old, I started doing a Scientology course at the
Celebrity Centre in Hollywood. Soon after, two Sea Org
recruiters approached
me. They were recruiting for Bridge Publications, which is a
Sea Org
organization. They told me that if I joined their group, I
would get paid
minimum wage {which was several hundred a week, a lot of money
for a 14
year-old); that I would not have to wear a uniform like most
Sea Org members;
and that I would go to school and finish my education.
They also told me that
when I was older and wanted to have children I could.
They spent several
hours convincing me including telling me that the only thing
stopping me from
joining was my "reactive mind." The recruiter's names
were Gavin Potter and
Malcolm Chisholm. I ended up agreeing to join. One of the
reasons I agreed to
join was that my mother and brother had persisted in trying to
recruit me and
I knew this would make them happy.
18.
Soon
thereafter, I started on the "Estates Project Force" (EPF),
which is like boot camp for the Sea Org. I started in May
of 1993 and was on
it for approximately two weeks. When I first arrived, I
was made to fill out
a "life history" form where I had to write down any sexual
experiences I had
had, all my friends' names, and dozens of other extremely
personal details. I
also had to sign a contract for a billion years. I never
got a work permit.
My schedule on the EPF went something like this: 6:30 a.m. wake
up and get
dressed; 7:00 a.m. breakfast; 7:30 a.m. muster (meeting);
7:30-8:00 a.m. run
(not walk) around and empty all the ashtrays and trashcans
outside three
different buildings; 8:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. study Sea Org
policies; 1:00 p.m.
muster and polish boots; 1:15-1:45 p.m. lunch; 1:45 p.m.
muster, drilling and
marching; 2:15 p.m.-7:00 p.m. work, which included cleaning
pots and pans,
cleaning out a clogged toilet, sweeping and mopping floors,
etc.; 7:00-7:30
p.m. dinner; 7:30-10:00 p.m. more work; 10:00-10:30 p.m.
shower; 10:30 p.m.
muster; 11:15 p.m. go to bed. This was a 7-day a week
schedule.
19.
After I
finished the EPF in June of 1993, I started working at
Bridge. The day I started working there, they told me I
was being transferred
to another organization for 2 months. I was told that I
had no choice but to
do it, as I had no "staff status." I went to work in the
International
Justice Chief's office doing secretarial work. I had to
wear a military
uniform. After I worked there for approximately three
months, I was told that
I was being transferred to another organization permanently and
that I again
had no choice as I still had no staff status. The organization
I was
transferred to was the International Training Organization. The
staff there
were on $15 a week pay as they had no money and the food they
were given was
beans and rice. I tried to refuse to go there but was
told again and again I
had no choice. Once there, I felt I couldn't survive on
the refried beans and
rice we had for every meal, so I took other food that wasn't
supposed to be
for us because I was starving. This was considered stealing.
This lasted
approximately 1 year.
20.
For the first 6
months that I was in the International Training Org
(ITO) I was the Receptionist. I had trouble attending the
6 hours of school
that the minors went to on Saturdays because in order to attend
I had to find
someone to replace me on my post. The school here was,
again, substandard
with all the approximately 60 kids enrolled in one room with
one non-certified
teacher. We had no lessons, no curriculum and no way to
graduate: you just
stopped going when you turned 18 or got a GED.
21.
Soon after I
joined the Sea Org when I was still 14, I started having
a relationship with another Sea Org member named Jason
Merrill. Jason was 21.
After two months we were heavily pushed by senior scientology
managers to get
married, as in the Sea Org you are not allowed to do anything
other than kiss
before you are married and if you do more, you may be sent to
the
Rehabilitation Project Force, which means heavy labor for at
least a year. In
December of 1993, when I had just turned 15, Jason and I went
to Las Vegas and
got married.
22.
Once married,
the Sea Org did not have a room in which we could live
together so we were instructed to live in our separate dorms
until they found
room that we could share and this would take several
months. Instead of this,
we decided to stay down the road at Jason's parents house, and
we did so for
about four months, knowing we would get into big trouble if we
were found out
as it was against policy for sea org members to live outside of
church
provided facilities.
23.
After about 4
months, the Executive Director International and the
Commanding Officer of the CMO International, who were at the
top of the
management of Scientology, came to inspect our organization.
They asked me if
I knew anyone who was not living in the Sea Org berthing and I
was compelled
to confess that my husband and I were not. We were
immediately ordered back
into SO berthing and since there were still no rooms available,
we stayed in a
storage closet that was 3/4 full of storage for a week.
We slept on the floor
and there were no windows.
24.
After a week in
the closet, we were moved into a room of our own, but
after 1 week, that room was taken away and we were moved to
another building.
We didn't find out we had been moved after other staff members
had removed our
belongings. The room we were put into next had a missing
windowpane that was
never replaced, very old carpet and peeling paint. We
shared the bathroom
with 2 other couples and had no light bulb, no shower curtain
and no hot water
the majority of the time. We lived in this room for 6
months.
25.
After being the
Receptionist at the ITO for 6 months, I was
transferred to the post of Master at Arms and then to Director
of Inspections
and Reports. I was in charge of enforcing ethics and
justice for the 100
staff in ITO and the 50-100 students on training. My very
first assignment
was to handle a 40 year-old man whose wife had been gone for 2
years on
training. He had been masturbating which is considered
"out-ethics" and I was
supposed to make him stop. I was 15 years old.
26.
On this post, I
also had to handle people who wanted to leave the Sea
Organization. I had to convince them to stay and if they
refused, I had to
make them do hard labor and order them to get "confessionals"
which often took
up to 6 months or a year to complete before hey were allowed to
leave. One
couple wanted to leave and they left without permission twice
but came back.
Leaving without permission is called "blowing." I was
ordered to put them
under heavy watch because there was no one else to watch
them. Since there
was no one else to watch them, I had to do it. I was then
ordered to put a
mattress outside their door and tie my arm to the knob while I
slept so they
couldn't sneak out. The policy soon became that anyone
who wanted to leave
must go under "watch" to stop them from "blowing."
27.
I was ordered
to do numerous watches while in the Sea Organization.
Anyone who admitted to having thoughts of suicide was
immediately put under
watch. I was ordered to do these watches by
executives at Religious
Technology Center, CMO and OSA. My husband at the time
spent approximately
nine months watching an OT Sea Org member for reasons that were
kept secret;
during this time she got pregnant and had a miscarriage. She
was under watch
24 hours a day with my husband and another man watching her
during the day and
another staff member watching her at night.
28.
I was also in
charge of investigating and finding the "Suppressive
Person" if a department wasn't producing enough. I had to
make people write
up their "overts & withholds" (things they had done that
were bad), receive
confessionals, do amends, etc. I had to write a
"Suppressive Person" declare
on a lady who had already left with permission but then was
ordered to receive
more confessionals and was having trouble getting a ride to
come over and
receive them. She was then made to disconnect from family and
friends who were
in the Sea Org and her husband was ordered to split up from
her, but he
refused.
29.
During my time
in the Sea Organization I started going to the 6 hour a
week school less and less. I couldn't get anyone to cover
my job and got in
trouble for leaving it. Also, the school got reduced even
further to all of
us sitting all day in a room doing Spelling and Math bees. By
the time I was
16, I was attending sporadically and at 17 I wasn't attending
at all. I
didn't think it made any difference since I didn't learn a
thing while I was
there. I didn't learn math, history, science, social
studies or English. I
just did spelling bees, read a book, etc. After I turned
18, some of the kids
got to go take their GED, but because I was over 18 I didn't
get to do it
since there was "no reason" as I no longer legally had to
attend school. It
was well known that the legal minimum for school attendance for
a minor is 20
hours a week. We were told this, but the law was
blatantly ignored.
30.
From the age of
14, I had an official schedule starting at 8:00 a.m.
and ending at 10:00 p.m., but regularly worked later, sometimes
until 2 or 3
a.m. We got 30 minutes for lunch and 45 minutes for
dinner and no other
breaks. We regularly were ordered to work during part of our
meal times. We
sometimes got into trouble if we went to the canteen when it
wasn't our
mealtime. The schedule was 7 days a week, but we got Sunday
morning to do our
laundry and clean our rooms. On Saturday's we did labor
work, consisting of
renovations, etc. There was a period of 3 weeks or so in 1995
when I was still
a minor where there was a huge evolution to print new policies
to revise all
the Scientology technology. (This is known as the "Golden Age
of Tech within
the church.) During this time, all staff including minors
were ordered to
work around the clock literally to produce these new polices
and put them into
binders. My job was to go and wake up any staff who went
to sleep and make
them get back to work. I would fall asleep while
driving. I got
approximately 2 hours of sleep a night during this time, but
many times got no
sleep for 2 or more days. I was ordered to drive around
even though I was
falling asleep and incoherent due to no sleep. One time I
parked my car and
accidentally fell asleep and woke up 3 hours later because a
meter attendant
was knocking on my window. Once this "evolution" was
complete, the staff was
rewarded with a trip to the movies.
31.
In
approximately 1996, when I was 16 or 17, there was a
re-organization done and I became in charge of the ethics and
security
departments for the entirety of middle management known as the
Flag Liaison
Office. One day, the Chief of Security International,
Jeff Porter, came and
gave me an order to get some staff to do security at an
event. I didn't do it
because I didn't consider it my job. He then came back
and screamed at me,
pushed me up against a wall and screamed at me more while
holding me against
the wall and spitting in my face. I complained about this
but nothing was
done to handle it.
32.
When I was 18,
I was transferred to another job in the Data
department. This was because someone said I was not
qualified for the job I
had been doing because I had tried marijuana when I was 13
years old. I
worked in the Data department for one year. My senior,
Wayne Furness,
harassed me on a regular basis. When I first started
working under him, he
started calling me a lesbian and telling me and another girl
that we were
lesbians. I got very upset and finally wrote a report to
his senior. She
told him to stop and nothing more. He stopped calling me
a lesbian, but
because I had reported him, he continued to call me other names
such as
"Two-ton Tesse" (I was not in the slightest overweight being
5'6", 130 lbs),
telling me I had "soft-skin", etc. When he would say
these things I got upset
and then he would say that I had withholds and to write them up
or he would
tell me to go to ethics. He got his other juniors to side
with him and tell
me that I had "soft-skin", etc. I reported this behavior
but nothing was done
because our department, which Wayne was in charge of, produced
a lot and the
policy from L. Ron Hubbard is that if someone's statistics are
"up" then they
can't get in trouble no matter what they do. Someone once
"looked into" the
situation, but nothing was done.
33.
When I worked
in the Data department, one of my jobs was to gather the
statistics from around the world on a weekly basis and compile
them all and
graph them on the computer. There were approximately 300
organizations and I
had to get each one to report in between 50-200 statistics each
week. Every
Thursday we had to get this done and had to stay at work until
3am. We also
only got 5-10 minutes to eat lunch and dinner if at all.
Every week there
were, of course, a few organizations that were late reporting
or had missing
reports and every week staff from an organization called CMO
International
would write to me on a system similar to instant messaging
getting
progressively angrier as the day went on and there were missing
reports. They
would call us if they got really mad. I had to sit and
answer their questions
about where the reports were from 8am until about 9pm at
night. I was told
things like "You are fucking counter-intention," and "You are
stopping these
reports coming in," and other such expressions if any reports
were late. They
would also call me and my senior and scream and swear at
us. Screaming and
swearing is the regular way that seniors get juniors to do
things in the Sea
Organization. I was screamed and sworn at on a regular
basis while I was in
the Sea Organization.
34.
There were a
series of policies implemented by management while I
worked in the Sea Org. When I had been there for a few
months, our Commanding
Officer made a new rule that no one could leave the building
without her
permission. Then I was told that I was not allowed to see my
dad and have
dinner with him without a specific reason and special
permission. After about
a year they told us that we were not allowed to eat anywhere
but in the
building nor were we to eat any food other than that
provided. We were not
allowed to go next door for pizza or anything. After about 3
years, we were
told that we could not use our Sunday morning laundry time for
anything else
either, i.e., seeing our family, parents seeing their kids, or
anything.
35.
At around this
time, another new policy was issued stating that no one
could make or receive any personal calls without someone from
the ethics and
security department being with them. Personal calls were
not transferred to
us and a list was made each day of all incoming personal
calls. This list was
sent to the executives and the Religious Technology Center so
that they could
monitor who was being "influenced."
36.
My calls from
my father were rarely routed to me and instead I would
receive a note 2 or 3 days later telling me he had
called. I had to go and
hide in a phone booth to call him. On Christmas Day we were not
allowed to go
with our family or do anything other than the planned trip
unless we got
special permission, which was sometimes denied.
37.
About 9 months
before I left I was told that I could never see my
father again unless I was working to get him back into the Sea
Organization.
38.
We were also
made to fill out interrogatories listing out any gifts we
received from family members, who we spoke to and anyone we
knew who had left
the Sea Organization. Anyone we were talking to, family
or friends, who had
either left Scientology, gave us gifts or money or tried to get
us to take
time off, were called 'External Influences" and we were
ordered to either
handle them or disconnect from them entirely.
39.
The staff was
also made to practice how they would handle family
members who inquired about how they were doing, etc. I was
instructed to lie
to my father and tell him I was attending school and not
working long hours.
40.
If a staff
member got into trouble they would be assigned "lower
conditions." This meant doing formulas and amends,
etc. A new policy came
out after I had been there for a year stating that staff who
were in lower
conditions had to sit in the fire escape stairwell or in the
trash room to eat
their meals. They also had to do up to 40 hours of amends
on their own time,
which was during their meal times or after 10:30 at
night. I myself had to
eat in the stairwell and do hours of amends on my sleep or
mealtime. We also
were not allowed to watch TV and anyone who had a TV and VCR
had it
confiscated and only given to them if they had a day off and
wanted to watch a
movie.
41.
For the almost
5 years that I was in the Sea Organization, I never got
one day off with my husband other than 2 days when we got
married and
Christmas Day. I myself only got approximately 10-15 days
off in the 5 years
that I worked there.
42.
Approximately
1� years before I left, a new rule came out stating that
if you got pregnant, you had to either get an abortion, which
was heavily
pushed, or leave. The rule had previously been that if you got
pregnant, you
had to get an abortion or be sent to a small and failing lower
organization
where you had to fend for yourself and your baby. I had
to handle any staff
that disagreed with this new rule. I myself disagreed
with it because I
wanted children and was told I would be able to have them when
I was first
recruited. However, I never said anything for fear of
getting into trouble.
I got to the point of being suicidal because I was so unhappy,
but I never
said anything because I would have gotten into big trouble and
been looked
down upon.
43.
In September of
1997, my grandma in England died. I convinced my
seniors that I had to go to her funeral in England. They
did not want me to
go, but finally relented and let me take an 8-day leave.
When I returned I
realized that I could not take being split apart from my family
any longer. I
decided to get pregnant because if I tried to just leave, I
would be made to
do heavy labor and confessionals for 6 months to a year and be
called a
"degraded being" by the other staff. I got pregnant in
January of 1998 and on
February 23rd 1998 I left without permission, got on a plane
and went to stay
with my aunt and uncle in England. No one knew up until
then that I was
pregnant and I was really sick and had to get away. My
seniors in Scientology
threatened me that if I didn't come back and receive a
confessional I would be
declared a Suppressive Person and my family would never speak
to me again. My
mother who is still in the Sea Org called me on a continuous
basis telling me
to get an abortion and return.
44.
I returned on
April 1st, 1998. Jeff Porter told me that if I left
again, I would be declared immediately. I told the
security staff there that
I would stay with my father and come in every day for my
confessional,
explaining that I needed proper nutrition and they couldn't
provide it. They
told me that I had to stay in their berthing or I would be put
under a
non-enturbulation order, which means that if I caused further
trouble, that is
if I still refused to stay in their berthing, I would be
declared suppressive.
I then agreed that I would stay there for four days, which is
how long my
confessional was supposed to take. The Security Chief wrote me
a letters
stating that if I was not done with my confessional within four
days, I could
stay with my father until I finished.
45.
Four days later
I was not done, but I was told that they had only
written the letter to get me to stay in the berthing and that
it was not
valid. Therefore, I had to continue to stay in Sea Org berthing
and eat micro
waved meals even though I was suffering from morning
sickness. I had to sleep
on the floor in a small room while waiting for my
confessionals. I was there
for 1 month.
46.
It took a lot
less time for me to leave because they didn't want any
of the other staff to know I was pregnant, so they were trying
to get me out
quick. A staff member from the Religious Technology
Center (The Sea Org's
highest organization) came up to me one day while I was in the
process of
routing out and asked me what I was doing. I told him
that I was pregnant and
leaving and he said to me "Oh, too late for an abortion?"
I personally knew
of three other girls who got pregnant and were convinced to get
abortions.
One was my sister-in-law who was 16 weeks pregnant when she was
convinced to
abort her child although she was strongly against it. My
mother told my
sister and I that it was good that she got an
abortion.
47.
Another thing I
had to do before being allowed to leave was sign an
affidavit stating that I thought Scientology and the Sea Org
were great and
that I was leaving because I couldn't confront bad things I had
done. I was
told I could not leave without signing this document and that
if I did leave
before signing, I would be declared a suppressive person.
I signed it knowing
that it was not legal as it was signed under duress. It
was the standard
policy to make anyone who left the Sea Org sign such an
affidavit and if you
didn't agree to what they wrote in it, you were sent in for
more confessionals
and ethics handlings until you did.
48.
For the first
few months after I left, I was called to come back in
several times to answer questions for investigations. I was
threatened if I
wouldn't come in.
49.
When I left, I
was given a bill totaling $89,000 for auditing and
courses that I had done while I was in the Sea Org. I have been
called
approximately 10 times by various staff members including Bob
Diskin and Renee
Norton pressuring me to send them money to pay this bill. I
have been sent
about 20 letters on this subject.
50.
When I was
about 8 months pregnant, my ex-husband wrote me a letter
and told me that he had decided that he did not want to have
anything to do
with our daughter when she was born. He stated that it
was because he had to
dedicate all his time to the Sea Organization. When my
daughter was 6 months
old, I wrote to him and told him that I needed him to figure
out a way to pay
child support, as I was not able to support our
daughter. He didn't reply
for 6 months, but told his parents to stop seeing our
daughter. They had been
seeing her every other weekend up until that point and then I
stopped hearing
from them. They, too, are Scientologists. I ended
up giving up trying to get
child support from my ex-husband.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United
States of
America and the state of Florida that the foregoing is true and
correct.
Executed in Clearwater, Florida this 24th day of January
2001.
Astra Woodcraft
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