Irish Independent, Monday June 9, 1997

Smuggled out of Ireland by church cult

Another Irish family was caught up with the Church of Scientology at the weekend. Their son had become involved with the church- regarded as a cult by many people- while studying in Britain. They claim he was escorted out of the country recently by a senior member of the church. Martina Devlin reports.

[Picture: Dublin storefront. Caption: The Scientology premises in Middle Abbey Street in Dublin. People passing by are invited for a free personality test, for many people the first step to getting involved.]

An Irish family spent the weekend in England desperately trying, but ultimately failing, to persuade their Scientologist son to return home with them. Odhran Fortune fled Ireland in the middle of the night because he claimed his family was using "deprogramming" experts to forcibly undermine his Church of Scientology beliefs. A crisis meeting was held between Odhran, 24, his parents, Joe and Anne Fortune and their other children, Diarmuid, Damien and Denise, plus cousins on Friday, after the whole family flew to England to plead with him. While they were talking, demonstrators waved anti-scientology placards outside the organisation's headquarters in East Grinstead, Sussex, and police were called but didn't take any action.

Odhran, from Gorey in Wexford, who joined the organisation four years ago as a student in England, appealed to Irish Scientologists to help him leave home. He said he had been held by his family against his will since just after Christmas, when they had brought in "deprogrammers" to shake his beliefs. Dublin Scientologists responded with a cloak-and-dagger escape plan, complete with password, to spirit him away from the family hotel in Courtown where he was working as a barman, and to hand him over to their English colleagues last Monday.

Now Odhran has consulted a barrister about taking legal action against the "deprogrammers" he accuses of using sleep deprivation tactics against him. He is keen to return to Denmark, where he has lived since 1995, working for the Church of Scientology, but wants to be reconclied with his family first.

However, his father Joe, who owns a furniture shop in Gorey, warned, "When they get them they will not let go." He added, "I would like to warn parents that it is so simple for the young, vulnerable and [illegible word] to fall into these people's clutches." Odhran's family say they were shocked by his appearance when he returned home for a Christmas visit from Denmark. "He was so skinny and was like a ghost or a zombie," said his brother Diarmuid. A woman working in the family business, who asked not to be named, said he was "like a skeleton" and had been "very quiet" since his return to Ireland. The Church of Scientology has just [illegible] followers in Ireland but claims 8m members worldwide, 100,000 of them in Britain and 4.4 in the US. It has attracted a number fo high profile members in the States, including film stars Tom Cruise and his wife Nicole Kidman, John Travolta and Elvis Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie.

"Deprogrammers" include former Scientologists who devote their energies to warning followers' families about the church's activities and counselling ex-members. Odhran has said he forgives his family for allegedly keeping him in Ireland against his will and claims they were duped by the so-called deprogrammers. Several of these people declined to comment on the Fortune case because they said a High Court action was imminent against the Church of Scientology.

The church was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, an American pulp science fiction writer, in the early 1950's. Scientologists believe humans are animated by immortal spirits called Thetans. Hubbard taught that everyone was affected by previous traumas in this and earlier lives and that emotional upsets of Engrams could be detected by a machine called an E-meter. Emotional trauma is dealt with through a course of Dianetics and people can pay considerable sums of money to be Engram-free. Scientologists have been criticised for their hard sell approach with these course and for the fact members are encouraged to cut contact with unsympathetic families.

Odhran was helped to leave Ireland by Dubliner Gerard Ryan, one of Ireland's leading Scientologists. He insisted that he had received three panic-stricken calls from the young man pleading for help before he responded. "Once Odhran told me he was being held against his will I felt I had to help him. It would have been wrong of me not to," Ryan insisted. "He begged me to get him out. He was deliriously happy when he did get away, he said he'd had such a hard time here. " It was ridiculous that it had to come to this ludicrous, childish nonsense of him escaping. He is 24 years of age and old enough to decide what he wants to do with his life, irrespective of what his parents think. "He told me he'd phoned for help the first chance he got on his own - before that he always had a brother or cousin with him." Ryan, 38, and a friend drove to the hotel where Fortune was working on the evening of June 2. One of them waited in the car and the other went into the bar and ordered a drink, with a pre-arranged comment about sunburn.

This was the signal for Odhran to follow him out to the car and they immediately drove to Dun Laoghaire. He went by Seacat to Holyhead, accompanied by Ryan, in only the clothes he was wearing, and was collected at the other end by Scientologists who drove through the night from their headquarters at Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead. One of his first moves was to go to the police and make a statement confirming he was fit and well and not beind held in England against his will. In it, he described his occupation as a personnel officer. Ryan denied that Odhran was brainwashed and said he has done nothing illegal or immoral in helping him escape: "We're a small church here: it would be suicidal for us to get involved in anything criminal. We'd be closed down tomorrow."

The Fortune family went "en masse" to East Grinstead the morning after their arrival demanding to see Odhran, according to Scientology spokesman Graeme Wilson in England. He said he phoned Sussex police to mediate and went out to meet the family: "I told them Odhran had gone to London to consult a barrister and they didn't believe me that he wasn't there. " There was a little bit of aggression. It was a bit confrontational but, fortunately, it didn't come to violence. The police were able to reassure the family they had seen him for themselves and he was well. We used the police as mediators to set up a meeting. "Odhran wants to go back to Denmark, but he wants to sort out the business with his family first. Freedom of religion is being denied to him, but all new religions through the ages have been persecuted. "It's ridiculous if he's being aksed to choose between his family and his religion. We're living in a multi-faith society- well, maybe not in Ireland."

One of the "deprogrammers", Mike Garde, said he was a trained counsellor who didn't go around deprogramming people. "I met Odhran in Dublin and [illegible] that he needed psychiatric help. I [illegible] was under severe stress and I [illegible] that as coming not from the family but from his involvement in Scientology," said Garde, a field worker with Dialog Center Ireland, an organisation funded by the four main churches in the State. "He looked very weak to me and seemed to lack an ability to be in [illegible] of himself. He was drinking enormous amounts of water and he seemed dehydrated, which to me indicates a contradiction over what he was [illegible] about himself." Garde's encounters with Odhran involved talking to him about the [illegible] of Scientology and watching a video with him which showed the organisation in a critical light. "I was trying to open his eyes to views different from what he had been getting from the Scientologists," he added. Scientologists have religious recognition in the US and have applied for charitable status in Britain. There is some confusion over whether or not they have applied for similar status in Ireland.

Odhran's message

A handwritten statement from Odhran Fortune faxed to the Irish Independent reads:

"I have had a very rough five months and am glad to have escaped. "My prime concern now is to rebuild the relationship with my family on the basis of mutual love and respect for others' beliefs. I do not hold my family responsible for what occurred. In my view it was the so-called deprogrammers who were to blame for stirring up hatred and fear in my family and home-town. "I am determined that the truth become known and that thse real criminals should be brought to justice."

Famous Scientologists

Celebrity Scientologists in the U.S. include:

Tom Cruise, Lisa Marie Presley, Nicole Kidman, Juliette Lewis, John Travolta, Kirsite Alley, Priscilla Presley, Isaac Hayes

[Pictures of JT, NK and TC. Caption: Hollywood stars who say that Scientology helps them with their daily lives include John Travolta, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.]

You can email us at free_odhran@hotmail.com