Read the full program transcript from Quentin McDermott's report, Scientology - The Ex-Files, first broadcast 8th March 2010. Reporter: Quentin McDermott Date: 08/03/2010 (On screen: Cars passing big blue building with 'Scientology sign') QUENTIN MCDERMOTT, REPORTER: Many religions claim to hold the key to man’s salvation. Scientology is no exception. TOMMY DAVIS: The most fundamental explanation as regards Scientology’s basic beliefs is that man is basically good, and that the individual’s a spiritual being; that you’ve lived before and you’ll live ...

Scientology has been hit by a fresh wave of allegations, likely to give added weight to calls for a Senate inquiry into the church. Several Australians have spoken out for the first time about their experiences with the church, accusing it of forced abortions, holding slave labour camps and exploiting child workers. Former rugby league player Joe Reaiche told ABC's Four Corners program on Monday of being coerced into spending $400,000 on spiritual books and being paid just $20 a week ...

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org. They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most. But after ...

Hollywood - The Church of Scientology is coming under fire from six former members. They claim they were mentally and physically abused and forced to work around the clock. Susan Hirasuna was live at the Scientology headquarters in Hollywood and has the latest in this video report.

As well as medical neglect, Peta O’Brien’s letter told of a hostile working environment, an arbitrary internal justice system and a culture of bullying among senior executives. [...]

A former Scientology leader says bullying is widespread in the church, writes investigations reporter Nick O'Malley. Coerced abortion, violence, intimidation and demands for ever greater "donations" have become unofficial Church of Scientology policy, beginning at its Florida head office and leaching around the world, the church's most senior defector has said. Marty Rathbun, who until 2004 was the church's second-most powerful man, answering only to the present leader, David Miscavige, said the church leadership was obsessed with destroying dissent and increasing ...

THE Irish wing of the controversial Church of Scientology is making annual profits of over €270,000 but its director last night insisted all the money was going to pay off the company's "substantial debts". A favourite with celebrities such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, the local Scientology spin-off has been the subject of numerous protests at its Middle Abbey Street base in Dublin, with a Fine Gael TD branding the movement a "crackpot cult". New financial filings show the Irish ...

I knew Scientology was in trouble when the media moved on from the usual silly gossip about its celebrity members to much darker, disturbing issues at the heart of the movement. After a Paris court last month convicted several Scientologists and two organisations associated with the movement in France of organised fraud, and amid other investigations in France looking at a suicide and an alleged abduction, Oscar-winning film-maker Paul Haggis, a long-time member, quit Scientology. Haggis, who wrote and directed Crash, ...

The actor’s public acknowledgement that his son, who died in January, was autistic has former Scientologists convinced that he will leave the church—which they say has little tolerance for chronic conditions. When John Travolta took the witness stand last week and testified that his late son, Jett, was autistic, it came as a grim relief to some former Scientologists. “Wasn’t that amazing?” said a fallen-away church member after Travolta appeared in an extortion case that followed the death of his 16-year-old ...