EMAILS: Scientology’s sneaky (and failed) attempt at road closures to squelch protest

[Saint Hill’s Janet Laveau tried for road closures to keep out protesters — but Alex was on the case!]

In two weeks Scientology will hold its annual gala at its UK headquarters, Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, this time for the 40th anniversary of the founding of the International Association of Scientologists.

The IAS is Scientology’s membership organization, and it raises money to fuel church leader David Miscavige’s “Ideal Org” initiative, and also serves as a defense fund for Scientology’s endless litigation and retaliation campaigns.

Last year, the IAS event returned to Saint Hill after a three-year hiatus, and waiting to welcome Dave back to England was former London staffer Alex Barnes-Ross. Alex organized a three-day protest at Saint Hill last year, and he has also worked tirelessly to raise awareness with local officials and to question them about their own complicity in Scientology’s abuses.

One thing Alex did last year was make officials aware that Scientology had not gotten required permitting when they put up the giant tent for the IAS event, which housed a couple of thousand participants.

So when Alex saw the tent going up for this year’s event, he asked again if a permit had been applied for by Scientology. And then the next day he asked for copies of any emails between Scientology and the Mid-Sussex District Council, which handles the permitting.

The district council turned over a few emails, and this is what we found in them.

On August 28, Scientology’s Janet Laveau emailed Nigel Cannon at the district council.

“I have prepared the Event Management Plan for our annual International Association of Scientologists (IAS) Event,” she wrote. “We do not yet have final confirmation of the date, however we are preparing for the 1st week-end of October or potentially the 2nd week-end.”

In late August, Scientology was admitting that it still didn’t know when it was going to have its annual event in October, which when you are familiar with how large organizations work, is crazy.

But there was something else interesting in her email. “A point I wanted to ask for your input on is with regards to temporary signage to direct traffic to appropriate parking,” Laveau said.

Directing traffic? Now what could that be about.

The next day, she heard back from Cannon, who said he wasn’t the right person to send this to anymore. (Typical bureaucracy, what.)

But it also appears from his response that they may have spoken, and she had said more about “directing traffic,” because this is what he says in his email:

“I regret in my new role I no longer manage Road Closures,” he said, and he also repeated the phrase “road closures” in the next paragraph.

What was Scientology up to?

On September 2, Alex contacted Jon Bryant in Environmental Health at the district council to tell him about the tent going up and had Scientology applied for a permit?

Rather than reply to Alex and admit that Scientology had not applied, Bryant instead immediately reached to Janet Laveau.

“I have received information from a third party that preparations have started with the build for this year’s International Church of Scientology conference at Saint Hill Manor and that it is due to be held in October. Please could you confirm the date for this year’s event, if in fact it is being held, and confirmation that the below license conditions have been complied with.”

And he added, “The Licensing Team have not received any notification of the date of this year’s event.”

Later that day, Janet responded.

“Yes, I’d emailed our event management plan 3-4 weeks ago to the email address I had from last year…The date for the event is not fully finalized but we’ve given the direction to be ready for the 1st week-end of October or possibly the 2nd week-end.”

So now, on September 2, she indicates that Scientology still doesn’t know when the event is going to happen, even though it could be only a month away.

She then brings up the traffic issue.

“We’ve been doing quite a bit of review on the traffic management and I have a question in regards to any permits we might require to put up signs to direct vehicle traffic to assigned parking areas. We have tried to reconfigure the traffic flows and establish parking assignments to reduce pedestrian foot traffic as much as possible on the road itself. I realise that won’t be completely possible to eliminate fully because people will be people with their own minds. For this eventuality, we will stanchion off specific sections of the side of the road for any foot traffic and then have a lolly-pop man at either end of this section of the road as a safety factor.”

Remember, a month earlier Cannon had referred to “road closures” after hearing from Janet. She doesn’t use that phrase here, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that what Scientology wants is to shut down roads or sidewalks in order to keep protesters away. (Since July, they had been trying to get a legal exception — a “PSPO” — that would allow police to keep protesters out, but the district council said it won’t decide on that in time for this year’s event.)

The next day, Bryant responded to Janet.

“Thank you for your reply and update I can advise the third party [Alex] accordingly,” he said. “In respect of the question regarding placing signs to regulate traffic flows I would suggest that West Sussex County Council Highways department would be best placed to advise.”

On September 24, another department at the district council responded to Janet, saying that for her “request for temporary road closure” she needed to check with West Sussex County Council and police “to make the relevant arrangements.”

So these emails show that Scientology was keeping the actual event date from the officials it wanted permits from, and that it was trying to get road closures set up at the last minute.

We asked Alex what the result of that was, and he forwarded an email he received from a County Councillor.

Dear Mr Barnes-Ross,

Further to my previous email I can confirm that I have spoken with the TTRO at team at West Sussex who have confirmed that they have neither received an application from the Church of Scientology for a road closure nor any information from MSDC with respect to road safety checks with respect to any TPCA application in the run up to the event.

However as previously stated, I have been in discussions with our Highways team who are due to have discussions with both Sussex Police and the Church of Scientology in the run up to the event so I would hope that between all parties, a resolution to all the challenges previously raised will be resolved.

In other words, Scientology’s request for road closures was too late, and won’t be happening.

Alex sent us this statement after we had looked over the emails…

Scientology started planning how to disrupt protestors months before preparations for the IAS event even began. On 15th July, Scientology’s lawyer Peter Hodkin applied for a PSPO and these emails show that as time progressed and the likelihood of being able to stop us protesting shrunk, Scientology started to panic.

They’re desperately searching for a way to shut us down, and due to the event’s date changing at the whim of their dear leader David Miscavige, unnecessary strain was put on their relationship with the council, which weakened their position when it came to requesting road closures.

In response to a BBC News article about the protest ban earlier this week, Scientology tried to blame us protestors for the traffic issues that plagued East Grinstead at last year’s IAS event. They said “these individuals stand in the road placing themselves and drivers at risk….If such people had laudable aims, they would be cooperating with an effort that only has the community’s safety in mind."

These emails show us Scientology are well aware the traffic issues were actually due to the thousands of Scientologists arriving at Saint Hill and are in liaison with the Council about ways to reduce the event’s impact on the local community this year. And let’s not forget the moment caught on camera last year where a Saint Hill security guard pushed Stephen Jones into the road, narrowly avoiding being hit by oncoming traffic.

I continue to approach my activism with kindness and compassion and regardless of Scientology’s attempts to stifle our freedom of speech and right to protest, I remain committed to minimising disruption to both their event and the local community. If Scientologists want to sit in a stuffy tent and hear Captain Miscavige drone on for three hours, only to then part with vast amounts of their hard-earned cash, they are more than welcome to. But I won’t stand for abuse. This demonstration is about sharing a positive message: If people want to leave, there’s a community of people and resources like the Aftermath Foundation here to support them.

Scientology have shown a complete lack of due regard for local democracy, policies and procedures.. and I fail to see why local government should spend taxpayer’s money on picking up the pieces for a three-day event that brings zero benefit to the local community.

Thank you, Alex. Now, for even more fun preparing for this year’s IAS gala, here are some short videos that the talented folks at the London staff have put together to get Scientologists excited about going.

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