Australian Senate Inquiry Investigating ScientologyChurch of Scientology in France convicted of organized fraud!Infinite Complacency: Must-read commentary on the Scientology Fraud Verdicts
Church of Scientology defied coroner on suicide Sarah Elks | October 23, 2009 THE Church of Scientology refused to provide records demanded by a coroner investigating the death of a soldier who committed suicide two days after finishing one of the church's intensive courses. It emerged yesterday that the American headquarters of the church instructed its Australian branch to send the soldier's "audit file" to the US -- which is outside the coroner's jurisdiction -- before warrants were issued. Edward Alexander McBride was found electrocuted and hanged at an Energex substation at Everton Park, in Brisbane, on February 7, 2007. The soldier, who was based at Brisbane's Enoggera Barracks, was on leave from the army at the time and had been doing Scientology courses almost full-time for about a month. An inquest into his death found he was considered a "loner" by his fellow soldiers and had been subjected to bullying. McBride had paid the church $25,000 for the courses and finished the last one two days before he died. In interim inquest findings handed down last week, coroner John Lock said that was when "something unusual happened". Mr Lock said requests by police and him for the Church of Scientology to see McBride's audit file were unsuccessful. "An 'audit' and 'ethics' files (sic) which may have recorded personal information ... despite formal requests, was not produced to the inquest," he wrote, noting that the actions of the Australian church in moving the file were legal, because it was before the warrants were issued. "Mr McBride's attitude changed some time after the afternoon of February 5, 2007, and these files may very well have had some information which could give the inquest some assistance in determining what happened," he said. Mr Lock said the Australian church authorities appeared to have been obeying orders issued by the church's US headquarters. "A clear inference can be made that this course of action was taken as a deliberate decision (by the US church) not to produce the auditing file," he said. In the days leading up to McBride's death, church members tried to contact him repeatedly on his mobile phone, and sent text and voice messages mentioning an "audit" and "LRH" -- a reference to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The coroner said it appeared he had expressed a wish to take a break but until then had enjoyed only positive interactions with the church. "It is clear to me that the degree of forcefulness and amount of contact from church members over those few days is indicative of something more than concerns about completing an administrative process at the completion of his course," Mr Lock said. Australian Church of Scientology spokeswoman Vicki Dunstan said the audit file was returned to the "mother church" in the US before the Australian church had received a request from the coroner, but said the file did not shed any light on McBride's state of mind or cause of death. The coroner found that McBride's suicide was not "reasonably foreseeable" by his family, the Australian Defence Force or members of the Church of Scientology.
original: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,26247876-2702,00.html?from=public_rss
Church of Scientology defied coroner on suicideSarah Elks | October 23, 2009THE Church of Scientology refused to provide records demanded by a coroner investigating the death of a soldier who committed suicide two days after finishing one of the church's intensive courses. It emerged yesterday that the American headquarters of the church instructed its Australian branch to send the soldier's "audit file" to the US -- which is outside the coroner's jurisdiction -- before warrants were issued. Edward Alexander McBride was found electrocuted and hanged at an Energex substation at Everton Park, in Brisbane, on February 7, 2007. The soldier, who was based at Brisbane's Enoggera Barracks, was on leave from the army at the time and had been doing Scientology courses almost full-time for about a month. An inquest into his death found he was considered a "loner" by his fellow soldiers and had been subjected to bullying. McBride had paid the church $25,000 for the courses and finished the last one two days before he died. In interim inquest findings handed down last week, coroner John Lock said that was when "something unusual happened". Mr Lock said requests by police and him for the Church of Scientology to see McBride's audit file were unsuccessful. "An 'audit' and 'ethics' files (sic) which may have recorded personal information ... despite formal requests, was not produced to the inquest," he wrote, noting that the actions of the Australian church in moving the file were legal, because it was before the warrants were issued.
"Mr McBride's attitude changed some time after the afternoon of February 5, 2007, and these files may very well have had some information which could give the inquest some assistance in determining what happened," he said. Mr Lock said the Australian church authorities appeared to have been obeying orders issued by the church's US headquarters. "A clear inference can be made that this course of action was taken as a deliberate decision (by the US church) not to produce the auditing file," he said.
In the days leading up to McBride's death, church members tried to contact him repeatedly on his mobile phone, and sent text and voice messages mentioning an "audit" and "LRH" -- a reference to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The coroner said it appeared he had expressed a wish to take a break but until then had enjoyed only positive interactions with the church. "It is clear to me that the degree of forcefulness and amount of contact from church members over those few days is indicative of something more than concerns about completing an administrative process at the completion of his course," Mr Lock said.
Australian Church of Scientology spokeswoman Vicki Dunstan said the audit file was returned to the "mother church" in the US before the Australian church had received a request from the coroner, but said the file did not shed any light on McBride's state of mind or cause of death. The coroner found that McBride's suicide was not "reasonably foreseeable" by his family, the Australian Defence Force or members of the Church of Scientology.
The cult has gotten very good over the years at sensing when an investigation is coming, and has learned to dispose of any evidence before it becomes illegal to do so. I have no doubt that if the records would have exonerated scientology, they would have been produced. After all, they have no problem with publicizing the contents of other people's records when it might make one who has spoken out against them look bad.
Stephen McBrideSeptember 9th, 2009 at 12:23 pmHi Soapbox,Thank you for the reply, posting my message and the condolences. We were all raised as Catholics (we’re originally from Belfast – Northern Ireland) and then Ed(ward) somehow got into Scientology 2 years into being in the army.. My family didn’t condone it, but of course he’s free to do as he see’s fit. I must admit that he did change, but in actual fact, a good way.. His way of thought, way of composing himself, the way he spoke was “robotic”, very clear and concise. He thought “outside the square” so to speak. I’m not sure if that was the army or scientology. He told me once that when he was on “R ‘n’ R” in Sydney that he was standing beside some bus stop and out of instinct he saw some grubby dirty street sign and started polishing it !! Yep, that’s a bit weird.As we speak (Wednesday) the scientology have been brought into the coroners inquiry to make a statement (my father ‘Alan’ is over there while I look after mum here in Perth) – but those gutless cowards have brought the lawyers in instead of an actual real person to make a statement. Ed was told prior to his death that he had a position over in America somewhere to become an ‘auditor’ and he was looking forward to it. New adventure, so to speak.. My brother had a zest for life – qualified electrical fitter, worked up north on the mines (wa), black belt in Taekwondo, 5 years Muay Thai kickboxing (full contact) with myself, back packed through Europe for 3 years on his own, skydived, etc.. He had a zest for life and I can assure you that death was the last thing on his mind. There is foul play. I will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of this. Be rest assured that if I don’t get a satisfactory explanation at the end of this inquiry, I will be taking this to the media (A current affair / today tonight, etc) and blow this wide open. I’m even prepapred to sell my house, car to fund this.If you’d like more info “ozsoapbox” or pics of him, etc, no probs – you have my email address..I really despise the army, they come around to my parents house out off “duty of care” knowing exactly what happened and put this charade on. Thanks again for posting my previous comment, I just needed to put it right that’s all. There is so much anger built up inside me, because I want to get to the bottom of this.. My brothers life was worth more than “skulling” alcohol out of some god damn army helmet. You cant put a price on a life..
A number of cans of alcohol pre-mixed drinks were found at the scene. By all accounts, Mr McBride was not a drinker however his DNA was found on the cans of alcohol and toxicology results revealed he had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.06%.
Secondly, two local residents who lived opposite the substation, informed police on the evening that they saw two male persons inside the actual substation compound shortly after they heard the explosion that came from the substation area. Who those two persons were, whether in fact anyone was present and if so, what involvement they may have had in the circumstances that brought about the death of Mr McBride has been the subject of much conjecture by the investigation team and at this inquest. There were some investigators who doubted the versions given by the two locals on the basis that it would have been difficult to see into the substation at night.
...police and other officials viewed and/or heard text or voice messages on a personal digital assistant (“PDA”) found in Mr McBride’s vehicle that evening. Those messages indicated that a person or persons who were then unknown may have been in communication with Mr McBride in the days and/or hours leading up to his death and were wanting to get into contact with him. Unfortunately, for technical reasons police were later unable to download these messages and the inquest had to rely on the memory and recollections of a number of witnesses as to what those messages were. As will become evident this was an unsatisfactory outcome which lengthened the inquest by a number of days and compromised the accuracy of the evidence.
Soldier's Scientology confession 'can't be released'By Natasha Bita | October 26, 2009Article from: The Australian * Dead two days after Scientology course * Scientology "audit file" sent to US * Church says "confessional privilege"THE Church of Scientology has invoked "confessional privilege" for its refusal to hand over files to the Queensland Coroner, according to a report in The Australian.An inquest into the death of Edward Alexander McBride - a soldier who killed himself two days after finishing one of the church's intensive courses in 2007 - revealed last week his "audit" file had been sent to the church's US headquarters.Scientology spokeswoman Vicki Dunstan yesterday said the file requested by the Coroner was "privileged and sacrosanct"."Essentially these are notations of a parishioner's spiritual progress," she said."The church has very strict protocol concerning the confidentiality of a parishioner's personal information in pastoral counselling.McBride was found electrocuted and hanged at an Energex substation in Brisbane in 2007, two days after completing a month of Scientology courses for which he had paid $25,000, according to the interim inquest findings.He was on leave from the army at the time.In his interim findings last week, Coroner John Lock said the Scientology "audit" and "ethics" files sent to America "may very well have had some information which could give the inquest some assistance in determining what happened".But Ms Dunstan said Queensland police had not sought the files until after the "mother church" in the US had requested them.She said the audit files had been sent to the US because church representatives in Brisbane had sought advice from the Sydney office, which referred the matter to the US."Such administrative files are the property of the church in America and they requested the files for review," she said."Whether the files will be made available now or not is a question for America, not for us."The Australian Defence Force has yet to start its own inquiry into the soldier's death.In his interim findings last week, Coroner John Lock said the Scientology "audit" and "ethics" files sent to America "may very well have had some information which could give the inquest some assistance in determining what happened". But Ms Dunstan said Queensland police had not sought the files until after the "mother church" in the US had requested them. "The files were not sent to America for some 18 months after Mr McBride's death and were freely available before then but hadn't been requested," she said."Having been sent to America they were outside the jurisdiction of the Queensland Coroner's Court and also outside the jurisdiction of the Australian church."The church in America treats parishioner files as subject to priest-penitent privilege."Ms Dunstan said all documents in Australia had been made available to authorities on request.She said the church had not heard of McBride's death until nearly a year later."When we did hear of it, our counsellors co-operated with the police and their inquiries completely," she said.Ms Dunstan said the audit files had been sent to the US because church representatives in Brisbane had sought advice from the Sydney office, which referred the matter to the US."Such administrative files are the property of the church in America and they requested the files for review," she said."Whether the files will be made available now or not is a question for America, not for us."Neither the Coroner nor McBride's father, Alan McBride, would comment on the matter yesterday.
More than 50 soldiers were interviewed, Mr McBride's car swabbed for DNA and his room at the Enoggera barracks turned over. His last hours - a meal at McDonald's, a drive to the Gold Coast, some Southern Comfort and cola - were pieced together.But it was the contents of his hand-held personal data assistant and phone records which piqued police interest - and that of the coroner.Between the completion of his auditing course on February 5 and his death two days later, Church of Scientology members called and texted Mr McBride 19 times.The contents of the calls and SMS messages is not fully known, after data including voicemail messages left on his PDA were irretrievably lost when the device's battery went dead.But police had listened to them, and told the inquest they included "forceful" demands for Mr McBride to urgently attend the church to complete his spiritual training, as well as a warning US-based Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard "would not approve"."You are putting another person's job at risk through your actions," was one account."It is not kosher for you to be out of contact with me. You really should come in for an audit."And: "This is not good enough. You need to call me. You are going to get me into a lot of trouble. You need to come in now, we need to get this sorted out."The church members, including Ms O'Kane, were later interviewed by police."It was suggested that any contact with Mr McBride [by members of the church] over those days was simply to have him come in and finalise the administration processes of his auditing program, which was just completed with Ms O'Kane," Mr Lock wrote in his findings."The tenor and quality of the messages however is not one of a desire to finalise some administrative processes. It seems to have a much more serious tone about them as if something else had happened."What was there to be concerned about because someone wanted to postpone a meeting to finalise the course?"What is clear to me is that there had been a change. Something had happened to Mr McBride because in the next day/hours he would take his own life in quite a premeditated way."
90. On 5 February 2007 Mr McBride’s brother Stephen spoke with him for some 25 minutes. Stephen said this was a little bit longer than normal. He made arrangements to pick his brother up at the airport the following week when he came for his holiday to Western Australia. Mr McBride told him that he was not worried about the army and was just doing his time before he got out and that he was focusing on Scientology. His brother asked him how Scientology was going and although he told him that it was all right his brother thought that there was something that may have not gone his way as he usually talked about Scientology with more enthusiasm. However Mr McBride did not sound depressed and he was looking forward to coming home. The extent to how those comments by Mr McBride have been constructed by an understandable retrospective reflection based on hindsight is unclear. Mr McBride suggested to his brother that he might stay with his mother and father for a couple of months after he got out of the army to get his thoughts together. That is certainly indicative of a degree of reflection which is supported by comments made by members with the Church of Scientology. Mr McBride also spoke to his younger brother that day and spoke about the same things. His father said that not a lot could be made into the fact he spoke to both siblings on the one day and this was not unusual.
92. Early on 6 February 2007 Ms O’Kane received a telephone call whilst she was driving. She says in her evidence that Mr McBride told her that he was not going to come in that day and would come in tomorrow. She said that she did not want him coming tomorrow and wanted him to come in that day. He stated he could not be bothered. She stated that she would get back to the Church and ring him back.93. Her reasoning for wanting him to come in that day was that she knew that his Perth trip was close (a week) and things would be left undone and she liked things to be completed. Although Mr Cockerill said it was not essential that things be attested straight away and could wait until his return, Ms O’Kane seemed to be particularly concerned to the extent she specifically spoke to Mr Cockerill and even rang the Church in Sydney to tell them what happened.94. There was considerable activity by Church members to convince Mr McBride to come into the Church to complete the audit. There were some 10 messages in all that were sent to him by members of the Church over the next few days. I find that this was not simply an enquiry as to when he was going to come in and sign off on his latest course. Something more serious is implied from the content of those messages and that degree of contact. I also got the distinct impression from hearing Ms O’Kane that she was virtually demanding him to come in and her explanation about that did not have a sense of reality about it.
95. A PDA belonging to Mr McBride was found in his vehicle on 7 February 2007. Not unreasonably investigators decided to access the PDA that night to see if there was anything of interest which could lead them to other enquiries. I have no criticism of that occurring and it is an appropriate investigative procedure. Much could be learned immediately which could assist the investigation and time could be lost in waiting for a full forensic analysis. What subsequently became known to police is that, unlike mobile telephones, once a PDA loses its battery power its data is lost because it has a volatile memory. It seems that this was not common knowledge amongst the police investigators and as a result when the PDA was taken for forensic testing no data could be accessed because the battery had run down. The Forensic Computer Examination Unit was unable to recover any text messages, voicemails, details of the phone’s call history or contacts. Attempts were made to utilise ADF experts and later with updated software by Police Forensics, but to no avail. This may be a lesson learnt for police for future investigations involving PDA devices.
96. Because the police assumed that they could access the information later there was no written recording of the information heard or read by the police in their police notebooks or elsewhere. That may also be another lesson learnt. A number of persons recall having heard or being told about messages that were accessed. They include Senior Constable Nieland, Constable Holder, Senior Constable Melissa Buckle, Detective Sergeant McIllveen and ADF Sergeant Deanne Ihle (now Wheeler). Their statements were taken within weeks of the events and no later than a month after the events. It is not clear from their evidence as to what exactly was heard by them, read by them or reported to them and with the benefit of time this did not improve. Although the precise content of the telephone messages or texts could not be ascertained the witnesses each gave recollections which had a basis of fact and truth about them which could not have been simply made up. When looked at with the benefit of the telephone records, the interviews of Church members and some uncontroversial evidence, I am able to come to some conclusions.
97. I do not intend to set out in detail the evidence of all of these witnesses in relation to who heard or saw what on the PDA. Various accounts of what was heard or read were given and they are as follows: -• you are putting another person's job at risk through your actions;• you should come in for an interview;• you should contact Sergeant Bevan urgently;• this is not good enough you need to call me you are going to get me into a lot of trouble. You need to come in now, we need to get this sorted out;• LRH would not approve;• it is not kosher of you to be out of contact with me. You really should come in for an audit;• a message from the duty officer in the barracks telling Mr. McBride to contact him urgently;• you need to come in, we need to speak to you;• you need to talk to us, contact us urgently;• this behaviour is unacceptable, you have missed your interview;• we need to wrap things up; and• we are concerned that we haven't heard from you.
98. Telephone records of Mr McBride’s mobile phone were accessed and further investigation revealed that only members of the Church of Scientology were in contact with him in the days leading up to his death.99. The telephone records indicate as follows:5/2/07 1958:31 – Ms Parker calls Edward McBride for 63 seconds5/2/07 2139:25 – Ms Parker send an SMS to Edward McBride6/2/07 0833:03 – Edward McBride calls Ms O’Kane for 105 seconds6/2/07 0902:11 – Ms Parker mobile phone calls Edward McBride for 257 seconds6/2/07 1140:22 – Ms O’Kane calls Edward McBride for 53 seconds6/2/07 1428:07 – Ms O’Kane sends an SMS to Edward McBride6/2/07 1604:58 – Ms Parker calls Edward McBride (and is diverted to voicemail) for 35 seconds6/2/07 1742:36 – Ms Parker calls Edward McBride (and is diverted to voicemail) for 25 seconds6/2/07 1809:31 – Number registered to Church of Scientology in Sydney calls Edward McBride (and is diverted to voice mail) for 41 seconds7/2/07 0728:22 – Edward McBride retrieves voicemails for 131 secs7/2/07 0958:31 – Ms O’Kane sends two SMS (more likely one long text message) to Edward McBride7/2/07 1429:39 – Ms O’Kane sends two SMS (more likely one long text message) to Edward McBride7/2/07 1953:16 – Mr Cockerill contacts Edward McBride (and is diverted to voice mail) for 8 seconds7/2/07 1953:54 – Mr Cockerill contacts Edward McBride (and is diverted to voice mail) for 3 seconds7/2/07 1954:28 – Mr Cockerill contacts Edward McBride (and is diverted to voice mail) for 3 seconds7/2/07 1955:00 – Mr Cockerill contacts Edward McBride (and is diverted to voice mail) for 56 seconds 37/2/07 2004:55 – Mr Cockerill contacts Edward McBride (and is diverted to voice mail) for 5 seconds7/2/07 2323:30 – Enogerra Army base calls Edward McBride (and is diverted to voicemail) for 18 seconds7/2/07 2325:23 – Enogerra Army base calls Edward McBride (and is diverted to voicemail) for 69 seconds8/2/07 0009:41 – Enogerra Army Base calls Edward McBride (and is diverted to voice mail) for 6 seconds8/2/07 0039:46 – Edward McBride’s voice mail is retrieved by police (at the scene) for 151 seconds
100. The telephone records indicate that over these dates Mr Cockerill, Ms Parker and Ms O’Kane were also communicating with each other and with the Church in Sydney.
102. Ms O’Kane spoke to Mr McBride on the morning of 6 February and that is confirmed in the telephone records at 8.33 am.103. That leaves a number of other messages or texts which were sent by various members of the Church over 6 and 7 of February. Mr Cockerill agrees that he may have left a message to the effect of needing to “wrap things up” which explains that message which was heard or read which used those words. That phrase was used by him on a number of occasions in his statements and evidence and seems to be something he would commonly say. He may have told him he was “concerned”. His messages were all sent on 7 February.
104. That leaves the other messages which speak about putting “someone’s job at risk”, “to come in for an interview” or “audit”, “getting people into trouble” etc. The word “audit” clearly is a reference to the Church of Scientology. The reference to LRH clearly is a reference to L Ron Hubbard, the Church’s founder. It is unlikely that the persons who heard or read these words had sufficient knowledge of the Church to make them up and I accept that the messages did make reference to those terms. Ms O’Kane, Ms Parker and Mr Cockerill deny that messages of that nature with a reference to audit or LRH were sent. In so far as Mr Cockerill is concerned I accept that his messages have probably been identified.105. That leaves Ms O’Kane and Ms Parker. I did not consider that Ms O’Kane was an impressive witness with much of what she had to say as being selective and at times implausible. Ms O’Kane agrees she sent some messages and they could have included words to the effect that he needed to come in and to contact them urgently. That accounts for those messages. I find that one or both of them sent messages with references to “jobs being at risk”, “audit”, and “getting people into trouble”. In my view those messages were more likely said or sent by Ms O’Kane. Ms O’Kane uses the word “trouble” in her record of interview with police and gave a most unsatisfactory explanation when she gave evidence to suggest the word did not really mean actual “trouble” but was more of an inconvenience to her schedule. Getting her into “trouble”, “audit” and “a job at risk” fit more properly with her relationship as an auditor for Mr McBride.106. It was suggested that any contact with Mr McBride over those days was simply to have him come in and finalise the administration processes of his auditing program which was just completed with Ms O’Kane. Mr McBride apparently had expressed a wish to have a break from his course work. The tenor and quantity of the messages however is not one of a desire to finalise some administrative process. It seems to have a much more serious tone about them as if something else had happened. Ms O’Kane, Ms Parker and Mr Cockerill also said that Mr McBride’s actions were most unusual in that he was usually so reliable. One wonders why anyone would have been concerned about him, as suggested by Mr Cockerill. What was there to be concerned about because someone wanted to postpone a meeting to finalise the course? What is clear to me is that there had been a change. Something had happened to Mr McBride because in the next day/hours he would take his own life in quite a premeditated manner.
In the month leading up to his death he was on leave and was involved full-time in his Church of Scientology course. He was looking forward to visiting his family.
My condolences are expressed to Mr Alan McBride, Mrs McBride and the family and friends of Mr Edward McBride.
The coroner found Mr Lock's suicide was not reasonably foreseeable by the Australian Defence Force, his family or the Church of Scientology.
Lise O'Kane was also Ed McBride's auditor. For those of you who don’t know, Ed McBride was a soldier in the Australian army who was soaring after having just completed his auditing program in February 2007. Ed decided to take a day off and was inexplicably found dead 24 hours later. No one knows what happened. While his death was unrelated to his auditing, the Church’s irresponsible, secretive and evasive responses, coupled with the horrendous revelations of crush regging and human rights abuses worldwide convinced many that the Church had something to hide.Lise was deeply saddened at the Church's attitude in regards to the McBride family's tragic loss (and as yet unexplained death of their son and brother) and how it was all about the protection of the Church and no care for the individual. When the Church received the news that Lise was going to resign, they sent in people to stop her from leaving. Like many staff they were being kept in the dark with no idea what was really going on in the world. So Lise took the opportunity to enlighten them, by handing them a copy of "What happened to training?" from friendsoflrh.org.Finally free from the Church’s suppressive control as dictated by David Miscavige, Lise did what any normal human being would do, she reached out to the Ed McBride’s family expressing her own sorrow and condolences for their loss.Lise is now an INDEPENDENT SCIENTOLOGIST. What follows is her official resignation from the Church of Scientology, written 19 days ago and just made public today for the first time.
