Dear Grahame

That small handful of ex-members included people very high up in the church. Have you been reading "Ask the Scientologist"? He raises some very important questions about the Church of Scientology's response to the claims of violence; questions that have yet to be answered.

The way I see it we have a group of people talking about violence at the top of the church, and that violence being denied by people still in the church. Now it could be that this is just malice from appostates, as you say, or it could be that these are genuine and well-meaning whistle-blowers. Do we listen to the ex-wives who claim their husband beat them, or the current wife who claims her husband doesn't?

The only way to settle this dispute would be to abandon the game of "who has the most affidavits" and have the church provide independent evidence that these claims are not true - ex-members who were present at the meetings talked about, and are free of the influence of the church, yet nevertheless deny that violence took place.

You might ask why it should be down to the Church to prove its case. It is an unfortunate necessity. That Miscavige remains silent on the matter does him or his church no favours. If, as Tommy Davies suggests, Miscavige is simply too busy running the church, then he either underestimates the crisis the church is in right now, has miscalculated where his priorities are at present, or is so short of management that he really is rushing all over the planet trying to run his operation. It would explain why he looked so old and tired at the recent Hubbard birthday bash.

Lastly I have some trouble dealing logically with the idea of someone claiming they remember the meeting at which the violence didn't happen, yet this is the basis of the "it's not true" affidavit's the church are providing - I remember that meeting, nothing happened?