Alex Barnes-Ross, a marketing director from east London, regularly posts YouTube videos criticising Scientology. In some of them, the former Scientologist, 29, describes his experience of joining aged 15 and becoming its London director of book sales. In others, he talks about his mental health struggles after signing a “billion-year” contract devoting himself to the organisation – only to be kicked out a few years later, labelled a “potential trouble source”.
Other videos scrutinise its finances and ask questions about alleged mistreatment at Narconon UK, a Scientology-linked rehab facility investigated by the Observer last year.
He has also organised peaceful protests – including one outside Scientology’s East Grinstead HQ in 2023 – calling on it to “stop the abuse”. The religious group has been accused of indoctrinating people, isolating them and subjecting them to intensive psychological drills, which it denies. “There are so many victims who are too afraid to speak out,” Barnes-Ross says.
He hadn’t expected it to go down well. With 1.15m views on his YouTube channel, and 10,000 subscribers, Barnes-Ross has risen over the last year to become one of the most prominent campaigners against Scientology’s practices in the UK. The group and its supporters have previously responded strongly to criticism, sending legal threats to journalists and branding their detractors “enemies of Scientology”.
But he was not prepared for the intensity of the backlash.
Over the past six months, Barnes-Ross has faced a barrage of abuse – with 6,000 posts targeted at him on X alone. At first, the posts mostly taunted him with insults, saying he looked like a “weirdo paedophile” and branding him a “rabid anti-religious bigot”. Others questioned his mental health, calling him “disturbed” and “unhinged”. “Face it … you are a schizophrenic,” said one.
More recently, the messages have accused him of “crimes”. “He knows his crimes. Stop the lies!!!!” one said. Others call him a “sexual predator”, “stalker” and harasser, claiming he was kicked out of Scientology for sexual misconduct. “The only reason any group in the world kicks someone out is because one is unethical, a criminal, a pervert, or worse,” says another.
Barnes-Ross, who strongly denies the claims, believes he has been targeted in other ways too, although proving who is behind it is difficult. Two relatives have been contacted by anonymous “members of the public” who claim to be concerned about his mental health, according to emails seen by the Observer.
On YouTube, he said his videos were “constantly” being reported for alleged privacy violations, resulting in some being removed. He has seen people loitering near his home and fears he has been followed, although he cannot evidence this. On 14 January, the Metropolitan police launched an investigation after his doorbell camera captured a man peering through his front door with his face covered. Two nights later, a glass panel was broken and a man was filmed sprinting away.
It remains unclear who damaged his door and the possibility it was an unrelated burglary attempt has not been ruled out. The Met said it was investigating. A spokesperson for the Church of Scientology denied any knowledge or involvement.
Other questions also remain unanswered, such as who sent the anonymous emails to relatives. Meanwhile, it has not been possible to verify the identities of all of his online abusers. But evidence seen by the Observer shows the Church of Scientology and its followers have played a key role in abusing Barnes-Ross online. While police initially dismissed the social media attacks as the work of “bots”, analysis suggests many have been initiated and amplified by official Scientology accounts. The comments often tag accounts such as @Standmonitor, a Scientology page that says it serves to “monitor and expose discrimination and bigotry” by “anti-Scientologists” and has posted about Barnes-Ross 83 times in the past three weeks.
Three experts in digital influence said many of the abusive posts appeared to be part of an orchestrated human effort, rather than a bot campaign. Prof Darren Linvill, a social media forensics expert at Clemson University in the US, said it seemed to him that there were “several core X accounts working to attack various individuals critical of the International Association of Scientologists”, and several X users who engaged with these core accounts “to a degree that seems coordinated, both in volume and consistency of topic”. Official Scientology websites, including Stand – Scientologists Taking Action Against Discrimination – have posted attacks on Barnes-Ross that have been re-shared on social media.
In a statement to the Observer, the Church of Scientology International reiterated the allegations against Barnes-Ross, saying he was a discredited source engaging in improper conduct. It accused him of an “anti-Scientology hate and harassment campaign”, and called him a “serial stalker with a history of severe mental instability”. The church said any allegations its UK arm had engaged in unlawful activity were false and defamatory, and alleged that it in fact had evidence of Barnes-Ross engaging in offensive and criminal behaviour.
It also provided a statement, which it said had been written by a female Scientologist who says Barnes-Ross harassed her. The statement, dated December 2024, accuses Barnes-Ross of engaging in behaviour in 2013, when he was 18, that made her “extremely uncomfortable”, including commenting on her appearance, standing too close and sending messages saying he had “very, very, very, extremely strong feelings” for her.
Barnes-Ross said the misconduct allegations were part of a “smear campaign” and had not been brought to his attention before, or investigated at the time, and that while he had asked the woman out, and been rebuffed, he first heard the claim that she had felt uncomfortable in November. He claimed the Church of Scientology was fabricating allegations to discredit him. “Their accusations are nothing but further evidence of their bully tactics. It is this precise behaviour that I am protesting against,” he said.
Letters sent to Barnes-Ross at the time of his dismissal in 2014 do not mention sexual misconduct allegations. They say he had been labelled a “potential trouble source” after he complained that he was in a “worse condition as a result of Scientology”.
“It was found that Alex has been complaining of not receiving gains [from Scientology] and was in fact getting worse. He also remarked that he has had to change his life for Scientology, not Scientology changing his life [and] expressed that there was no point to continue if it didn’t work on him,” one of the letters said.
His dismissal notice, dated 22 January 2014, added that he was “leaving the org” after being “declared a source of trouble … per policies on physical healing, insanity and sources of trouble”.
Another critic of Scientology, Austen Waite, says he too has been targeted. Waite, a teacher at a secondary school, grew up near its UK headquarters in East Grinstead. In 2023, he attended a protest outside the HQ, which was timed to coincide with a meeting of Scientologists from around the world. “The reason for the protest was not because we want anyone’s religion to be harmed. It was because we are concerned about what’s going on within that belief system and organisation, and the practices that harm people,” Waite said.
Six months later, Waite was told that the school where he worked had received a complaint against him. A letter from Janet Laveau, a senior figure within Scientology in the UK, alleged safeguarding issues, accused Waite of bullying and claimed he was unsafe around children. It went on to say that she had concerns “for the wellbeing of students who come from Scientologist families; as well as the effect of inciting religious hatred and intolerance on pupils generally”. The letter included seven screenshots of Waite at the protest.
The complaint prompted a disciplinary process – standard after safeguarding concerns are raised with a school. While Waite, 27, said he knew he had done nothing wrong, he feared losing his job.
About a month later, Waite found out that no further action was being taken. The internal investigation found claims he was “harassing and disrupting” people at the Scientology gathering were “unsubstantiated”, and that he had demonstrated “consistently high standards of personal and professional conduct”.
Waite said he believed the complaint was malicious and had been intended to “scare him off”. “Rather than notifying the police – which is where, if you had a safeguarding concern, you would expect someone to go – they went to my employer,” he said.
The Church of Scientology disagrees. In a statement, it said that, at the protest in November 2023, Waite was heard “calling for the end of the religion”, which he denies, and that Laveau’s letter was sent to raise “its concerns about his suitability for the role of a religious education teacher – who, by their very nature, should seek to educate students about various religious practices in an impartial manner”.
The aggressive approach to detractors and critics appears to bear similarities to a strategy historically used within the Church of Scientology known as “fair game”, which aims to attack critics, rather than to defend itself against allegations – by exposing their “most unsavoury backgrounds … rather noisily” so that “he shuts up”.
“That is usually the modus operandi … If we can stop them attacking us we can certainly turn them around and point them some other way,” wrote L Ron Hubbard, Scientology’s founder, in a 1968 directive to senior staff referred to as part of an ongoing harassment lawsuit in the US.
As well as campaigners and ex-Scientologists, journalists, too, say they have felt the effects of “fair game”. During production of Louis Theroux’s My Scientology Movie, staff say they were followed. Another journalist, Emily Maddick, has written about how two strangers who knocked on her parents’ door at 10pm on a Sunday, looking for her.
Last year, after writing about Narconon UK, the Observer was the subject of a critical article published in Scientology’s Freedom magazine. The investigation had revealed allegations that the unregulated Narconon facility put mentally ill people through intense psychological drills that allegedly left them “traumatised” and in “trance-like” states. Freedom called the article an “unabashed smear piece using anti-Scientologists and a few disgruntled addicts”, written by an “always-reliable propagandist”.
Terri O’Sullivan, who runs the Faith to Faithless helpline at the charity Humanists UK, which supports people leaving religions and high-control groups, said many people had an image of Scientology as a US organisation that was “a bit quirky”, but had “no idea” about its conduct towards critics in the UK.
She urged police to take claims of targeting seriously. “Sometimes the story sounds so outlandish that they’re perceived as either being unwell or they’ve made it up. They’re not being believed,” she said.
Barnes-Ross and Waite both reported the alleged targeting to police. Waite was told there was insufficient evidence of harassment. Barnes-Ross said his case was closed twice before a full investigation was launched.
In January, the Met reopened the case again after the incident involving the damage to Barnes-Ross’s front door. The investigation, which will also consider wider allegations of harassment, is ongoing. A spokesperson said: “We are investigating a hate crime against a man and continue to support the victim. Officers continue to review the situation and will offer the most appropriate support.”
The Church of Scientology International said claims put to it by the Observer, including that it was seeking to intimidate critics, were “manifestly false”. “Scientology offers true spiritual enlightenment and freedom for all,” it added.
Barnes-Ross said that while police were now investigating, he had had to fight “really hard” to be taken seriously. “People shouldn’t have to go to those extents,” he said.
He has continued to speak about the Church of Scientology on YouTube, often posting bullish videos with titles like: “Facing my abusers xoxo”. But he said the experience had been “frightening” and at times left him feeling “a bit helpless”. “Sometimes I’ve been getting 100 messages a day that seem intended to intimidate me into silence,” he said. “Although it is to be expected when you speak out against Scientology, it’s not something we should tolerate
.”
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