When actress Leah Remini teamed up with former Scientology executive Mike Rinder, the world knew something big was about to happen. Their show, ‘Scientology and the Aftermath‘ featured the heartbreaking stories of former Church followers and shone a light on the abuse, trauma and pain it causes its parishioners. It went on to win an Emmy award and was renewed for a total of 3 seasons, plus several ‘special episodes’.

Since then, Remini has been the victim of constant cyberbullying, stalking and attacks from the Church, under it’s well known ‘Fair Game‘ policy, which aims to silence and discredit critics and former members. Implementing a planned campaign of attacks, Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs (OSA) set up hate websites against guests who appears on the show including Aaron Smith-Levin (known for his Youtube channel, Growing Up in Scientology), Marc and Claire Headley, Amy Scobee, Mike Rinder and others.

This website has also been the victim of ‘Fair Game’, with multiple IP addresses linked to the Church of Scientology attempting to gain access to the site in an attack on its servers that has been ongoing since its launch.

Leah Remini is now suing the Church and its leader, David Miscavige, in a landmark case aimed at putting an end to it’s record of continued and persistent harassment against former members and critics.

While looking at Scientology’s financial reports for an article on it’s suspicious movement of $100 million between international Scientology corporations, we came across an interesting set of data. In the UK, Scientology operates through an Australian-registered organisation named Church of Scientology Religious Education College (COSRECI), and is required to declare annually the estimated number of volunteers it has. Since at least 2013, COSRECI has reported 700 volunteers every single year, with no change.

COSRECI is the entity through which all of Scientology’s UK operations run – and includes Saint Hill in East Grinstead, the former home of founder L. Ron Hubbard; the ‘Ideal Orgs’ in London and Birmingham, as well as smaller groups across England and Wales.

With the 2021 census finding there were only 1,844 Scientologists in England and Wales, if the reported 700 volunteers is an accurate figure, it would mean that a third of its parishioners work for the Church.

Perhaps most revealing of all is COSRECI’s reported expenditure on staff allowances. There are two type of Scientology workers: Class V staff, who work full time in city-level churches such as London or Birmingham and sign 2.5 or 5 year contracts; and the Sea Organization, where members dedicate their lives to the Church (with a one billion year contract) and are expected to work an average of 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week with only occasional days off.

As a Class V staff member, wages vary in relation to the revenue your Org makes each week – but still equates to less than the National Minimum Wage. Sea Org members are paid a set, weekly stipend of $50 per week irrespective of rank or role.

Scientology loses half of it’s UK staff

The sharp fall in staff allowances shown in this graph demonstrates either a significant wage cut for hundreds of staff members, or perhaps more likely, a mass exodus of Scientologists leaving staff – almost 50%, to be precise.

Season One of Leah Remini’s show ‘Scientology and the Aftermath’ hit European screens on March 11th, 2017, 4 months after it’s US launch on A&E. Season 2 finished in early 2018, with Season 3 coming to an end in 2019. Is it just a coincidence that Scientology lost half of its staff members in the same year Leah Remini’s show achieved global success and brought Scientology into the spotlight?

The work Leah Remini is doing to expose Scientology’s abuse, manipulation and harassment tactics is being felt globally – and with her recent lawsuit threatening not just Scientology, but it’s leader David Miscavige personally.. this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The ongoing lawsuit seeks to put an end to not just harassment against Remini herself, but Scientology’s wider strategy of intimidating and attacking former members and critics under the policy of ‘Fair Game’.