Exclusive Cruise cult lures our jailed killers

The Sunday Mirror, UK/January 21, 2007
By Susie Boniface

Britain's most dangerous prisoners are being recruited by movie star Tom Cruise's bizarre Scientology cult.

Paedophiles Ian Huntley and Roy Whiting and hammer killer Michael Stone are among criminals the sect is targeting - despite it being on a Home Office blackist.

Scientologists offer courses to prisoners in 76 jails, including lifer Stone's Full Sutton and Wakefield - home to Huntley and Whiting. We can reveal they sneakily won government approval through the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which rubber-stamped a distance-learning drugs and alcohol awareness course run by Criminon - the cult's charity arm.

Lags are taught to wean themselves off drugs with vitamins and exercise, to refuse anti-psychotic drugs and to snub psychiatrists.

An insider said: "Lags will do anything to improve their chances of getting out. Finding religion earns brownie points."

The church was unavailable for comment last night.