Son-in-law of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard reveals how the 'rise of David Miscavige' led to his imprisonment where he was spit on and beaten by leader before his dramatic escape

The son-in-law of L. Ron Hubbard has lifted the lid on the secrets surrounding the death of the Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, revealed the power shift that followed as David Miscavige took charge and told of imprisonment in the bowels of the Church's Los Angeles base, 'Big Blue,' and his own dramatic escape in an explosive interview with DailyMailTV.

Guy White, 63, has become the first ever family member to break their silence and speak out about his time in Scientology.

'I have never wanted to speak out earlier because I've been followed, I've had Private Investigators on me, it's very intrusive,' said White.

'You know what the deal with the devil is like,''Don't speak out against us and then we won't make your life hell.'' I didn't want my life to be hell because that would be hell for my children.

'But they're adult now and I always felt the story needed to be told.'

Scientology has denied White's claims in a letter to DailyMailTV, calling the allegations 'false'.

'He is reaching back 40 years to manufacture lies about Scientology to capitalize on the popularity of the religion and its leader,' a church spokesperson said.

Three decades have elapsed since Guy White finally fled Scientology in a dramatic night-time escape from their so-called 'Happy Valley' base in the heart of the Soboba Reservation, California.

Months before, it would have been inconceivable to him that he would ever want to leave. He was a member of the Church's 'royal family,' married to Hubbard's second daughter, Suzette, father of his then infant grandson, Tyson, and Sea Org golden boy.

But that was when he believed he was part of something real. Now the only thing he was certain of was that he was never going back.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMailTV, he has told how the Hubbard family was humiliated and 'erased' after the founder's death and revealed a violent, Kafka-esque encounter with David Miscavige, the Chairman of the Board.

He has also shared the life-changing series of events that ultimately saw him lose his faith but gain the freedom to live his truth as a gay man.

White was just 19 and a student at community college in Portland, Oregon when he was seduced by the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. He took a course in philosophy and Hubbard's 'The Fundamentals of Thought,' was on the syllabus.

White was unaware that the college was a feeder for Scientology and his professor a member of church staff.

He soon became a member of staff too – signing a short contract before moving to Los Angeles and joining the Sea Org, the paramilitary style 'clergy' that requires members to sign a billion-year contract.

White recalled, 'You basically commit your life.'

Over the next five years White rose through the ranks rapidly, zealous in his belief in Scientology's goal to clear the planet of, 'war, insanity and crime.'

He ran the 'organizations' outside Los Angeles from 19 to 34 and spent a year in Mexico City in charge of Scientology's growth in Latin America before being called back to LA in 1981.

He was told he was needed there more because the 'returns' were greater.

'I felt that if this is what was needed overall then of course I would [stay],' he said. 'But my conscience is telling me that I need to make sure that someone is on the job I'm leaving.'

He left Mexico City fully expecting to return and having learned that he would not, he filed a series of instructions on how his absence should be managed and his replacement found. He set about his new role in LA.

Then, one Friday, White received a call.

'In management the statistics [sales figures of books and services] come in on Thursdays at two o'clock and you stay up all night long looking at them,' he explained. 'This Friday night I'm called over to the management office. I walk in and the executive who greets me goes, ''You're in trouble.''

'I couldn't imagine what that was about.'

White was escorted to the back of the building to a room approximately eight feet wide and 12 feet deep. There was a small window with bars but no glass.

He said, 'It's November 12, 1982. I'll never forget that day.

'I'm locked in that room and after several hours I'm told to write up your transgressions. And I'm like grasping at what's going on.'

In the small hours of the morning, the door opened. It was David Miscavige and behind him was a line of officials longer than White could see.

White recalled, 'I stand up, you know, as a senior person to me. He [Miscavige] walks up to me, grabs my lanyard, rips it off me [then] backhands me.

'My glasses go off flying and break and then he spits in my face. I have no idea what this is for. I don't know why I'm in trouble. And he says, ''People are being prosecuted for what you've done.'''

Two years later he learned, through a chance conversation, that his 'crime' had been to send a telex following up on his New Mexico memo and questioning why certain things had not yet been done. This, he was told, was considered 'reverse management' and an unacceptable challenge to authority.

Still in shock, White was taken into another room and made to undergo an auditing under the E-meter – a rudimentary lie detector of sorts in which the subject holds two tin cans and the 'auditor' asking the questions interprets the movement of a needle on a scale.

He said, 'I'm being asked questions about what I've done and I don't know why I'm in trouble. That finally ends and around seven or eight in the morning, I'm escorted to the Rehabilitation Project Force's (RPF).'

The RPF is Scientology's 're-education program' where members who are not in 'good standing' are sent as punishment and penance. It has been referred to as a prison camp of sorts. Members report not being allowed to speak to anyone, having to run everywhere and eating whatever is left over after the rest of the staff have dined.

White wasn't considered fit for even this. He fell even further. For him, he explained, it would be an upward move to be accepted into the RPF.

He said, 'I was the lowest, of the lowest, of the lowest. A person who walks in off the street was higher than me at that point.

'I'm escorted to the boiler room of ''Big Blue'' and given this little metal hammer and I'm to chip off the paint off the boilers.'

White remained there with no information and no company other than the guards who watched him for 30 days.

He later learned that nobody had lasted that long without breaking.

When he was finally allowed to join the RPF he was met with their applause.

White was on the RPF working on renovations in an old hospital building when he heard about 'The Running Program,' a new addition that saw RPF members running around a pole in Griffith Park to the point of exhaustion. Then doing it all over again.

White smiled, 'I thought that was the best thing in the world! That's what I need to do. I need to get outside.'

Suzette Hubbard was one of the senior management assigned to oversee it.

White recalled, 'That would be February 1983. Suzette's personality is that she doesn't like to play [the Hubbard card]. She enjoys people.

'People there might have been on the RPF, but I remember she could be exchanging jokes, that's how you could pass the time while you rested. Suzette is a very friendly person.

'Had she had an attitude of being above or can't be reached or spoken to that would have been different. But that's not how she is.'

Over the following weeks and months White and Suzette kept in touch. They were often hundreds of miles apart as White traveled the globe in a series of events promoting an inclusive image of Church management.

When he was in America, White was often at the Int [International] or Gold Base in Hemet, about 90 miles east of Los Angeles. But he and Suzette met whenever they could.

White said, 'Nobody had cell phones, you could send messages, but you risk [that they're not private]. It was a long courtship from early '83 to when we got married in '86…But, you know, love finds a way.'

White was about to write to Hubbard for his permission when Hubbard died.

Hubbard had been in hiding at his ranch in Creston, California since 1981 and neither his wife Mary Sue nor their children, Diana, Suzette and Arthur had seen or heard from him since.

His disappearance came amid fears of further prosecutions against Church management after Mary Sue was indicted on charges of conspiracy for 'dirty tricks' campaigns run against government agencies including the IRS.

She was sentenced to five years, resigned her post in the Guardian's office in 1981 and ultimately served one year in 1983.

White was at the point of writing to Hubbard asking for permission to marry his daughter when everything changed.

There was an announcement across the Sea Org of a mandatory event. White and Suzette planned to go together but at the last minute Suzette received instructions to go elsewhere.

It was January 1986 and Suzette was about to learn her father was dead. White said, 'As she told it to me, the family were called individually into a room, informed that their father had died, handed a piece of paper, told these were his wishes, and signed it.

'They were taken one by one. We later learned that Hubbard had had a stroke. He was very, very ill [for months] but nobody knew anything.

'Suzette didn't even know he was sick. No family members were ever called to Creston. And we later learn that on the day he dies this doctor [who had been with him from his first stroke almost to his last] wasn't there. He was in Las Vegas that day.'

Meanwhile at the 'event,' White said, 'It was announced that Hubbard had moved on to do further research which he didn't need a body for, so he has discarded the body. For me personally, nothing seemed right.'

'No family member ever saw the body. Years later I got a copy of the coroner's report.

'There were multiple injection sites where he was getting Visteral which is an anti-psychotic drug. He was unkempt. He had long fingernails that were dirty.'

White kept the details of the coroner's report from Suzette, now 64, for a while.

'When I did tell her she broke down and said, ''This says so much about what was going on.'' Her father was a very proud man and one of the things is that he would take care of his hands. She said she was angry that those people were not caring or him.'

According to White, Hubbard's will was changed the day before his death.

He said, 'Supposedly it was his signature but there are many people who were trained over the years to answer his mail and his messages and the messengers actually practiced signing his name. But whether he signed it or not, what shape is he in with the second stroke and on anti-psychotic medication?'

The new will, White said, 'moved a lot of money from the family onto the Church.'

White and Suzette were married by a Justice of the Peace in a small ceremony in March 1986. Their son Tyson was born in December.

But from the moment of Hubbard's death, White recalled, life started to change for the family and 'the rise of Miscavige' was under way.

At first it was little things, White said, 'Like the family starts getting erased. There was a policy letter that Suzette had worked on. It was originally, L. Ron Hubbard assisted by Suzette Hubbard. But Suzette gets erased. There was a book called the Science of Survival dedicated to Diana Hubbard. If you pull a copy today there's no Diana. She's gone.'

When Suzette became pregnant things started to get personal.

He said, 'An issue comes out saying children are not allowed in the organization anymore. Basically children are a distraction.

'We were on the International Base and it's beginning to become very clear that things are different for us because Suzette is Hubbard's daughter. It's uncomfortable.'

When their son Tyson was born he was one of just two children on the base. Diana's daughter Rowanne was the other and lived there with her father following her parents' divorce.

According to White, Hubbard wrote a letter stipulating she stay with him and setting down how she should be raised. It was called, 'The Princess Program.'

He said, 'Tyson was run on 'The Prince Program.'

'There were people who thought he was the reincarnation of Hubbard. Hubbard died in January; Tyson was born in December. Tyson is a redheaded child, he's dynamic, lovable. You had people who'd lost their founder, but here he was again.'

The family lived in the strange bubble of Int Base for two years when another rule was changed. White said, 'There was to be no Family Time - an hour that families would take usually after dinner.'

New mother Suzette challenged the change. White said, 'They said, ''Well we can't find anything that Hubbard wrote about Family Time.'' And she said, ''Well I lived it.'''

To add to their misery both Suzette and White were given menial jobs. White went from a high-flying executive to manning the clapper board in the studios pumping out promotional videos. Suzette worked as Miscavige's laundress.

In January 1989, Suzette took Tyson and vanished in the middle of the night. White woke to find a note of apology.

He said, 'She hadn't told me to protect me. If you know of someone planning to leave you are obligated to report them otherwise you're guilty as well.'

Instantly White had guards on him round the clock. Suzette made contact and told him she didn't want to end the marriage but couldn't live with the rules.

White said, 'I can't get off the base. I have no access to my son. I was very, very angry.'

White would, he said, have done anything to be with his son. He plotted his escape and managed to communicate with family members who drove him to San Diego. 'It was easier then,' he smiled.

But within days guards arrived at his motel. He still believed in the Church. He just wanted his son back. He agreed to return in a bid to persuade Suzette to do likewise.

But he wasn't taken back to Int Base. He was driven to 'Happy Valley' a far more remote location on reservation territory.

And it soon became clear to him that nothing was being done to get Tyson or Suzette back.

He said, 'I was told that because Suzette was with her mother at this point, the concern was that Mary Sue would ''go legal.''

'I said, so what is the plan for Mary Sue? And they said, ''To let her live out her life.'' And it was at that point that everything fell apart because if you believe in reincarnation how is 'living out your life' any sort of solution? And if you believe in Hubbard's technology to handle suppressive people why wouldn't you use it?

'Then I realized, standing there with my poker face, that the organization that I thought that I was part of didn't actually exist.'

White knew he had to escape.

His first plan was to flee across the mountains that lay between him and Palm Springs. There was no fence around Happy Valley though there were guards posted around the property. The location was so remote and terrain so inhospitable that was deemed enough.

White fled one night but he realized as the sun rose, and the overwhelming mountains unfolded before him, that he would never make it.

He rushed back before he could be seen scrambling up their slopes.

He said, 'I realized I was going to have to leave the way I came in.'

Day by day he plotted. He fed the German Shepherds guard dogs, he constructed a code with his mother and managed to communicate the day he was going to make his bid for freedom despite calls being monitored.

He recalled, 'As soon as I go the dogs start barking, betrayed, the big lights come on and I just run.'

He ran along rough terrain parallel to the road as the security Jeeps drove from the base before hitting a stretch of road.

He said, 'At one point there's a hairpin turn and all of a sudden I see lights shooting out in front of me, but they haven't made the turn and I just dive off the road before those lights can hit me.

'And I'm tumbling down but it's okay. I'm going and so I keep going.'

Eventually he reached the small town of Hemet. Everything was shut apart from the Bowling Alley which was being cleaned overnight. White made his way there, banged on the door and said in broken Spanish that he had been in an accident and needed to make a call.

He said, 'They brought me in, closed the door and locked it behind me. I was elated. I was happy for the first time in a long time because I felt safe.'

Over the next seven years White and Suzette tried to make their marriage work. White got a job in a company run by a Scientologist because he still believed in the faith if not its management and he thinks the Church wanted to keep him vaguely sweet because of his family ties.

They had two more children – Alyssa and Connor. But when White joined the Church he had been too young and naïve to understand his sexuality.

When filling in his staff application he could honestly answer 'No' to the question 'Do you have any history of homosexuality, prostitution or other aberration?'

Because he had no sexual history at all, and the question itself made it clear to him that homosexuality was an 'aberration' to be fixed through technology.

But out in the world his eyes were open, and the truth was something he no longer could or would deny. He was a married man with three children age 2, 4 and 8 and he was gay.

White said, 'Suzette was very gracious. At one point it was like, ''Do we keep the marriage?'' Personally, I didn't think it was fair to me or Suzette and we ended up getting divorced.'

Coming out also marked the final severing of White's connection with the Church.

After two years of wrangling and difficulty, drawn out by Church attorneys, White was awarded joint legal and physical custody.

Suzette too lost her faith in the system her father had founded and none of their children were raised Scientologists.

White said, 'I got to form a wonderful relationship with Mary Sue and she got to enjoy her grandchildren. We had many conversations. She was very angry with Hubbard.

'In the context of Scientology beliefs their agreement was that she would go first and make sure things were safe for him to follow. She told me, ''I have some words for him when I see him.'''

Neither of them liked Miscavige. They called him a little Napoleon and she wasn't happy with the way he ran things. But in the end I think she was done [with the church].

'You can have all the fame, the money, the drama, but at the end of the day what was important to her was family.'

SCIENTOLOGY'S DENIAL OF GUY WHITE'S CLAIMS

Guy White’s claims are false. He is reaching back 40 years to manufacture lies about Scientology to capitalize on the popularity of the religion and its leader.

L. Ron Hubbard always intended for his life’s work to benefit Scientology. While he provided generously for his family, Mr. Hubbard bequeathed the bulk of his estate to the Church to carry out its religious mission. Unlike some religions that have experienced periods of turmoil when their founders pass on, this was not the case for the Church of Scientology. The Church has gone on to flourish and prosper, in accordance with Mr. Hubbard’s vision and plans.

Guy White briefly held a middle management position with the Church in the early 1980s but was removed for repeated ecclesiastical violations. He was given several opportunities to redeem himself, but failed and ultimately departed the Church’s religious order in 1989.

His life became shambles and he involved himself in matters that distanced him from the Hubbard family and the Church. Even though he was no longer a practicing member of the Church, Scientologists helped him on more than one occasion to get his life in order.

White’s current attempt to exploit, through his lies, the Scientology religion, its Founder and its ecclesiastical leader is absurd and shameful.

Mr. David Miscavige was L. Ron Hubbard’s trusted friend. Under his leadership and guidance, Churches of Scientology around the world are growing at an unprecedented rate.

For the past decade, Mr. Miscavige has directed an international program toestablish new Churches of Scientology in major citie sand cultural centers around the world to bring our religion and social programs to greater numbers. The scope of this undertaking is unmatched in modern religious history.

These new Churches reflect the fulfillment of Mr.Hubbard’s vision for the religion he founded. In just the past two weeks, we opened two new Churches,one in Kansas City, Missouri,and this weekend, one in Columbus, Ohio. See www.scientology.org.

In all, we have established more than 70 of these new, expanded Churches. The Church also inaugurated the new cathedral for its spiritual headquarters. Watch Inside Scientology Flag at Scientology.tv to see for yourself.

Mr. Miscavige’s far-reaching vision and unrelenting dedication have brought the Church of Scientology to where it is today. Mr. Miscavige works tirelessly on behalf of the religion. Further information pertaining to his accomplishments is available at www.davidmiscavige.org. For the real view,there are interviews you can watch of individuals from many walks of life who have actually worked with Mr. Miscavige recently and over the past 40 years.