Fair Game

by Steve Cannane

  Segal has been a Scientologist for over 50 years. He says he is grateful that he and Rosa were able to bring the scandal of Chelmsford to an end, and credits the policy and the facilities provided by the Church of Scientology as being critical to achieving that goal. That may be so, but his distance from Scientology groupthink was also important. While Jan Eastgate was determined to ‘wipe out psychiatry’ as per Hubbard’s policy, Segal was far more moderate. As he puts it, ‘If you’re going to wipe out psychiatry, you better have something to take its place. Who’s going to look after people who have a mental illness? Does the Church of Scientology deal with mental patients?’153

  The lives of the three Scientologists who did the most to expose Chelmsford took very different paths. Jan Eastgate went on to high office in the Church of Scientology in the US, Ron Segal returned to work as a pharmacist and brought up his family in Sydney’s south, but Rosa Nicholson’s life after Chelmsford was not so blessed. ‘Rosa was crucified when it was exposed what she had done,’ says Segal. ‘No-one would employ her. There was no professional gain, only hardship and pain. But she knew she had done the right thing.’154

  Two of Rosa’s relatives, who spoke to me on the condition I protected their identity, claim the Church of Scientology made her life a misery after she left Chelmsford Hospital. The hero of arguably Scientology’s finest moment in Australia was not given the hero treatment. ‘They promised her a trip to the US, so she sold up everything and prepared for the trip,’ one relative told me. ‘Needless to say, the trip never eventuated and she was left penniless and homeless.’155 Jan Eastgate’s lawyer Kevin Rodgers described the claim of the offered trip as ‘far-fetched’.156

  Short of money, Rosa moved into a boarding house. According to her relative, the pressure to hand over money to the Church of Scientology was relentless. At one point she turned up at a relative’s workplace in tears. She did not have the money to pay the rent. ‘She was about to be thrown out of her house,’ the relative told me. ‘I asked are you still in Scientology? And she said yes. I gave her a cheque for the next month’s rent.’157

  In 2002, Rosa had a stroke. She moved from her boarding house to hospital, before being sent on to a nursing hostel, then a nursing home, and another nursing home. She had no private phone and only her family was meant to know where she was, but this did not keep her safe from the Scientologists. ‘Jan Eastgate was able to track her down to each new place and hound her, posing as a visiting family member,’ a relative told me, ‘until I asked the last home not to allow her to visit. I think they finally realised that Rosa had lost cognitive ability to do them any harm anymore so they finally gave up.’158

  Jan Eastgate’s lawyer Kevin Rodgers told me via email, ‘There is no reasonable basis for this allegation.’ He said that Eastgate had met Rosa only three times after she moved to the US in 1993. He said the visits were primarily ‘social calls’ that occurred in 2007 and 2008 with the initial visit related to ‘proposed TV and film productions about Chelmsford’.159 Rodgers says by the time of the last visit Rosa was at another nursing home and she let ‘the nursing staff know that she was a friend from years earlier’.160

  Rosa Nicholson could not shed any light on this or any of the new revelations about the role the Church of Scientology played in exposing the abuses at Chelmsford Hospital. I could not ask her if she gave a truthful testimony before the Royal Commission. In her final years, Rosa lost her capacity to talk and her memory failed. On the afternoon of 4 May 2015, she died in her nursing home in Sydney aged 73. The newspapers carried no obituaries and there was no hero’s farewell, no acknowledgement of her risky 14-month-long undercover operation and what it achieved. The woman who had done more than anyone else to expose the dark secrets of Chelmsford Hospital passed away in silence, forgotten by the society who had benefited from her courage.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE GREATEST GAME OF ALL

  A HUGE ROAR FROM across the road startled Joe Reaiche as he tried to get to sleep. ‘What in the hell was that noise?’1 he called out to his younger brother Tony, with whom he shared a room in his family’s Redfern terrace. Joe got no response. His brother had already passed out. There was only one way to find out what was going on. Joe peeled back his cotton sheets and leaped out of bed.

  As the eight-year-old peered out the window of the third-floor attic at 68 Redfern Street, he could see floodlights shining in the distance. The oval he mucked around on after school, playing scratch games with his mates, had been transformed into an arena full of people, energy and noise.

  Young Joe changed out of his pyjamas and crept down the stairs, sneaking past the rooms his parents leased out to itinerant men for ten bucks a week. He slowly opened the front door, making sure his father knew nothing of his escape. He crossed the street and raced through the park. The sprawling Moreton Bay fig trees, the ancient Canary Island palms and assorted flooded gums of Redfern Park swayed over him as he sprinted through the park urged on by the roar of the crowd. He soon arrived at the source of all that noise, a tribal gathering that would change his life forever.

  Redfern Oval was home to the champion rugby league side the South Sydney Rabbitohs. In 1908, a rugby league competition formed in Sydney as a breakaway from the amateur sport of rugby union. Players were disillusioned that the governing body would not pay compensation for injuries and lost wages. A professional competition was set up and South Sydney was one of its foundation clubs.

  Rugby league became Sydney’s most popular and most brutal winter sport. Its clubs were built around tightly knit working-class communities like Redfern. The players were made up of tough uncompromising men drawn from the docks, the mines, the building sites and other blue-collar industries. The Rabbitohs got their nickname from footballers who earned extra money on a Saturday morning walking the streets of Redfern and Surry Hills, skinning and selling rabbits to the large impoverished families crammed into rows of terraces and workers’ cottages.

  On the hot February night when Joe Reaiche broke out of his bedroom and raced across the road to Redfern Oval, the Rabbitohs were at the peak of their powers. They had already won 16 premierships, and would claim another four titles in the next five years. Souths were playing the Balmain Tigers in the first game of the 1967 Preseason Cup. Joe did not have the five cents needed to get through the turnstiles, but that did not matter. He peered through a hole in the fence, catching a glimpse of the Rabbitohs team that contained legends such as Eric Simms, Bob McCarthy, Ron Coote and John Sattler. Young Joe was mesmerised.

  When his nerve gave out and he headed for home, Joe found his father waiting outside the front door. ‘Where in the bloody hell were you?’2 his father yelled. Kabalan Reaiche had migrated to Australia from Beirut in the early 1950s, and worked in the local Reschs brewery. He was a strict disciplinarian and Joe knew what he was in for. His father pulled off his belt and gave Joe a hiding. That night, as he lay in bed crying, the roars of the crowd distracted Joe from the pain of the welts swelling on his legs. He went to sleep dreaming of running with the ball in front of a screaming crowd.

  Eleven years later, Joe Reaiche found out what it was like to hear the roar of the crowd from the middle of a football field. On 30 April 1978, he made his first-grade debut in front of over 13,000 fans at the Sydney Sports Ground.3 Reaiche wasn’t playing for the Rabbitohs. He had been graded with their arch enemies the Eastern Suburbs Roosters. His team included Ron Coote, the former Souths star he had seen make charging runs as he peered through the fence at Redfern Oval. ‘It was crazy,’ says Reaiche. ‘I watched Ron Coote as a kid when I was eight years of age, and now 11 years later I’m playing with him.’4

  The Roosters side was stacked full of some of the game’s greats. Arthur Beetson, Bob Fulton and Coote would all eventually be selected in the competition’s team of the century. The side contained other premiership winning stars such as Russell Fairfax, Mark Harris, and Bob ‘The Bear’ O’Reilly. Reaiche had just turned 20. As he looked around the dressin
g room before the match, he could hardly believe these superstars were now his teammates.

  A fast and elusive runner, Reaiche played most of his football at fullback but made his first-grade debut on the wing. ‘He was an incredible talent,’ remembers John Quayle, Easts’ reserve-grade coach at the time. ‘We all thought that. He was a natural.’5

  Rugby league in Sydney in the 1970s was a blood sport. Games would descend into all-in brawls; players were regularly knocked out in head-high tackles. Joe Reaiche’s first game in the top grade was a typically ferocious affair. Parramatta’s barrel-chested prop Bob Jay was sent off for a high tackle on Bob Fulton. Bob O’Reilly was dumped on his head in a dangerous spear tackle. Reaiche’s hero Ron Coote broke his collarbone. The Roosters hit the lead with just six minutes to go, courtesy of a goal from Bob Fulton. After their durable halfback Kevin Hastings scored a try with just two minutes to go, Easts held on to win 19–13.6

  As Reaiche celebrated the hard-earned victory with his teammates, he could not believe his luck. The Redfern local junior was not your average first-grade footballer of the day. His Lebanese heritage stood out in a team of Anglo-Celts. Like his teammates, his upbringing was working class, but what made him different was not just his heritage, he had just a few years earlier returned to Sydney from a war zone.

  ‘I missed the shagging and panel vans of 1970s Sydney,’ says Reaiche. ‘I was dodging sniper bullets, artillery shelling and Israeli jets dropping bombs in Beirut.’7 In July 1972, Kabalan Reaiche told his family he was taking them back to Beirut. Joe, who had just turned 14, was devastated. ‘I almost hit the roof,’ he says. ‘Why would I want to go back to a third-world country? I was captain of my football team, playing representative football for Eastern Suburbs District; that was my life.’8

  Kabalan Reaiche’s quest to take his family back to his homeland was marred by unfortunate timing. Lebanon was becoming an increasingly dangerous country. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation had relocated to Beirut in the early 1970s following the civil war in Jordan. Tensions grew between the country’s Christian and Muslim populations. Militia groups formed and fighting broke out. The capital was divided into Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut. By 1975, the country had descended into civil war.

  If Joe Reaiche had stayed in Sydney he would have been a target for recruitment by rugby league talent scouts. In Beirut, he and his friends were targets for recruitment by the local militias. Sensing that his eldest son was in danger, Kabalan Reaiche organised for Joe to return to Australia.

  Despite missing three years of junior football, Reaiche returned to playing the game he loved as if he had never been away. He starred for Christian Brothers Lewisham in the Metropolitan Catholic Colleges competition and attracted the attention of scouts from Eastern Suburbs. ‘I distinctly remember Arthur Beetson and I going to watch that tournament,’ remembers John Quayle. ‘We had a brother at Marcellin College who kept an eye out for players and he said you should have a look at this kid.’9

  The following year, Joe Reaiche made his first-grade debut, playing seven out of the next nine games in the top grade, and keeping the club’s then highest ever try scorer, Bill Mullins, in reserve grade.10 However, in July, that promising first season came to a premature end. Running in a sprint race at Leichhardt Oval against the likes of Larry Corowa and Steve Gearin to find the fastest man in rugby league, Reaiche badly tore his groin muscle. With the 20-year-old sidelined, the Roosters’ star-studded line-up bombed out of the competition, failing to make the semi-finals by just two points.

  In the off-season Reaiche worked hard on his rehabilitation. He’d got a taste of first-grade football and was determined to regain his place the following season. The young Rooster built up the muscles surrounding his groin, and sought treatment to get his injury right. One afternoon, after visiting an acupuncturist, Reaiche paused to get a drink while waiting for a bus at Railway Square. As he bent over the water fountain a young woman named Joey Lawrence approached him and began asking questions. Joe Reaiche’s life was about to change forever.

  Joey Lawrence was a body-router with the Church of Scientology. Her role was simple, to get what L. Ron Hubbard referred to as ‘raw meat’11 off the street and into the organisation. From there the raw meat was given a personality test, which hopefully led to them signing up for a course. As Hubbard said, ‘It is a maxim that unless you have bodies you have no income. So on any pretext get bodies in the place, and provide ingress to the Registrar when they’re there.’12

  On the street at Railway Square, Joey asked Joe what were the three things in life he most wanted to have. Reaiche answered, ‘Love, happiness and money.’ The young footballer was intrigued to find out how the young Scientologist could help him find any of the above. The body-router did her job. Reaiche followed her 50 metres around the corner and into the Church of Scientology.

  As he walked through the doors, Joe Reaiche did not appear to be in any danger of parting with his money. ‘The first thing I saw was the Scientology cross on the wall and I thought that was pretty fucked up,’ he says.13 He was taken into a room with a young Scientology Registrar, Sue Bloomberg, who told him about L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics.

  Bloomberg tried to sell Reaiche a copy of Dianetics. ‘I’m not going to read that!’ he said. ‘It’s too long, it’s got very small print, it’s too technical and I’m not interested.’14 He was asked if he wanted to do the Oxford Capacity Analysis, the famous Scientology personality test that has no association with Oxford University. Reaiche saw no harm in a doing a free test and was soon answering questions such as, ‘Do you often feel depressed? Do some noises set your teeth on edge? Do you often make tactless blunders?’15

  After he’d answered 200 of these questions, Reaiche was given the results in the form of a graph. Bloomberg analysed the results. ‘She told me I was high on the communications level, a bit low on the personal side and she asked me if there was anything bothering me,’ Reaiche says.16 He didn’t know it at the time, but Joe was about to be delivered Scientology’s sucker punch, a bait and switch that would end up costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars.17

  Scientologists are taught to ‘find the ruin’18 of potential new recruits. As A Scientologist Guide to Dissemination puts it, ‘What you’re looking for is the thing that is ruining a person’s life … the major complaint he’s got about his life; the one dynamic that is pulling down all the rest of his dynamics.’19

  Joe Reaiche’s ‘ruin’ was the torn groin muscle that had taken so long to heal. It was a source of immense frustration to the young player. ‘He was really on the verge of establishing himself at the time,’ says John Quayle. ‘We weren’t really up to date with modern medicine. We didn’t know how to properly fix a groin muscle back then.’20 The Scientologists, however, claimed they had all the answers to all physical ailments. ‘They said it was mental,’ says Reaiche. ‘They said they could fix it and I thought, okay I’ll give it a shot.’21

  When Joe Reaiche told Sue Bloomberg he played for the Roosters, the reaction was immediate. ‘Her jaw dropped and she said, “Could you wait here for a second?”’ says Reaiche. ‘And she went upstairs and said to Steve Stevens, “You’re not going to believe who I’ve got downstairs,” and all of a sudden there was five Sea Org members downstairs and talking to me. They were all mad Easts supporters.’22

  Steve Stevens was one of Scientology’s best and brightest salesmen. His official title was the Commanding Officer of the Tours Registration Org. He toured Australia and New Zealand convincing Scientologists to come to Sydney and do more advanced and expensive courses.23 Stevens was a rare beast in Scientology. He was a Sea Org member who did not live in poverty.24 He wore flash clothes and drove fast cars. As a ‘Field Staff Member’ he was able to make good money from Scientology, charging commissions of 10–15% on sales of books and EMeters.25

  The Church of Scientology had not only found Joe Reaiche’s ruin, they had found their first celebrity recruit in Australia from
a high-profile sport.26 Rugby league was the most popular football code in Sydney at the time and Reaiche had the potential to become a valuable marketing tool. Steve Stevens became Reaiche’s friend and point man, making sure things ran smoothly for the young footballer. ‘He said to me, “What are your goals?” and I said to him, “To play first-grade football, to make $30,000 a year, to run the 100 metres in 10.7 seconds, and to be happy.” He said, “they can all be achieved through Scientology, you just need to go OT.”’27

  Joe Reaiche did not have the time or the money to study Scientology courses like a regular recruit. According to Reaiche, going ‘clear’ through Dianetics would have cost him around $18,000 at the time. Stevens came up with a solution. ‘He said to me I should train up as an auditor and get the professional auditing at 50 per cent off,’ says Reaiche.28 The young footballer was sold on the ‘success stories’ of other athletes who had gotten involved in Scientology in the US: including San Francisco 49ers quarterback John Brodie; LA Lakers basketballer Jim Brewer; and former Pittsburgh Steeler Bob Adams.

  After a delayed start to the season, Reaiche returned to the top grade in 1979. Alternating between wing and fullback, he played 12 games in first grade, finishing the season as the Roosters’ top scorer. By now his groin injury had healed, due to strength and conditioning work, according to Reaiche, rather than, as promised, the powers of Scientology.29

  However, Reaiche was getting something out of Scientology. He felt like it was making him a better person, and he continued juggling Scientology course work with his football career and his studies at teachers’ college. He soon went ‘clear’ at Scientology’s new Sydney centre in Castlereagh Street.30 The Scientologists had bought the five-storey building from the Public Service Association for $800,000, financing the purchase through cash brought in from a Luxembourg bank account.31 Steve Stevens drove Reaiche up ‘the Bridge’ at Scientology’s new centre in between driving him to football training.