During the 12 months beyond our final relationship-breakdown, and some time before the Children's Court fiasco, Claire's mother and I were at least cooperating in sharing time with Claire. It seemed to be working OK. I did what I could to make sure her unpredictable work schedule was catered for as Janine had a waitress job in the restaurant on the top of the Centre-Point Tower.

It was the highest building in Sydney visible from 50 kilometres out of Sydney. I could see the place where she worked from so many locations in Sydney it was so curiously strange. In my job I drove to various place around Sydney and from anywhere I could turn my head and look directly at the place where the mother of my child was working; the woman I was no longer with - yet the woman who I was still deeply in love with. A love that included our daughter. It took two years of constant pain and anguish to finally extinguish the flame and it was Claire who said, "It is never going to work Dad. Please get over her."

So I did.

I was "useful" to her as I was always available and willing to have Claire whenever she needed. Her new boyfriend, who I later found had been seeing her for some time, (something she has never admitted), a Chef at a main hotel in Chapel Street in the CBD where she used to work during the last 2 years of our relationship. He took her to Canada and USA for a 3 to 6  month holiday... Disneyland etc. (Yes he "had money") and Claire stayed in Australia with me.... to my delight.

For a long time I was maintaining a "mini nursery" of Boston ferns and other plants in two hired glasshouses all the way up in Mona Vale, about 40 minutes drive away from where I lived in Bondi Junction. I had tried to turn it into a profitable operation during the last turbulent months with Janine. My well intentioned 84 year old landlord, in his enthusiasm to fix panes of glass around the glass house broken by wind, vibration and obviously meteorites, would use a large hammer and so many other panes would fall out of the holders or crack and fall out due to ground vibration and wind from the opposite side he was working on.. So I could not keep a stable environment in the glass houses and the venture failed with him not understanding what had happened.

The half-hour drive in my not-so-good Toyota van from Bondi Junction to Mona Vale to water the plants was a 2 to 3 times a week obligation. The costs of up-keeping this was mostly fuel and oil costs. The van had developed a bad engine oil leak and I couldn't afford to fix it and I couldn't afford not to be mobile.... Until one very hot day the van engine-bay caught fire and I was pulled over to the side of the Mona Vale Road watching the van steadily going up in smoke. A "Good Samaritan" appeared suddenly with a fire- extinguisher and had it out in moments. I waited till it cooled right down and continued on my way in amazement.

Claire continued to go to the same school which was a half hour trip twice a day (of course) and manning my little plant shop in a side-street in Paddington, (while the stress of playing the Janine and the "church" versus me game was going on,) was a bit of a push up-hill - all considered..

The shop was just starting to become viable a while after Janine left for overseas, and suddenly the council mysteriously changed the traffic flow so that I virtually had no passing trade. The shop died and as I depended on it for income, I was back on the dole... But I had to maintain the "nursery" and keep the leaking tank of a van afloat. Eventually the cost of oil was around 4 litres every two days. I dreaded to think of what I was doing to the environment. It was ridiculous.

When Janine returned from overseas, we continued our co-parenting working arrangement.

One day, Janine and I were with some friends at a public rally in the Domain Park out front of the Sydney Art Gallery. I was playing with Claire and she was having a wail of a time with her roller skates she always wore all over the city.

Two Guardian Office staff were sitting on the lawn in the crowd. They saw how happy Claire was, and how close we were. Their expressions, whisperings and "noddings" were easy to read as I suddenly realised what they were going to get up to.

A couple of days later it happened.

I would like to reflect on a few points here........... the constant 3rd partying from Sea Org Members- (I was an ex-SO member since 1972), the deliberate manipulation of Janine through her case, (the details of which I have decided not to list here, though I have been given every provocation to do so), the farce of a "Chaplain's Court" hearing which should have helped us, and for which I had to honour of paying $20.00. Instead of "wearing his hat", the "chaplain" called Peter practically undressed Janine in front of me, went into deep sympathy with her point of view departing from standard procedure completely. (eg: Letting her get away with not writing up her O/Ws, whereas I was expected to ... and did, and they were passed to Janine who then had enough motivators to send her type III) ......my protests had me in the Ethics Office for more suppression and "discipline".... We had finally been driven completely apart. She didn't have the sense to "see what they were up to", nor the integrity a wife and mother needs to survive such EVIL INTENTION. I believe it was only my "people-skill" that saved the situation from deteriorating sooner than it did. Feeling quite alone and a continuous target from the 3rd party negative propaganda flowing around over a long period, I had to be very skilful at keeping my sanity, as well as my temper. We had been managing to share time and responsibilities over Claire for more than a year, though it had been quite a strain for me, as most separated fathers will understand. The "legal ball was in Janine's court", as the NSW Laws relating to ex-nuptial children denied me any rights, and with the Guardian Office advising her, she suddenly denied me any access to Claire at all. Thus I had to take the matter to the Children's Court. This idyllic little scene witnessed by the GO members was the inspiration they needed to finally do their dirty work.

So Claire was suddenly snatched away from me on instructions from the Guardian Office of the Sydney Scientology organisation.

I had been effectively "out of the church" since Claire was 6 in 1983, when quite a number of events caused me to finally leave the Church in disgust and fear for Claire's future.

I had refused to "rejoin the Church" after much pressure, emotional blackmail and an already destroyed relationship with Janine. Of course I didn't trust them any more. There was too many things wrong that would never be corrected, and I wanted out.

The "Creed of the Church" was about as forgotten as it could be.

For a long time I was coping with Janine's personality and church influences fairly successfully, regarding the care and sharing of Claire.. until that "day of the Triffids" ... er... Guardian's Office plot.

Suddenly Janine disappeared with Claire.... and Police laughed in my face when I reported my concern for Claire's welfare.

So I fretted without my little girl for over 18 months before I could get the matter to court.

We were a unit

I had not seen Claire even for one cuddle in all that time, and she had not seen me, though I had not been out of her sight more than a few hours since she was born before she was stolen from me. We were "a unit". The "Church" knew this and plotted the most evil act of separate us. In the meantime Janine was secreted away into the "protection" of the Sea Org... with Claire.

But I didn't heel. I didn't compromise my integrity though they tried to break me with this evil.

I had been told by Janine, (acting as a "Scientologist",) that if I didn't rejoin the "Church", I would never see my daughter again. Almost words of pure prophecy.

I found much later in 1997 - Claire described how she was in a coma for 3 months at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital following the treatment for so called Leukaemia with chemotherapy, that resulted in her suffering two strokes. She described how she had finally collapsed from the overwork in the Sea Org - working in the freezing cold rain on a rooftop and banging away with a jack hammer around the top of a sewage pit on very little food..... My God! She was less than 16. Though she described this to me as though she was proud of this achievement, the consequences was a severe untreated pneumonia and eventual total collapse and hospitalization.

What sort of madness is this?

Little wonder I would never want to rejoin such a vicious, group of soul- destroyers posing as "planet-savers" in the name of Religion. ??????

Why would I want to be part of what has become the most soul-less and love-less so called "religion" the world has seen since the "Catholic" Inquisition or The Third Reich?!