Cat and mouse battle for a heart and mind
Odhran Fortune's contact with Scientology heralded his withdrawal from
family and friends, writes Gary O'Shea.

Sunday Tribune
8.6.1997

Odhran Fortune's family remember him as a bubbly character with a
devil-may-care attitude to life. He was seldom without a girl on his arm
and displayed a ferocious passion for water sports.
	Outgoing, witty, adventurous, that was Odhran before he fell in
with the Church of Scientology at age 19 while on a hotel catering course
in Birmingham in 1992.
	Following a move to Copenhagen later that year, Odhran's behaviour
began to unnerve his family. He began to send books and videos on
dianetics to friends and relatives who were largely unimpressed by
scientologists' bizarre set of beliefs.
	Odhran himself had begun to lose his humourous spark. His
attention span began to dwindle and conversation had to be forced out of
him.
	A Christmas visit to his family home in Gorey, Co. Wexford during
1995 left those around Odhran particularly dispirited. Now 22, Odhran was
no longer game for a swift half in the local, had adopted melancholy garb
and could not be drawn out on life in Copenhagen. A further visit slated
for Easter 1996 failed to materialise and by his next visit at Christmas
that year Odhran was unrecognisable to those who had known him best.
	Odhran was not just distant. He could barely string a sentence
together. He had undergone a spectacular loss of weight and was now
sporting dull hollow eyes.
	In the spirit of scientology, he took endless snaps of family
members. In the same fashion family and press who made the jaunt to the
cult's West Sussex base on Friday had their every move shadowed by
scowling camera-wielding church members.
	In the early part of his most recent stay in Wexford, Odhran
maintained a stringent regime of exercise and meditation but gradually
weaned himself off his scientology lifestyle.
	Although never quite returning to normal, he rediscovered his love
for water soprts and would spend weekends with his brother Damien, 22,
skiing on the West coast.
	But the grip of the scientologists proved hard to wrestle off.
Throughout January the family home was bombarded with phone calls from
Odhran's former handlers, anxious that he return to Copenhagen
immediately.
	Cult members called to the family home and in one case maintained
a vigil outside. But by the close of January the hardball tactics seemed
to have ended and the scientologist's battle to secure Odhran wilted.
	Odhran was regaining weight, "eating like a horse", as cousin
Barry put it. He said: "There were certainly ups and downs but in general
the last six months have been very happy. Odhran seemed to be talking more
about the future".
	Odhran no longer answered questions with curt yes or nos and began
to socialise and go to parties, though remaining a teetotaller.
	He took a part-tie job in White's Pub of Courttown and began
studying for his VHF radio licence. But hopes sank for the Fortunes last
Sunday night.
	Just after 10.30pm he told Mary White, the landlady of White's
Pub, that he was taking a short break. In a phone call to the popular pub
some 40 minutes later he explained that "something had come up" and he
would not be back.
	Sensing a swoop by the scientologists, family members and friends
moved to cover sea ports and airports in the region. They were successful
in preventing Odhran's departure. He left from Dun Laoghaire early the
next morning in the company of a leading member of scientology's Dublin
wing.
	On Friday morning some 14 friends and relatives descended on
scientology's headquarters in East Grinstead, West Sussex in an attempt to
make contact with their estranged relative. The heavily guarded compound
lies on a picturesque winding stretch of raod about an hour's drive from
London.
	The Fortune entourage was met at the compound gates by Graeme
Wilson, the church's public relations officer: a team of bulky security
guards videotaped the group's every move.
	The Fortunes' frustration was almost palpable as church officials
attmpted to stonewall them as to how they could contact Odhran. Brother
Diarmuid, 30, who has spent three days without sleep, became agitated.
	Sister Denys, an designer, put a defiant face on things and said,
"This is my family they're messing with". Mother Ann, a hairdresser, was
reduced to tears. Odhran's anxiety-ridden father Joe Fortune, a furniture
store owner, watched the proceedings in disbelief. When requested to
[obscured word-"contacted"?] Odhran, Graeme Wilson asked the family, "Why
should we?"
	Access to the compound was refused and church members were ushered
past the waiting press and ordered not to comment.
	Graeme Wilson maintained to family members that Odhran had
rejoined the church of his own accord - as laid out in a statement to
Surrey police earlier this week. The Fortunes claim Odhran has been
mentally coerced into making the statement.
	Their feelings on Odhran's safety were most adequately summed up
by a family member who commented: "Nil aon tintean mar do thinteain fein".


Family fail to persuade son to return home

After a three-hour stand-off the Fortune family were 'escorted' to London
where they met Odhran in a toilet.


A visibly shaken Wexford family returned home to Gorey yesterday evening
having failed to convince their young sibling to turn his back on a
religious cult last week.
	Fourteen family members and friends of the Fortunes travelled to
the Church of Scientology's headquarters in East Grinstead, West Sussex to
demand a meeting with Odhran 24, who disappeared from work in Gorey last
Sunday night.
	The former restaurant catering student had returned to the cult
having kept his distance from them since December.
	Following a three-hour stand-off in East Grinstead, the immediate
family were ordered to follow a cult car to London. The Fortunes say they
were also "shadowed" by another car from behind before meeting their
estranged relative in a London toilet. Distraught brother Damien told The
Sunday Tribune: "They have total control over him. They can press buttons
to switch him on and off. They have him wound up. he is much more edgy.
Back home he's a different guy."
	Damien met his brother for the first time since his dramatic
disappearance last week from a pub where he worked in Gorey. Odhran had
left all his possessions behind him in Gorey, including spectacles,
clothes and money.
	Damien Fortune described their dramatic meeting in a London
toilet. He said: "I went right over to him and put my arms around him. His
main concern is Scientology. They have him all perked up. You could call
it hypnosis."
	Another brother, Diarmuid was angered that he was refused
permission to meet his brother. "the reason they said was that I was too
aggressive. They're claiming he is a free person and he can make up his
own mind. But yet a senior member told me I was too aggressive to meet
him."
	The family claims Odhran was mentally coerced into returning to
the church. When he returned to Gorey in December a family psychiatrist
said he was too ill to return to the cult.
	His sister Denys explained: "The way things have turned we're
scared. The whole family is distraught. I can't believe his personality
could have changed to much in a few hours." And Denys warned of the
dangers of going through the Scientologists' initiation personality test.
	She said: "A personality test can go on for 30 years. Once you go
in, they'll keep you on the mailing list. Personality tests are disguised
as harmless but it will always turn out negatively. It's just a scam."
	"I'm not going to give up. I can't give up my own flesh and blood.
My love for my brother will not be quenched," she said.