Scientology and the BBC: Accusations Fly

May 14, 2007 — -- John Sweeney is famous for confronting despots, championing lost causes and traveling through the streets of Harare, Zimbabwe, in the trunk of a car. But faced with Tommy Davis of the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles, he totally lost his cool.

Today video footage of Sweeney screaming at Davis is on YouTube, taped and posted by the church.

"He can dish out, but he certainly can't take it," Mike Rinder, a spokesman for the Church of Scientology, told ABC News. "The tables got turned on him, and he was the one who ultimately melted down."

Sweeney was "video ambushed" while on assignment for the BBC in Los Angeles to investigate the Church of Scientology and the accusations from some quarters that it is, or was, a sinister cult.

The clip of Sweeney's "meltdown" appeared on the Internet just hours before his documentary "Scientology and Me" was scheduled to air.

"I look like an exploding tomato and shout like a jet engine," Sweeney wrote today on the BBC's Web site. "If you are interested in becoming a TV journalist, it is a fine example of how not to do it."

This is how it happened: Sweeney was wrapping up a seven-day shoot in Los Angeles when Davis approached him to complain angrily that Sweeney had been too easy on an interviewee.

Just inches from Davis' face, Sweeney began to shout with the ferocity of a hair dryer on high. "You were not there at the beginning of that interview," bellowed Sweeney. "You did not hear or record all the interview." Halfway through his rant, Sweeney asked, very calmly, "Do you understand, did you understand that?"

The incident has pitted two powerful institutions against each other. This goes beyond Sweeney vs. Davis. This is the Church of Scientology vs. the BBC.

John Travolta, one of the religion's most high-profile devotees, wrote to the BBC, accusing Sweeney of "personal prejudices, bigotry and animosity." The church is circulating a DVD of its own documentary about Sweeney's investigation to British politicians, and is setting up a Web site called "panorama-exposed."