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Pete Griffiths
Pete Griffiths is an unemployed man who devotes himself almost exclusively to using the media and the Internet in bigoted, falsehood-laden attacks against the Church of Scientology and its members.
Currently living off welfare payments, Griffiths has a history extending back to 1978 of petty theft, not paying bills and defaulting on loans. He has been associated with a handful of anti-Scientologists in the United Kingdom and Ireland for many years and brags about his harassment of Scientologists.
Anonymous is notorious for engaging in campaigns of threats and violence against not only the Church and its members, but a host of other organizations, including businesses and governmental bodies.
In June 2012, Griffiths organized a conference that included members of the cyberterrorist group Anonymous, which he has continued to support.
Anonymous is notorious for engaging in campaigns of threats and violence against not only the Church and its members, but a host of other organizations, including businesses and governmental bodies.
Among many others, Anonymous has conducted cyberterrorist attacks on the Epilepsy Foundation, Sony, the Australian government, the IMF, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and NATO. Against the Church of Scientology and its members, Anonymous made more than 40 death threats, over 55 bomb and arson threats, and more than 100 other threats of violence. Numerous Anonymous members have been caught, arrested and prosecuted for their criminal acts.
Between 2012 and 2014, Griffiths and anti-Scientologist John McGhee regularly harassed Church staff members inside and outside their places of work.
In 2014, Griffiths and McGhee attacked Zabrina Collins and Michael O’Donnell, two Scientologists who were distributing Truth About Drugs booklets in Dublin as part of a Church-sponsored community betterment program to educate young people on the dangers of drugs. The pair were distributing anti-drug educational materials to letterboxes and providing copies of the booklets to local businesses for them to hand out to young people to inform them of the dangers of drugs and drug abuse.
Griffiths and McGhee heckled the two Church members, then moved on to physical assault. While Griffiths goaded McGhee and videoed the event, McGhee grabbed copies of the materials Collins and O’Donnell were distributing and threw them to the ground. He then snatched Collins’ bag of booklets and ran off with them.
Griffiths was ordered to pay Collins and O’Donnell €2,000 in damages. McGhee was found liable and ordered to pay Collins and O’Donnell €3,500.
Collins lodged a police complaint that resulted in an injunction prohibiting Griffiths, McGhee and any of their agents from harassing her or O’Donnell, from assaulting them, from committing battery anywhere in Ireland, and from picketing against either of them outside their homes or the Scientology Mission where they work.
Griffiths was ordered to pay Collins and O’Donnell €2,000 in damages. McGhee was found liable and ordered to pay Collins and O’Donnell €3,500.
Due to the severity of the threat, the judge subsequently made the injunction permanent. Its terms were later amended following Griffiths’ apology and promise of good behavior, with a stern warning from the court that further disruptive and unlawful conduct would be dealt with severely.
