John Sweeney is a reporter for BBC Panorama who became a YouTube sensation when he lost his temper with a senior member of the Church of Scientology. Before joining the BBC in 2001, Sweeney worked for twelve years at The Observer, where he covered wars and revolutions and unrest in more than sixty countries from Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya to Zimbabwe. He has helped free seven innocent people falsely convicted for killing their babies and given evidence against six suspected war criminals in The Hague.
Over the course of his career John has won one Emmy, two Royal Television Society prizes, one Sony Gold award, the What The Papers Say Journalist of The Year Prize, an Amnesty International prize and the Paul Foot Award.
He is the author of eight books, including most recently The Church of Fear - Inside The Weird World of Scientology. His hobby is falling off his bike on the way back from the pub.