Casey McCann

Michael Thomas M. Casey McCann (–2000), commonly known as Casey McCann or M. T. M. Casey McCann, was an anti-cult activist in Britain, Sevenoaks School school master in Kent, and headmaster of St. Paul's British School in São Paulo, Brazil. He is well-known for his co-leadership in Family, Action, Information, Rescue (FAIR) in the 1980s with Lady Daphne Vane.

In 1943, McCann was born in Wexford, Ireland. His mother was Irish Catholic and his father was a British Anglican. He studied economics at Trinity College Dublin. In 1965, he moved to London to conduct research, and lived there for at least 20 years. Soon after, McCann accepted a position at St. Paul's British School in São Paulo, Brazil. On 28 February 2000, a maid discovered McCann dead in his apartment in São Paulo; he was likely murdered after a sexual encounter with a man of unknown identity.

Family, Action, Information, Rescue (FAIR) and anti-cult activity

McCann first became involved with anti-cultism in 1980 when two students joined the Unification Church in San Francisco, California, while on summer holiday.

In November 1981, McCann created a list of British academics who wished to attend a scientific conference in Seoul, South Korea, called the Tenth International Conference for the Unity of the Sciences. The names became public in an early day motion—for which Conservative MP for Gravesend Timothy Brinton motioned—in the House of Commons. Those listed included Professors R. V. Jones, Antony Flew, J. W. Pringle, and Sir Hans Krebs. Professor Jones, in a letter to The Times 's editor, wrote that he was erroneously put on the list since he refused the last three invitations he received from the International Cultural Foundation, an organization founded by Sun Myung Moon that organized the conferences. Others, like Professors Flew and Kenneth Mellanby, attended the conference and discussed the issue of the Unification Church brainwashing British students and sending them to the United States, which the professors believed was not an issue anymore since the American branch of the Unification Church took measures to allow or encourage British students to return to Britain to continue their education and see family.

McCann supported the measures detailed in the Cottrell Report, a report from the European Parliament's Committee on Youth, Culture, Education, Information and Sport with MEP for Bristol Richard Cottrell as rapporteur, released as a working document on 2 April 1984. One of the recommendations of the Cottrell Report was requiring new religious movements to report the whereabouts or address of individual members, which some have criticized as infringing on religious freedoms. McCann, however, believed that these proposals were voluntarily on behalf of the new religious movements and were not intended to be legislative. Olieveira found him bound at the hands and feet on his bed, and he was dressed only in his underwear. São Paulo police investigated the death as a murder case. Neighbors and a coffee shop owner identified a man with whom McCann had sexual encounters as a potential suspect; however, this suspect was never identified and the case is unsolved.