HOLDING hands with a young man and laughing with friends, Suri Cruise looks like any other 18-year-old student enjoying her prom.
But there was no proud dad to send her off to the big night in New York because her movie star father Tom was thousands of miles away in London.
It isn’t a matter of geography or work schedules, though, that seem to be keeping the Top Gun actor from witnessing his daughter’s milestones.
Insiders say the 61-year-old hasn’t seen Suri for 11 years, missed her 18th birthday in April and won’t be there when she leaves home for university.
If that is true, the Hollywood actor will also likely not get to see her rumoured romance with budding musician Toby Cohen, the lad on her arm at LaGuardia High School’s leavers’ ball on Tuesday.
The source of Tom’s reported heartbreaking estrangement is said to be his devotion to the Church of Scientology.
Karen De La Carriere — who used to be married to former president Heber Jentzsch — claims the organisation “wants only to break up families”.
As soon as Suri’s actress mum Katie Holmes, 45, decided to divorce Tom in 2012, and to keep the couple’s only child from the secretive organisation’s iron grip, their relationship was at risk.
By splitting from Tom, Scientology’s most high-profile follower, Katie was considered someone who needed keeping away from other followers.
Investigative journalist Tony Ortega, who has been delving into the workings of the church for 29 years, claims: “When Katie split up with Tom any normal Scientologist would be told she is considered a suppressive person — an enemy of the church.
“And Suri, being connected to Katie, would be considered a PTS — potential trouble source.
“Tom would be expected to disconnect from them and not have anything to do with them.”
It was all very different when Suri was born in 2006, and a photo of Tom beaming down at his baby daughter soon featured on the front cover of Vanity Fair magazine.
The little one led an indulged life, with an entire wing of her parents’ Los Angeles mansion to herself and a personal chef on call at all times.
For her second birthday, Suri’s sole wish was to “wear a butterfly dress”.
Her parents took her simple request much further, splashing out £60,000 on a party for just 24 guests which included a four-tier cake and the release of hundreds of live butterflies.
By the age of three, Suri was named Hollywood’s Hottest Tot by the respected Forbes magazine and had a designer wardrobe worth £2million.
Tom would often be spotted cuddling and kissing his precious daughter in public.
There was nothing, it seemed, that the Mission: Impossible star would not do for her.
Katie, though, who was brought up as a Christian, is said to have developed increasing doubts about the ways of the Scientology church that she was expected to follow.
She saw Tom’s adopted children Connor, 29, and Isabella, 31, from his previous marriage to film star Nicole Kidman, 57, growing up in what some former members say is a highly controlling religious group.
Followers of the church are expected to tell senior figures everything they have done wrong in life — even when they are children.
Investigative journalist Tony alleges: “There is an interrogation tailored just for children in Scientology. The very first question is, ‘What have you been told not to tell us? What have your parents told you not to tell us?’.
“I think Katie saw that and didn’t want it for her child.”
It has been claimed children are put through this “confessional auditing” from the age of six.
They are hooked up to equipment similar to a lie detector and their answers recorded on video. The church has insisted that any form of “auditing” does not begin until a member is aged 12.
It is, though, perhaps no coincidence that Katie filed for divorce from Tom after six years as man and wife — around the time Suri turned six.
Katie, best known for appearing in the American teen TV series Dawson’s Creek, left the family home in California and moved to the opposite coast in New York.
The big Apple is a long way from Scientology’s two main bases — the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles and Clearwater, in Florida.
Katie, who never remarried and has no other children, was granted sole custody of Suri.
The couple’s divorce, the terms of which were not made public, included a reported generous £315,000 a year for their daughter’s upbringing.
And Katie has tried to make sure those huge sums did not turn the youngster into a spoiled brat.
She said in 2010: “She has to make her bed, she has to take her dishes to the sink, she has to put her clothes in the laundry.”
Suri has kept herself out of the spotlight, shunning social media and preferring to cycle or walk around New York rather than attend glitzy events.
Katie said last year: “What has been really important for me with my daughter, because she was so visible at a young age, is I really like to protect her.”
After Suri graduates LaGuardia High, on which the 1980 movie Fame was based, she is expected to go to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study design.
Tom has denied cutting his daughter out of his life.
In 2013 he sued the publisher of two magazines he felt had implied that he had “abandoned” her.
Tom also insisted Scientology was not to blame for the break-up of his marriage to Katie.
Yet while he has not been seen in public with Suri for years, that is not the case with his other two children, who he was pictured with in December.
Isabella, who spends much of her time in London, and Connor, who is believed to reside at a Scientology complex in Florida, were all smiles at a hockey game between Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.
They are both said to remain involved with the church, just like their father.
Their mum Nicole is no longer a part of Scientology, but she is still in contact with them.
There were suggestions that, these days, Tom is less dedicated to the organisation founded by the late L Ron Hubbard in 1954.
But journalist Tony reports that the actor attended an annual gala at the church’s former headquarters in East Grinstead, Surrey, last November.
Fellow Scientologists posted selfies with the film star at the historic Saint Hill Manor.
Tony says: “Tom flew to it in his helicopter. He was pressing his flesh with Scientologists and they allowed them to post those selfies, which they don’t normally do. I don’t know what he has to do to prove he is the most devoted Scientologist in the world.”
In recent months Tom has been filming Mission: Impossible 8 in the UK, which could have stopped him being there for Suri’s birthday and prom.
But Karen De La Carriere agrees with Tony that the church would have wanted to keep the star from his daughter.
Karen, a key member for 35 years until she left in 2010, insists: “By strict doctrines, Tom cannot engage or connect with his own daughter.
“Scientology has no scruples or ethics on loyalty to family and wants only to break up families.
“Scientology first, family priorities low down in the order.”
The Sun contacted the Church of Scientology, which declined to comment.
