AUSTRALIA
The Age
March 6, 2016
Carolyn Webb
A Catholic priest whose parish is at the centre of historical sexual abuse allegations has spoken of the burden of living in a possible “crime scene”.
Father Michael Shadbolt, parish priest of Holy Family church in Doveton for 17 years, said he was horrified by allegations that some of his predecessor priests had committed sexual and other assaults on parishioners.
He said he knew Peter Searson in 1996 when both were priests in the area, but he had not known he was a paedophile. “In a way I’m horrified,” Father Shadbolt said. “But I guess also in a sense I’m not surprised because he did seem a very strange personality.”
“I’m possibly living in a crime scene,” he told Fairfax Media before 9.30 Mass on Sunday. “It’s quite sad. Perhaps the presbytery is where some of the crimes were done, I don’t know for sure.”
“I like the house, but since this stuff has come up in the last couple of years, you can’t help have some feelings, that it’s my home but it also has a dark history.”
Searson, a priest at Doveton for 13 years, was stood down in 1997, after being charged with physical assault of two altar boys. He died in 2009.
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