Rome Meeting for Priest and His Sex 'Victim'
The Lancashire Evening Post
A man who claims to have been sexually abused by a senior priest in Preston came face to face with his attacker in Rome, a court has heard. Stephen Shield, 53, denies three counts of indecent assault against the man - who had dreams of joining the priesthood - more than two decades ago. Shield trained in Rome and spent some time at English Martyrs Church in Garstang Road, Preston, where two of the offences were alleged to have taken place. The man told the court he had been targeted by the priest several years earlier at a retreat centre in the Lake District. Rachel Grimshaw, a friend of the victim, said she had spent time with him at a retreat centre outside Rome. During their time there, the man - who can not be identified for legal reasons - confided in her about the abuse he had suffered at the hands of Shield. Miss Grimshaw recalled an evening when a group was returning to the retreat in a minibus after a day trip to Rome. She told the court: “We were just leaving at the end of the day and we were pulling away from the English College down a side street. “I can remeber the late sun coming down the side street and a man appeared - I assumed him to be a priest. “He had elderly women with him. He came down the side street. I could tell they had spent the day in Rome. They looked exhausted. “He came across, straight in front of us.” Miss Grimshaw said the driver wound is window down and spoke to Shield who then glanced into the bus and spotted the complainant. She said: “(The man) leaned over my shoulder and said ‘that was him’. “He meant the man who had shown aggressive sexual attention to him.” At the end of their trip to Rome, the group ran into Shield again at the airport. Miss Grimshaw described her friend as being nervous and afraid of Shield.
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