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The Psychopath Priest Who Terrorised a Small Town

New Zealand Herald
November 2, 2016

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11740898

Priest Peter Searson in a school staff photograph at Holy Family Primary School. Photo / Supplied

He was a paedophile, a psychopath and a thief who despised women, had a fetish for children and a sneering hatred for the locals of the tiny community.

The creepy Father Peter Searson, who wore his yellow fingernails long and manicured, liked dressing up in an army uniform and carried a pistol he sometimes pointed at parishioners.

He stole A$40,000 from the parish finances, killed or tortured animals in front of children and showed them a dead body in a coffin.

He got children to touch his penis, made them kneel between his legs, loitered around the children's toilets and audio-taped primary schoolers in the confessional box when their admissions became "hot".

Searson was the fifth child-molesting priest sent by the Catholic Church to the working class community of Doveton, 31km southeast of Melbourne.

With his four predecessors - Father Thomas O'Keeffe, Father Wilfred Baker, Father Victor Rubeo and another priest - Searson gave Doveton's Catholic Holy Family congregation a 35-year period of sexual abuse.

But as letters from desperate locals show, it was Searson that tore Doveton apart.

Within just two years of his appointment as parish priest, Doveton's parishioners and parents were so desperate to rid their community of Searson's vile presence, they mounted a petition to remove him.

Dozens of handwritten notes and letters of complaint written to church authorities reveal shocking details of his abuse and Doveton locals' anguish at his continuing presence.

 

 

 

 

 




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