LONDON (ONTARIO, CANADA)
The London Free Press
Published on March 8, 2018; Updated March 13, 2018
By Jane Sims
Pedophile priest gets unfettered access to boy, because mother saw him as good influence
All she wanted was a positive male role model for her nine-year-old son.
Instead, the single mother got parish priest David Norton, a sexual predator.
The facts supporting the sexual interference conviction of Norton, 72, a retired Anglican priest and former instructor at King’s University College, describe mentoring, grooming and then assaults.
Norton pleaded guilty a week ago to sexual interference involving the boy, now 34, who kept the abuse a secret until other charges involving children were laid against Norton in 2015.
While those charges are heading to trial in April, Norton has admitted to the abuse of his young charge from St. Mark’s church in London, where Norton had served as priest.
Assistant Crown attorney Chris Heron told Superior Court Justice Lynne Leitch the relationship between priest and boy, whose identity is protected by court order, began in 1991. The boy’s mother saw Norton as “a role model.”
For the next four years, Norton and the boy were often alone at the priest’s house, the boy’s house, in Norton’s camping trailer or his 1986 grey Mazda truck.
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