FOrmer St Stanislaus College boarding student Dallas McInerney who is campaigning to have the Vincentian Order removed from the school in the wake of child sex offence charges against three priests, was once convicted of harassment and described by a police prosecutor as conscientious and over zealous.
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Mr McInerney was fined $1000 and put on a two year good behavior bond when, in 1995, as a 22-year-old electoral office worker for the Member for Sutherland Chris Downy, he made a number of abusive calls to a pizza shop owner who displayed Labor Party posters in his business window during an election campaign.
According to a statement signed by the pizza shop owner, Mr Vince Musico, the calls threatened violence against his staff and were sometimes of a sexual nature.
Sutherland Local Court heard Mr Musico received 10 to 20 calls a day for four weeks and he said they left him feeling unhappy and flustered.
The controversy destabalised Mr Downy’s campaign and prompted then Opposition Finance spokesman, Michael Egan to call for Mr Downy’s resignation. Mr Downy denied all knowledge of the calls which were traced to his office by Telecom.
Mr McInerney has been one of the most outspoken former students who have come forward in relation to the St Stanislaus allegations, speaking at length with police, corresponding with school principal John Edwards and making public claims about unorthodox prayer sessions filled with: “chanting, music, no electric lighting, the whole atmosphere one of sedation”.
It was reported yesterday that he had presented a petition to St Stanislaus Old Boys Association containing the names of 16 other former students who supported his campaign to exclude the Vincentians from the college but according to an Association member the letter contains only four names and no signatures.
The association is seeking legal advice this afternoon about how to deal with the letter.
The three former College priests, Brian Spillane, John Gaven and Peter Dwyer will face Bathurst Local Court on Monday on a number of child sex offence charges.
The offences were alleged to have been committed as far back as 1973.
