Harassment Level Nova Scotia Sexual

Q: As a sex-abuse scandal involving Roman Catholic priests rocks the United States, a burgeoning string of revelations about Canada's shameful history suggests the crime has been just as rampant on this side of the border. Allegations involving a priest who moved from Nova Scotia to Orillia, Ont., expanded over the weekend and the man is now being implicated in pedophile activities with four children detail ?

A: HIGH PROFILE Michael Neville, MacDonald's defence lawyer, said other than the Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olsen murder trials, few Canadian cases have carried such a high profile. His client has been the subject of intense publicity since the media spotlight switched on the case nearly a decade ago. It all began with a $32,000 "payoff" -- a settlement paid by the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall in 1993 to hush up a sexual abuse complaint against MacDonald. The arrangement -- signed off by separate lawyers for the church and the victim -- contained an illegal clause to terminate civil or criminal action. At MacDonald's pre-trial hearing, the attention was focused not on the accused, but on the actions of another individual: The whistle-blowing cop who got it all going. Observers in the courtroom, many of them devoted supporters of the crusading former Cornwall constable, angrily

described the proceeding as the "Perry Dunlop trial." When Dunlop learned the sexual abuse case had been dropped by his own police department, he turned a copy of the complainant's statement over to the Children's Aid Society. The ensuing publicity prompted dozens of alleged victims to contact him with their own stories. Court heard that Dunlop continued to speak with, interview and even guide some of these complainants long after his superiors ordered him to stop and turn over the information he had gathered. Growing distrustful of everyone around him and conducting what has been described in court as a "parallel investigation," Dunlop said his only ally was the media.