Rev Father Michael Cheah, the parish priest of St Anne's Church in Bukit Mertajam, Penang, said today that he had to endure "very unbecoming behaviour", including severe verbal abuses and threats, at the hands of a couple of disabled persons during a grand church celebration on July 27.

The unfortunate incident which occurred on the evening of the annual St Anne's Feast celebration, has caused a public furore following complaints of mistreatment by the Rawang-based Independent Living and Training Centre.

Last week, six members of the centre, the country's first set-up by a group of disabled persons to help others with the same fate live independently, were allegedly mistreated by Fr Cheah.

The group, led by the organisation's president G Francis Siva, sent copies of their strongly-worded complaint letter to several church elders, including newly-appointed Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Right Rev Murphy Pakiam (photo), and the press.

Others in the group are S Daniel, G Rina, R Murugan, K Saroja and another member known only as Latchumy.

Many witnesses

When contacted at the church's parish house yesterday, Fr Cheah related the incident which he said was witnessed by 50 others, including a senior police officer on duty.

He said the narration of what had actually transpired between himself and the group was misleading and baseless.

"It is not true that they were removed from the church compound, although I could have done that given the fact that they were creating trouble and disrupting the prayers of the congregation," he said.

He said contrary to what the group had stated in their complaint letter, the police had tried to reason with them on his behalf but had also failed.

The group had said the police were "much kinder and understanding" of their situation compared to the priest.

They also accused Fr Cheah of "not introducing himself until much later", of showing hostility towards them, of being rude and raising his voice at them in front of hundreds of worshippers.

"It was they who were rude to me. They were shouting at me, raised their voices, hurled abuses at me, threatened to report me in the press and even pulled rank on me by citing the name of the former Archbishop.

"They behaved in an unbecoming manner when all I did was ask who they were and what they were doing there.

"They could have explained nicely their intention to raise funds during the feast. In fact, there were several other organisations also raising funds that day and we had helped to set up tents for them," he explained, adding that he did introduce himself earlier.

Blocking other stalls

Fr Cheah also denied that members of the group had been manhandled by a church security personnel as claimed in the complaint letter.

He said he had asked several church security personnel and later the police, to reason with the group into moving away because they were blocking the people from reaching other stalls put up by the organising committee.

"Instead, they turned hostile and began shouting loudly that they had every right to be there and that I was mistreating them because they were disabled.

"At one point, I did ask a police officer to remove two of them from the compound because they were most abusive and continued to humiliate me before the huge crowd," he said.

Fr Cheah said he had wanted to lodge a police report at the mobile unit nearby but was told that it would make matters worse, so he changed his mind and went off to finish his work.

"But the truth is, no one manhandled anyone and none of them was removed. All stayed on until 2am."

On claims that he was picking on them because of their disabilities, Fr Cheah said it was totally baseless because as St Anne's parish priest for the last six years, he had made sure that the disabled parishioners were well taken care of during church services.

"We even provide wheelchairs for the needy and the aged. Anyone here can tell you that I am very concerned about disabled persons."

Nine-day celebrations

The 115-year-old church, which hosts the annual St Anne's Feast celebrations every July end, draws tens of thousands of Catholics and pilgrims of other religions from all over the country as well as abroad.

Pilgrims observe the nine-day celebration, which began on July 18, in honour of St Anne, the maternal grandmother of Jesus Christ, by giving thanks and asking for her help to intercede in their prayers.

Meanwhile, the six complainants will be meeting Archbishop Murphy Pakiam on Aug 18 over the matter.

"We want a written apology from Fr Cheah as our members are expecting that, failing which we may also consider action for defamation," said Francis Siva when contacted late yesterday evening.

"All we want is justice and fairness so that other disabled persons won't have to endure what we had gone through. We want to educate people, both learned and otherwise, on how to handle disabled persons."

Two committee members, Frank Lee and Anthony Thanasayan, will be accompanying the group for the meeting with the archbishop.