Local priest Connor O’Bullocks is tonight in hiding after admitting that he had a thing for legal-age women. Hordes of angry church-goers have picketed his house with signs saying “get this pervert out” and “we’ll have no hetero clergy skirt-lifters round here thanks”.

“It’s disgusting”, said church-goer Mary Shitpatrick. “To think that the dirty old lech is watching my arse as I leave the church is just wrong. He should be eyeing up the choirboys instead like a normal priest. I’ve been going to this church for years and the thought just makes me shiver. I’ll be converting to Buddhism or something now.”

The crisis was sparked when O’Bullocks, a single man in his forties, admitted to The Gutborough Gazette that he was straight, and looking for a ‘good woman’. At the time, it seemed an innocent, throwaway remark that might curry him a little favour with the community, but it has sparked an all-out revolt against the priest whose position is now considered untenable.

As the papers hit the newsstands, disgusted residents voiced their concerns by organising impromptu coffee mornings and whispering in hushed tones that “something has to be done about the woman-loving freak in the vicarage”. O’Bullocks was initially shunned by residents, but things started getting out of hand when he was spotted having a laugh and a joke with village bike Shirley Gigglesmack.

Archbishop Desmond O’Deir said that the Church had been aware of O’Bullocks’ behaviour for some time now, and that the latest developments were “really bad press for the church”. He continued: “This is not what we want to be known for. A priest fancying women of a legal age? I mean, fancying women is bad enough, but of a legal age? There’s something really fishy about O’Bullocks and we’ll be discussing excommunication and other such things. Maybe then we can get a real priest in Gutborough.”

The graffiti daubed on the side of O’Bullocks’ house proclaims “hands off our women”. It may be some time before O’Bullocks returns.