This week, Southborough Police arrested resident David Parry on charges stemming from showing a pornographic video to minors.
Today, the former Selectman posted a comment on this blog claiming that the incident was a mishap with his new phone.
As I posted on Wednesday, the Southborough Police press release states that two juveniles reported that:
the [elderly male] approached them; tried to engage them in a conversation; and then proceeded to show them a pornographic video on his cell phone.
Parry’s comment confirms that the incident involved students from St. Mark’s School:
This is what happens — when you make a perfectly innocent mistake — by opening a new and complicated folding cellphone, in front of someone else, and you punch in an array of buttons and then you see you-know-what, and you immediately hide the phone and you feel embarrassed and apologize … but to make matters worse, you can’t get rid of the annoying image for several seconds, no matter which buttons you press. When you are 80 years old, these phone-computers can be a nightmare to operate.
Fortunately I can prove this was an unfortunate accident, and this will be explained in court in future. It’s a long legal process.
I apologize to the St Mark’s students once again.
Based on the Westborough District Court judge’s instructions that MetroWest Daily News covered in their article yesterday, it appears the incident occurred at Southborough House of Pizza. The paper had reported:
[David Parry] was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and any recommended treatment; have no contact with any minors and no unsupervised contact with minors in his home; to stay away from the Southborough House of Pizza and St. Mark’s School; and to stay away from all schools and parks.
He was also ordered to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet.
The 80 year old resident was a member of the Southborough Board of Selectman from 1995-2004. He has continued to be a vocal participant in Town politics, including posting comments and letters on this blog and bringing Citizen Petition Articles to Town Meetings. In 2014, 2017, and again this spring he campaigned to return to the board.
In a separate email this afternoon, Parry wrote that he would prove his innocence.
