By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
TOORADIN’S Caravan Park manager has vehemently denied claims that he has an agreement with the Australian Government to house parolees.
Gavin Richter has managed the popular tourist park for more than two years and said the rumour “would have had to have lost him some customers”.
“These rumours have been put up on community notice boards, but full respect to the organisers who have taken them down,” Mr Richter said.
Gossip about lewd crimes occurring at the caravan park has been surfacing for many years, but since Mr Richter arrived at the park, new rumours regarding parolee residents have spread.
“It all started from one woman who claims to have been told by a police officer that we have a contract from the government to take parolees straight from prison, and it’s completely untrue,” Mr Richter told Star News.
At a community forum in Tooradin on Wednesday 24 February, Mr Richter attempted to set the record straight.
“I said ‘where are you people getting this information’ and they said its common knowledge.”
But Mr Richter said: “Nobody had a bad word to say about me, except for a few dozen jokers.”
“It’s an enormous rumour, I was told by someone who lives in Philip Island, and he told me about it before I told him.”
The park currently holds about 50 full time residents including children.
