But after pushing the horror of the abuse to the back of his mind and getting on with his life it eventually came flooding back, destroying his mental health and eventually costing him his job and home.
Taylor was finally jailed for 13 years in 2022 after Michael reported what he did to him, between the ages of eight and 13, to police in 2019. But before getting justice the now 54-year-old had to endure reliving his ordeal during two "brutal" crown court trials.
And today Michael has bravely waived his legal right to anonymity to lift the lid on the devastating lifelong impact child sex abuse has on victims.
The dad-of-one said: "I had blocked it out and I just tried to get on with my life, then it just exploded out of nowhere. I have had years of absolute hell."
Raised as a devout Catholic, in Walker, Newcastle, Michael and his family regularly attended the St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, on Welbeck Road where Taylor was a priest. When Taylor offered to take Michael on retreat trips to Holy Island his family thought nothing of it and trusted their priest completely.
But it was during one of these trips that the abuse began, when Michael was just eight.
"We were devoted Catholics, we went to the church twice a week," Michael explained. "When I was going to the church he was always there. He would come to the house, he was a family friend."
"When it first happened he took us away to Holy Island. It was a trip away. My mam and dad let us go away and stay the whole weekend. They trusted him because of who he was. He would take us out of my bed and put us in his bed. Every night he used to take us away."
The abuse occurred regularly until Michael was in his early teens. But he kept it to himself.
"I was only eight. I was so young I didn't full understand. I didn't tell anybody. I just put it to the back of my mind," he said. "I tried to tell my mam and dad. I wanted to tell them. I told my mam to ask me. "
In 2009 the Chronicle reported how Taylor had been jailed for two-and-a-half years for indecent assaults on boys committed in the 1980s. Michael says at the time his mum defended the priest.
"My brother came to the house with the Chronicle and told my mam he had been jailed for two-and-a-half years," he said. "She didn't believe it. She was defending him."
Burying his pain deep inside Michael got on with his life. He worked hard driving concrete mixers and became a father.
But in 2019, for reasons Michael will never understand, Taylor's action suddenly began to torment him.
"In 2019 I started having nightmares that I was in his house and he was abusing us," he explained. " I was waking up at 3am in the morning. It just exploded out if nowhere. "I told my brother, I said; 'I'm having nightmares, I'm waking up with a priest abusing us. I feel like I have been abused'."
Michael's brother encouraged him to contact police and Taylor w as eventually arrested and charged. But Michael would face a long wait for justice and went through a harrowing deal as he relived his abuse during two crown court trials after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the first.
"It was absolutely brutal," he said. "They said I would only be on the stand for half an hour, but I was up for five and a half days having to go through it all. It was so brutal I couldn't even say my name. I had never been to court before."
Taylor was found guilty of ten offences of indecency with a child and indecent assault. As he was jailed Newcastle Crown Court heard how the abuse happened in a church vestry in an old convent and during a trip to a football tournament, as well as on Holy Island. Prosecutor Vince Ward said: “These were religious venues where he would have expected to be safeguarded but wasn’t.”
Judge Julie Clemitson sentenced Taylor, of Angel Lane, Alnwick, Northumberland, to 13 years in prison and said he sign the sex offenders register for life. The judge told him he’d had a sexual interest in boys from an early stage in his career, having been ordained in 1977.
And speaking of the assaults Michael endured, the judge told Taylor: "There were so many occasions he can’t recall them. It seems to him there were hundreds of them because it happened so often in various places. He lived with the memories of what happened for decades. He couldn’t tell his parents because they thought so highly of you and it would be devastating for them.
“Throughout this long process you have protested your innocence, saying you had no recollection of him. That clearly can’t be true. His victim impact statement describes the devastating impact your abuse has had for the last 40 years – that’s almost the entirety of his life he has had to live under the shadow of what you did to him as a child.
“He was particularly vulnerable due to his age, where he was – in the vestry on his own and away from home at Holy Island, separated from others in your bedroom. "
Michael said after Taylor was sentenced he collapsed outside crown court.
"I was still in shock," he said. "I just cried. I couldn't stop crying. I had five years of absolute hell."
Yet seeing Taylor punished brought little relief to Michael, who says his mental health has continued to deteriorate. Following the trial he was admitted to the Fellside Ward at St Nicholas Hospital in Gosforth, Newcastle. And he is now living in a hostel after losing his home of 37 years.
"My mental health got worse and worse," he said. "As my mental health deteriorated I was so bad I had two psychiatrists and five psychiatric nurses. They said it was the worst thing they had ever seen. When the psychiatric nurses came to the house I was running round in circles, I said the priest is chasing us."
"I live in a hostel now, I lost my house. I have worked most of my life I was a driver, I used to drive concrete mixers and I had to give up work because of my mental health. It's been terrible.
"Right now the priest is still chasing us."