"Not Bishop's Job to Report Abuse"

Sky News
May 18, 2015

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/local/melbourne/2015/05/19/-not-bishop-s-job-to-report-abuse-.html

A Ballarat bishop did not think it was his job to tell police about child abuser Gerald Francis Ridsdale, Australia's worst pedophile priest.

Ridsdale is believed to have abused every boy aged between 10 and 16 at the school in the Victorian town of Mortlake, the royal commission looking into abuse by clergy and other members of the Catholic Church in the Ballarat diocese has heard.

Senior counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC said Ridsdale was a prolific offender while parish priest in Mortlake from January 1981.

'There will be evidence that his behaviour around boys was no secret in Mortlake,' Ms Furness said on Tuesday.

Ms Furness said it was not until June 1988 that Ridsdale was suspended for 12 months, 13 years after the Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns first knew that he was sexually abusing boys he met during his work as a priest.

Ridsdale had been at nine parishes and other church locations during that time and abused more than 50 children, she said.

Ms Furness said there is evidence that Bishop Mulkearns removed a psychiatrist's letter from Ridsdale's file and destroyed it.

Ms Furness said there were at least two reports to Bishop Mulkearns about Ridsdale's offending in Mortlake.

Bishop Mulkearns told a Catholic Church Insurances investigator in 1993 that there were complaints of inappropriate behaviour with young children 'so he was taken out of there'.

'Bishop Mulkearns told the Catholic Church Insurances investigator that he did not take it as his position to report Ridsdale to police,' Ms Furness said.

The school principal told investigators that she told Bishop Mulkearns something should be done for the children and he said there would be nothing done because that would admit guilt, Ms Furness said.

Bishop Mulkearns signed a memorandum saying he destroyed the letter from Dr R.E. Seal - dated in the early to mid 1960s - because he thought it was privileged, Ms Furness said,

'He recalled that the letter said that Dr Seal had seen Ridsdale and was confident that, with appropriate care, he could function as a priest in the future,' Ms Furness said.

Ms Furness said despite the fact that Ridsdale continued to offend while receiving counselling, no alternative treatment was sought outside the confines of the Catholic Church.

Ridsdale will give evidence during the three-week Ballarat royal commission hearing.

Royal commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said the evidence from perpetrators may be confronting for some people.

'However without the evidence of perpetrators, the true story of the response of the church in Ballarat may never be completely revealed,' he said.

Ms Furness said Ballarat community members had told of a large number of reported suicides and premature deaths, and significant social, health and mental health issues for survivors.

Ms Furness said Timothy Green, who was abused at St Patrick's College, would give evidence that it was common knowledge among the students in his year that Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan was abusing many of the boys, but it was not discussed.

Mr Green will say it is inconceivable that none of the Christian Brothers, lay teachers, nurses or even some of the parents knew about the abuse by Brother Dowlan.

'It was just so blatantly obvious and every boy in the class knew that their turn was going to come up at some stage.'