Paedophile Gerald Ridsdale Admits Another Priest "May Have Seen Abuse"

By Oliver Milman
The Guardian
May 28, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/may/28/paedophile-gerald-ridsdale-admits-another-priest-may-have-seen-abuse

Gerald Ridsdale gave evidence to the royal commission in Ballarat videolink from jail. Photograph: Royal Commission/AFP/Getty Images

Convicted paedophile Gerald Ridsdale has been questioned over the sexual abuse of a young girl in a house he shared with George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric.

At a royal commission hearing in the Victorian city of Ballarat on Thursday, Ridsdale, who has been in jail for child sex offences since 1994, was asked about a further conviction last year for an assault on a 10 or 11-year-old girl in 1972 or 1973.

The judge in the case remarked in sentencing that “this complainant believes another priest was present for a short time while you were sexually assaulting her and must have been aware of the assault but did not intervene”.

Under questioning from Gail Furness, counsel assisting the royal commission, Ridsdale said he did not remember the incident but accepted he committed the offence and that another priest may have been present.

Asked with whom he was living at the time, Ridsdale said: “Well, I said I didn’t remember any of the priests who were there with me but you tell me that George Pell was there at the same time so I have to accept that, that George Pell was there, but I don’t remember any of the others.”

Pressed further by Furness over which priest was present during the assault, Ridsdale said: “I don’t know because I have said I don’t know who the other priests were there at the same time, except George Pell.”

Pell, who is now a senior cleric at the Vatican, was an assistant priest in Ballarat from 1973 to 1983.

Ridsdale was a Catholic priest who lived in the St Alipius presbytery in Ballarat, a building that had two bedrooms on the top floor. Ridsdale was convicted of committing more than 140 sexual assaults against children as young as four over three decades until the 1980s.

The extent of the Catholic church’s desire to move Ridsdale to other parishes rather than report him to the police was further detailed in the Thursday hearing.

Despite three senior clerics being made aware of Ridsdale’s offending in Mortlake in the 1970s, he was moved to an administrative position in Sydney. Ridsdale told the hearing over a video link from prison that a boy from a prayer group stayed with him during this time.

Ridsdale was then moved to Horsham in Victoria, where he was an assistant priest from 1986 to 1988 and where he committed further offences.

A parent of one of his abuse victims wrote to the local bishop, Ronald Mulkearns, to ask him to ensure Ridsdale would not work with young boys again, the hearing heard.

The parent said she was glad that Ridsdale had been “spoken to” by Mulkearns but added she was not satisfied and that there should be an assurance that Ridsdale be “removed from all contact with young boys.”

Ridsdale, who had been undergoing treatment from the Catholic church, including “relaxation exercises” throughout the 1980s, was then stood down from parish work but then sent for further treatment in New Mexico.

Letters between Mulkearns and the treatment facility raised the possibility of Ridsdale returning to work in some capacity.

During occasionally testy exchanges, justice Peter McClellan, chairman of the royal commission,

also questioned Ridsdale over who had visited him in prison or called him around the time that he gave evidence to the royal commission in private in March.

Ridsdale, under questioning from McClellan, accepted that he should never have been made a priest.

“There should’ve been a better screening process that was much more thorough, psychological process that was much more thorough than what was conducted then,” he said.

“I’m sorry that didn’t happen, it would’ve saved so many others.”

After completing his treatment in New Mexico in 1990, Ridsdale was finally arrested in 1993. He told the hearing that he didn’t commit any offences after returned from the US, leading him to think the treatment had worked.

“I wasn’t locked up, I had opportunities to go to shopping malls or beaches or anywhere and I’m happy to say I didn’t offend in that period,” he said.

The royal commission hearings in Ballarat will conclude on 5 June.