AUSTRALIA
ABC – 7.30
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 21/05/2015
Reporter: David Mark
Cardinal George Pell is under growing pressure to appear before the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse after allegations he tried to bribe a victim to stay quiet, claims that he denies.
Transcript
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The allegations against Australia’s most senior clergy at the Vatican, Cardinal George Pell, continue to mount at the Royal commission into child sexual abuse.
David Ridsdale, the nephew and victim of notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale, has claimed Cardinal Pell tried to bribe him to stay quiet, something Cardinal Pell denies, saying the two men had a misunderstanding.
Cardinal Pell’s under growing pressure to appear before the commission, as David Mark reports.
DAVID MARK, REPORTER: For David Ridsdale, even returning to Ballarat’s St Alipius is painful.
DAVID RIDSDALE: From the age of 11 and 12, after Gerald did that, I used to have lie and pretend I was going there. I used to stand at the back till some – one of the gossips saw me and then I’d climb that tower up there. And every Sunday, I sat up there for probably four years.
DAVID MARK: For those four years, between the ages of 11 and 15, he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by his uncle, the notorious paedophile and parish priest, Gerald Risdale.
At the age of 25, David Ridsdale finally got up the courage to report his abuse to the most powerful man he knew in the Church, the former Catholic Archbishop of Sydney and Melbourne, George Pell.
DAVID RIDSDALE: At 9 am on 2nd February, 1993, I rang George from my home in Bentleigh. My partner at the time was sitting in the room when I made the call.
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