AUSTRALIA
Sky News
Stephen Woods stood up to get a closer look at the 81-year-old in the dark green prison jumper on the screen.
The priest who had raped the 14-year-old after he had gone to him for advice about his sexuality was no longer two to three times his size.
‘When I stood up and looked at him, he was my size,’ Mr Woods said of seeing Gerald Francis Ridsdale.
‘This time I wasn’t a kid, I was a man.
‘I saw him and I thought, You know, you’re not so powerful any more’.’
Mr Woods hasn’t seen Ridsdale since the second of his four court cases, when he was jailed in 1994 for 18 years for abusing Mr Woods and 20 other victims.
Though hurt that Ridsdale doesn’t remember the names of any of his victims, Mr Woods is focused on the child sex abuse royal commission uncovering the full story behind the widespread abuse by clergy in the Ballarat diocese.
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