AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM
MARK COLVIN: A warning this story contains some disturbing material.
A Ballarat survivor of clerical sexual abuse has told the royal commission today that ten local victims have committed suicide in the last year.
Andrew Collins gave evidence that when he asked the Bishop of Ballarat for money to help struggling victims he was told the Catholic Church would outlast them.
Another witness told the commission today that it was “inconceivable” that George Pell didn’t know in the 1970s that priests in Ballarat were sexually abusing boys.
Samantha Donovan reports.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Fifty-three-year old Stephen Woods told the royal commission today he was regularly sexually abused by the headmaster of St Alipius Primary School, Father Robert Best. When he moved on to St Patrick’s College Ballarat for secondary school he was abused by Father Edward Dowlan.
Mr Woods gave evidence that as a 14-year-old he decided to report the abuse to a priest. He knocked on the door of the St Patrick’s presbytery. It was opened by Father Gerald Ridsdale, now known to have abused more than 50 children.
STEPHEN WOODS: Within half an hour of talking with Ridsdale in an upstairs room at the presbytery he had me sucking his penis and feeling his ass and he had my pants town. Then he drove me to a set of toilets around Lake Wendouree. He got me out of the car and he dragged me into a cubicle, made me pull down my pants and he anally raped me.
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