AUSTRALIA
The Standard
By JARROD WOOLLEY May 22, 2015
AUSTRALIA’S worst paedophile priest admits he went “haywire” during an 18-month stint at Mortlake, evidence tendered to a royal commission has revealed.
It shows Ridsdale first realised he “needed help” during his time in Warrnambool in the 1970s and that he spoke to a psychologist at the Brierly Mental Hospital during a visit to give communion to patients.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been told that Ridsdale later molested up to 30 boys at Mortlake’s St Colman’s Primary School while he was parish priest between 1981 and 1982.
Transcripts of interviews between Ridsdale and Catholic Church Insurance investigators have been tendered to the commission during hearings in Ballarat which began this week.
The commission aims to discover who was responsible for moving the disgraced priest from parish to parish, allowing him to continue to offend, and why. Ridsdale is expected to give evidence via video link from prison next Wednesday.
Ridsdale told investigators he was molested as a young child and before entering the seminary he “had a big problem with masturbation”.
He first remembered “having the guts” to speak up during a stay in Warrnambool.
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