AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN MAY 26, 2015
AUSTRALIA’s most prolific paedophile priest admitted in a chilling interview after his first conviction that he was unable to control his evil urges.
Gerald Ridsdale said that by the 1980s his decades-long catalogue of sex crimes against children was an open secret as the Catholic Church continued to shuffle him around Victoria.
In a series of letters and interviews published by the royal commission into child abuse sitting in Ballarat, it is revealed church authorities did little to curb Ridsdale’s offending except provide counselling and move him between parishes.
PELL CLAIM ‘EMERGED IN COURT LAST YEAR’
Talking to church investigators in 1994, Ridsdale said at one point while stationed at Mortlake in the 1980s there was no stopping him.
“It was no secret around Mortlake eventually about me and my behaviour; there was talk all around among the children, and one lot of parents came to me,” he said.
“I got out of control again. I went haywire there. Altar boys mainly.”
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