AUSTRALIA
Radio Australia
Child sexual abuse inquiry: Paedophile Gerald Ridsdale continued on as priest despite bishop’s warning, royal commission hears
By court reporter Peta Carlyon
One of Australia’s most notorious paedophiles, Gerald Ridsdale, was allowed to continue on as a priest despite a bishop receiving a complaint about him in his first year, the child sexual abuse royal commission is told.
The elderly Ridsdale is giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse in Ballarat via video link from Ararat prison, where he is serving an eight-year sentence for the rape and abuse of children.
He was quizzed at length about whether or not people were warned about his offending tendencies as he was moved between schools around western Victoria, in the 1960s and 70s.
Ridsdale told the inquiry he remembered receiving a warning from a bishop over an incident involving a boy in Ballarat.
“The first complaint that ever came in was in my first year as priest,” he said.
“I remember going in a room and fondling him, and putting my hand down his trousers, it would have been a fairly brief kind of thing.”
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