AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Tracy Bowden
David Ridsdale, a high-profile survivor of child abuse who travelled to Rome to watch Cardinal George Pell give evidence to the royal commission, has been accused of not being transparent about his own past as an abuser.
Mr Ridsdale had endured four years of sexual abuse at the hands of his uncle, Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale, but in 1995 was himself charged with two counts of indecently assaulting a young victim.
He pleaded guilty and was placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond, with the magistrate noting that the behaviour was influenced by the treatment he had suffered at the hands of his uncle.
David Ridsdale’s victim was Corey Artz, who has broken his silence after 30 years, joining the hundreds of others who have told their harrowing stories to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
And he wants the man who abused him to be equally open about what happened.
“I am just surprised he gets up there and speaks as he does when he knows of his past, he knows he has done wrong,” Mr Artz told 7.30.
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