Notorious pedophile Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale pleads guilty to child sexual abuse

Notorious pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale peered through sunken eyes propped up in a prison bed as he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing six more children.

Gerald Ridsdale pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse of six more children at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday. Picture: Geoff Ampt.

Australia’s most notorious pedophile Catholic priest, bedridden and frail, has admitted to the sexual abuse of six more children.

Gerald Ridsdale, 89, appeared weak and decrepit, lying in a bed and with a blanket pulled over him as he appeared remotely from prison at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

Ridsdale pleaded guilty to the sexual penetration of a person between 10 and 16 and indecent assault of six male victims in Inglewood and Mortlake between 1973 and 1981.

Ridsdale was charged by sexual crime squad detectives with 24 sexual offences in March 2022 as part of the same investigation, which related to two male victims in Mortlake in 1981 and 1982.

Pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale pleaded guilty at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday to the sexual abuse of six more male children. Picture: Supplied.

The court previously heard that Ridsdale was in failing health having been hospitalised in March, and may need to enter palliative care.

Ridsdale, who has been locked up since he was 70, was sentenced almost a year ago today for the sexual assault of his 72nd victim, his eighth jail sentence for the abuse of children.

Ridsdale is currently serving an almost 40-year jail term on 192 charges.

Today’s plea will bring his total count of known victims to 78 children.

Magistrate Megan Aumair ordered Ridsdale face the Bendigo County Court again on February 17, 2025.