Paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale charged with historic sex crime against boy
Australia’s most prolific paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale – currently jailed for abusing 71 victims – is set to plead guilty to another historical sex crime.
Police & Courts
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Australia’s most prolific paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale has indicated he will plead guilty to another historical sexual crime.
The 88-year-old fronted the Ballarat Magistrates’ Court on Thursday after he was charged with one count of indecent assault in November last year.
According to a charge sheet released by the court, the offending occurred between July 1987 and May 1988 at St Brigid’s College, which fell within the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.
Police allege the boy, who cannot be named, was indecently assaulted by Ridsdale at the Horsham school when he touched his genitalia with his hand.
No further details of the crime were aired in court.
His defence lawyer Prue Healy, from Victoria Legal Aid, told the court her client was seeking a date for a plea hearing.
The depraved child predator phoned into the mention from his prison cell, where he is serving a nearly 40-year sentence for abusing 71 victims.
The sex offender has been in prison since 1994 with multiple additional prosecutions increasing his jail term.
He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in October after he pleaded guilty to 13 sexual offences against two brothers while he was their priest at St Colman’s Catholic Church in Mortlake in the early 1980s.
He was told at that court appearance that he is “overwhelmingly likely” to die in jail.
The court heard he spends most of his time in “constant pain” at his cottage-style accommodation either bed-bound or in his wheelchair.
Ridsdale, if alive, will be eligible for parole as a 92-year-old in April 2027 but he could be sentenced to further time behind bars after he formally pleads guilty to indecent assault.
He will return to court for a two-hour plea hearing on June 22.
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