Pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale sentenced to additional three years in jail

Gerald Ridsdale will spend a further three years in jail following sentencing for his most recent horrific charges.

Gerald Ridsdale.

Australia’s most notorious pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale will spend a further three years in jail following sentencing for his most recent horrific charges including abusing one boy while having him read the Bible.

Ridsdale, 85, pleaded guilty this year to 14 sexual offences committed on four young male victims in the years spanning 1970 to 1979.

He now is known to have committed 179 sexual offences between 1961 to 1988 to about 69 known victims.

It was common for Ridsdale to befriend his victims’ devout Catholic families.

One of his latest victims was abused at his home approximately 25 to 30 occasions and also while on holiday with Ridsdale, waking up to being assaulted.

County Court judge Gerard Mullaly on Thursday said the second victim also had a family active in the Catholic Church, giving Ridsdale “unfettered and trusting access to the victim”.

The boy was seven-years-old when Ridsdale would put the boy on his lap in the driver’s seat of his parked car and fondle him.

“All this was committed under the pretence of some religious education as you had him read or you read the bible to the victim in the car at the time,” Judge Mullaly said.

A third victim’s family was again befriended by Ridsdale who would occasionally administer confession to members of the family at their home.

“Conveniently for you confession was religious sacrament conducted in private and you heard the third victim’s confession in his parent’s bedroom,” Judge Mullaly said.

“With utter hypocrisy, as you heard his confession, you leant over and took his penis out of his pants masturbating him to ejaculation.”

This victim was also abused while staying overnight with his brother at the church presbytery. On one evening the boy woke to Ridsdale abusing him.

“Then as he lay there in pain, you said to him ‘don’t you tell anyone anything, they won’t believe you over a priest’,” Judge Mullaly said.
“It was a threatening assertion that you knew to be or likely be true at that time.”

The boy’s brother was also abused. In a joint victim impact statement, their parents said learning of the abuse was shocking and sickening.

“They say that they trusted their beautiful children to you without question, but now they, wrongly, are made to feel guilty for not being more vigilant,” Judge Mullaly said.

“They still struggle daily with a feeling of guilt. They are not to blame, only you are.”

Judge Mullaly said Ridsdale was in a position of great trust and comprehensively breached that trust for victims, parents and wider community, both adherents to Catholicism and otherwise.

“It is corrosive causing people to have less trust even of decent members of religious communities,” he said. “It tarnishes us all as what is revealed is that the important societal values of protecting the young and vulnerable have been so blithely attacked.”

Judge Mullaly said Ridsdale took “vulnerable children and you simply used them and violated them for your perverse sexual gratification”.

He said Ridsdale was trusted to deal with the victims in conformity with the tenants of his religion, be a model of moral integrity, and instead was an utter hypocrite for abusing children when they sought comfort.

“You knew what you were doing was profoundly wrong and harmful, but you kept doing these things to these children over and over,” he said.

“It seems you knew no boundaries or had any sense of restraint.”

Judge Mullaly said Ridsdale was now insightful, remorseful and did not present a risk to the community given his advanced age. However Judge Mullaly said there was a need for Ridsdale to be further punished and added three years to his non-parole period.

Ridsdale’s earliest release date will now be 8 April 2025, when he is 90-years-old and his sentence will expire on 1 September 2031.