Catholic Church allowed evil to prey on western Victoria’s young

It will probably never be known how many young people fell victim to Gerald Ridsdale from the late 1950s to early 1990s.

Gerald Ridsdale leaves the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

It was just after Easter 1988 that Father Gerald Ridsdale knew the game was up. Not for the first time, the Catholic Church had tried to hide its worst sexual abuser in rural Victoria, this time in the small, biscuit-flat western city of Horsham.

Ridsdale, knowing police were on his trail, turned to his priestly colleague and friend, Frank Madden, and declared he was leaving town. “I have to move on,” Ridsdale said. “My past has caught up with me.” He added that he had been offending against children. “I’ll go to jail over this.’’

What Madden couldn’t have imagined was the extent to which the once charismatic ­Father Gerry had torn his way through 10 parishes, abusing probably hundreds of children, eventually being convicted of nearly 140 offences with more than 50 confirmed victims.

The offending was off the charts, the convictions telling only a tiny part of the story, with hundreds of mostly silent and broken victims across western Victoria, NSW and Europe.

When Ridsdale left Horsham on the Western Highway, there was nowhere for him to go. If he headed north he would have ­landed in Mildura, where he had savaged altar boys; same story northeast at Swan Hill; southwest was Edenhope, where he would soon face charges. Ballarat was southeast and he had left his mark there as well.

The Royal Commission into Institu­tional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has delivered unprece­dented ­insights into how the church — ­fuelled by Ridsdale’s criminally negligent bishop, Ron­ald Mulkearns — gave 82-year-old Ridsdale free rein to abuse.

The Weekend Australian has used that evidence to piece ­together the definitive story of one of the church’s worst offenders. More than any other Australian Catholic sex offender, Ridsdale’s abuse between the late 1950s and early 90s has caused deep and relentless embarrassment for Cardinal George Pell, the nation’s most powerful clergyman.

The commission evidence shows that while Mulkearns was the corrupt architect of the decades-long Ridsdale cover-up, he was aided by probably dozens of other Catholic officials or members of the broader Catholic family who directly covered up the offending or failed to take sufficient steps to protect the children. There were possibly hundreds of people who were part of a weird, wider conspiracy of silence and ­inaction that enabled Ridsdale to keep offending in a pattern that became increasingly more vicious and destructive.

Ridsdale is a tough subject for Pell. Pell is a former Ridsdale family friend, he briefly shared a house with the pedophile and, bizarrely, he appeared in court for him in 1993 in a bid to secure a lesser pri­son sentence for the man who exe­cuted a transnational wave of criminality that has shamed the church and, to a lesser but not unimportant extent, Victoria Police.

Until Pell’s rise to the highest echelons of the Catholic Church, the Ridsdale story was largely a tale of abuse by a man dismissed by the church as evil personified. This convenient tag made it easier for the church to dismiss Ridsdale’s offending as the work of the devil, when — in fact — the church and its people were involved in an elaborate cover-up.

As Ridsdale became progressively sicker, more bizarre and brazen, Mulkearns, who died in April this year, simply moved him to another parish or church job.

Pell has only ever played a cameo role in the Ridsdale story. Yet it is his brief interaction with the sex abuser that, more than anything, has earmarked the cardinal for relentless criticism from many of the people of the Diocese of Ballarat, one of the world’s biggest. Pell is not without fault but the Ridsdale story is much broader than him. The commission evidence also shows there were courageous people who tried to blow the whistle, only to be stopped, ultimately, by Mulkearns.

The evidence suggests many senior Catholic figures, police and parishioners were directly ­involved in warning the church hierarchy of an offender in their midst or, more important, were actively involved in the Ridsdale cover-up, including Mul­kearns and Pell’s cousin, Monsignor Henry Nolan, who died in 2007, and others.

Ridsdale was ordained a priest in Ballarat in 1961 by Bishop James O’Collins, who was the first person to cover up the then young man’s offending. When O’Collins died in 1983, Nolan described O’Collins as a man of “deep piety”.

By the time Ridsdale had been ordained he had already offended multiple times, including at a school in Kent, England, and probably before he travelled to Genoa, Italy, in 1960.

In his first years as a priest he sexually abused a boy and was hauled into O’Collins’s ­office in what should have been a career-ending meeting that led to jail. According to Ridsdale, O’Collins said: “If this thing ­happens again you are off to the missions.”

Instead, O’Collins sent the sex offender to Mildura, under the eye of another notorious offender, Monsignor John Day, who is also reputed to have had hundreds of victims and been the bene­ficiary of a Victoria Police protection racket.

Ridsdale gave royal commission evidence that he had abused mainly altar boys while working under Day in Mildura.

In 1966, despite his history, Ridsdale was given another parish, this time at Swan Hill, another River Murray town in Victoria’s northwest.

“`While he was assistant priest of Swan Hill, Ridsdale sexually abused a number of children in ­relation to whom he was subsequently convicted,” counsel ­assisting the commission noted.

Pell followed Ridsdale to the Swan Hill parish about three years after Ridsdale left but gave ­evidence that there had been no ­rumours or evidence of Ridsdale’s offending.

In 1969, having offended in Swan Hill, Ridsdale was moved to Warrnambool, 260km southwest of Melbourne, where he ­offended again. Monsignor Leo Fiscalini, who died in 1995, told Catholic insurers there had been no complaints about Ridsdale’s abuse of children at Warrnambool. But a royal commission witness told the commission he had told Father Tom Brophy, who died in 1974, that Ridsdale had abused him in 1972 while an altar boy. The student, known as witness BWA, was told Brophy had alerted Mulkearns but, again, with no apparent ­action.

The commission noted: ­“According to the transcripts of three CCI (Catholic Church ­Insurance) interviews in the 1990s, Bishop Mulkearns consistently stated that the first complaint he had about Ridsdale was when he was at Inglewood (in central Victoria) in 1975.’’

As the victim numbers started accelerating — with multiple ­official warnings of wrongdoing — Mulkearns moved Ridsdale again, this time to Ballarat East, where he shared a presbytery with Pell for less than a year in 1973.

Pell had worried that Ridsdale had taken boys on overnight camps, questioning whether it was prudent.

By 1974 Ridsdale was moved by Mulkearns to Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road, where he ­offended again, and then it was on to Inglewood after Ridsdale was warned by a drunk that there were concerns among Apollo Bay locals about him abusing children.

Each of the moves was with Mulkearns’s rubber stamp.

In early 1975 probably scores if not hundreds of people were ­already aware of his offending and he was transferred to the parish of Inglewood.

“I had a pool table and it was just known that anyone who wanted to come was welcome to come and play pool. There is no sense in pretending I suppose … it was the trap,” Ridsdale told Catholic insurers.

At the same time, Ridsdale was breaking down. There were trips to psychiatrists; he would start crying when con­fronted with a problem and his ­interactions with adults were ­immature.

By the mid-70s Ridsdale was assaulting any child he could, ­including a policeman’s offspring. Not even that would stop him or spark appropriate action, including a deputation by the force to Mulkearns. It still seems amazing Ridsdale escaped being charged, given the heavy police ­interest, near Bendigo in central Victoria.

Whatever the case, another ­opportunity was lost for Ridsdale to be dealt with. Three days after the Inglewood fiasco emerged, Mulkearns, unbelievably, handed Ridsdale another parish, after — at most — one visit to a church psychiatrist. He ignored the police delegation to his office.

By early 1976, Inglewood was in uproar, Apollo Bay was incensed, the Swan Hill victims were starting to tell their families and, in Mildura, the parishes were burdened with the twin evils of Ridsdale and Day.

Next stop, Edenhope in Victoria’s far west, a small rural town on a large lake 280km west of Balla­rat, populated by a strong Irish Catholic community where the only thing in greater abundance than sheep and rabbits was faith.

Ridsdale, all bluff and bluster, sensed this and swooped. He left behind who knows how many victims, shattered families and bewildered parishioners. But it was also the beginning of the end as one victim would later toll the bell, contact police, and this would lead to the first of many of Ridsdale’s prosecutions.

“Bishop Mulkearns did not place any restrictions or conditions on how Ridsdale should ­operate in Edenhope,’’ counsel ­assisting told the commission. “Returning Ridsdale to a parish without any restrictions or conditions, and without ongoing professional counselling, showed complete disregard for the safety and welfare of the children of (the) Edenhope parish.”

Ridsdale reverted to type, targeting children he believed were vulnerable, inviting them to play eight-ball in the presbytery, pat his goats and learn to drive his ­imported car.

As the months and years wore on, an increasingly emotional Ridsdale was under the gun, as some students spoke openly about avoiding the predator in their midst and the parish grew tired of his bombastic personality.

But by Ridsdale’s standards it was a lengthy appointment — at just over three years.

Mulkearns, a liar who tore up church records to conceal offending, claimed to have never had a complaint from Edenhope.

After a year of study leave, Mulkearns shifted Ridsdale to Mortlake, 120km southwest of Ballarat, where the details are well known. Ridsdale offended against a series of boys at the local school and abused a teenager who had been living with him in the presbytery. The town was in revolt but the church hierarchy did not care.

“It is submitted that by the time Ridsdale commenced his appointment as parish priest of Mortlake at the end of January 1981, Bishop Mulkearns knew of allegations that he had sexually abused young people while parish priest of Edenhope only a couple of years ear­lier,” counsel assisting has sub­mitted. “Despite this knowledge, Bishop Mulkearns did not impose any conditions on how Ridsdale should conduct himself as parish priest of Mortlake.”

Admitting that he was “out of control”, Ridsdale said: “It was no secret around Mortlake eventually about me and my behaviour; there was talk all around the place. Amongst the children and one lot of parents came to me.”

One witness, BAI, told of ringing Mulkearns’s office amid concerns about her son.

Father Brian Finnigan, the bishop’s secretary, responded that there was no cause for concern.

The commission rejected Finnigan’s evidence that he thought that BAI and her husband would follow up with Mulkearns: “It is submitted that Father Finnigan’s response to Mrs BAI’s query in 1981 that there was no need for concern and that there had been no reports of improper behaviour was dishonest and reckless to the future safety of her son and other children in Mortlake.”

Witness BPF revealed that she and her husband drove to a nearby town to complain to the diocese’s vicar-general, Fiscalini.

Ridsdale eventually ­was removed but possibly up to nine months after complaints flooded into the church hierarchy.

The commission is expected to find that Mulkearns lied about the presence of a teenage boy, Paul Levey, in Ridsdale’s presbytery.

In the end, the whole town seemed to know something was wrong and Sister Patricia Vagg rang Mul­k­earns to suggest that Ridsdale was offending again. “Probably is,’’ was the Mul­kearns response.

The commission counsel also have taken a big swipe at Pell’s cousin, Nolan, ­accusing him of having been evasive in the past and minimising his own involvement and responsibility for the events in Mortlake.

For Ridsdale, with dozens more victims, it was never mind. The church was about to shunt him to NSW.

By the end of 1982, Mulkearns had brokered a deal to send Ridsdale to the Catholic ­Enquiry Centre in Sydney, with Mulkearns telling Cardinal ­Edward Clancy at a bishops conference in 1983 that Ridsdale had sexual problems, was under professional treatment and had come to Sydney to get away from the problems in Victoria. The original deal was struck with Cardinal James Freeman, who died in 1991.

A complaint eventually was lodged about Ridsdale jiggling two kids on his knees at the CEC and, at the beginning of 1986, a local priest went ballistic after discovering a boy had stayed overnight at the CEC at the behest of Ridsdale.

Another move, another Ridsdale-Mulkearns debacle.

In May 1993 Ridsdale was convicted of sexual assault for the first time, against eight young victims in ­Inglewood and Edenhope, followed by convictions for 46 off­ences involving 21 victims between 1961 and 1982.

In 2006 he was convicted of a further 35 counts of child sex abuse offences between 1970 and 1987, and sentenced to 13 years’ jail. In 2014 he was convicted of a further 30 charges against 14 people between 1961 and 1980. The likelihood is that Ridsdale will never be released.

Pell, meanwhile, is fighting the commission to the bitter end over whether he knew that Ridsdale was shifted from Mortlake, with his support, because of Ridsdale’s sexual offending. The cardinal was one of a team of consultors who helped ratify Mulkearns’s decision to send Ridsdale to Sydney. Pell insists he had no idea Ridsdale was a serial sexual abuser when the matter was discussed by the consultors, although at least three other consultors, it seems, were aware of the criminality.

This issue will become a centrepiece of the debate when the Royal Commission into ­Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hands down its findings, probably next year, into what it believes happened in the diocese of Ballarat.

If Pell, as his closest supporters expect, is not charged for sexual wrongdoing, it seems inevitable that the royal commission still will come down hard on the Vatican’s third most senior official.

But when the Ridsdale history is finally written, it will be clear that the ultimate responsibility for Ridsdale lies first with Mulkearns and second with O’Collins.

It seems incredible, also, that police failed to swoop until decades after the first offending, leaving many cases to rot.

There probably has never been a graver injustice against children in modern Australian history.