Pages

29 May 2015

Full story: How the church concealed Father Ridsdale's crimes

By a Broken Rites researcher
This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Catholic Church harboured this child-abuse criminal - Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale - for 30 years while his superiors and fellow-priests remained silent to protect the church's public image. 
Eventually some of his victims (encouraged by Broken Rites and other investigators) spoke to detectives in the Victoria Police sex-crimes squad. In his four court cases between 1993 and 2014, Ridsdale has been jailed for a minimum of 24 years for assaulting 54 of his victims, but other victims of his have not yet contacted the detectives. This Broken Rites article gives the full background.