Priest jailed for inflicting child abuse on 21 children
Gerald Francis Ridsdale is a convicted child molester who abused children while working as a priest. He was born in St Arnaud in Victoria and brought up in Ballarat. In the early 1970’s, Gerald worked at St Alipius Boy's School, as a chaplain.
The priest working with Gerald claimed that he was sent to psychologist in the early 1971, but Bishop Ronald Austin Mulkearns told that no one had any idea of Gerald’s action till 1975. Then the story came out when a parent of a boy claimed that Gerald had molested their son. They even stated that they were unwilling to allow their son to be questioned by the police department and by the time the priest had moved. A police, who was involved in this case, spoke to Mulkearns who had promised to handle on Ridsdale to the department, instead he was moved on again. This time he was moved to Edenhope in Victoria in 1976.
After a three month investigation, the police department came to know that Mulkearns knew everything before Ridsdale admitted about his ugly deeds. He was again shifted to National Pastoral Institute in the year 1980 to Melbourne and in 1981 he was again moved to Sydney. When he was moved on to Horsham in 1986, two residents complained about Ridsdale in 1988. While he was working in New South Wales, he was arrested by the Victoria police because a victim called up and gave a complaint. The arrest happened after three months of the complaint.
Gerald was put to trail on 1993 for the charges of sexually abusing children. Just after a year he was jailed in 1994, when he was found guilty with 46 charges of abusing 21 children over a period of two decades. This guilty person was sentenced to imprisonment for 18 years with a minimum of 15 years. He was again pleaded guilty for 35 charges related to sexual assault against 10 boys. Some of the victims disagreed with the sentence as the culprit was imprisoned with 13 years and minimum of 7 years in the same year.
In 2008, 14 of the victims formed a group with a plea of forming a justice commission to investigate the case.
