30 Facts About Gerald Ridsdale

The majority of the offences occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s while Ridsdale worked as a school chaplain at St Alipius Primary School, a boys' boarding school in the Victorian regional city of Ballarat.

Gerald Ridsdale was ordained at St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat, in 1961.

Gerald Ridsdale held 16 different appointments over a period of 29 years as a priest, with an average of 1.8 years per appointment.

Gerald Ridsdale was born at St Arnaud in central Victoria and grew up in Ballarat.

Gerald Ridsdale worked at St Alipius Primary School, Ballarat, a boys' boarding school, from 1971, where he was a chaplain.

One parent said Gerald Ridsdale had molested their son, but they were reluctant to let the boy be questioned by police, and the priest had moved.

Gerald Ridsdale returned to Australia after nine months and was appointed chaplain at St John of God Hospital in Richmond, New South Wales, on the northwestern outskirts of Sydney.

In May 1993, Gerald Ridsdale was charged on summons in the Melbourne Magistrates Court with 30 counts of indecent assault against nine boys aged between 12 and 16 between 1974 and 1980.

George Pell, then an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, testified before the 1993 hearing that he and Gerald Ridsdale had shared a clergy house together while Pell was an assistant priest at St Alipius' Church with Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s.

Gerald Ridsdale pleaded guilty to 46 charges of abusing 20 boys and one girl between 1961 and 1982.

Gerald Ridsdale was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment with a minimum of 15 years, to be served cumulatively with the previous sentence.

In 2006, Gerald Ridsdale pleaded guilty to 35 charges relating to indecent assault against 10 boys between 1970 and 1987 in Bacchus Marsh, Ballarat, Warrnambool, Edenhope, Horsham and Mortlake.

Gerald Ridsdale was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment with a minimum of seven years, three years of which was ordered to be served concurrently.

In 2013, weeks before Gerald Ridsdale was eligible for parole, Gerald Ridsdale was charged with an additional 84 offences against 14 victims committed between 1961 and 1981.

Gerald Ridsdale pleaded guilty to 29 counts committed between 1960 and 1980 and asked for a further 27 counts to be taken into consideration at sentencing.

On 13 April 2017, Gerald Ridsdale pleaded guilty to a further 20 offences against 10 boys and a girl.

Gerald Ridsdale was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment, with five years cumulative.

One of the victims told the court she was abused numerous times by Gerald Ridsdale, including being assaulted on the altar of a Ballarat church, while another victim said that Gerald Ridsdale abused him hundreds of times.

BAQ was a pupil at St Alipius Boys' School, Ballarat where Gerald Ridsdale served as the school's chaplain.

Gerald Ridsdale was serving a 36-year jail sentence at Ararat Prison for abusing close to 70 victims, and died in prison on 18 February 2025, at the age of 90.

In 2008, fourteen of Gerald Ridsdale's victims formed a group to lobby the Department of Justice for an independent justice commission to investigate how victims were paid varying amounts of compensation by the Catholic Church.

Gerald Ridsdale gave evidence over two days by videolink from prison, detailing his memories of his abusing.

The royal commission was told that Bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew in 1975 that Gerald Ridsdale had abused boys but Mulkearns had done nothing to stop the abuse from occurring.

When Levey's parents were going through marriage problems, Gerald Ridsdale became a regular visitor to their house, offering to help.

Gerald Ridsdale took Levey to White Cliffs, New South Wales, where the priest would fossick for opals and began abusing the boy.

When Levey's parents divorced, Gerald Ridsdale took him, aged 13, to live with him in the presbytery at Mortlake.

The commission heard evidence that Bishop Mulkearns was among a number of clergy who knew Gerald Ridsdale had a boy living with him but failed to intervene.

On 7 May 2020, it was revealed that the royal commission report found that Pell knew about the abuse committed by Gerald Ridsdale and that when he was a member of the Diocese of Ballarat's college of consultors he deliberately took part in the effort to cover it up by approving Gerald Ridsdale's transfer from the Mortlake parish near Ballarat to Sydney in 1982.

Doubt was cast on how David Gerald Ridsdale interpreted the conversation.

Blacker was nine years old and Gerald Ridsdale had been abusing children in Ballarat for at least 20 years prior.