Australia's most notorious and prolific paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale has died after being in prison for over thirty years. 90-year-old Ridsdale was convicted eight separate times of sexually abusing over 70 known victims, across Victoria.
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00:00It's been confirmed that Rydsdale died in a medical unit of the prison system where
00:06he spent the last three decades of his life.
00:09He leaves an abhorrent legacy of young lives ruined by sexual abuse, as well as serious
00:13questions about the Catholic Church and the lengths that it went to to cover up some of
00:18that offending.
00:19Now, Rydsdale was born in 1934 in the Wimmera region of Western Victoria.
00:24He attended a seminary at the age of about 20, and by about 26 he was ordained a priest.
00:31It was later revealed that some of his earliest offending dated back to about this time.
00:35It wasn't until about the 1960s that a complaint was made to the Catholic Church.
00:40It was then that Rydsdale was shifted from parish to parish about 16 times over the course
00:45of about three decades as various people within the church tried to cover up his crimes.
00:51It was later revealed during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual
00:55Abuse that multiple members of the church were aware of his offending but had allowed
00:59it to continue.
01:00Now, Victoria Police opened an investigation in the early 90s, and in about 1993 Rydsdale
01:06was convicted and sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to dozens of charges related
01:10to 72 individuals, mainly in central and southwest Victoria.
01:15That made him one of the most prolific and most notorious child abusers in the nation's
01:20history.
01:21But victims continued to come forward over the following years, including in about 2023
01:29when he was, as you mentioned, sentenced for an eighth time.
01:32Now, a courtroom in that year heard that Rydsdale was in chronic pain, had atrophying muscles
01:38and weakness of limbs, and was likely to go into palliative care, so he'd been unwell
01:42for some time.
01:43But survivors of his abuse have told, in the wake of the news of his death, have told the
01:47ABC that his death means nothing to them and have urged others impacted by his crimes
01:51to seek help if needed.
01:53The Royal Commission also found that Rydsdale's victims likely stretched into the hundreds
01:57and it's believed that some of those people may have taken their own lives, so there may
02:00be further victims out there in the community over which Rydsdale wasn't offended, and others
02:05who are still alive obviously endure a devastating trauma that lasts to this day.