Gerald Ridsdale

Gerald Ridsdale
Born
Gerald Francis Ridsdale

(1934-05-20)20 May 1934
St Arnaud, Victoria, Australia
Died18 February 2025(2025-02-18) (aged 90)
Port Phillip Prison, Truganina, Victoria, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Criminal statusDeceased
Convictions
Criminal penalty
  • 12 months' custody with three-month non-parole period
  • 18 years' custody with a three-year non-parole period
  • 13 years' custody with a six-year non-parole period
  • 8 years' custody

Gerald Francis Ridsdale (20 May 1934 – 18 February 2025) was an Australian laicised Catholic priest and prolific sex offender.

He was convicted between 1993 and 2017 of a large number of child sexual abuse and indecent assault charges against 65 children aged as young as four years. 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.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that senior figures in the church, including Cardinal George Pell, knew about Ridsdale's prolific sexual abuse of children but protected him. Ridsdale was ordained at St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat, in 1961. The first complaint about his behaviour towards children was received by the church that same year. Ridsdale held 16 different appointments over a period of 29 years as a priest, with an average of 1.8 years per appointment.

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