A paedophile priest has admitted sexually assaulting six more boys from his prison bed, bringing the total of known victims to 78.
Gerald Ridsdale, 90, appeared in Bendigo Magistrates Court via video link to plead guilty to eight additional charges of sexually assaulting the children.
The frail paedophile admitted sexually penetrating a person aged between 10 and 16 and indecently assaulting six male victims.
The crimes were committed in the rural Victorian towns of Inglewood, Ballarat, Apollo Bay, Horsham and Mortlake between 1973 and 1981.
“I am guilty,” Ridsdale told Magistrate Medan Aumair on Wednesday, 9News reports, marking the seventh time he has admitted to historical sexual assaults.
Ridsdale abused boys between 1961 and 1988 while working as a Roman Catholic priest in churches and schools across the state.
The pedophile is currently serving a maximum sentence of 40 years for a series of crimes that, if he lived long enough, would land him in prison for up to 100 years.
He is scheduled to appear in court again on February 17, 2025 for a plea hearing.
Paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale (pictured), 90, pleaded guilty to eight further historic cases of sexual assault against six boys between 1973 and 1981.
Ridsdale was ordained at St Patrick’s Cathedral in his hometown of Ballarat in 1961, the same year the church received its first complaints about sexual misconduct.
During his 29 years as a priest, he held 16 different positions and was often transferred by the Church when new complaints were revealed.
It was not until 1993, when Ridsdale was arrested while working at St John of God Hospital in Richmond, New South Wales, that the extent of his crimes was revealed.
The following year he pleaded guilty to 30 counts of indecent assault against nine boys aged between 12 and 16 between 1974 and 1980.
Ridsdale faced trial just weeks into his 12-month sentence and pleaded guilty to 46 counts of abusing 20 boys and one girl between 1961 and 1982.
A guilty plea would mean an additional 18 years in prison.
Ridsdale has been found to have assaulted 78 victims over 19 years as a priest (pictured) in churches and schools in western Victoria between 1961 and 1988.
He would later admit to 108 more charges in four guilty pleas between 2006 and 2023, and on the last occasion was told he would “probably die” behind bars.
One of his victims told the County Court of Victoria in 2017 that he had assaulted her at the altar of a Ballarat church.
Another victim, who was a nine-year-old boy at the time, said Ridsdale told her God would punish her family if she told anyone.
A government investigation into child sexual abuse that same year concluded that his frequent moves were evidence that the Church was covering up his crimes.
The investigation found that the late Australian Cardinal George Pell, who became the Vatican’s third-most senior cleric in 2014, knew Ridsdale had been sexually abusing boys years before his arrest.
Pell, who had a close relationship with the Ridsdale family in Victoria, denied any prior knowledge of criminal allegations against Ridsdale.
Pell spent 13 months in prison before his own child abuse convictions were overturned on appeal in 2020. Pell died in January last year.
