Church reaches settlement with victim of one of Australia’s most notorious paedophile priests

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Catholic church will pay more than $1m to a victim of Gerald Ridsdale, one of the country’s most notorious paedophile priests, in a landmark settlement reached on Friday.

The man, who can only be identified by the pseudonym JCB, was raped by Ridsdale in April 1982. At the time, he was nine years old and Ridsdale was the parish priest at St Colman’s church in the town of Mortlake.

In February 2018, the man sued two former bishops in charge of the diocese of Ballarat, and later added the diocese as a defendant. On Friday, his lawyer revealed that the church had agreed to settle.

Ridsdale, who is currently in prison, has been convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse of 65 children, over 40 years as his career as a priest.

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In 2016, the royal commission into child sexual abuse heard that the Catholic church in Victoria knew of Ridsdale’s sexual abuse and moved him from parish to parish. In a defence filed to JCB’s claim in May 2018, the church admitted that Ridsdale had abused JCB.

JCB sued the Diocese of Ballarat in a civil case for negligence, alleging they breached their duty of care to him by allowing Ridsdale to continue as a priest, and moving him to new parishes, even after they had received complaints against him.

The victim claimed damages, including aggravated and exemplary damages.

His lawsuit was allowed by the abolition of the “Ellis defence”, which previously held that church assets could not be targeted by compensation for sex abuse victims.

On Friday, one of his lawyers, Chris Atmore, told Guardian Australia that the settlement, and the church’s admission, would “directly and indirectly” help other victims.

“Thanks to the persistence of JCD we have dragged that admission from them and they can’t resile from it,” she said. “It’s done now.”

Lawyer Judy Courtin also told the ABC that the settlement for her client was “a landmark”.

“It’s only been in the last year and a bit that it was possible to take the Catholic church to court, to sue them,” she said. “The doors are opening, and so they should. Victims have been silenced for decades now. Church bodies have not been accountable to our laws, and finally victims and survivors have this opportunity.”

She had earlier described the settlement as “the first one that actually, thanks to the bravery of our client, has forced the church to admit liability in some limited sense”.

Ridsdale was appointed the parish priest of Mortlake on 16 January 1981, and was removed in September 1982.