UPDATE, 11.30am: Gerald Ridsdale, arguably Australia's worst paedophile priest, is a step closer to dying in prison after having his jail term extended by three years for more sexual assaults against children.
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Ridsdale, who at 83 is in poor health and has been in prison since 1994 for sexual offences against children in his care or supervision across western Victoria, was on Thursday jailed for 11 years.
However, part of the sentence will be incorporated into the jail time he is currently serving, meaning he will only serve an extra three years before being eligible for parole.
He pleaded guilty earlier this month to 23 charges, including rape and buggery, against 11 boys and a girl between 1962 and 1988 in Ballarat, Mildura, Horsham and other locations.
The latest admissions mean he has 161 convictions for abuse against 65 children - 60 boys and five girls - but the true figure of how many children he sexually abused, and how many lives he damaged, might never be known.
The sentence County Court judge Irene Lawson imposed on Thursday means the earliest Ridsdale can be released his April 2022.
Before this latest sentence, he would have been eligible for parole in April 2019.
He was first jailed in 1993 and has been in custody since 1994. He had his prison term extended in 2006 and 2014. He was defrocked as a priest in 1993.
The County Court heard this month Ridsdale preyed on vulnerable children and abused his position of trust to befriend children through their families or target others, such as altar boys, who were in his care.
He raped one boy several times, and the offending worsened when the boy's father was sick in hospital. After one attack, Ridsdale told the boy: "Don't tell your mum or dad, or your dad could die".
He told another boy his abuse was "part of God's work".
Ridsdale sexually abused the girl, the court heard, after the child's father woke her from her bed and drove her to a church, where the priest was waiting for her. The girl was eight or nine at the time.
The royal commission heard in 2015 that it was unclear how many children Ridsdale had abused over the years, but that he was able to continue his crimes when the church shuffled him from parish to parish despite its knowledge about him.
In 2015, Ridsdale told the royal commission he was sexually abused as a child.
UPDATE, 11am: Gerald Francis Ridsdale has been sentenced to another 11 years in jail for abusing 12 children.
He is eligible for parole in 2022.
Ridsdale will spend almost 33 years in jail in total for his unprecedented offending over three decades.
Ridsdale, who is already serving a 28-year jail term, abused his position of trust and exploited young and vulnerable victims for his own sexual gratification, Victorian County Court Judge Irene Lawson said on Thursday.
She sentenced the former Catholic priest to 11 years jail for abusing another dozen children during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl on a church altar.
EARLIER: Australia's worst pedophile priest, Gerald Francis Ridsdale, faces an unprecedented sentence for his unprecedented sexual abuse of children over three decades.
The former Ballarat diocese Catholic priest is due to be sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty to abusing another dozen children during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl on a church altar.
Ridsdale is already serving a 28-year sentence with a 25-year non-parole period.
A judge who agrees Ridsdale's case is the worst example of such offending ever dealt with in Victoria must now decide whether the 83-year-old spends even longer in jail for the historical crimes.
Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams has rejected a defence call for Ridsdale's jail terms for the latest 23 historical charges to be subsumed into his current sentence, saying that would deliver no justice.
"It is unprecedented offending and it demands an unprecedented sentence," Mr McWilliams told the Victorian County Court earlier this month.
Ridsdale has now pleaded guilty in five court cases to abusing 65 children during his three decades as a parish priest in western Victoria.
He has been in jail since 1994.
His current sentence ends in 2022, with April 2019 the earliest he could apply for parole.
Victoria Legal Aid chief counsel Tim Marsh has urged Judge Irene Lawson not to add to Ridsdale's current sentence and non-parole period.
"At some point the court will need to say this man has served enough time in prison," Mr Marsh told Ridsdale's plea hearing.
"In my submission, that time is now."
Judge Lawson will sentence Ridsdale for sex crimes committed against 11 boys and one girl between 1962 and 1988.
RIDSDALE'S LIFE AND OFFENDING
1934 - Born May 20, St Arnaud, Victoria
Primary school St Aloysius, Redan
Secondary school St Patrick's College, Ballarat
1954-1958 - Studied for priesthood Corpus Christi College, Werribee. Began offending.
1958-1960 - Seminary, Collegio Brignole Sale, Genoa
1960-1961 - Seminary, All Hallows College, Dublin
1961 - July 25, ordained at St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat
- Fills in at five parishes including Horsham, Inglewood, Camperdown and Ballarat North
1962-1964 - Assistant priest at Ballarat North. First complaint from a boy at Villa Maria boarding school in Ballarat East
1964-1974 - Assistant priest Mildura, Swan Hill, Warrnambool and Ballarat East
1974-1975 - Parish priest Apollo Bay. Puts in for transfer after a man tells him in a pub there's talk about him and kids
1975 - Parish priest Inglewood. Panics and leaves overnight after a woman says there is talk he has been interfering with boys and police are making inquiries. Sent for counselling
Early 1976 - Temporarily appointed to Bungaree
1976-1979 - Administrator then parish priest Edenhope
1980 - Study leave, National Pastoral Institute. Offended there
1981-1982 - Parish priest Mortlake. Prolific offender
1982 - Starts on-and-off counselling
1982-1985 - Catholic Enquiry Centre, Sydney. Offends against boy from parish prayer group who became his altar boy. Centre director says "I want him out of here"
Early 1986 - Short periods as Woy Woy assistant priest and Forestville administrator, both in then Sydney archdiocese
July 1986-May 1988 - Assistant priest Horsham. Written complaint about offending while in Horsham
April 1988 - Steps down from parish work
June 1988 - Suspended for 12 months
1989-1990 - Residential program in New Mexico. Admitted to police he offended in US
- Ridsdale says didn't offend from time he returned to Australia and his 1993 arrest
March/April 1991 - Assistant priest St John of God Hospital, Richmond, NSW
May 1993 - Admits indecently assaulting eight children. Sentenced to two years and three months.
November 1993 - Defrocked
August 1994 - Admits abusing 20 boys and one girl from 1961-1982
October 1994 - Jailed for 18 years
August 2006 - Sentenced to 13 years; admits abusing 10 boys from 1970-1987
April 2014 - Sentenced to eight years; admits abusing 11 boys, three girls from 1961-1980
December 2016 - Charged with fresh historical sex abuse charges
April 2017 - Ridsdale pleads guilty to latest charges
August 2017 - Faces pre-sentencing hearing in Victorian County Court after pleading guilty to 23 charges involving 11 boys and one girl over offences from 1962 to 1988.
GERALD FRANCIS RIDSDALE'S CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN: a court History
* Australia's most prolific pedophile priest has been in jail since August, 1994
* Convicted of 138 offences against 53 victims
* Total effective sentence of 28 years' jail, before 2017 charges
* Has pleaded guilty to further offences against 12 victims
* Believed to have abused up to 1000 children, victims' group Broken Rites says
* First offence for which he was later convicted -1961, the year he was ordained, but began offending while in the seminary in the 1950s
* Defrocked in 1993 after first convictions
1993 COURT CASE
* Convicted of sexually assaulting eight children
* Pleaded guilty to 27 offences
* Sentenced to two years and three months, suspended after three months
1994 COURT CASE
* Convicted of sexually assaulting 20 boys and one girl
* Pleaded guilty to 46 offences between 1961 and 1982
* Included abusing a boy and girl after presiding over their father's funeral and indecently assaulting an altar boy during confession
* Jailed for 18 years, with 15-year minimum
2006 COURT CASE
* Convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys from 1970-1987
* Pleaded guilty to 35 offences
* Sentenced to 13 years' jail, with seven-year minimum
* Included sexual abuse in the confessional, in the sacristy, in the presbytery, in his car - following Mass, first holy communion, confirmation, weddings and funerals
2014 COURT CASE
* Convicted of sexually abusing 11 boys and three girls
* Pleads guilty to 30 offences between 1961 and 1980
* Victims included a girl aged four when offending began, three children in one family
* Sentenced to eight years' jail, with five-year minimum
2017 COURT CASE
* Has pleaded guilty to 23 offences against 11 boys and one girl
* Majority indecent assault charges
ABUSE CLAIMS TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
* 78 people made claims about Ridsdale to church
* Cover abuse from 1961 to 1988
* Compensation totalling $2.42m (including treatment, legal and other costs) paid to 32 victims who pursued civil claims; average almost $76,000
* Total of $1.2m paid to 28 victims through redress process; average $43,000
* Based on claims received by Ballarat diocese from January 1980-February 2015.
AAP pmu/nb/MN/KM?15-08-17 1611?
