Famous pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale has pleaded guilty to more sexual offenses following a police investigation into historic allegations of sexual assault earlier this year.
Ridsdale has been in prison since 1994 for child sex offenses while serving as parish priest west of Victoria for nearly three decades.
Gerald Ridsdale testifies before the Royal Commission on Institutional Child Sexual Abuse in 2015.
He has been convicted a handful of times over the years for crimes against a total of 69 known victims and is expected to be eligible for release in April 2025.
Ridsdale appeared before Warrnambool Magistrates Court via a video link from prison Friday morning on charges of committing 24 child sex offenses in Mortlake in 1981 and 1982.
Prosecutor Marcel White dropped 11 charges during the proceedings, leaving Ridsdale guilty of four counts of assault on modesty and nine counts of sexual penetration of a child between the ages of 10 and 16.
The 88-year-old man, who was wearing a surgical mask and using a wheelchair to get in and out of the room, only spoke to plead guilty.
“I plead guilty to your honor,” he said.
Ridsdale was due to be released on parole in April 2022, but his release date was postponed from April 2025 to May 2020, after he was convicted in Melbourne County Court by the abuse of four boys in the 1970s.
Her recent court appearances have resulted in convictions for 179 crimes against children, although in 2015 the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse learned that the actual number of lives it had damaged may never be known.