Victim Backs Review

By Melissa Cunningham
The Courier
March 3, 2017

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/4506271/victim-backs-review/

Paul Levey has never been back to Mortlake.

Not since he was sexually abused at the hands of disgraced paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale at the age of 14, while living with him at presbytery in the small western Victorian town in 1982.

“I don’t think I could ever bring myself to go back there,” he said.

“I only have horrible memories.”

Mr Levey was said he’d been left “gutted” to learn there were still plaques in south-western Victorian Catholic schools and churches honouring disgraced former Bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns.

Bishop Mulkearns was among a number of clergy who knew Ridsdale had a boy living with him, but failed to intervene.

Mr Levey welcomed a move by Warrnambool's St Joseph's Primary School to review whether to retain a plaque with the name of the disgraced former Bishop Mulkearns.

It comes days after ?Mortlake’s ?St Colman's Primary School removed a plaque containing the name of Bishop Mulkearns.

“Anything which honours a man who actively hid paedophiles needs to be removed,” Mr Levey said.

“It’s a disgrace having his name on anything.

“It’s wrong and it’s disrespectful to all the lives that have been destroyed by a man who led a cover-up of horrific crimes.”

In 2014, the Australian Catholic University's Aquinas campus dumped the Mulkearns name from its lecture theatre after outcry from Ballarat sexual abuse survivors who said the bishop had failed to act on paedophile priests.

The university has renamed it the Sisters of Mercy Theatre. In 2015, a black line was put through Ridsdale's name on a board at St Patrick's College in Ballarat which honoured former students who went on to take holy orders.

The school has also placed a plaque beneath it, which reads: "The black line above stands both as a symbol of respect to the bravery of victims and survivors, and for the college's deep remorse."