AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Australian Associated Press
Wednesday 20 May 2015
Cardinal George Pell tried to bribe an abuse victim, the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has heard.
David Ridsdale, the nephew and victim of Australia’s worst pedophile priest Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale, says he told Cardinal Pell in 1993 about the abuse.
He told the royal commission on Wednesday Cardinal Pell, a family friend, asked him: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.”
Ridsdale said his response had been, “Fuck you George and everything you stand for.”
After he hung up, Ridsdale said, he told his sisters about the February 1993 phone conversation.
“I remember saying to both my sisters, ‘The bastard just tried to bribe me’,” Ridsdale told the hearing in Ballarat.
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