AUSTRALIA
9 News
A father undressed his daughter and laid her on a church altar where pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale indecently assaulted her, a court has heard.
Ridsdale, 83, has pleaded guilty to 23 charges, mainly indecent assaults but including rape, involving offences committed against 11 boys and one girl between 1962 and 1988.
Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said on one occasion in 1974 the 10-year-old girl was woken up by her father, while Ridsdale waited in the hallway, and driven with the priest to the church.
“(The girl’s) father carried her to the confessional booth and took her clothes off her then carried her to the altar and lay her down,” Mr McWilliams told the Victorian County Court.
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