Church offered abuse victim a deal

Sky News
March 11, 2014

http://www.skynews.com.au/local/article.aspx?id=957340

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining the experiences of John Ellis, who unsuccessfully pursued civil litigation against the church and Sydney Archbishop Cardinal Pell for the abuse he suffered an altar boy.

Mr Ellis told the commission he understood the church had accepted as fact his abuse at the hands of Father Aidan Duggan at Christ the King's Church in Bass Hill, Sydney from 1974 to 1979.

But when the matter reached court, church lawyers questioned his honesty.

'The cross-examination included questions ... as to whether my allegations were true and whether the abuse I described happened,' Mr Ellis told the commission sitting in Sydney on Tuesday.

'I understood until then that those instructing the lawyers for the trustees and Cardinal Pell believed without a doubt the abuse happened.

'Senior counsel clearly had different instructions.'

Mr Ellis lost his case when the Supreme Court in 2005 ruled the church was not a legal entity which could be sued and Cardinal Pell could not be held responsible.

The case has been viewed as a barrier to future compensation claims by church child abuse victims.

When Mr Ellis went to the Court of Appeals to try - unsuccessfully - to get the decision overturned, he was sent a letter from the lawyers offering to waive their entitlement to $500,000 in legal costs if he dropped the matter.

'I thought it was a very unfair offer to have been made, to place me in the position to decide between placing my family at risk and doing what I considered was right,' he said.

The commission was told on Monday the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney spent $1.5 million to defeat Mr Ellis' claim stemming from the hurt and distress he suffered at the hands of Father Duggan.

Mr Ellis said he understood an earlier offer in 2004 to settle for $750,000 was accepted, but subsequently discovered the Church disputed key facts in his claim - including that Father Duggan was a priest in the service of the archdiocese.

'I couldn't fathom why that was being disputed,' Mr Ellis said.

'I had known since he came to Bass Hill Parish, he had been continuously appointed to various parishes within the archdiocese.

'He was a priest in our parish ... so I thought making the distinction that he was a monk and part of some religious order didn't seem to make any sense to me at all.'

Mr Ellis said he felt as though someone in the church had 'set against' him early on, although he was not left with the impression that person was Cardinal Pell.

The hearing continues.