A survivor of child sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest has told a royal commission he felt “beset” by the church’s response to his litigation.

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has also heard the former head of the church’s NSW Professional Standards Office delayed appointing an independent assessor to examine the abuse claims despite church protocols stating otherwise.

The commission is examining the treatment of John Ellis, who unsuccessfully pursued civil litigation against the church and Sydney archbishop Cardinal Pell for the abuse he suffered at the hands of Bass Hill priest Father Aidan Duggan as an altar boy.

During a meeting in February 2009 with Pell and John Usher, chancellor of the Catholic archdiocese of Sydney, Ellis said Pell used the term “legal abuse” to describe the treatment of his litigation.

Under cross examination by church lawyer Peter Gray, Ellis said the cardinal’s use of the term brought him comfort.

Gray put it to Ellis that Pell never used the term, and that it was used only by Ellis himself.

“That term was used by me in response to it having first been used by Cardinal Pell,” Ellis said.

“That was part of the great – what I described as the immeasurable comfort – that I took out of the meeting, was that frankness and openness and willingness to name what had happened.”

Ellis told the commission he felt “beset” by the church’s treatment of his litigation.

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

Later, the commission heard from the former head of the Church’s Professional Standards office, John Davoren, who delayed appointing an assessor to examine Ellis’s claims.

Council assisting the commission Gail Furness suggested Davoren failed to appoint an assessor because he had formed a view about Ellis’s mental state.

“My basis for the delay was that we only had two witnesses, the accused who we couldn’t get anything from, and the victim,” he replied.

Davoren said he was concerned about Ellis’s mental state and that he had repressed memories.

Ellis said he understood at the time the church accepted as fact his abuse at the hands of Duggan at Christ the King’s Church from 1974 to 1979.

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

“Senior counsel clearly had different instructions,” he said.

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

When Ellis went to the NSW court of appeal to try – unsuccessfully - to get the 2005 court 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.

The archdiocese of Sydney has since paid Ellis over $800,000 in medical and other costs, the commission heard.

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 Pell.