Cardinal Pell Regrets Cross-examination of Abuse Victim John Ellis

World Today
March 26, 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2014/s3971680.htm

ELEANOR HALL: Australia's most senior Catholic cleric has told the child abuse Royal Commission that, from what he called a "Christian point of view", the Church did not deal fairly with former altar boy and abuse victim, John Ellis.

Cardinal George Pell conceded that it was a mistake to not enter into mediation at the start of the legal process which was so damaging for Mr Ellis, but he maintained he was not responsible for making that decision.

The World Today's Emily Bourke has been monitoring the hearing and joins us now.

Emily, it's the second day in the witness box for Cardinal Pell. What was the focus of the counsel assisting's questioning today?

EMILY BOURKE: Well the inquiry is really drilling down into just how closely involved Cardinal Pell was in directing the course of the litigation when Mr Ellis tried to sue the Church.

While Cardinal Pell endorsed the overall strategy, he says he wasn't involved in each and every legal manoeuvre.

Now Cardinal Pell said that he instructed his legal team to resist the case and, based on that, the lawyers then vigorously defended and defeated the Ellis matter, but that came at enormous cost to both to the Church and to Mr Ellis.

The approach included Mr Ellis being cross examined for days over the fact of his abuse.

Cardinal Pell has told the inquiry from a Christian point of view, he doesn't think they dealt fairly with Mr Ellis, but he said that the legal team acted honestly.

He was questioned by senior counsel assisting Gail Furness about the decision to challenge the truth of Mr Ellis's story of abuse.

GEORGE PELL: I was told that what was being proposed was not only proper legally but not unusual.

GAIL FURNESS: What about morally, Cardinal?

GEORGE PELL: Well, I have explained my moral doubts about it, but the lawyers... anyhow I did not believe they would suggest anything to me that was improper.

GAIL FURNESS: Do you understand now the impact it had on John Ellis to have the very Church that he'd gone back to in Towards Healing dispute that he had ever been abused?

GEORGE PELL: I do.

GAIL FURNESS: And what do you have to say about that?

GEORGE PELL: I regret that.

GAIL FURNESS: Only regret it, Cardinal?

GEORGE PELL: What else could I say? It was wrong that it went to such an extent.

ELEANOR HALL: And that's Cardinal George Pell under questioning by Gail Furness.

Emily, Cardinal Pell disputed the accounts by others within the Church that he had day-to-day running of the case, so has his testimony today helped to shed any light on who and what was driving the strategy of the Church's legal team?

EMILY BOURKE: Yes, quite.

Cardinal Pell says he was puzzled by why Mr Ellis and his legal team were trying to pursue the trustees of the Church, because in law, the trustees were not and are not responsible for the actions or indeed the misconduct of priests and they can't be held liable; they can't be sued.

Cardinal Pell went further to say he didn't think he was dealing with entirely reasonable people in the Ellis team, and that's despite evidence showing that Mr Ellis had firstly tried to settle his case for $100,000 and then put forward an offer of compromise for $750,000.

But the Church put forward no counter offer, and while Cardinal Pell has admitted on reflection that it was a mistake not to mediate, he also said that he thought Mr Ellis was seeking millions of dollars.

Now, it would seem from the testimony today that the legal advice to Cardinal Pell, which he accepted, was that there was no need to give any ground, no need to even try to enter into negotiation with Mr Ellis because the Church was on firm legal ground. They had a strong case and would likely win.

In essence, there was no need, no appetite to try to find some compromise with Mr Ellis.

GEORGE PELL: I was continually mystified, perhaps even exasperated, by the fact that three senior lawyers would continue to attack the role of the trustees. Our people were saying that they had no hope whatsoever of winning that and therefore, I suppose, I viewed every approach they made, to some extent, through this prism that, well, we're not really dealing with entirely reasonable people.

Now…

GAIL FURNESS: You use the word "attack", Cardinal. Weren't they only exercising the ordinary legal right of everyone in the community to take legal action?

GEORGE PELL: I wasn't disputing their right to do so; I had in my own mind that it was inexplicable and unwise. I couldn't understand why senior lawyers were persisting in this course.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Cardinal George Pell.

Emily, yesterday's hearing exposed for the first time the extraordinary wealth of the Sydney Archdiocese and showed how that balanced against the financial compensation paid to victims.

Was Cardinal Pell asked about that?

EMILY BOURKE: Yes, well yesterday's evidence uncovered indeed the sizeable assets and the multimillion dollars funds held by the Church just in Sydney, as well as the fact that it enjoys tax-free status, and that its assets are valued at cost rather than market rate, so the wealth may in fact be greater than the books show.

The business manager of the Sydney Archdiocese Danny Casey told the inquiry yesterday that it might be fitting that the Church review the compensation payments that have been made to victims so far.

Justice Peter McClellan put the same question to Cardinal Pell and here was his response.

PETER MCCLELLAN: He agreed with the suggestion that the moral thing to do was to go back and revisit those amounts.

GEORGE PELL: Yes.

PETER MCCLELLAN: Do you share that view for everyone who's been processed through Towards Healing previously?

GEORGE PELL: Perhaps not for everyone. We certainly did in this case and certainly I have made a decision that, according to the prevailing norms, we were not to be ungenerous.

PETER MCCLELLAN: Mr Casey was talking about the past, what you'd done previous to 2007, and expressed the view that the Archdiocese should go back and look again at what had been paid previously to make sure that it met the moral obligation of the Church.

Do you share that view?

GEORGE PELL: Yes, I do now. We didn't at that time systemically revisit every case.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Cardinal George Pell, under questioning from Justice Peter McClellan.

Emily Bourke our reporter at that Royal Commission.