A senior Catholic nun has admitted her response to allegations of physical and sexual abuse at a central Queensland orphanage was inadequate and exacerbated victims’ suffering.

The national head of the Sisters of Mercy, Berneice Loch, told a royal commission on Tuesday she was sorry she had not acted more compassionately towards former residents of the Neerkol orphanage, near Rockhampton.

Loch was the congregational leader of the Sisters of Mercy, which ran the orphanage between 1885 and 1978, when former residents came forward in the 1990s with claims they had been physically and sexually abused by nuns and priests.

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse heard that instead of speaking to complainants, Loch ran the claims by nuns who had worked at the orphanage and other former residents.

She also supported the legal defence of abuse victims’ compensation claims and organised the drafting of a press release (which was never sent out) that referred to “bitter and resentful” orphanage residents.

Asked by counsel assisting the commission, Sophie David SC, whether her response between 1993 and 1997 had been inadequate and had exacerbated the abuse that victims suffered, Loch agreed.

“We were very much in a phase of attempting to understand the issue and develop procedures,” she said.

“Most of the time about this period, we were attempting to learn a great deal more about both physical and sexual abuse.”

In a heated exchange with the lawyer for one abuse victim, Loch vigorously denied the drafted press release had sought to “throw dirt” at a child abuse complainant.

However, she stood by her strident 1996 public criticism that a ministerial statement revealing the existence of the Neerkol allegations was sensationalist.

The hearing continues.