Abuse redress up by $5000 after job loss

Sky News
March 12, 2014

http://www.skynews.com.au/local/article.aspx?id=957794

An offer of $25,000 to a victim of long-term sex abuse was not enough, the man who heads the Catholic Church's response office says.

Michael Salmon, the director of the Catholic Church's Professional Standards Office (PSO) for NSW and the ACT, has told a royal commission that he always thought the Archdiocese of Sydney's offer to John Ellis was not enough.

Mr Salmon organised the Towards Healing facilitation for Mr Ellis who was abused by Father Aidan Duggan when he was a teenaged altar boy in Bass Hill, from 1974 to 1979.

The royal commission into child sexual abuse is examining the church's actions during Towards Healing and a court case brought by Mr Ellis.

Mr Salmon said several times on Wednesday he had 'a firm belief' Mr Ellis was telling the truth about abuse by Fr Duggan.

He also said the then vicar-general and chancellor of the archdiocese, Monsignor Brian Rayner, came up with the offer of $25,000. Mr Ellis had asked for $100,000 because of impacts on his professional and personal life.

Mr Salmon said although there was no official cap on Towards Healing redress the diocese did not usually go beyond $50,000.

The $25,000 offer was increased by $5,000 when it was learned that Mr Ellis had been asked to leave his job as a partner in a law firm because of ongoing psychological problems.

When asked what he thought of the $25,000 offer Mr Salmon said: 'I thought it was underdone.'

Chair of the commission, Justice Peter McClellan asked if 'the Church Authority saw this as a negotiation to confine as much as possible what the Ellises got?'

Mr Salmon said he just thought they wanted to keep it conservative.

He did not use his influence to improve the offer because that was a matter for the church authority.

Earlier the commission had heard that John Davoren, Mr Salmon's predecessor as PSO director, had advised that the case could not be resolved because Mr Ellis's allegations could not be corroborated. Fr Duggan who died in 2004 had dementia.

Mr Davoren also said on Wednesday he did not agree with a psychological assessment that Mr Ellis's problems were because of childhood abuse by the priest.

Mr Salmon said the fact that Mr Ellis did not meet with or receive an apology from Archbishop George Pell until two years after all proceedings was not out of the ordinary.

Mr Salmon told Justice McClellan it had nothing to do with concern about compromising the church's capacity to defend a legal action.

'I was just concerned that the Cardinal not be caught up in a matter that was potentially escalating'.

On Monday the commission heard that several requests by Mr Ellis for mediation and settlement were rejected before it went to court in 2004.

Dr Pell had transferred the matter to Melbourne law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

The hearing continues on Thursday.